Tea at Trianon: Spain and the Hispanic World

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

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Spain and the Hispanic World

A new exhibit in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum. From Catholic World Report:

The Victoria and Albert Museum is more inclined to offbeat blockbusters such as “A Brief History of Underwear” (2017) and “Fashioning Masculinities” (2022). Tackling Renaissance sculpture is unusual despite the enthusiasm shown by the founders, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Victoria never went to Rome but was a frequent visitor to Florence. Life-copies of the city’s two most famous statues of David — by Donatello and Michelangelo — were made during her reign. Although Donatello’s sculpture was one of the very few he created that might not have met Victorian standards of modesty, the royal couple was more open-minded than most at the time.

The 19th-century copy of Donatello’s bronze David (circa 1440) is on view at the London show, having been moved from the other side of the museum. The last time the original left Florence was in 1930, accompanied by Benito Mussolini on a publicity mission to the Royal Academy. The Victoria and Albert Museum has instead secured Donatello’s fully clothed version of David (1408), in marble. It is the first work that greets visitors to the show. Created when Donatello was only 22 years old, its carefully composed naturalism sets the scene for the sculptures he made later in his long life.

Taking center stage, after the marble David, is a life-size bronze crucifix by Donatello himself, lent by a church, not a museum. This is part of what makes the exhibition so remarkable. Many of the works would look more appropriate back in their original sacred setting. Most have long since been acquired by museums. Carved forms are something that Catholics are still accustomed to seeing at Mass, unlike Renaissance paintings that once served a pious purpose but for generations have been lining the walls of public galleries. In the case of the Donatello crucifix, it’s displayed between two sculptures in a composition that suggests a reworking of the Calvary spectacle. Taking the place of Dismas and the Impenitent Thief are bronze statues of a bishop and St. George. (Read more.)