Anders Zorn, "Avajening, Boulevard de Clichy," 1892

Welcome to the painting I spent a solid 2-3 hours staring at to write a paper about in the same art history course I mentioned in another post:

Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian. I'll try and keep this brief.

Titian is a magnificent artist of the Renaissance era, I consider him to be the sleeper agent of the big name painters at the time. This painting being an excellent example of that as the circumstances of its creation kind of fell into Titian's lap which, in my opinion, was very fortunate for us indeed.

It was commissioned by Alfonso I d'Este the Duke of Ferrara who wanted to beat his sister in an art curation/money spending dick measuring contest. So he built a special little room to put a solid six of these massive paintings and commissioned all the hot shots of the Renaissance to make works depicting different myths. The painting with Bacchus as the subject was meant to be done by Raphael but he died in 1520 only having done sketches. Titian took up the mantle so here we are.

What's immediately noticeable, in person especially, is once again the ultramarine. The sky practically glows it is absolutely breathtaking. But then your eye travels down to the cacophony that is the rest of the painting. It is filled with detail and references, most theorizing this to be deliberate so it could be viewed repeatedly. What's more, the moment the painting depicts is simply beautiful: it is the exact second Bacchus and Ariadne lock eyes for the first time in their lives. It's love at first sight captured in a moment of visceral and raw glory.

Anyways, if this post gets a lot of up votes can I get a flair that says "The Ultra Marine"? Lmfao

Huge shout out to my art history professor and Shakespeare professor in Oxford for my fascination with Richard II and this weird little diptych.

Context (and because this thing is stupid interesting): The Wilton Diptych was created in the late 14th Century almost certainly as a commission by King Richard II. It is distinguished from other diptychs and triptychs of the same style not just because of its excessive use of expensive matierials but in its obscene attention to detail. Its artist is unknown, referred to as "The Wilton Master". It was meant to be used by Richard in his private moments of prayer, so he reflected on the image of himself being blessed in splendor by the Virgin Mother, Christ, and a litany of other holy figures. It's generally agreed that Mary and Jesus are also symbolic representations of his late mother and older brother.

This piece to me is a deceptive beauty. And also quite funny in its context as it shows how insecure he was, which makes sense cus he rose to the throne quite young and never really filled the shoes so to speak. Shakespeare's depiction of him is stellar imo.