Portrait of Camilla Gonzaga and her three sons, attributed to Parmigianino, circa 1535-1540

Ritratto di Camilla Gonzaga coi tre figli, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Camilla Gonzaga (1500, Vescovato – 1585, San Secondo Parmense), daughter of Giovanni Gonzaga, signore di Vescovato and Laura Bentivoglio. Lavishly dowried, she married the imperial general Pier Maria III de' Rossi conte di San Secondo in 1523. The marchesa consorte di San Secondo appears to have been a power in her own right, adept at deal-making and diplomacy while her husband was frequently off at war.

The pair had ten children together and she is shown here with three of their six sons, most likely Troilo, Ippolito, and Federigo. Parmigianino is the undisputed author of a portrait of the conte di San Secondo, this painting's pendant. But there is speculation that he only sketched out the design for this work, and that it was completed by other hands; an artist from the studio of Bronzino has been been put forward as one of the possibilities. Additionally, it is thought that the three boys were added later than the portrait of their mother, and by different artists and at different times. The faces of the two boys on the left, with what looks to be the dark background visible beneath the flesh tones, would appear to support that argument.

All that said, what would this painting be without the beautiful, pensive faces of the children, the three opposing and poetic depictions of gaze, the graceful compositional pattern of interconnection, the tender, clinging dance of the three boys around their beautiful, formidable mother?

***

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, most commonly known as Parmigianino: "the little one from Parma" (11 January 1503, Parma – 24 August 1540, Casalmaggiore), important Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker. Raised by his uncles, who were modestly talented artists, he was successful from an early age. Active in Florence, Rome, Bologna, and his native city of Parma, he died of a fever at the age of only thirty-seven.

Three paintings by Cristofano Allori + 2

The Hospitality of St. Julien, circa 1615-1620.
The beautiful modeling of the faces and bodies of the three younger men - the warm, soft but precise light - and the way they are posed - the very
particular stance of the boatman, the tender way the barely covered pilgrim is held by the red-shirted young man - I find quite remarkably sensual.

Cristofano Allori (17 October 1577, Florence – 1 April 1621, Florence), Italian painter of the late Florentine Mannerist school whose work marks a transition to the early Baroque. He was the son of Alessandro Allori, and thus the "grand-nephew" of the great Bronzino. He received his first lessons in painting from his father, but later entered the studio of Gregorio Pagani, who was one of the leaders of the late Florentine school, which sought to unite the rich coloring of the Venetians with the Florentine attention to drawing. Much of Allori's output was in portraiture, and his often extreme fastidiousness meant that his oeuvre is small.

St. John the Baptist in the Desert. Date unknown.

Judith With the Head of Holofernes, circa 1610-1612.

He is best known for his much copied Judith With the Head of Holofernes. His seventeenth-century biographer claims that the model for the Judith was the artist's mistress, Maria Mazzafirri - La Mazzafirra - (died 1618) and that the elderly servant was posed by her mother, while the head of Holofernes is generally thought to represent the artist himself. Allori and La Mazzafirra - who posed for several of his paintings - reportedly had a very tumultuous relationship, and the Judith can be easily interpreted as a commemoration of their unhappy liaison and the artist's suffering.

There is something quite remarkable about this depiction of the beautiful, sensual face of La Mazzafirra. The caressing light, the direct, challenging gaze, the sense of impending movement in the mouth. That, along with the brilliant color of the whole and the deceptively calm grace with which it tells its dramatic story - Judith turning, leaning back slightly, her servant leaning forward - make it easy to understand why this painting has been so greatly admired from its first appearance more than four hundred years ago.

***

I should mention that Allori's Judith was painted right around the same time as Caravaggio's David With the Head of Goliath. Both employ a similar pose, and both are said to be a portrait of the artist's lover in the role of slayer - a favorite former studio assistant in the case of the Caravaggio - and a self portrait in the role of slayed.

David With the Head of Goliath, by Caravaggio, circa 1605-1610.

***

And I'd be no respectable completist if I didn't include my own Judith, my own nod to the particular pose and autobiographical content; both portraits are of the artist this go 'round. I have to say that I made no conscious reference to either of these paintings when conceiving mine, but I certainly knew of them and I must have pulled from that knowledge.

Judith et Holopherne, 2010.

An allegorical explanation

Nine years ago I started a painting. An adaptation of the famous painting by Bronzino which is usually titled "Allegory of Venus and Cupid". A beautiful and wonderfully perverse work, painted in the 1540's as a gift for François I, its iconography has confounded scholars ever since it first appeared publicly. Entering the collection of Britain's National Gallery in 1860, whose director judged it "the most improper picture" - which it certainly is - most of the naughtiest parts were painted over; it was only restored in 1958. (Incidentally, the year of my birth.)


















I finished my painting "Allegory of the Artist - After Bronzino" just this year.

My "official" explanation for the long gestation is that I was waiting for my technique to catch up with my ambition. Subconsciously, at least, I do believe that I knew I wasn't yet ready to complete it. Beneath the rather flashy imagery, this is really a very personal painting for me; most of the objects depicted directly relate to my tastes and/or my life. Therefore, I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to take it in to the gallery and have it up for sale. I very nearly just kept it. But now that it's been sold, I thought I should try to explain what the details represent. As some sort of record.

I kept as much of the original composition as was feasible and useful for my purposes. The blue drapery is as close as I could make it to the original; I only changed it where, because of the physical impossibility of recreating the inhuman pose of Venus, the figure wasn't in precisely the same configuration. This mainly affected the position of the left foot and leg and the aperture between the left hip and arm. There is also more drapery at the bottom which I felt better balanced the composition. (Oddly, reading later, I found that the only alteration to the original was that, at some time in its history, approximately five centimeters were trimmed from the bottom - I wonder if it would have related at all to what I added.) I kept the pink pillow with much the same detail. I only changed some of its drapery as it was so stylized that to copy it made it look like I was mistaken in my drawing. I kept the (nearly) black background and the position of the arm and hands of the figure (now me) holding up/pulling back the blue cloth. I kept two masks positioned in the right corner. Other than that, I tried to add back colors and pattern and some of the textures that are in the original. Reproductions of the original vary wildly in color but it would be safe to say that my overall tone is much warmer, though not as much so as my reproductions would indicate.

The other thing I should mention is that, contrary to nearly all of my other work, the composition of this painting altered over time. It was fully begun and then set aside. After Gigi came into my life, I added several new elements. And then, as I was finishing it, I added additional ones.

(Click on the images to see them - much more than - full size.)

My friend Shane Sullivan, an artist himself, posed for this painting. I was amazed at how well he got the impossible pose of the Venus in the original. Because this wasn't meant to be a portrait, but something completely idealized, I generalized the face, made the hair more "picturesque", and added a foreskin to his rather American penis - yes, I did - to better accommodate a classical iconography. He still holds Cupid's arrow - as well as Venus' golden apple - though there is no Cupid here. My arm, in the position of the original, holds back the drapery and, looped in my hand is a ribbon which drapes over a large blank panel - the ready place to make art - and has a pencil and paintbrush knotted at its end - the tools to make art. There are no putti in the original work, but there are two winged figures. Here, the wings were useful for adding some of the colors from the Bronzino. The putto peeking over the drapery on the right, was added far into the process; actually, I painted over (something I never do) another one that was cropped off at the mouth like the central one. This one is my favorite, seemingly shy, and is the only figure in the painting that gazes out at the viewer.

Me - or the me of nine years ago - with my mustache and "soul patch", wearing a black t-shirt, the "artist uniform". A silver vase of white lilies - why? Because I think they're beautiful. And they work compositionally. They also represent, I suppose, a pristine natural beauty. The top of the vase is ringed with pink roses; in the original, a small child has pink roses clutched in his hands. But they're also useful compositionally and because they're beautiful and fragrant. The small banner that spirals around the lily stems was added later. Aperto Vivere Voto is a quotation from Persius. I've never known the context, but it is usually translated as, to live one's life as an open book. Or, to live with unconcealed passion. Years ago I adopted it as a sort of personal motto; I had a ring made that is inscribed with it, and I have it tattooed on my left arm.

Also added later, is Gigi's right hand holding up the edge of the drapery. She's wearing the silver and amethyst ring she always wears. I gave it to her soon after we met and fell in love. A sort of promise ring. The original painting has two hands presented horizontally in about this same location, so that was another reason to place it here. The leafy vine was added at the same time. Coming from beyond the picture plane, through my grasp and down and through hers. Besides the color and compositional concerns, it also symbolizes growth and passage - our journey together - and our connection. And how we work together.

The flat plan on the far left is of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo. Built for the future Alexander I of Russia, its last residents, famously, were Nicholas II and his family. At first preserved by the Soviets, trashed by the Nazis, and then given to the Russian navy to use, it is currently undergoing an intense restoration. The two Cyrillic letters visible are the beginning of the word transliterated as dvorets: palace. The rolled plan is that of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. At the bottom is a fragment of Maison de la reine, as it was for Marie Antoinette.

The score that spills out of the portfolio at the top of the stack of books is that of Rachmaninov's second symphony. Or what I imagine it might look like; I've never seen the actual score, and the scale of the painting is small enough that trying to reproduce it would be pointless, so I merely made a - fairly - detailed representation of a full orchestral score. I always refer to this piece of music as my favorite, the "great work" that I always return to. The music of my "Russian" soul!

The other books in the stack aren't actual ones, but just a way to celebrate the role of books in my life, and a place to inscribe names that have meant a lot to me. F.X. Winterhalter, the nineteenth-century portrait painter; Les Romanoff, and all the pre-revolutionary Russian aristocracy that have so fascinated me; Versailles, preposterous to say but, in many ways, my spiritual home. And Marie-, being all the Maries: Marie Antoinette, Marie Pavlovna, Empress Marie, Queen Marie. Even my mother, Mary. The book in the middle, with the spine turned away, is the mystery book. I can think of many things it might represent. The story of a life - mine, mine with G. Or an actual book. Most often, though, it represents for me the book that hasn't been finished yet, the first (full-length, grown-up) book that G gets published. A very important book to me.

On the cushion is an emerald and diamond sautoir I designed to represent the fascination I've had with great vintage jewelry - Cartier, Chaumet, Bolin - and the Russian Imperial jewels. My cat's tail curls in from the side and, when G and I got together, I added her little dog José's tail as well; both of them are gone now. The very last thing I added to the painting was the little flowering plant, a sort of (made up) wildflower. There was something missing in that space. I made one of the stems broken, I suppose to symbolize the delicacy of beauty and of life. Which leads to a probably expected ingredient of any classical allegory, the skull. Crowned with laurel; death is always the ultimate victor.

The vine that threaded through my hand and G's, trails down, twining around the hourglass - time, of course - and rests, wrapped in the ribbon end of the pearl necklace. It's the growing end of the vine, and the necklace is another symbol of beauty. And, of course, pearls are symbols of growth and transcendence - the irritation of the oyster that makes the amazing jewel.

The silver vase is an example of the neo-classicism that I so love. And the two quill pens signify the importance of writing in our lives. The beautiful white one - with ink on the tip - is G's. The inkless, stubby gray one is mine, untested. The two masks represent the two female idols of my childhood: the Empress Eugénie, in profile, and Marie Antoinette.

The sheet of parchment tucked into the corner, beneath the drapery, was drawn in at the beginning. The original has something similar in the same place, but I've never been able to tell precisely what it is. My sheet was left strangely blank; I didn't know what to put on it. But after G and I got together, I thought to add the date of our first contact. The date that changed the direction of my life. The date she sent me an email, praising my work, after seeing a show of mine: 12-12-03.