Tea at Trianon: Art and The Portuguese Renaissance in Europe

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Art and The Portuguese Renaissance in Europe

From Regia Marinho:

“Oh, salty sea, how much of your salt Is tears from Portugal?” -Fernando Pessoa.

The Portuguese Renaissance was a period of cultural development in Portugal, during the 15th and 16th centuries. It is considered by many to be a part of the Renaissance, which is a broader movement that occurred throughout Europe. At the end of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th century, fueled by expansion and financed by patrons such as the kings D. Manuel I and D. João III, Portuguese painting was in a golden age. Merchants, students, humanists, diplomats, scholars, and artists, from all over Europe, were drawn to Portugal during its Renaissance. The maritime trade of the Age of Discovery were a decisive role in the evolution of the Portuguese Renaissance. (Read more.)