Your Art Gallery: Biblical Paintings Pt 2 Quiz

Answer: Michelangelo

Born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni in 1475 in the village of Caprese, about 60 miles east of Florence in the Tuscany region of Italy, he is known today simply as Michelangelo. The most influential of all the High Renaissance artists, his most famous works include two sculptures, "Pieta" and "David", and two frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. "The Last Judgment" is on the altar wall of the chapel, whilst his depictions of scenes from The Book of Genesis on the ceiling is perhaps the world's best known work of art.

The pictured scene, where God reaches out to touch Adam, is the central panel on the chapel ceiling. Note the 'chair' where God is reclining, which appears to be shaped as a human brain: quite a thing when you consider the limited medical knowledge available in the early 15th century.

Answer: Titian

Born Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio sometime around 1488-1490 in the town of Belluno, some 60 miles north of Venice in northeastern Italy, Titian is the most important of the Venetian School artists of his generation.

It seems likely that this Titian panting was influenced by "Adam and Eve", part of Raphael's 1509-1511 "Stanza della Segnatura" frescoes in the papal apartments in the Palace of the Vatican. The 1629 painting by Peter Paul Rubens is virtually a copy of the Titian work except for the addition of a parrot in the tree over Adam's right shoulder and a slight change in Adam's posture and facial expression.

Both the Titian painting and the Rubens copy are on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain.

Answer: Masaccio

Born Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone in 1401 in the town of San Giovanni Valdarno near Florence, he became known as Masaccio, a humorous adaptation of the name Tommaso meaning "clumsy Tom". He was the first great artist of the Italian Renaissance period known as the Quattrocento.

Virtually his entire body of work concentrates on Biblical subjects, with "Madonna and Child" featuring regularly in his panels and altarpieces. In 1425, he began painting the frescoes at the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence from which our featured painting comes. With the work only partially completed, Masaccio traveled to Rome in 1428 where he died, legend would have it poisoned by a jealous rival artist.

The Brancacci Chapel frescoes were completed more than 50 years later by Filippino Lippi. Three centuries after Masaccio painted Adam and Eve, fig leaves were added on the orders of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670-1723. These were only removed in the 1980s when all of the chapel's artworks were cleaned and restored.

Answer: Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin was born in 1594 in the commune of Les Andelys in Normandy, northern France. The most important painter in the French Baroque school of his era, Poussin spent time in Rome before returning home to take up the post of 'Premier peintre du Roi' (First painter to the King) in 1641. He held this position throughout the childhood and teenage years of King Louis XIV's reign, until Poussin's death in 1665.

Poussin was an important artist in the development of landscape painting, although he produced only a handful of pure landscapes. Most of his works were of Biblical or mythological characters, but he often set his figures against impressive backdrops.

"The Crossing of the Red Sea" is an oil on canvas work painted between 1633 and 1634. It was one of a pair of paintings commissioned while Poussin was in Rome, the other being "The Adoration of the Golden Calf". The pair were divided for the first time in 1945, with "Golden Calf" going to the National Gallery in London and our featured work taking up residence in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

Other artistic impressions of this story include one of the panes of Michelangelo's work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and Agnolo Bronzino's giant 1540s fresco on the wall of the 'Chapel of Eleonora of Toledo' within the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

Answer: Giorgione

Born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco in 1477/1478 in the town of Castelfranco Veneto, some 25 miles inland from Venice, Giorgione founded the Venetian school of Italian Renaissance painting along with Titian. Giorgione died at the age of 30, probably from plague, so his body of work is relatively small. Most notable are the "Castelfranco Madonna" (also called "Madonna and Child Between St. Francis and St. Nicasius"), which is housed in the Cathedral of Castelfranco Veneto, his home town, and "Sleeping Venus", which was left unfinished at the time of his death and was completed by Titian and which now hangs in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Germany.

"The Test of Fire of Moses" is one of a pair of thematically similar paintings designed to be hung together. The other half of the pair is "Judgment of Salomon" and they can be seen together at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.

Answer: Rembrandt

Perhaps best known for his portraits, particularly those in which he is himself the subject, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is widely regarded as the greatest of all the Dutch artists and would probably be amongst many people's Top 10 of any era, genre or nationality.

Rembrandt did not paint a large number of Biblical works, but those he did produce are quite memorable. His "The Return of the Prodigal Son", for example, was described by one art historian as "a picture which those who have seen the original in Leningrad may be forgiven for claiming as the greatest picture ever painted". His "The Stoning of Saint Stephen", which can be seen at the
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in Lyon, France, was his first ever painting, completed when he was only 19, and still clearly a masterpiece.

"Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law" is almost a cross between a Biblical scene and a portrait, although of course Rembrandt would never have met Moses despite the great age to which the latter reputedly lived. The painting is part of the collection at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, Germany.

Answer: Washington Allston

Washington Allston was born in 1779 on a rice plantation near to South Carolina's third-oldest city and second-largest seaport, Georgetown. A Harvard graduate, he was a member of the Royal Academy in London during the Presidency of fellow-American Benjamin West. Sometimes called "The American Titian" because of the similarities in their styles, most of Allston's works are either landscapes or Biblical works.

"Elijah in the Desert" is part of the collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

Answer: Lucas Cranach the Elder

Lucas Cranach the Elder was born in 1472 in the Bavarian town of Kronach in southern Germany. A close friend of Martin Luther, Cranach produced many paintings of mythological and religious scenes and people. Amongst his works are numerous Madonnas, the most famous of which, "Madonna under the Fir Tree", is on display at the Archdiocesan Museum in Wroc³aw, Poland.

Many of Cranach's works depict his figures controversially naked, the best-known of which is probably "Cupid Complaining to Venus", which can be seen in the national Gallery in London.

"Samson Battling with the Lion" is part of the collection at the Weimarer Stadtschloss in Weimar, Germany.

Other famous paintings of Samson include Rembrandt's "Samson and Delilah" (on display at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin) and "Samson in the Treadmill" by Carl Bloch (Statens Museum for Kunst, the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen).

Answer: Sir Peter Paul Rubens

We have seen the work of Peter Paul Rubens in other rooms of our virtual gallery. A diplomat as well as a brilliant artist, Rubens was knighted by both King Charles I of England and King Philip IV of Spain.

Although best known for his portraits and his images of Rubenesque women, Rubens' best-known paintings of Biblical figures include "Descent from the Cross" (part of the collection at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg), "The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception" and "The Holy Family" (both of which can be seen at the Prado in Madrid).

"The Judgment of Solomon" is on display at the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen.

Answer: Caravaggio

We have seen examples of works by Michelangelo da Caravaggio in other rooms of our virtual gallery, including Part 1 of the Biblical painting section. His contribution to Biblical art is considerable. Highlights of his work in this genre include "The Calling of St Matthew" (one of three Caravaggio depictions of the same saint that hang together in the Contarelli Chapel in Rome), "Salome with the Head of John the Baptist" (part of the Spanish Royal Collection housed at the Palacio Real in Madrid) and "Denial of Saint Peter" (on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City).

"David with the Head of Goliath" is part of the collection housed at the Galleria Borghese in Rome.