Getty Digital Magazine

The J. Paul Getty Museum

The Getty preserves, studies, and interprets the world’s artistic legacy for the benefit of present and future generations.

The J. Paul Getty Museum seeks to inspire curiosity about, and enjoyment and understanding of, the visual arts by collecting, conserving, exhibiting and interpreting works of art of outstanding quality and historical importance.

To fulfill this mission, the Museum continues to build its collections through purchase and gifts, and develops programs of exhibitions, publications, scholarly research, public education, and the performing arts that engage our diverse local and international audiences.

The Getty Center in Los Angeles houses European paintings, drawings, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, decorative arts, and photography.

The Getty Villa in Malibu is a museum and educational center dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and

Did you know?

Oil baron Jean Paul Getty converted part of his home in Malibu into a museum so that he could share his art treasures with the public.

The Getty Villa was designed as a near replica of the Roman Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Italy, which had been buried in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Getty’s will left virtually his entire estate to the institution in trust, giving it a greater endowment than any other museum in the world.

Etruria, the Getty Villa houses approximately 44,000 works of art from the Museum’s extensive collection of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities.

VISITING THE GETTY CENTER

1200 N Sepulveda Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90049

Tuesday–Friday and Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Saturday: 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.

Closed Mondays

Admission is free; Parking is $15 (Pay once, park twice on the same day.)

VISITING THE GETTY VILLA

17985 Pacific Coast Highway Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

Wednesday–Monday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Closed Tuesdays

Admission is free; Parking is $15 (Pay once, park twice on one day.)

Getty Villa Sculpture Garden

Fountain and sculpture in the Peristyle Garden of the Getty Villa Roman gardens. Photo by Bobak Ha’Eri.

The Italian Masters

New permanent exhibit at the Getty Center, Opening April 1

The Renaissance courts of northern Italy, among the wealthiest and most sophisticated in Europe, attracted innovative artists who created objects of remarkable beauty.

Princes and courtiers offered artists favorable contracts and social prestige in return for fine paintings, lavishly decorated panels, and richly illuminated books. These works prominently displayed their owners’ scholarly learning, religious devotion, and elite status.

Drawn primarily from the Getty Museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition celebrates the magnificent works that emerged from this courtly context, an array of visual riches fit for the highest-ranking members of Renaissance society.

Accompanying the show is an online virtual exhibition, produced in collaboration with institutions in Ferrara,

Did you know?

Pietro Paolini’s artistic style was heavily influenced by Caravaggio.

Though undated, the style of the Getty Museum’s Paolini painting locates it in this early period of his development.

Paolini went to Venice in about 1628, where he stayed for two years and absorbed Venetian artists’ use of color.

Paolini returned to his native Lucca three years later, and created an original style based on his experiences in Rome and Venice.

Mantua, Milan, Venice, and Verona, that allows visitors to view additional works by artists active in the northern Italian courts as well as items owned by various patrons who lived there.

LIFE JUMPING OFF THE CANVAS

According to legend, Achilles’ mother, knew her son would die if he fought in the Trojan War; she disguised him as a woman and entrusted him to King Lycomedes’ household, where he lived among the king’s daughters. Ulysses, sent to trick him into revealing himself, deposited many gifts before the women:

jewelry and finery, but also a sword and shield. Achilles instinctively grasped the weapons and revealed his identity.

Pietro Paolini, artist of the work shown below, placed his figures in a dark, shallow space, dramatically lighting the figure of Achilles. Additional highlights illuminate the other faces and pick out the shiny jewelry and weapons.

Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes

Pietro Paolini (Italian, 1603-1681)

Oil on canvas; 127 x 203.2 cm

An Illuminating History

Travelling exhibit from the University of Paris Rare Books Collection

In the early Middle Ages, manuscripts were largely produced by monks in monasteries for the use of the Catholic Church. During the Gothic era, however, cities teemed with students, tradesmen, aristocrats, and churchmen, who all clamored for illuminated manuscripts.

The art of manuscript illumination became the province of professional artists living in rapidly expanding urban centers. Manuscripts designed to inspire devotion as well as to instruct and entertain were commissioned by a wide variety of individuals.

Scenes reflecting aspects of daily life and society in the Middle Ages began to appear on the pages of a growing assortment of illuminated books— devotional works, law texts, scholarly literature, and romances—that might be written in either Latin or, for the first time, a local European language.

Did you know?

An illuminated manuscript is one in which the text is supplemented decoration such as initial capitals, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations.

The earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts were produced in Italy and the Eastern Roman Empire, during the period 400 to 600 A.D.

The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance, along with a small number of earlier examples.

This exhibition showcases a range of books, from lavish prayer volumes and Bibles, to illustrated scientific texts and romances produced in various parts of Europe between 800 and 1500 A.D.

OUTSIDE INFLUENCES

The increase of trade and growth of cities throughout Europe during the Gothic period meant that patrons and artists traveled more frequently, bringing with them artwork and styles that encouraged artistic discourse across regions. In the north, the style of manuscript illumination that emerged around 1200

was distinguished by naturalism tempered with courtly refinement. The art of ancient Greece and Rome as well as that of the Byzantine Empire influenced developments in southern Europe.

Other art forms also influenced the painted page, such as stained glass, with its emphasis on geometric shapes and the predominant use of red and blue.

The Battle before Roussillon’s Castle Loyset Liédet and Pol Fruit (Flemish); Written 1463-1465, Illuminated 14671472

Tempera colors, gold leaf, and gold paint on parchment; 23.3 x 18.9 cm

Gods & Heroes: Myth in Art

New permanent exhibit at the Getty Center Los Angeles

The colorful myths and legends of Greco-Roman antiquity have inspired artists for centuries. Depending on when and where they worked, artists have approached these subjects very differently, sometimes tackling them as pretexts for visual experimentation.

The likes of Venus and Apollo, Hercules and Achilles, have proved to be particularly rich artistic subjects not only because they had extraordinary qualities such as beauty, creativity, strength and courage, but also for the imperfections that made these characters even more compelling. Involved in love and lust, rivalry and treachery, crime and punishment, they possessed all the passions and flaws of mere mortals.

Featuring a selection of drawings dating from the Renaissance to the 19th century, Gods and Heroes explores the pictorial representation of myths that

Did you know?

Juno, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Hera, was the wife of the chief god Jupiter. She was the protector and special counselor of the state, and also looked after the women of Rome.

Catherine de Medici was Queen of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II. As the mother of three sons who became kings of France during her lifetime she had extensive, if at times varying, influence in the political life of France. For a time she ruled France as its regent.

have been instrumental in the formation of Western culture. The exhibit also complements the collection at the Getty Villa, which is dedicated to the arts and culture of the ancient Mediterranean.

MYTH MEETS ALLEGORY

Encouraged by the Bishop of Limoges, Leonard Limosin (creator of the work shown below) produced painted enamels on copper in all forms, including plates and plaques with mythological and religious subjects. His prolific workshop produced more than a thousand pieces between 1533 and 1574.

Limosin supplied many enameled works for Francis I’s gallery at Fontainebleau, the largest collection of sixteenth-century French art. Limosin was an exponent of the Fontainebleau style, begun by Italian painters in France and characterized by elegant forms, attenuated figures, decorative strapwork, and surfaces intended to suggest jewels.

Allegory of Catherine de’ Medici as Juno Léonard Limosin, (French, 15051575/1577)

Polychrome enamel with painted gold highlights on copper and silver; 16.8 x 22.9 cm

Four Centuries of Watercolors

Travelling exhibit from the Museo di Palazzo Reale/Genova

This exhibition traces the development of watercolor as an artistic medium and documents the inventive techniques of several great watercolorists.

The ingredients of watercolor are simple: cakes or tubes of paints, brushes, water, and paper. Enormous skill, however, is required to master the medium. The greatest watercolor artists developed unique and inventive ways of manipulating pigment, water, and the paper underneath.

Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck pioneered the use of translucent watercolor washes. The artist allowed the blank paper to shine through the pigment, playing as important a role as the watercolor itself. From van Dyck’s time on, watercolorists viewed their medium as an interaction between color and paper rather than simply laying down pigment.

Did you know?

Blotting involves removing wet pigment with a slightly damp brush.

Scraping is using a knife to remove dried pigment and expose the paper.

The wet-on-wet technique involves wetting the paper before applying color with the brush. The pigment pools on the surface, produces a watery effect.

Dry brush is the application of pigment to paper with the smallest possible amount of water. This creates a broken, rough effect.

The paint we call watercolor had its beginnings in the late 1400s. Well suited to field studies because of its portability, watercolor quickly became popular for landscapes and natural history studies.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Watercolor gained in popularity and prestige starting around 1780. Landscape artists in Britain led the way, using watercolor to record nature. With the founding of the Society of Painters in Watercolours in London in 1804, watercolorists were gaining acceptance as serious artists.

Watercolor reached new artistic heights in the late 19th century. Works in watercolor from this time are characterized by brilliant color and bold brushstrokes also occurring in oil painting. The late 19th century saw the growing prestige of watercolor as an artistic medium, which freed artists from having to compete with oil painting.

Village of Matucana

Pancho Fierro, 1803-1879

Watercolor on paper (ca. 1853); 12 x 9 cm.

Images in Light: Stained Glass

Traveling exhibit from the British Museum, Opening October 30

One of the most widespread forms of painting, stained glass inspired the the faithful through religious narratives in churches, celebrated family and political ties in city halls, and even decorated the windows of private houses.

Some of the most powerful art produced in the High Middle Ages were stained-glass cycles, or visual stories, in French cathedrals. (Among the most famous of these is in Reims Cathedral.)

By the late 1400s glass became more affordable; houses were increasingly fitted with clear glass windows, sometimes inset with small stained-glass panels.

The production of large-scale stainedglass windows for churches flourished in Europe during the Renaissance.

During the late 1400s glass windows in domestic interiors became ubiquitous, and small painted roundels became so popular that their production reached

Did you know?

During the Gothic period and the Renaissance (1100s–1500s) stained glass was one of the foremost techniques of painting practiced in Europe.

The term stained glass derives from the silver stain that was applied to the outside of a window. When the glass was fired, the stain turned a yellow color.

Glass painters used a special paint made of glass particles on the inside of a window. During firing, the glass particles merged with the glass surface to create a range of brown/black tones.

nearly industrial proportions by the 1520s. Purchased in large cycles or as single images, they were intended to amuse and instruct, with subjects like zodiac signs, portraits, and heraldry.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

In the playful stained-glass window shown below, a red boar on a family’s coat of arms comes to life. The beast appears sly, even a bit threatening, as he stalks an innocent looking maiden strolling under an archway. The woman coyly pretends not to notice him while hiding a dagger in the folds of her dress.

The richness of this window’s design reflects the joyful spirit of the Renaissance. By then, the dark look of stainedglass windows had given way to a more colorful, light-filled aesthetic. As stainedglass windows became more affordable, people installed them in their homes. Subject matter changed, more often commemorating family and daily life.

Unknown maker, Swiss; Circa 1490

Pot-metal, flashed, and colorless glass, vitreous paint, and silver stain; lead came added; 44 x 31 x 1 cm

Heraldic Panel with the Arms of the Eberler Family

Glassmaking in Antiquity

New permanent exhibit at the Getty Villa Malibu, Opening July 15

The Erwin Oppenländer collection is remarkable for its chronological breadth. It includes works made in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Greek world, and the Roman Empire, and spans the entire period of ancient glass production, from its origins in Mesopotamia in about 2500 B.C. to Byzantine and Islamic glass of the eleventh century A.D.

Also notable in the Oppenländer collection is the variety of ancient glassmaking techniques that are represented, including casting, core forming, mosaic, inflation, fusing, mold blowing, grinding, and cutting. All these techniques are still used by artists today.

Glass had both practical and decorative uses in antiquity, just as it does today. The ancient Greeks, Romans, and Etruscans stored ink, food, cosmetics, and perfumed oil in glass containers. They used glass tableware and played

Did you know?

Most early core-formed containers were small flasks for perfumed oil.

Bowls were the most common cast vessels. Pendants and other small objects were also created using this technique.

Glassblowing allowed glassmakers to produce vessels so quickly and cheaply that glass containers began to replace clay ones for household use.

In about 25 B.C. glassmakers began to create decorative vessels by blowing glass into a mold with incised designs.

with glass game pieces. They looked into glass mirrors, lit the night with glass lamps, and gazed through glass windows. The wealthy decorated their homes with glass inlays and statuettes.

MAKING MOLTEN COLOR

Core forming was one of the earliest glassmaking techniques. Glassmakers shaped a vessel around a ceramic-like core, wound colored trails of hot glass around it, and added handles and a rim.

Casting is a technique of pouring hot glass into a mold. After the glass cools, glassmakers use various grinding and

cutting techniques to refine the form and decoration.

Mosaic glass vessels were formed by fusing ribbons of cane in molds until they melted together in a swirl of colors.

In about 50 B.C., glassmakers learned to inflate glass into a bubble at the end of a tube. The vessels were decorated using a variety of techniques.

Ribbed Glass Bowl

Unknown artist, 1st century B.C. Glass; 4.9 x 17 cm