It’s the Christmas season, and in the Western world, images showing the story of the Christ child’s birth are everywhere. Many of these come from the Renaissance and are done by the famous painters of that age. Most were simple commissions, but some of them have more to the story than what is shown in the painting. We will get to what other story is being told here in a moment. For now, let’s just look at this painting.
A beautiful young woman, Mary, sits with her hands clasped as though in prayer with eyes downcast, as two angels lift up her newborn son. One of the angels looks out at us with a smile on his face, so happy he is to be present at this moment. The other angel’s face is rudely obscured by the child’s arm, but the child is Jesus. The baby reaches in a realistic fashion for his mother. Her hair is done up under a somewhat transparent headdress of the type worn by middle-class women in 15th century Italy, and her dress one common to that period. The angels themselves seem to be dressed like choirboys. It is said that this was done to make the figures more relatable to the people of the time, as if to say,”See, they are just like us.”
This painting takes it even further by having the Madonna and the angels come out of the picture frame (notice it is a frame not a window) to be even closer to the viewer, as if they are moving into our reality. Mary even casts a shadow on the picture frame like a real physical object would. Mary, as well, is decidedly a very pretty young woman and a very appealing one. The baby, unlike many that had been painted of the Christ child, actually looks like a real baby, not a small half-naked adult, which was a common look in the middle ages. One may ask, why is the focus on such realism? Why are the figures being drawn near to us? What does this Carmelite friar know about soft beautiful women and chubby cuddly babies?
Time to introduce the painter of this masterpiece, Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469). As opposed to his more pious companion in this picture, Coronation of the Virgin (1441-1447), in which all eyes are on the proceedings, Lippi, in this self-portrait seems to have his mind elsewhere. (You can see the full painting here travelingintuscany.com.) That look makes you wonder if while confessing your sins to this priest, would he confess his to you? And many the sins there were. A lustful fellow, he left the monastery at age 30 though he remained a friar his whole life. He was involved in various money scandals, lying, and cheating, but the biggest was when at age 50 he seduced a beautiful 20-year-old nun, Lucrezia Buti. In fact he more than seduced her; they ran off together and had a baby son.
Scandalous? Yes, but not necessarily unheard of in those days, as this nun’s convent was picked clean of its beautiful young acolytes until the only one left was the mother superior, who then died. So why was all this hanky-panky allowed? Well, it’s complicated. The main complication is how some of these people came to be monks and nuns to begin with. In Lippi’s case, he was orphaned at the age of eight and was given into the care of the Carmelites. While he loved and venerated the Carmelite order, he just wasn’t cut out to be a priest. As for Lucrezia and her sister, becoming nuns was the way to escape disasterous marriages. Obviously, people being people, there were any number of odd circumstances not in keeping with the dictates of these holy orders. However, in Lippi’s case, he had an ace in the hole, and that was his talent, something much prized by Cosimo de Medici, who literally ruled Florence at that time.
Some stories about Lippi have him taken into the Carmelite order after he was found drawing in the dirt, creating magnificent figures. He certainly would have seen the great Masaccio working on the Brancacci Chapel inside Santa Maria del Carmine (1420-28), making his figures come to life in a style of rendering not seen since before the Dark Age. It would have been a great surprise to Lippi at that early time to know who would finish painting that chapel some 60 years after Masaccio’s death in 1428. That aside, Lippi became the greatest artist in Florence after the death of Fra Angelico in 1455. As such, he had the protection of Cosimo de Medici, who smoothed over this little business of the seduction, the getaway, and the child. Of course Lippi had to produce wonderful things for his patron. One of the most wonderful of which is the painting below, The Adoration in the Forest (1459). Done as the crowning glory of the Medici Chapel which pictures the journey of the Wise Men to adore the holy child as presented in this painting, it is one of the most mystical versions of what is considered a familiar scene in the iconography of Christianity.
This painting is unusual in so many ways. It is not the normal scene of a nativity set in a stable with a cow and a donkey peeking in from a side stall, Joseph holding a lantern, an assortment of shepherds, and a star shining in the distance guiding the caravan bearing the three Magi. Here the setting is a dark rocky outcrop within the density of a forest. John the Baptist as a child stands on the left already wearing his hairshirt. Above him is a praying figure. Some say it is St Romuald a favorite of the Medici family, or perhaps the Archbishop of Florence. Others claim it is St. Bernard de Clairvaux, known for his adoration and devotion to the Virgin Mary. Divine light falls from above in streams of golden sparkles that fall upon the baby lying on a bed of flowers. Mary, dressed in pale blue trimmed in gold, looks on in adoration, as was considered the appropriate way to show the Virgin and the newborn child since the vision of St. Bridget of Sweden in the early 1300s.
The painting was placed in an alcove designed for private prayer and is the culminating point for the grand Procession of the Magi painted by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Medici Chapel, showing the wonderful treasures that the three kings were bringing to give to the child. In a room originally lit only by candlelight, the procession is a giant nocturne, showing all the exotic products that merchants like the Medici were able to procure. All these were not for profit, but to be given in worship.
Of course, this was Cosimo de Medici’s way of trying to buy his way into heaven after having grown rich and powerful through his banking and trading efforts. The Church frowned upon lending money and charging interest, deeming it usury. Usury was a sin and forbidden. Cosimo in his last years was very much worried about not being forgiven for committing this sin, so he prayed fervently at this personal altar piece painted by Lippi, yet another sinner. Perhaps Cosimo felt it wise to show mercy to the notorious Lippi as a sign that he might in turn be granted the same.
Sins aside, the painting, which is sometimes called the Mystical Nativity, captivates the viewer by its odd setting and the wonderful use of gold to capture tiny points of light. (To see more on this painting with excellent photography look at this video on Filippo Lippi youtube.com.) The main benefit for Lippi was that Cosimo was well pleased, and Lippi was able to spend some happy years living in Prato with his family. There he painted the frescoes on either side of the altar in the Church of San Stefano. Not surprisingly, on one side in the story of John the Baptist, there is a version of Herod’s banquet in which dances a Salome with the familiar face of Lucrezia. On the opposite wall in the story of San Stefano, Lippi paints himself casting a side eye in the direction of Salome.
And what happened to the son, the one who modeled for the beautiful child lying on a bed of delicately painted flowers? Well, here he is. His name was Filippino. He became a painter, and quite a successful one. In fact, it was he who was chosen by the Carmelites to finish the paintings in the Brancacci Chapel nearly 60 years after all work on it had stopped. How that might have surprised his father, who as a boy had seen Masaccio creating those figures so life-like that they shocked the whole of Florence. But Filippino had his own story. (To Be Continued…)
Sources for this article include the Art in Tuscany articles on the Madonna and Child with Two Angels travelingintuscany.com and Adoration in the Forest travelingintuscany.com, as well as Medici Money by Tim Parks. Notes from an art history class and two personal visits to the Medici Chapel were also used.
Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.
Dessert Wines for the Holidays
It is rather a matter of sweets to the sweets when it comes to combining dessert wines with actual edible desserts. It requires some subtle balancing of levels of sugar and a happy bit of taste testing in order to get it just right. A few simple rules do apply. One is to match acidity with acidity. When this does not work, things go downhill really quickly. The other is to make sure the wine is sweeter than the dessert so that the wine’s taste is not deadened by the sugar in the dessert. Finally, and this is for aesthetics and to eliminate cognitive dissonance, match the color of the wine to the color of the dessert. Tim Hong, a certified sommelier, provides a quick and easy to remember guide to such matters in his video, “Best Guides for Dessert Wines,” youtube.com.
Sweet wines are developed in a number of ways. Some come from late harvest grapes. In fact one of the types of Riesling is known as spatlese, meaning late havest. These grapes have a greater concentration of sugars. Another way to increase the sugar content of the grape in relation to the water content is to use grapes suffering from “noble rot. ” This term refers to grapes that benefit from a fungus called Botrytis cinerea, which saps the water content, leaving more of the sugar in the grapes. Then there is ice wine, which was a discovery of necessity in 1794 in Franconia, Germany, when a sudden hard freeze came earlier than expected. To salvage something from the hurried harvest, the vinters created a sweet wine. The Canadians are currently the past masters of ice wines, even serving them inside an igloo, should that capture your fancy (see youtube.com).
Generally dessert wines come in three categories: Port and Madeira, Sherry, and Sweet Sticky. Port and Madeira tend to be more expensive but compensate for the higher cost by lasting longer once opened. The colors range from tawny to very dark brown and the taste includes caramel with some nuttiness. Madeira is not so sweet or dense as other ports. Sherry is often oxidized, which brings out the flavors of nuts and dried fruits. It pairs well with blue cheeses and aged Gouda.
Of course one must never forget sparkling wines with desserts. They can be very high in acidity and quite dry which can go well with desserts that are less sugary, like baked apples or apple tarts with shortbread crust. Sparkling Shiraz with its rather silky tannins actually goes well with chocolate desserts, whereas often the cocoa content in chocolate can come into conflict with the tannins in wine. This is especially true with dark chocolate. Aldo Sohm, owner of the Aldo Sohm Wine Bar in his video on pairing wine with desserts shows himself to be quite daring, but even he stays away from wine and dark chocolate. (youtube.com)
He does go on about using wines other than dessert wines to pair with desserts. Cabernets bring a freshness to the palate, while Gewurtztraminer being dry works well with desserts like rich fruit tarts. Though he shys away from dark chocolate and wine, there is a fearless someone who actually goes there. Of course, it is Madeline Puckette of Wine Folly. Madeline dives into three different pairings of wine and dark chocolate desserts in a taste adventure that is as amusing as it is informative. Don’t miss this! youtube.com
You can now spend the rest of the holiday season in comfortable assurance that you have the basics to avoid pitfalls in pairing wines, and dessert wines in particular, with your desserts. Should you want to continue the adventure, Cellars Wine Club has the perfect club for you in its Sweet Wines Club. From Riesling to Moscato any wine with 20g/L of residual sugar is covered. In addition there is a no bad bottle return policy and free shipping. cellarswineclub.com
So enjoy those desserts. It’s that time of year!
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©marjorie vernelle 2020
Coming Soon: The Lippis, Like Father, Unlike Son, and Vin Santo.
When your father is a monk and your mother is a nun, there is a lot of drama in the family to say the least. It should be no wonder that one of the hallmarks of the painting of Filippino Lippi, son of Fra Filippo Lippi, would be the rendering of emotion. His early death allowed his work to be overshadowed by Raphael, but Filippino Lippi’s work is well worth consideration for its emotive beauty.