Zola: Photographer, by Francois Emile Zola and Massin

ETA:  Emile Zola was a famous French writer in the latter half of the nineteenth century.  Although I'd heard of Zola (it's impossible not to when you study the time period, especially since he hung out with famous artists like Cezanne and Manet), I'd always avoided reading his books because they intimidated me.  But after picking up Nana earlier this month, I found myself fascinated by all things Zola, and checked out several books from library both by and about him.

This book, which is out of print, was a disappointment for me.  Considering the famous people Zola knew, I was expecting pictures of them (especially my boyfriend, Manet).  But most of the book is filled with photographs of Zola, his wife, and their children.  While these portraits were very candid and sweet, I'm not sure they're of much interest to the average person--i.e., myself.

There were a few interesting sections, however, especially photographs Zola took of the Crystal Palace and London (it's startling how different London looks from Paris in the photos), and scenes from the 1899 World's Fair in Paris, when the Eiffel Tower was erected. 

As for the text, there's not that much of it, and what is there isn't exactly gripping or illuminating.  Not that one reads these types of books for the text, mind, but more quotes by Zola himself and context for the photographs wouldn't have been remiss.

One of the weirdest photographs is of Manet's portrait of Zola.  Pictures of pictures always leave me with a sense of irony, but the fact that Zola would do it for some reason just strikes me as bizarre and a little wrong.  It feels oddly funereal to look at:



The death of painting?

And that is what I learned from this book.

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Botticelli by Frank Zoellner

Find this book at an independent bookseller near you (via IndieBound).

This book is freaking HUGE.  It's two feet tall; the font is 1/4 of inch.  And it's filled with the most gorgeous reproductions of Botticelli paintings I've ever seen.



The reason why I picked this book up is that I'm resolved to learn more about art work that really moved me as part of my art history challenge.  The moment I saw The Birth of Venus is one of the most memorable of my life.  It's such a canonical work in art history that it's almost cheesy; so I wasn't honestly expecting much.  But in person this piece is AMAZING, and it definitely deserves its rep as one of the most famous paintings in Western art.

The Birth of Venus straight-up comes alive when you see it.  I remember hearing the rush of the waves, feeling the breeze against my face, and seeing the water move.  It's honestly an entrancing work of art.

Like Donatello's Mary Magdalen, The Birth of Venus is something of a mystery.  Why and for whom Botticelli painted it is unknown (although it was most likely for the Medicis).  In fact, the painting itself is actually very ground-breaking for its time, since there wasn't a tradition of mythology scenes yet established.  Botticelli had to come up with his own visual vocabulary for the scene (which, if you've ever wandered around a fifteenth-century section of an art museum, was unusual all by itself--most artists recycled images endlessly).  At the same time, he was drawing inspiration from classical texts like Homeric hymns and famous ancient artists like Apelles--who was said to have painted Alexander the Great's mistress as Venus on a half-shell, only to fall in love with her--and Praxiteles, who created the most important sculpture in antiquity, Aphrodite of Knidos.  But for these pieces, Botticelli only had written descriptions or copies to go off of.  As a result, the imagery in Birth of Venus is very ambiguous--who are the figures to either side of Aphrodite?  No one really knows, although there are some good theories.

I think the Apelles and Praxiteles connection is the most relevant reference to this piece, because both of those artists were famous for making their work seem alive, and Botticelli's Birth of Venus definitely does that.  If he was looking to become "The Modern Apelles," I think succeeded in spades.  I never understood what the power of art really was until I saw this painting.

Anyway, I really like this book.  There's a lot of good information in it, and it's well-written--not painful to read at all.  Plus, as I mentioned, the pictures are spectacular.  This book is candy for the eye and mind, and I highly recommend checking it out if you're interested in Botticelli's life and work.

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Searching for Donatello

Donatello and His World: Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance by Joachim Poeschke*

Donatello by Charles Avery*

A few weeks months ago, I finally resolved on a theme for my Art History Challenge--works of art that deeply moved me.  While I've viewed a fair number of artworks in my time, some of them more memorable than others, only a few have seemed to come alive and change the way I look at art, or the way I look at myself.  One of those pieces is Mary Magdalene by Donatello.  Check out the video for a good idea what the Mary Magdalene looks like:

This sculpture is ahmazing.  It's hard to describe how much like encountering a living person seeing it is.  It's like when you're walking down the street and there's a pile of trash on the side, but then all of a sudden the pile shifts and you realize you're looking at a human being, not a bunch of rags at all.  And then you lock eyes with the person and you feel slightly ashamed for thinking they were a pile of trash, and more than a little thrown, and you don't want to look away.

Yeah, that's exactly what seeing this statue for the first time was like for me.  In fact, I'm half-convinced Donatello performed some evil voodoo and there's a real woman trapped inside the Mary Magdalene somehow, trying to get out.

I don't have a lot of database resources at my local library, so I decided to go with some good ol' books to find out more about Donatello and the Mary Magdalene.  Little did I know how scant the scholarship is on Donatello!  Considering how famous he is, you'd think there would be A LOT more out there about him, but no.

First I started with Donatello and His World by Joachim Poeschke.  This is actually a fairly good introduction to Italian Renaissance Art for those that don't know anything about it, but the information about Donatello was merely cursory.  I didn't find out much about the Mary Magdalene beyond that fact that its origins are very mysterious (gawd, I hope I never leave tantalizing clues like that in my book without explanation, should I ever write one--so frustrating!).

So I decided to go with a promising-sounding biography of Donatello next (I also picked up another book in between, but I hated it and have already erased it from my mind), this one by Charles Avery.  This book was suuuuper-short.  Again, Donatello is one of the main figures of the Renaissance, so why am I having all this trouble finding books that go into detail about him???  I ask you.  Beyond that, I enjoyed learning gossipy things about the artist, like that he was the first bohemian and refused to dress nice.  That was all scrunched up in the beginning.  The rest of the book was dry descriptions along the lines of, "Donatello worked in X workshop and created Y artwork for such-and-such patron using Z technique."  LIKE ZOMG kill me now.  I'm all for facts, but writing like this gives art history a bad name.  What happened to writing with passion about art that you loved and getting people excited about it? 

Which leads me to another personal pet peeve of mine: making the Italian Renaissance seem as boring as possible.  I don't know how these guys do it, because it is a challenge to take all the interesting, combative, passionate personalities all scrunched into Rome and Florence at the same time and make it so dull anyone with half a brain wants to move IMMEDIATELY on to Bosch and Breughal, but somehow they do it!  I mean, this stuff is like reality TV, fifteenth-century style, and for some reason the major Renaissance historians of the last generation feel this need to make it as academic and uninteresting as possible.

Anywayyyy, as far as the Mary Magdalene was concerned, it was only mentioned in conjunction with another, earlier statue, as an example that Donatello's style isn't easily segregated into timely progressions.  KTHNX.

As you tell, I'm feeling a little frustrated with my quest for knowledge at this point, but I will perservere!  Although not with Donatello--him, I've given up on.



Have you seen the Mary Magdalene?  What did you think of it?


*These are Amazon Associate links & I got both of these books at the library.

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