thePULSEHope and Healing” at WAM
In darkness, there is light
Fear and faith mix in WAM’s exhibit of Baroque and Renaissance era Italian paintings
These works meander through seven main categories in the speciall designed and decorated galleries fashioned to create an uplifting mood around all the brilliantly colored paintings. This is also the first time in a while that the museum has created an audio tour to help visitors understand the complexities of each work.
One could easily whisk through this collection admiring the colors, the use of light, the delineation of the subjects and the scale of many of the paintings. Or a visitor could take the time to examine each work, read the accompanying didactic panels, listen to the audio tour – and in the process discover far more about the people of the time, the nature of the plagues (there were at least three during the 300 year period), and how these artworks were produced and used to combat the ever-present threat and horror of disease.
The paintings in this show were chosen not only to show the death and devastation rampant throughout Italy during the time, but also to represent symbols of hope and the gratitude of survivors. The first section of the exhibit contains works that depict earlier plagues from Biblical times to the 15th century. My personal favorite in this section is Giovanni Martinelli’s (1604-59) “Memento Mori (Death Comes to the Dinner Table),” showing a group of elegantly dressed young men and women of the time enjoying a robust meal of fruits and pastries that is suddenly interrupted by a skeleton holding an hourglass in the shadows. Translated, the title says, “Remember, you shall die,” and the picture is a reminder of the suddenness with which plague could arrive and strike rich and poor alike.
In the next part of the exhibit, Francesco de Mura’s (1696-1782) painting of a mother breast-feeding is a depiction of hope in times of travail. The bird plucking its chest to feed its own blood to its chicks was a potent symbol of Jesus’ sacrifice. In the area that features works depicting Saint Sebastian, we learn that the arrows with which he is shot (ranging from a single shaft to a pincushion full) were symbols of the plague’s swift action.
Sebastian was commonly shown next to the French Saint Roch, pointing to his exposed leg. This sight was known to all as signifying his survival of the plague – his leg free of the buboes that were symptomatic of the Bubonic Plague.
In other sections, there are works that relate to Saint Charles and the Cult of the Nail, to Saint Rosalie, and to the appearance of Saint John of God to a sick teenager. All of the works in the show are vivid in color, sensational in aspect, dramatic and lush. The images were originally produced to delight the eye, capture the viewers’ attention and send an important message – that with all of the darkness around, there was always hope in a higher power. Three hundred years later, they still accomplish their task.
