A Summer of Turner in New York

J.M.W. Turner, Fishing Boats Entering Calais Harbor
English, c.1803
New York, Frick Collection

Anyone interested in the works of Joseph Mallord William Turner can have a very interesting experience this summer on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.  Strung like a line of beads between the Frick Collection at 70^th and Fifth and the Metropolitan Museum Main Building at 82^nd and Fifth, with an intermediate stop at the recently opened Met Breuer at Madison and 75^th, is a collection of Turners, ranging from early through late works and including some interesting insights into his working style.

J.M.W. Turner, The Harbor of Dieppe
English, c.1826
New York, Frick Collection

Interest in Turner ebbs and flows, but was given a bit of a boost last year with the distribution of the film Mr. Turner, starring Timothy Spall as the somewhat enigmatic and frequently strange painter of light effects.  So, it is interesting to see so many of his works available for view in New York.


The curious viewer can begin at the Frick with their permanent collection of five early works, ranging in date from 1803 to 1833.  

In most of these the forms are solid and the skies distinguishable.  These are the works that won Turner his initial fame as a landscape painter in the early 19th century.

J.M.W. Turner, Saltash with the Water Ferry, Cornwall
English, 1811
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the Met main building two works from that permanent collection which also bracket the early period are on display in the nineteenth-century European galleries, but it is the two special exhibitions that are ongoing, at the main building and at the Breuer, that are the most interesting. 

J.M.W. Turner, Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute
English, c.1835
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met is celebrating the opening of its new extension, the Breuer Building (once the home of the Whitney Museum), with a blockbuster exhibition called “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible”.  This exhibition explores the differing meanings of unfinished in the works of artists from the Renaissance to the present.  It is a large and impressive show which I have visited three times so far and plan to write about shortly.  However, enclosed within that show is a mini-exhibition of five Turner paintings.  When I say “enclosed” I am using the verb in a precise sense. 

J.M.W. Turner, Sun Setting Over a Lake
English, c.1840
© 2016, Tate, London

J.M.W. Turner, Sunset from the Top of the Rigi
English, c.1844
© 2016 Tate, London

The five paintings are presented by themselves in a small gallery within the main third floor galleries.  They are “unfinished”, presumably because of the artist’s death before he could complete them, and they offer us a fascinating glimpse into Turner’s working style. 

In one sense, especially to our 21^st century eyes, they are already complete renditions of atmospheric conditions, from fiery sunsets on a lake to misty pastel hued sunsets on top of a Swiss mountain to a view of the Thames to the inevitable seascapes showing nature’s fury.

But what they really are is something different.  

J.M.W. Turner, The Thames above Waterloo Bridge
English, c.1835-1840
© 2016, Tate, London

They are stockpiled backgrounds, ready for the final touches that will turn them into one of Turner’s completed late paintings.

J.M.W. Turner, Margate (?), from the Sea
English, c.1835-1840
London, National Gallery

This may be the way in which he was able to produce the huge quantity of paintings he made during his lifetime, by stockpiling “backgrounds” until he had the time or inspiration or interest to complete the work, sometimes with just a few additional brushstrokes.  And they rather prove that, for Turner, the subject matter was virtually unimportant.  It was the background that counted.  

J.M.W. Turner, Rough Sea
English, c.1840-1845
© 2016 Tate, London

What these paintings would look like when completed can be seen in the later paintings in the permanent collections at the Met and the Frick as well as in the final piece of this summer’s Turner jigsaw of exhibitions.  This is the exhibition “Turner’s Whaling Pictures”, a small show on display in the European Painting galleries at the Met’s main building at Fifth and 82^nd Street.

The exhibition features four paintings, which Turner showed as pairs at the Royal Academy over two successive years in the 1840s.  He was, therefore, thinking of them as a group.  

J.M.W. Turner, Whalers
English, c. 1845
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund

J.M.W. Turner, Whalers
English, c.1845
London, Tate Gallery

One belongs to the Metropolitan Museum, the other three are on loan from the Tate (as are

four of the five paintings on display at the Met Breuer).

When one compares the two exhibitions, it is easy to see how, with just a few touches, the background canvas could be transformed into the final painting.  There is nothing in the backgrounds of the whaling pictures that distinguishes them from the seascape backgrounds of the unfinished show except the addition, usually in the foreground or middle distance of some shadowy images that indicate whales, or whale boats or whaling ships.

Comparing them also shows how difficult it can be to assign a date to some of Turner's paintings, since the background may have been done months or even years prior to the brushwork that created the suitably acceptable subject and title required by the public at the time. This is not to say that Turner’s often long and poetic titles were entirely conventional and without controversy.

J.M.W. Turner, Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish!
English, c. 1846
London, Tate Gallery

J.M.W. Turner, Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flow Ice,
Endeavoring to Extricate Themselves
English, c. 1846
London, Tate Gallery

The works on display at the Frick Collection and in the nineteenth-century galleries at the Met Fifth Avenue building are in those locations indefinitely.  However, the “Whaling Pictures” will only be at the Met Fifth Avenue until August 7 and the four paintings in the “Unfinished” show will only be at the Met Breuer until September 4.  So, if you are interested, don’t hesitate to visit.  It could be a fascinating experience. 

© M. Duffy, 2016

At This Sound, They Gathered In a Crowd

Pentecost

From Lives of the Virgin and of Christ

Italian (Naples), c. 1350)

Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

MS Français 9561, fol. 189v

“Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.  

At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd” 

Acts 2:5-6 

While researching illustrations for the essay on Pentecost “Tongues of Fire” I came across a series of images that seem to beg for an essay of their own.  These are a series of images, dating primarily from the fourteenth century, showing both the inside and the outside of the building in which the disciples are experiencing the Pentecost.  

In the earliest images, from the first half of the fourteenth century, we see a scene similar to all other images of Pentecost with the disciples (and Mary) receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire.  However, the full image shows the building in which they are seated as if it were tilted and the roof removed.  For we see, in addition to the interior, the exterior doors and, standing before the doors, people showing curiosity about what is happening inside.

Giotto, the great painter whose work began the development that came to be called the Renaissance produced a similar image several decades earlier.

Giotto, Pentecost
Italian, c.1320
London, National Gallery

As the use of perspective became better understood, this image developed.  In those images made after 1360 we can see that the action has now been divided into two levels.  The Pentecost is occurring in the upper level, as if it were happening in a portico on the second floor of the house, while below, on the street, stand the curious.

Andrea da Firenze, Pentecost

Italian, 1366-1367

Florence, Church of Santa Maria Novella, Cappellone degli Spangnoli

Jacopo di Cione and Workshop, Pentecost

From The San Pier Maggiore Altarpiece

Italian, c. 1370-1371

London, National Gallery

Eventually, perspective developed to the point where both the interior of the building, with the scene of the Pentecost, and the outside, street scene, with its curious passersby, could be depicted with what appears to be nearly realistic.

Georges Trubert, Pentecost
From the Prayer Book of Rene II of Lorraine
French (Nancy), 1492-1493
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 10491, fol. 221

© M. Duffy, 2016

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Saint Catherine of Siena – Patroness of Europe and Doctor of the Church

Distance view of the high altar of Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Rome, Piazza della Minerva

In Rome the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva is distinguished by its unusual, Gothic style and by the fact that one of the most important saints of Europe is entombed under the main altar.








This body is not the remains of a great Pope, an Emperor or another politically important person.  Probably surprising to some is the fact that it is the body of a young woman who in her brief life did an extraordinary number of astonishing things; things that would be remarkable for a woman in our own day and are truly astonishing when one thinks of the common image of women in the middle ages.

View of the high altar of Santa Maria sopra Minerva

It is the tomb of Saint Catherine of Siena, who died at the age of 32 in 1380.

Tomb of Saint Catherine of Siena
High Altar of Santa Maria sopra Minerva

The typical image of the medieval woman is that of a subordinated, repressed individual, almost held as a chattel or slave, first to her father and then to her husband.  Yet, this era abounds with a large number of women with a wide range of experience and accomplishment.  A brief list includes:  Eleanor of Aquitaine, Empress Matilda, Joan of Arc, Hildegard of Bingen, Christine de Pisan, Marguerite of Anjou.  But the achievements of Catherine of Siena surpass all of them in scale and continuing relevance. 

Fray Juan Battista de Maino, Saint Catherine of Siena
Spanish, c. 1612-1614
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Caterina di Giacomo di Benincasa was born into a very large middle class artisan family in Siena on September 25, 1347.  She died in Rome on April 29, 1380.  Between these two dates she lived an amazing life.1  From her early childhood she was devout and very early on experienced visions.  When she was only seven years old, she vowed her virginity to Christ.  At around age 12 her parents decided to arrange a marriage for her, as was the custom at the time.  Catherine refused to go along with their plans and began the series of extreme austerities that she followed for the rest of her life.  Her obstinacy convinced her parents to allow her to live as she chose and she began to live the life of an anchoress, withdrawn from the world and living a life of prayer and sacrifice, while still in the family home.  

At age 19-20 she became a member of the Dominican Third Order, living a form of lay religious life which allows people to continue living their ordinary lives in society under a form of religious rule which incorporates them into the life of the religious order to which they belong.  

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, 1746
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

They are designated as a “Third” portion of a religious family in which the vowed religious men (friars in the case of the Dominicans and Franciscans) form the “First” and the vowed religious women (nuns) form the “Second” portions.  Some Third Orders are further divided into “Regular” and “Secular” branches, with the regular members living together in a community, while the secular members live ordinary lives In the world.  All are, however, members of the Order and all have the right to wear certain parts of the Order’s religious garb or habit.  Therefore, Saint. Catherine of Siena is generally shown wearing the black and white habit of the Dominican Third Order female members. 

Following her reception into the Dominican Third Order for women (called the Mantellate in Siena) Catherine began to lead a life of active ministry in her home town and beyond.   Her reputation for holiness and wisdom in counseling brought her to the attention of many outside Siena.  She began to be sought out as a counselor by many in high places in both the secular and religious worlds.  And a wise counselor was someone greatly needed at the time.

Follower of the Moerdrecht Master, Saint Catherine of Siena
From a Book of Hours
Dutch (Utrecht), c. 1440-1450
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS KB 133 E 15, folio 226v

The period during which she lived was as troubled and tormented as is our own time.  It has been described as “calamitous”, “disastrous” and a time of crisis.  

The fourteenth century opened with a series of famine years in northern Europe that are sometimes described as the “years without a summer”.  

It also saw the onset of the Black Death, which resulted in the deaths of at least half the population of Europe and which arrived in Western Europe just a few weeks after the birth of Saint Catherine.  

Politically, there was constant friction between the rapidly differentiating European states (such as the Hundred Years War between England and France, which began at this time), internal strife within these countries (such as the Jacquerie in France and the Peasants’ Revolt in England) and constant strife within the Italian peninsula between the many city-states, the Papacy, the French monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire.  

And within the church there was also great unease, with many serious abuses becoming common and a papacy that resided not in Rome but in Avignon, in southern France, under the thumb of the French monarchy. 

The last Crusade of the middle ages came to a dreadful end at Nicopolis in 1396.2

Carlo Crivelli, Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1490
Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais

In this troubled atmosphere Catherine tried hard to bring about peace in Italy.  But her best known accomplishment is surely her successful effort to persuade Pope Gregory XI to leave Avignon and to return to Rome, which he did in 1377.  In the confused and contested election which followed his death in 1378, which led to the Great Western Schism, she supported the Italian candidate, Urban VI.

Matteo da Milano, Saint Catherine of Siena
From the Hours of Bonaparte Ghislieri
Italy (Bologna), c. 1500
London, British Library
MS Yates Thompson 29, folio 36r

Her advice on spiritual matters was sought by a wide range of people and survives in her written works, The Dialogue, her Letters and a series of Prayers. 

Giovanni di Paolo, Saint Catherine of Siena Dictating Her Dialogues
Italian, c. 1460
Detroit, Institute of Art

Iconography of Saint Catherine of Siena

During her life Saint Catherine had a series of visions through which she understood her relationship to Christ.  These events form her primary iconography.  A series of them was painted around the time of her canonization by the Siennese painter, Giovanni di Paolo.  These charming paintings were placed as a predella along the bottom of a major Sienese altarpiece and became among the earliest images that set the iconography of St. Catherine.  Consequently, I will show them below as the first image of each section of her iconography.

Among them are: 

 Her Mystic Marriage to Christ (not to be confused with a similar image of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, which may actually have developed from the iconography of the Siennese saint).

Giovanni di Paolo, Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1460
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lorenzo d'Alessandro da Sanseverino, Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine
Italian, c.1481-1500
London, National Gallery

Correggio, Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1510-1515
Washington, National Gallery of Art

Fra Bartolomeo, Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, 1511
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Clemente de Torres, Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena
Spanish, c. 1650
Private Collection

Hendrik Heerschop, Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena
Dutch, 1660
Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent 

The exchange of Christ’s heart for her heart

Giovanni di Paolo, Saint Catherine of Siena Exchanging Her Heart with Christ
Italian, c. 1460
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Her vision of Saint Dominic investing her with the habit of the Dominican Third Order

Giovanni di Paolo, Saint Catherine of Siena Invested with the Dominican Habit
Italian, c. 1460
Cleveland, Museum of Art

In her vision, Catherine was offered the habits of three religious orders: Dominican, Augustinian and Franciscan, by the founder saints of those groups. She chose the order of Saint Dominic.

Her generosity in giving her cloak to a beggar who turns out to be Christ Himself when He returns it to her

Giovanni di Paolo. Saint Catherine of Siena and the Beggar
Italian, c. 1460s
Cleveland, Museum of Art

Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli, SUBR Catherine and the Beggar
Italian, c. 1490
Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale

This picture shows how influential the works of Giovanni di Paolo were in establishing Saint Catherine's iconography

Her reception of Holy Communion from Christ Himself or from an angel

Giovanni di Paolo, Miraculous Communion of  Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1460
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Domenico Beccafumi, Miraculous Communion of Saint Catherine
Italian, c. 1513-1515
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum

Francesco Brizzi, Miraculous Communion of Saint Catherine
Italian, ca. 1600
Bologna, Church of San Domenico, Chapel of Saint Catherine

Her reception of the Stigmata (the marks of the Crucifixion of Christ)

Giovanni Di Paolo, Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c.1460
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Collection

Giovanni di Bartolo Matteo, Saint Catharine Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c.1460-1495
Paris, Musée du Petit Palais

Domenico Beccafumi, Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1513-1515
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum

Giacomo Pacchiarotti, Saint Catherine of Siena Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1520-1530
Siena, Church of Santa Caterina in Fontebranda

Other events from her life were also frequently depicted as part of her iconography.  These included her

• Intercessory prayers for her own family and for others, 

Giovanni di Paolo, Saint Catherine of Siena Beseeching Christ to Resuscitate Her Mother
Italian, c.1460-1465
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Collection

Master of San Miniato, Saint Catherine of Siena Intercedes for Her Deceased Sister, Palmerina
Italian, c. 1570
La Spezia, Museo Amedeo Lia

Girolamo di Benvenuto, Saint Catherine of Siena Interceding for a Possessed Woman
Italian, c.1500
Denver, Art Museum

Il Sodoma, Saint Catherine Interceding for the Condemned at the Beheading of Niccolo di Tuldo

Italian, 1526

Siena, Church of San Domenico

Miracles attributed to her

Vincenzo di Tamagni, Saint Catherine Heals Matteo Cenni of the Plague

Italian, c. 1520-1530

Siena, Church of Santa Caterina in Fontebranda, Chapel of Saint Catherine

Her appeals to the Pope to return to Rome

Giovanni di Paolo, Saint Catherine Before the Pope at Avignon

Italian, c. 1460s

Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Giorgio Vasari, Idealized Return of Pope Gregory XI to Rome
Italian, c. 1570
Vatican City, Apostolic Palace
Saint Catherine appears just to the left of the Pope's Sedia gestatoria urging him to continue on to his Roman residence.

She is also frequently shown in prayer alone and sometimes in ecstasy.

Anonymous Siennese Painter, Saint Catherine of Siena with a Crucifix and a Crown of Thorns
Italian, 17th century
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

Melchiore Caffa, Ecstasy of Saint Catherine of  Siena
Italian, 1667
Rome, Church of Santa Catarina da Siena a Magnapoli

Rutilio Manetti, Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1628-1632
Private Collection

Pompeo Batoni, Ecstasy of Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, 1743
Lucca, Museo di Villa Guinigi

Her specific iconographic attributes are related to her life. She is shown with the lily of purity, the stigmata and crown of thorns, the cross, sometimes holding a heart as well as with a book or books.

Giovanni di Paolo, Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1460
Cambridge, Harvard University, Fogg Art Museum

Sano di Pietro, Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1460-1465
Maastricht, Bonnefantenmuseum

Workshop of Guillaume Vrelant, Saint Catherine of Siena
From a Book of Hours 
Flemish, c. 1461-1499
New York, New York Public Library, Spencer Collection,
MS NYPL Spencer 46, fol. 42

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Saints Catherine and  Lawrence
Italian, c. 1490-1498
Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakotek

Saint Catherine of Siena
From a Book Printed in Venice by Aldus Manutius
Italian, c. 1500
New York, Columbia University, Rare Book Department; Manuscript Library
Incunable C-281, p. 422

Anthony van Dyck, Christ On the Cross With Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Dominic
and an Angel
Flemish, Before 1629
Antwerp, Koninklijk Museen voor Schone Kunste

Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Christ on the Cross Adored by Eight Saints of the Dominican Order
Model for an Engraving
Flemish, 1652
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Sometimes she is shown treading on a demon or demons (as in the Bourdichon illustration below), representing her victorious battle with various temptations that tormented her in her early years.

Jean Bourdichon, Saint Catherine of Siena
From the Hours of Frederic d'Aragon
French (Tours), c. 1501-1504
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 10532, fol. 368

Her role as a patron saint appears often as well.

Anonymous Lombard Painter, Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine of Siena and
a Carthusian Donor
Italian, c.1460
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Collection

Gaudenzio Ferrari, Donors with Saints Catherine of Siena and Niicholas
Italian, 1533
Vercelli, Church of San Cristoforo

Il Sodoma, Madonna and Child with Saints Peter and Catherine of Siena and a Carthusian Donor
Italian, 1540s
London, National Gallery

Catherine died at Rome in 1380, worn out by her relentless austerities and travels.  Her body was buried in the Dominican church at the center of Rome, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, although her head was taken to Siena and is enshrined in the church of Santa Caterina in Fontebranda.

Giovanni di Paolo, Death of Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1460
Private Collection

Vincenzo Tamagni, Deathbed of Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c. 1520-1530
Siena, Church of Santa Caterina in Fontebranda, Chapel of St. Catherine

She was canonized in 1461.  She has remained a major saint, growing in importance as the centuries have passed.  Pope Pius IX named her a Patroness of Rome in 1866, while in 1939 Pope Pius XII named her a Patroness of Italy.

Francesco Vanni, Canonization of Saint Catherine of Siena
Italian, c.1600
Siena, Oratorio della Cucina

In 1970 Pope Paul VI added her to the distinguished company of the saints who bear the title Doctor of the Church and in 1999 St. John Paul II named her as one of the Patrons of Europe.

Michele de Meo, Saint Catherine of Siena, Patron of Europe
Italian, 2003
Rome, Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Chapel of St. James

In the modern day she is sometimes seen as a kind of proto-feminist, a feisty woman who refused to accept the limitations on women of her day and who used emotional blackmail through her fasts to get her own way.  But those who see her this way are blinded by their own modern prejudices, I think.  Just because some things seem on the surface to be similar does not necessarily mean that they are.

Catherine saw her world through a Christ-centered view and love of Him was her motivation, not a love/hate fixation on self or a desire to have her own way.3  What she did, she did for love of Him and of His church and not for herself.  That is why she continues to have influence in our world today. 

© M. Duffy, 2016.  Selected images updated 2024.

___________________________________________

1.  For details and an appreciation of her life see the following:

Butler, Alban, Rev. The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume IV. Dublin: James Duffy, 1866; Bartleby.com, 2010. www.bartleby.com/210/. 

Benedict XVI, Audience, November 24, 2010 at http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20101124.html

2.  For fourteenth century history see:  Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror:  The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1978.  

3.  For an interesting discussion of the issue of Catherine’s “proto-feminism” see: Katherine Mahon, “The Complex Catherine Of Siena and the Sin of Simplifying Saints”, in (DT) Daily Theology, April 29, 2015 at https://dailytheology.org/2015/04/29/the-complex-catherine-of-siena-and-the-scandal-of-simplifying-saints/