HAYEZ, Francesco

This is a fine example of the type of grandiose painting that Hayez produced on historical and literary subjects. He was often inspired by themes taken from the Middle Ages. Hidden under historical symbolism, they were really about the Italian Risorgimento. Similarly, classical subjects were chosen to evade censorship.

The painting is also known as Meditation on the Old and New Testaments.

The darkened glance of the beauty in this painting is not really directed at the viewer. She is sunk in thought, looking out of the canvas in a pre-occupied way. In her right hand she holds a folio bearing the words “Storia d’Italia”, this is to say a symbol of knowledge. Her left hand holds the symbol of faith, the Cross, that has played so great a part in Italy’s history. Her naked breast is highly provocative when seen with the black cross of mourning. She is perhaps the allegory of Italy in the 19th century, and the gaze with which this figure of “Italia” confronts the viewer creates a suggestive, almost hypnotic effect. She seems to be in a state between waking and dreaming. This is meditation that has not yet reached a solution, meditation in which grief predominates.

Hayez worked on the decoration of the interiors of the Napoleonic Wing, the building which ran between the Procuratie Vecchie and Nuove, the two long arcades of buildings which extend the length of St Mark’s Square and had housed the offices and residences of some of the most important political authorities of the Venetian Republic. In the nineteenth century, when Venice was under the rule of Austria, it served as the official residence of the Habsburg Court during its frequent visits to the city, and after would become the Venetian residence of the king of Italy. Presently the building houses the Museo Correr.

Hayez’s frescoes, originally on the wall of the Throne Room, were detached in 1950 and transferred to canvas, and now are exhibited in the Museo Correr.

Hayez, a Venetian, was influenced by the Roman milieu around Canova; he was famous as a painter of historical subjects. His best works are his portraits, in which drawing and colour are skillfully used for penetrating interpretations of his subjects.

Fifteen sittings were required for this portrait of the author of the romantic novel I Promessi Sposi: three for the sketch, ten for the execution and two for retouching. Damaged by a storm in 1874, the painting was restored by the artist.

Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli was a famous art collector, founder of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan. This portrait was commissioned by his mother, Rosina Trivulzio, and it is a typical, high quality example of Francesco Hayez’s style in portraiture.

The sitter’s stare is powerfully directed towards the viewer.

Teresa Barri, the widow of Count Stampa, was Alessandro Manzoni’s second wife. They married in 1837.

The painting is signed and dated 1849.

This youthful work was to some extent still rooted in Venetian art of the late eighteenth century but also reveals Canova’s influence. Hayez created a splendid effect in the way the light filters through the green of the garden of the seductive enchantress. He also showed virtuoso talent in the way the light reflects in the circular shield that glitters in the foreground.

The theme is taken from Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (“Jerusalem Delivered”). Armida is the enchantress who holds Rinaldo under her spell in a magical palace that is an illusion. Without him, affairs are going badly for the crusaders. The pastoral idyll, Armida’s hate for the crusaders turned to love for one Crusader, and the call of duty that leaves Armida abandoned, all appealed to Baroque and Rococo artists. George Frideric Handel composed an opera using a libretto written by Giacomo Rossi, based on episodes of Gerusalemme liberata.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Two arias, Rinaldo, Acts II and III

This painting has been defined as “one of the pictorial manifestoes of Romanticism in Milan”, for it portrays the thirty-six years old painter surrounded by some of the most representative figures of Milanese Romanticism. The represented friends are the painters Giovanni Migliara, Pelagio Palagi and Giuseppe Molteni, and the writer Tommaso Grossi.

In the foreground of the group, Hayez depicts himself in an informal way, with his hat lowered on the forehead and round glasses; his gaze is bold and direct.

Francesco Hayez worked together with Giovanni Demin at the Papadopoli residence at Santa Marina. The scene shown here is painted in the small circular room of the palace. Hayez was faithful to rigorous principles, both in his settings and in the way he groups his figures, scattered and clearly defined.

The subject of this fresco was later brought into focus with a graphic study by Giovanni Demin.

Hayez worked on the decoration of the interiors of the Napoleonic Wing, the building which ran between the Procuratie Vecchie and Nuove, the two long arcades of buildings which extend the length of St Mark’s Square and had housed the offices and residences of some of the most important political authorities of the Venetian Republic. In the nineteenth century, when Venice was under the rule of Austria, it served as the official residence of the Habsburg Court during its frequent visits to the city, and after would become the Venetian residence of the king of Italy. Presently the building houses the Museo Correr.

In Greek mythology, Tethys, daughter of Uranus and Gaia was an archaic Titaness and aquatic sea goddess, invoked in classical Greek poetry, but not venerated in cult. Tethys was both sister and wife of Oceanus. She was mother of the chief rivers of the world known to the Greeks, such as the Nile, the Alpheus, the Maeander, and about three thousand daughters called the Oceanids.

Hayez’s frescoes, originally on the wall of the Throne Room, were detached in 1950 and transferred to canvas, and now are exhibited in the Museo Correr.

This canvas has quite rightly become one of the symbols of Italian Romanticism. It sprang from the sentimental and melodramatic strand of medieval costume drama that Verdi so beautifully captured in his operas.

Marin Faliero was the fifty-fifth Doge of Venice, appointed on 11 September 1354. He attempted a coup d’etat in 1355, at the time being Doge himself, but with the intention of declaring himself Prince. This action failed, he pleaded guilty to all charges and was beheaded and his body mutilated. Ten additional ringleaders were hanged on display from the Doge’s Palace on St Mark’s Square.

This subject was treated by Delacroix a few decades before. The story of Marin Faliero’s uprising was made into a drama by Lord Byron in 1820 and an opera by Gaetano Donizetti in 1835.

Hayez is a representative of the many other artists who brought the transition in Italian painting to the second half of the 19th century. He was the most celebrated during his lifetime, and his long career enabled him to play a formative role in Italian painting almost the entire second half of the 19th century. His early work still shows the influence of Ingres in its delicate painting and severity of line, but he soon adopted the Romantic approach.

The huge format of this painting has two effects: firstly, the fate of the people who were driven out of their native town in 1818, when the British handed it over to the Turks, is raised to monumental proportions, serving as a warning, and secondly, the large scale draws viewers into the scene, making them, so to speak, witnesses of the event.

Individual and ideal Risorgimento sentiments of love of country provide Hayez, the principal champion of Italian historical romanticism, with his favourite themes.

The Sicilian Vespers is the name given to the successful rebellion on the island of Sicily that broke out on the Easter of 1282 against the rule of the French/Capetian king Charles I, who had ruled the Kingdom of Sicily since 1266. The massacre of the French precipitated a French-Aragonese struggle for possession of that kingdom. Its name derives from a riot that took place in a church outside Palermo at the hour of vespers on Easter Monday, March 30, 1282. Peter III of Aragon, Charles’s rival for the Neapolitan throne, conspired to raise a rebellion against him in Sicily. The rising broke out prematurely when Sicilians, incensed by Charles’s oppressive regime, killed some insulting French soldiers at vespers in the church of Santo Spirito. The people of Palermo followed suit and massacred 2,000 French inhabitants of the city the night of March 30–31. All of Sicily soon revolted and sought help from the Aragonese, who landed at Trapani on August 30.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

Giuseppe Verdi: The Sicilian Vespers, overture

This scene, rich in tragic and theatrical gestures, was inspired by Lord Byron’s play The Two Foscari (1821).

This wall painting was transferred from a hall in the Procuratie Nuove, which had been converted into a royal palace during the brief period of Napoleonic domination. It depicts Dancing Hours and was inspired by Antonio Canova’s sculptures.

This wall painting was transferred from a hall in the Procuratie Nuove, which had been converted into a royal palace during the brief period of Napoleonic domination. It depicts Dancing Hours and was inspired by Antonio Canova’s sculptures.