Mark Podwal (American, b. 1945)
Pomegranates with Torah Shields, 2008
Acrylic, gouache and colored pencil on paper
7 3/4 x 12 1/8 in. (19.7 x 30.8 cm)
© Mark Podwal, 2008, courtesy of Forum Gallery, New York

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Jonathan Jones over at the Guardian is now convinced that Caravaggio's Nativity with Saints Francis and Lawrence will never again be seen. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio executed the painting in 1609 shortly before his untimely death. It was the last work he finished during his nine months in Sicily, and it had hung in the Oratory of San Lorenzo, Palermo for 360 years until being cut from its frame and stolen in October of 1969.

Last year Jones pieced together evidence from the 1996 court testimony of a pentito (Mafia insider-turned-informant) that seemed to conclude Nativity had been irreparably damaged while being stolen. And then, last week, separate (but not contradictory) testimony from another pentito claimed that the painting was eaten by rats and pigs in the farm outbuilding in which it had been hidden. Those few scraps that remained were burned sometime in the 1980s. I'm inclined to agree with Jones, mourn and thank the technology gods that we have reproductions, at least. Also? One wonders, yet again, why low-level flunkies with ham hands and knives always seem to be the stooges sent to manglesteal priceless canvases.

On a lighter (?) note, there is also word of a potential Caravaggio discovery. Reuters reports that a team of Italian anthropologists are on the hunt for a piece of the artist's skeletal remains in a mass crypt in Porto Ercole, Tuscany. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but suppose we're all somewhat morbidly curious to know if Caravaggio died of malaria, an STD, a sword wound or poison. (Although, personally, I'm not curious enough to want to sift through that which amounts to a big box full of bones looking for under-40 male specimens.)

Image Caption:

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian, 1571-1610)
Nativity with Saints Francis and Lawrence, 1609
Oil on canvas
268 x 197 cm (106 x 78 in.)
San Lorenzo, Palermo, Italy
Stolen in 1969

Marvelously, especially seeing as all of the eyewitnesses have been dead for centuries and only 20% of the original mural survives, an outfit known as Leonardo3 has "digitally reconstructed" Leonardo's Last Supper by stitching together high-resolution imagery and filling in color pixels. I'm guessing this worked in much the same way as using the "eyedropper" tool in Photoshop? The results. (Note the startlingly vivid, cookie-cutter perfect coloring, the re-emergence of the patterned wall hangings, the pristine tablecloth and Jesus' getting His feet back.)

Discovery News has all of the details here, along with the supremely annoying lazy-journalism habit of referring to Leonardo as "Da Vinci."

I have been thoroughly charmed by the exhibition American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915 that's currently on view through January 24, 2010 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will be traveling to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (February 28-May 23, 2010) for the second half of its existence. It's not just that I am an American, or that there are such iconic paintings on view, or even, I think, that any history lover would find fascinating the ways in which artists dealt with a growing nation full of indigenous peoples, slaves, immigrants, gentry, "common folk," pioneers, an inadequate list of Constitutional Amendments and one horrific Civil War.

No, for me the truly interesting part is getting a sense--yet again--of how adaptive visual artists can be. We start this exhibition looking at painters who were viewed in roughly the same context as a good cobbler or cooper: skilled craftsmen, to be sure, but not all that necessary unless circumstances or fortune demanded otherwise. What happened over the next 150 years is quite extraordinary. Artists became as modern day rock stars: well paid, besieged with work offers, and able to pick and choose their gigs. The hidden story here is that artists shaped public demand and made this happen. I always say it's foolish to underestimate the power of determined artists, and here's your proof. Please, catch this exhibition on either coast if you can. If you can't? Enjoy the image gallery!

Image Credit:

William Merritt Chase (American, 1849-1916)
Ring Toss, 1896
Oil on canvas
40 3/8 x 35 1/8 in. (102.6 x 89.2 cm)
Collection of Marie and Hugh Halff