And you thought YOU were gonna have a lot of holiday company! Poor Mary, who’s only given birth a week or so ago, now faces this onslaught of unexpected visitors in today’s episode.
We’ll find out who exactly all those folks are, their connection to one of the most powerful families in Europe, and what’s up with the peacock. Pretty sure that wasn’t one of the animals at the Nativity…
If you want to zoom in and pan around, you can find it here.
SHOW NOTES (TRANSCRIPT BELOW)
“A Long Look” themes are “Easy” by Ron Gelinas https://youtu.be/2QGe6skVzSs and “At the Cafe with You” by Onion All Stars https://pixabay.com/users/onion_all_stars-33331904/
Episode music
“Joy to the World” and “We Three Kings” performed by John Sayles
http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/holidaymusic.htm
“Mass for 4 Voices,” composed by William Byrd, performed by Ensemble Morale. Courtesy of musopen.org
https://musopen.org/music/44138-mass-for-4-voices
“Suite in F Major” composed by Michael Praetorius. Performed by Michel Rondeau. Courtesy of musopen.org
https://musopen.org/music/43633-suite-in-f-major
Artwork information
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.41581.html
https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/angelico-lippi-the-adoration-of-the-magi.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoration_of_the_Magi_(Fra_Angelico_and_Filippo_Lippi)
https://www-jstor-org.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/20074684?seq=6 (JSTOR article, may need to log in through your library)
Magi gifts
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202212/why-did-the-magi-bring-jesus-gold-frankincense-and-myrrh
Medici information
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Medici-family
Karen’s favorite illuminated manuscript
“The Hours of Catherine of Cleves” https://www.themorgan.org/collection/Hours-of-Catherine-of-Cleves
Recommended Reading:
“Fra Angelico” by Laurence Kanter and Pia Palladino. Published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2005. Pgs 278-283. Explains Magi’s visitation. (Free PDF)
https://cdn.sanity.io/files/cctd4ker/production/f9c70388da067f22ea0e43e5e512fb5f8d2b0d33.pdf
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to A Long Look! I’m your host, Karen Jackson
Did you know most people spend only a few seconds looking at works of art? But what happens if you slow down and take a long look? Join me while I take you thru the experience of what I see and discover while looking at a work of art for minutes instead of seconds. Then I’ll share the history, mystery, or controversy behind it!
Before we get started, have you had a chance to take the listener survey yet? I’ve extended the deadline to Dec 20 so if you could donate just a few minutes of your time, I’d really appreciate it. Your feedback will help me decide the future of A Long Look! Think of it as your gift to the show!
You can find it at alonglookpodcast.com/survey and you do NOT need a Google account to fill it out.
Ok, ready? Then let’s head to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC
MUSIC
Today I’m looking at The Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi.
If you want to follow along, you can find it at alonglookpodcast.com/magi. When you get there, just click on the image to zoom in and pan around!
So what do you first notice?
It’s a parade! A pageant! It’s a whole lot of people coming to visit the Infant Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
A dense crowd streams towards us through a tall grey stone arch in the upper left of this large round painting. The arch is part of a crumbling ruin set at the foot of craggy pale green mountains filling the top of the scene. The people get larger as they get closer, heading toward the bottom of the painting then curving to our right to stop in front of the Holy Family.
They’re brilliantly dressed in loose garments of sky and robin-egg blue, bubble-gum pink, peach, celery green, scarlet red, and honey gold and represent a mix of ages. Most are blonde, but some have light brown or auburn hair. A lot of them wear colorful hats, turbans, caps, or hoods.
At the center of the pack are six people riding black, white, or caramel-brown horses. One rider, dressed in scarlet with a pointy black hat, flings out his hands as he drops his reins and snaps his head back to look at something overhead. He’s clearly startled or amazed because his mouth hangs open.
The procession ends with three men kneeling before Mary who sits in the lower right on a rough stone ledge with Jesus on her lap and Joseph standing protectively nearby. The closest man wears a pale lilac robe and bows his head as he reaches to delicately touch Jesus’s foot. He has a full beard and appears older than the other two huddled behind him. They’re dressed in garments richly embroidered with gold, one in scarlet red, the other in azure blue. The man in red holds out a gleaming gold vessel with a narrow neck. A sleek, muscular, beige dog lies beside them.
Mary, Jesus, and Joseph have gold halos and are angled to our left, tilting their heads down to gaze at their visitors. She wears a petal-pink robe wrapped a sky-blue cloak bordered in olive green. Joseph is in a blue robe and matching cap under an orange cloak. Little Jesus has gold curls piled on his head, pink cheeks and a chubby little body draped in a sheer garment.
This painting is enormous, about 6 ft in diameter when you count the very wide intricately carved gold frame. It’s hung so we’re look into the middle of a roughly built stable sitting right in the center of this chaotic scene. It has a triangular wooden roof and cracked dirt walls.
It’s on the same ledge as Mary, just to her right. It’s open in the front where a donkey nibblies hay in the manger next to a orange-gold cow lying on the floor. Behind them, in the back of the stable five men tend to five horses, checking their hooves or brushing their coats.
Three guys hanging around the stable in dingy tunics and torn leggings look kind of familiar but we’ll get to them a little later.
Circling up to the right, another, narrow path leads back up to the hills. It’s lined with people, stepping out of salmon pink and sand-colored buildings. They stand, kneel, pray, or point at another crowd riding down the path towards them. Although this time, a few are riding camels! Finally, in the upper right, there’s a mass of disembodied heads peering over a grove of trees suggesting even more visitors waiting to get in.
This painting is just packed with people and animals and action and the longer I looked, the more strange things I discovered. Like, back up in that ruined building is a group of emaciated, very pale men or boys wearing just loincloths, standing on ledges gesturing wildly.
There’s a peacock on the stable roof which I’ve never seen in a Nativity or Adoration scene before. Its cobalt-blue head swivels to our right to look at two overlapping birds that are either perched on that side of the roof or flying in front of it, it’s hard to tell…
And the stable itself is kind of cock-eyed, the roof slants down too sharply on the left and those birds look like they’re were kind of pasted on.
So who are all these people and what’s with the peacock?
MUSIC
This lively group who has arrived unannounced are the three Magi and their entourages. The men kneeling in front of Mary are the Magi and all the others are their hundreds of servants. Those guys back in the stable taking care of the horses could be a few of their groomsmen.
Tradition says the Magi were either kings or priests or astrologers from the East. Their identity changed a lot over the early centuries of Christianity but by this point, Western tradition settled on them being kings who came from Persia, Arabia, and India. But their identities have continue to evolve ever since.
They were inspired to follow a brilliant star that appeared when Christ was born and led them to Bethlehem to pay him homage. That star might be what the guy on the left is looking up at.
They brought very expensive gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Frankincense and myrrh are aromatic resins that come the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa that were used to make oils and incense used in religious ceremonies and high-end perfumes.
There are a lot of ideas about why the Magi brought these unusual gifts but tradition says it’s because they believed they were visiting a king.
Whoever they were, this kind of scene came to be known as the Adoration of the Magi and their feast day is the Epiphany, January 6.
MUSIC
This painting was probably commissioned around 1440 by Cosimo de’Medici, the head of a powerful family who ruled Florence from the 1430s to 1730s.
The resemblance to a parade might refer to the big, elaborate pageant held every five years in Florence. It reenacting the Magi’s visit as a procession that wound its way through the city streets with citizens playing all the roles. The Magi were really important to the family and the city, so the Medici sponsored and organized this event and even took part!
Now about that peacock, It’s a Christian symbol for paradise or immortality but it might’ve also had a more down-to-earth meaning.
The peacock was an emblem for Cosimo’s son Giovanni. The other two birds apparently are a goshawk which is a hunting bird and the pheasant it’s attacking! This motif of hunter and prey was a favorite of Giovanni’s brother Piero who used it as a kind of logo.
A lot of Art historians think the stable, peacock and the other two birds were added later, probably because Cosimo’s sons wanted to literally make their mark on this family favorite.
That crumbling ruin symbolizes the old world and religious beliefs giving way to Christianity. This idea was used a lot in Nativity scenes. Fun fact, it came from a legend that said when Christ was born, part of the Roman Forum collapsed! And the skinny guys in loincloths could be pagans who might become Christians?? Again, lots of different theories.
The kind of careworn-looking guys hanging around the stable are of course, the shepherds who usually show up in paintings of the Nativity, depicting the actual night Jesus was born. Combining these two scenes was a popular shortcut at the time.
MUSIC
Fra Angelico and Fra Fillipo Lippi were monks from Florence. Fra Angelico was a Dominican and started out as an illustrator on illuminated manuscripts. These are stunning religious prayer books filled with incredibly elaborate, colorful images and lettering. I’ll include a link to my favorite in the show notes.
He served religious clients, especially his own order, but his work also caught the eye of wealthy families in Florence, including the Medici. That clientele allowed him to build a big and very successful workshop.
Fra Fillipo Lippi entered the Carmelite monastery when he was pretty young, maybe only 8 years old and trained to be an artist. He also became a favorite of Cosimo de’Medici but he seems to have been the complete opposite of the pious and genuinely well-liked Fra Angelico.
He had a long-term affair with a nun in a convent where he was chaplain, they even had a son! Like Angelico, he had his own studio with religious and private clients. But he sounds like a lousy businessman! Patrons accused of breaking his contracts and his employees complained they weren’t getting paid! It got so bad the Medici even imprisoned him in their palace just so he’d finish a commission!
One centuries-old mystery about The Adoration of the Magi is Fra Angelico and his workshop started it but for some reason, never finished it. It seems to have sat around his studio until he died 10 years later. That’s when the Medici tapped Fra Filipo Lippi to complete it.
By the way, things turned out ok for Fra Filipo. He was eventually allowed to leave his order, married his long-time partner and they had a daughter. And their son became another well known artist, Filippino Lippi.
MUSIC
I hope you’ll try out a long look on your next museum visit! Just take a little time and let the art reveal itself.
You can find links to today’s information in the show notes at alonglookpodcast.com and in most podcast apps.
If you’re a fan and want to support the show, please spread the word! Just hit that share button or send your family, friends, colleagues and followers over to alonglookpodcast.com.
I’ill be taking a little time off to prep for the new year. In the meantime, here’s wishing you holidays filled with peace, joy, health, and hope.
And as always, thanks for joining me!
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