Arcadia Discussion Zone

Can I ask those who think that various painters 'hid messages' in paintings whether the painter was part of some secret cabal, or simply that the painter was expressing something that was common knowledge?

It seems that a few painters now (Teniers, Delacroix, Da Vinci, Poussin ...?) are put forward as having hidden a 'secret' message in their paintings.
If they did indeed include something 'outre' in their works:
- Were they all privy to the same knowledge (and if so, is the suggestion that they all formed the body of a big 'club')?
- How did they gain this 'knowledge'?
- What was the motive behind putting the 'knowledge' on display (even though it may have been in 'private' locations)?
- Who was the target audience - or was it just cocking a snook at the 'authorities'?
- Is there evidence of this 'knowledge' outside of the periods in question or outside of this group?

If, on the other hand, they were just alluding to some 'commonly' held belief, then is there any other evidence that such a belief existed (across the time period involved)?

You can allude this knowledge to an underground stream if you wish, but if you read the biographies of some of these artists you will find plenty of motive, as well as a common thread. This thread would be the "Renaissance" and the influence of the Medicis, Strozzis, and certainly Rene d' Anjou. These men along with many others were responsible for Europe's first public library, ending the monoply of the church on thinking and ideas.
All of these artists were not influenced by the renaissance and not all Italian artists of the renaissance were involved with this theme.
But a for instance would be Caravaggio who was at one time under a death warrant issued by the Vatican, and many believe he was killed by the Church. His "Pentitent Magdalene" is a painting I like to bring up any time I have this discussion. Obviously pregant she sits with her arms folded across her abdomen as if holding a baby, and on the lower front of her dress has an embroided grail. In his "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" which most of us "Magheads" consider a depiction of another Mary and Joseph running to Egypt some thirty years after the birth of Jesus, the model is the same person and Mary is holding her child in nearly the same way. Also in the latter painting Joseph is holding a sheet of music that has been identified.

Bill,
I'm not alluding to any underground stream. I personally don't see any 'esoteric' connection between the painters.
Take Caravaggio. Why would a painter who relied upon commissions, and who painted under commission from the Church, paint a picture that was 'heretical' and could 1) lead to his death or 2) stop any further commissions?
What was the effect of his 'Penitent...' painting and where did the picture hang?


I get a bit lost as to the 'motive' behind putting a potentially life threatening secret in a painting. I also don't quite follow why artists, who quite often lead very 'strange' lives were privy to such profound secrets. And if I had passed on a secret to an artist, and then he 'blabbed' by putting that secret on open display, I think I may have been tempted to kill him, let alone the Vatican.

I could semi follow if all the 'odd' paintings from LDV, Poussin etc had been commissioned by some members of an anti Catholic group. I just can't get my head around the point of putting an anti-Catholic message in a painting potentially commissioned by the Church (or Catholics) and being hung in an environment where only other Catholics were likely to see it. Unless as I say it was just a petty way of cocking a snook.

I used the theme of an underground stream as many of us "Magheads" allude to it. IMOHO it could only be allegorical. btw, Poussin depicts an underground stream in his "Shephards of Arcadia", both versions. Many of these artists had run afoul of the church, this in itself being part of a motive IMHO.
You would kill a person who continued to pass on a secret that you thought important enough to be passed to future generations?
There very well could have existed an underground group, but certainly not an out in the open in your face organization. Did you forget who they were dealing with?
Hanging where only Catholics could see it, wasn't pretty much everybody Catholic (at least in name)?

I can see where you're coming from jlock but it's difficult to judge whys and where fors if you are not living in that time with that perspective and beliefs then prevalent. Take sex for instance, across Europe up until probably the late 17th century you could be put to death or beaten/whipped and then exiled for sex outside marriage. Things we take for granted now could not be uttered or even hinted at. I honestly don't know if secret messages in paintings were/are real but I can see the circumstances that would mean that might be.

I'm not sure about Poussin - couldn't that simply allude to two things - the Styx - the river of death and to place the setting as Arcadia?
If it is so simple to 'see' the hidden secret today, why then run the risk of losing future commissions from one of the wealthiest sources? How many 'religious' commissions were there across LDV, Poussin, Caravaggio - why run the risk of painting something so 'obvious' and lose future commissions?

I know who they were dealing - and so did they - isn't that my point? The Church in LDV's time was still burning and torturing people. So would I, as an artist with a secret that presumably could undermine that powerful organisation, then bring attention to what I know in a painting commissioned by the body that the secret damaged? What benefit to 'me' the secret holding painter,is there of people looking at the 'my' fresco in a setting where only religious people will see it? Are you implying that the people in charge of religious commissions were all then stupid or blind and couldn't see the 'obvious' secrets hidden in plain view?

Were people all Catholic by the 17th Century? Maybe true in LDVs days, but the reformation, Luther, Henry VII had played a big 'anti-Catholic' part after that. Although I would guess that the alleged 'secret' was anathema to both Protestants and Catholics alike.

I would still also like to hear your views on why artists carried this 'torch' - a not toooooo trustworthy bunch if you ask me, given the number of paintings that now allegedly show MM as pregnant.

Why then 'today' - if a secret group had passed this knowledge down (and presumably is still going?) - doesn't someone publish the 'facts' that openly show that Jesus and MM were married and MM had Jesus's children? Or are you of the view that the Church still wields enough power to suppress such an exposure?

Why didn't this knowledge become public knowledge prior to what, the 15th century? Why, when the church was not powerful at all (ie pre 4th Century), didn't the information come to light? Surely that knowledge would have killed the fledgling RCC?

Are there also 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th...century paintings all showing a pregnant MM? When do you see this knowledge surfacing and from where?

No, I doubt that you would!

Dav,
But I don't need to live in oppression to understand oppression. I know the Church was oppressive. My doubt is that people who relied on that organisation, then went out of their way to paint something that that organisation saw as heretical - and could possibly then lead to death. Especially as the paintings in question weren't hidden. They were mainly painted under commission. Not hidden under a bed, or hung on the wall of a select sect that believed the same heretical views.

If the dress is so 'obviously' a dress of a pregnant woman, how could that be missed in the period in which the picture was painted? Wouldn't such 'obvious' things be picked up then? And again, why paint something so obviously heretical and risk death?

Are there any contemporary comments asking why the various painters painted either MM in the Last Supper or painted MM as pregnant?

In the words of the immortal Leigh Teabing (or is that, the immortal words of Leigh Teabing?), "Its called Scotoma,The mind sees what it wants to see!"

can you fully understand oppression without that perspective though? I'm not sure. With my example for instance, people still had extra marital sex or commited adultery even with the possibility of a death sentence. People will only take so much suppression and then they will revert to type but obviously with one eye on the authorities and remaining as discreet as possible

Excellant analogy Davinho.

Here is another example of oppression.
In 1943 a secret message was sent written in invisible ink on a postcard from a woman in Cracow to Romania describing conditions in the concentration camps.
What would have been her punishment if discovered (perhaps she was anyhow)!

Bill,
But is that then the same? Surely a better analogy would have been if the woman was taking a commission from the Nazis for doing some work (and went on to take other commissions from them), and she had then published a secret message in a Nazi propaganda pamphlet?

I could understand, as I said before, had the images been commissioned by a known group or anti-RCC body. BUT the images are largely religious, commissioned by religious orders. These people (the artists) were in the pay of the people that their message was intended to damage - does that make sense? Especially when the images in question, were then put in locations, where no one else apart from RCC sympathisers were likely to see them.

A bit like the woman from Cracow writing an obviously anti-nazi statement under commission from the local Nazi party, and having the article published in a magazine that was only circulated to Nazi sympathisers.

IF a whole raft of works were discovered by these artists in anti-RCC locations, or owned by anti-RCC sympathisers then fine. Was there? Are there any codes by LDV (given that the man was a polymath) that express any anti-RCC doctrines along these lines?

And what about the 'today' question? If this 'secret' was so well known in the period from the 15th century on, what of it now? AND if 'they' had 'proof' then that the alleged marriage/pregnancy(ies?) occurred, what has stopped 'them' actually publishing those 'facts' in the past 100 years? France separated religion from the state - post WWI 20th century Russia and Germany weren't actually enamoured by religion and the RCC. What was to stop these amazing facts surfacing? Wouldn't communism have relished the idea of bringing down the mainstay of Western religious belief to be able to replace that belief with a more practical communist doctrine? Why weren't the 'facts' published in China or Asia or by an Islamic state - why rely upon hints and innuendoes in a few religious paintings?

I think the analogy is sound but I do not have a concrete opinion as to whether it can be applied to facts about supposed messages in paintings because I just do not know if they are there. bill mentions "the mind seeing what it wants" and that does need to be taking into account here. I wonder how many theories have been discovered after seeing a "message" in a painting? Or are "messages" discovered in paintings that apply to already established theories

Davinho, where are you getting the idea that extramarital sex or adultery carried a death sentence? It was actually quite common and, and least for men of importance, visible. It was usually the women who suffered for dalliances, but unless the poor damsel was once of Henry VIII's unfortunate queens, there were other remedies. Discretion played a key role.

TCP

The beholder will make of a work of art what they will; it's ascribing intent to the artist based on those observations that makes for a slippery slope. If one is going to take that on, they'd better know what the hell they're talking about.

TCP

Sounds serious, but why?

Don't you think it's a tad immoral to be re-writing history just to appeal to modern tastes? Or to provide a line of authority, belief, or practice back in time that was never really there?

TCP

I hardly feel qualified to address JL's questions, but having been "christened" a Maghead the other day by TD, I am having to have a good look at myself.

I have never thought of myself as belonging that mob - on the other hand, I would like to think that I am open enough to countenance the possibility of new ways of looking at things. (The danger of course is that this can become self serving.) When we yield to convention and abrogate the need to ask questions, then we may as well be dead.

This is not say I put aside the studied explanations that those like TCP provide us. On the contrary, it is of great value to us to look at what convention says. However, we should at the same time be ever mindful that if the status quo was never questioned, we would still be in the caves. ("Experts" once told us that the earth was flat).

As those that sit on the pole opposite the Magheads have a clear position, I propose that they have their own moniker, the "Boxheads". Their position, prima facie, is historically and conventionally correct - as it virtually must be by definition. They display a proclivity to not think out of the box and constrain themselves to the "box". (Not a bad thing but not a good thing either.)

I am also hoping that the bane of all Magheads and fabled Maghead slayer, SP, might be tempted to return and continue his crusade to keep us all on the straight and narrow.

Isn't this the fundamental and ongoing process evident in any circle of thinking people or is history absolute, fixed, inviolable ?

I am not saying this to support or validate anything that has been said in this thread or elsewhere - I am raising a general point.

"All art is subversive," Pablo Picasso once declared. In The Power of Art, cultural historian Simon Schama
Tim are you saying
A person can not view art and tell us what they see without being an "authority"....all of us are not allowed to see with our OWN EYES and interpret art
Only those deemed an authority by whom? ....if you lived in Hitler's time ..who deemed the ones to have the authority to interpret paintings
if you lived in the time of the Inquisition who was deemed an authority to interpret paintings?

if you lived during prehistoric times...who is deemed an authority?


I interviewed Emil Frei's son who is one of the leading stained glass window makers
One has to apprentice for many years to be a MASTER and when hired they are giving Carte Blanche
Noone goes up to Poussin and tells him how to draw or what to draw
You can give him a theme but telling him what to put in it well that happened to Da Vinci and the artists don't like it
who knows centuries later when your long gone people saw he made a fool of you...as he did
Who got their revenge in the end?....Picasso was right

It has to do with Light ...Illumination ....Shadow Darkness and Light....
All artists know the POWER of ART...it can't be denied
Art transcends Time

The stained glass master told me
The Viewer has the Freedom of CHOICE ...they can see with their own eyes or they can see what someone tells them they are seeing

They have been Masters for centuries and they understand Man's conciousness changes ...the best art is one like at the Chartres Cathedral
the kind that lasts for millenia ....the Masters know they must create with the idea that their work will be seen long after they die
It is a bit of immortality in Art
Art Historians have been wrong in interpreting paintings

I think it's immoral to not allow the viewer their freedom to express what they see
Art isn't for the ELITE only though it was early on the possesors of these works
and in some cases still in the hands of private collectors

Its a Crime
Colin Powell in his announcement to the United Nations to make the preemptive strike on Iraq had Picasso's Guernica COVERED UP
Why because he knew the Power of Art and others here know its Power
They want to cover up and hide it and not allow the Viewer the Freedom of Choice



The public was not allowed to see what Richeliu had in his home or Medici had in his bedroom
many works were owned by Kings Popes and the rich

when the public got a view it was a church

"Great art has dreadful manners," Simon Schama observes wryly at the start of his epic and explosive exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. "The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things; visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure, and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality. . . ."

With the same disarming force, The Power of Art propels us on an eye-opening, breathtaking odyssey, zooming in on eight extraordinary masterpieces, from Caravaggio's David and Goliath to Picasso's Guernica. Jolting us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art forever.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/power-o ... 1007967266



We have seen those hands before
At Rennes Chateau on Magdalene
Jesus flashes the sign as well as Marie flashes it
What does it mean? Or is it a coincidence?
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/v ... k.UUdshM49

I don't think that is the point Lovy.

What is at issue is, how can we, sitting in the 21st century, go about the business of interpreting what an artist working 600 years ago intended?

Wow! I hadn`t seen that one before L., thank you. I recognize the painter,

he was a rowdy guy and used to get into bar fights. I`m sure his name will come to me.

He aimed to shock and he did!

Just a quite random thought but I´d be surprised if the RCC at any given time have had only one goal, one agenda, one mind.

What if - at the time of the great painters and artists - there was another faction, or individual(s), within the church that wanted to spread ancient knowledge long buried by the church? People that perhaps were fueled by the renaissance?

Who would a cardinal, a monk or a priest with the knowledge, turn to? In a time when church had monoploy on thoughts and ideas and the wrong-thinkers were burned at worst? Would they themselves preach in the market place? Or would they speak to church employes such as artists and painters?

And perhaps the painters in question were under the protection of these "whistleblowers" of the church?

Exactly, especially when we're dealing with re-interpretation without benefit of demonstrating how the old interpretation is flawed. In your analogy about the flat earth, Hotspur, what you say is true, but the "expert opinion" was countered with direct and immutable evidence.

Lov, you can look at a still life in oils of fruit and flowers and call it The Battle of Trafalgar if you so choose. You are free to interpret artistic elements in any way you'd like; but putting your interpretation on the artist as their motivation and intent is definitely not cool without benefit of evidence.

TCP