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Hell-raiser, murderer, gay icon: Separating fact from legend has long been a problem for Caravaggio's biographers, though there's no doubting the revolutionary nature of his art. But the design and style is purely his, as is the unerring knowledge of what his customer base wanted: As a celebratory snapshot of the nobility doing what they do best (killing), it's as perfect as it is grand. Scholars argue over what if any part of the painting displays Rubens's own hand. You might say his mtier was action pictures, though while there are no Transformers in Wolf and Fox Hunt, it's packed with a Michael Bay punch: At 8 x 12 feet, it doesn't just depict beasts, it is one.
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He was also a something like a movie director, orchestrating a stunning output of artworks from an atelier swarming with assistants. He was the art superstar of his era-Jeff Koons, Richard Prince and Damien Hirst rolled into one. These activities helped him secure numerous commissions, but so did betting on the Catholic Church during the Protestant upheaval he created the greatest altarpieces of the Counter-Reformation. The small volume on the table is bookmarked with a slip of paper on which is written a line from the Roman writer Terence: "Truth breeds hatred." Though the words might allude to the book's content, its sentiment seems apt for a work whose wondrous verisimilitude must have prompted envy in a few lesser talents.Ī Flemish master of Baroque coloristic and compositional fireworks, Rubens was also a scholar, art collector and diplomat. If you look closely enough at his face, your can see that Holbein has painted a light stubble, hair by hair. The blue of the background with the gold inscription denoting the year and age of the sitter (29), and the green of the baize covering the table on which he's placed his arm, have an otherworldly luster. The tightly rendered strokes and adamantine color used to depict him are typical for Holbein, and his fine applications of paint as well as the small scale (it measures roughly 17 x 13 inches) give the piece the reverential feel of an icon, albeit a secular one. Holbein is probably best known for the work he executed in England for the court of Henry VIII, and also clients like the one here, a German merchant based in London. A printmaker as well as a painter, he was acquainted with the great humanist and freethinker Erasmus. One of the masters of the Northern Renaissance and perhaps the greatest portraitist of the 16th century, Holbein was born in Germany. Christopher hikes up his tunic, the better to show off the artist's command of classical anatomy, while shooting his passenger a look that appears to say, "Don't worry, I've got your back." The baby Jesus's expression, meanwhile, seems to reply, "That's cool, I'm just chilling, holding up the world." Rather, it's the vivid color of the patron saint of travelers confidently striding across a river with the infant Christ on his shoulder, who is seen carrying the orbis mundi. St. Technique alone, however, doesn't account for its appeal. Plaster dries completely in one day, so a fresco this size had to be done in sections. Masonry walls were the usual support, making this piece-which was once part of a Florentine chapel, though which one, exactly, is not known-all the more remarkable. This work is the only example in the Met's collection of an Italian Renaissance fresco, a method in which pigments mixed with water were applied to fresh plaster (in Italian, fresco) that hadn't completely dried.