Day 225 - Tiepolo, "The Triumph of Marius"

December 10, 2020

Before this project began, I think I regarded the European paintings collection as "the heart of the Met."  I guess I now think that the museum has many hearts. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to explore so many other  collections, to have been exposed to if not immersed in the cultures and artistic traditions they represent. But turning to the European paintings galleries feels like a reunion with my oldest friends.

The timing is also quite fortuitous. The skylights above these galleries needed to be repaired (or replaced, even?), and the galleries have been closed to the public since sometime in 2018. Just today, the majority of them, although by no means all, were reopened for a museum members' preview. I'd worried that the rooms would be very crowded, but they weren't. Before returning to gallery 600, which stands at the top of the central stairs to the second floor and, on first glance, seemed to contain some extremely large and not very interesting paintings, I took a fairly quick turn through the open galleries. It was wonderful to see so many artists and/or particular paintings I've long loved: Goyas, Caravaggios, a Bronzino, a van der Weyden, the Pieter Bruegel "Harvesters", Titians, Rubenses....The walk-through made me think that visiting these galleries will always be a pleasure, never a chore.

The works on exhibit are not necessarily where they will be when the repairs are finished, since many paintings in the now-closed galleries had to be put on display elsewhere for the time being.  Signage outside the galleries tells us that this temporary arrangement involves "compelling" juxtapositions. Spare me the editorializing, please! Let me decide whether the juxtapositions are compelling or not. That said, I saw only a few things that struck me as odd. Most of the juxtapositions involved hanging Netherlandish and Italian paintings from similar periods and with similar themes (e.g., religious subjects, portraits) in the same room. instead of having, say,  all the 16th century Netherlandish stuff together and all the 16th century Italian stuff together.   Big deal. One gallery whose logic I didn't understand, though, mixed still lifes with genre paintings and one religious scene. Still, I struck up a conversation with a guard (or rather, she struck it up with me), and she pointed out that a couple of the still lifes, which I've always associated with Dutch painters of the 1500s and 1600s, were done by Italian women. It will be interesting to see whether the way the paintings are hung sparks new perceptions and questions for me.

The very large paintings I'd seen in gallery 600 struck me initially as grandiose and not  really worth careful examination.  I was chagrined to learn that they are by Tiepolo, and that the Met houses the largest collection of Tiepolos outside of Venice. If I didn't know that they were by a painter considered to be a great master, and if this project weren't forcing me to pay at least some attention, would I just continue to walk past them, as I have countless times in the past?

The three largest oils in this room were among ten painted in the late 1720s to decorate the main room of the Ca' Dolfin in Venice.  The three paintings celebrate the victories of ancient generals of the Roman Republic over their foes.  Since Venice was also formally a republic, one can only imagine that Tiepolo was using the glorious past to symbolize and celebrate Venice's  own military victories - and flatter the wealthy Venetian who commissioned the paintings. All the paintings in the room occupy a full wall, but today's work, "The Triumph of Marius," is enormous - maybe 20 feet high and 15 feet wide?  Even standing back in this large space, it's hard to take the whole thing in. I can't imagine how large the main room of the Ca' Dolfin must have been to accommodate all these works.

The painting depicts a triumphal procession. In the background, the Roman general, Gaius Marius, rides a chariot drawn by spirited horses.  Colorful banners and battle standards showing, among other things, the Roman eagle punctuate the blue sky behind him. In the right foreground is a group of celebrants, including a boy playing an instrument that looks like a very large tambourine but is, I'd guess, a drum. while in the left foreground is a broken body -- an enemy soldier, I assume.

But it's  the central figure that grabs our attention. He is Jugurtha, the defeated African king (North African? His features certainly don't appear Negroid), his hands bound in front of him. Several features of the painting ensure that he will be the main object of our interest. First is the composition: Jugurtha is at the apex of a triangle whose sides are formed by diagonals leading between his head and that of Marius and between his feet and those of the boy. The ground on which he stands is the only unoccupied space in the painting. Second is Jugurtha's size: He is the largest figure in the work. Marius, his conqueror, appears smaller because he is in the background, while the boy is smaller because he's a boy. Third is the color: Jugurtha wears a bright red cloak while the rest of the painting's palette is more muted. But beyond this is the figure of Jugurtha himself, who stands tall, beaten but unbowed. He has a dignity that defeat cannot erase.