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parmigianino
Dec. 27th, 2004 08:06 pmI went to the National Gallery in London today, with the sons (we also visited our friends, the pigeons). And I saw this painting! I'd been looking for this painting for years! I saw it ages ago and fell in love with it but misremembered its location as the Wallace Collection. But when I scoured the Wallace again from top to bottom, I couldn't find it anywhere. And here it was, in the National Gallery!
Parmigianino, The Mystical Marriage of St Catherine, 1527-31
Isn't it just gorgeous? I love the long necks of the women, the ethereal, otherworldly quality of the colours, the wispiness of the paint application, the weirdness of Joseph's head jutting into the picture at bottom left. It's a Mannerist painting, and Mannerism is so weird and wonderful. Bronzino was a Mannerist (I once had a Bronzino icon; I might revive it, now that I've got endless icon supply), and Pontormo, another painter of swoonsome youths.
This digital pic doesn't do justice to the original (well, no digital pics do). The actual painting is quite small and simply beautiful. I'll have to go back without t'sons because they won't countenance lingering before any painting for more than 3 nanoseconds -- unless it be a picture of Holofernes's headless neck spouting blood or a dragon being gutted by St George in a particularly gory manner.
Parmigianino, The Mystical Marriage of St Catherine, 1527-31
Isn't it just gorgeous? I love the long necks of the women, the ethereal, otherworldly quality of the colours, the wispiness of the paint application, the weirdness of Joseph's head jutting into the picture at bottom left. It's a Mannerist painting, and Mannerism is so weird and wonderful. Bronzino was a Mannerist (I once had a Bronzino icon; I might revive it, now that I've got endless icon supply), and Pontormo, another painter of swoonsome youths.
This digital pic doesn't do justice to the original (well, no digital pics do). The actual painting is quite small and simply beautiful. I'll have to go back without t'sons because they won't countenance lingering before any painting for more than 3 nanoseconds -- unless it be a picture of Holofernes's headless neck spouting blood or a dragon being gutted by St George in a particularly gory manner.