My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it..
Let’s study art history together.
The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba
| Artist | Claude Lorrain |
|---|---|
| Year | 1648 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 149.1 cm × 196.7 cm (58.7 in × 77.4 in) |
| Location | National Gallery, London |
This is a beautiful painting, warm, dreamy, and golden, and it is fascinating to me because it imagines a setting about which we don’t know much. While the Bible in 1 Kings describes the arrival in Jerusalem of the Queen of Sheba, we are not privy to the details of her departure. Not only that, we are not entirely certain where “Sheba” is actually located.
If you look at the painting, you might have the impression that it’s primarily a landscape painting, focusing on the sea and the architecture on its shores. That’s not a wrong impression. The subject of the painting seems also secondary. However, by removing the focus from the Queen herself, Lorrain gives her journey a feeling of grandeur. After my initial impression, though, I grow more fascinated by the human beings the longer that I look.
The painting depicts The Queen of Sheba as being from a place with Classical architecture. However, as the Greek Empire did not emerge until the reign of Alexander the Great, a few centuries after King Solomon, it is not clear what the architecture would have looked like in Sheba’s location – even assuming we knew where it was located.
(via wiki)
The Queen of Sheba, also known as Bilqis in Arabic and as Makeda in Geʽez, is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for Solomon, the fourth King of Israel and Judah. This account has undergone extensive elaborations in Judaism, Ethiopian Christianity, and Islam. It has consequently become the subject of one of the most widespread and fertile cycles of legends in West Asia and Northeast Africa, as well as in other regions where the Abrahamic religions have had a significant impact.
Modern historians and archaeologists identify Sheba as one of the South Arabian kingdoms, which existed in modern-day Yemen. However, because no trace of her has ever been found, the Queen of Sheba’s existence is disputed among some historians.
The association with Yemen – if you look at the map – would imply that the visit described in 1 Kings concerned a trade and trade routes relationship. If Israel was trading with countries along the African Coast (or even as far as India) then being on very good terms with the place that controlled the port out of the Red Sea would have been vital. Conversely, it would have benefited The Queen of Sheba to encourage and facilitate trade for the immensely wealthy King Solomon.
That said… is it likely that this location contained Classical Architecture? Probably not. Is there an explanation for why the painter included buildings that were far more likely to exist in Renaissance Italy? Yes.
(more on the painting, via wiki)
Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba is an oil painting by Claude Lorrain (born Claude Gellée, traditionally known as Claude), in the National Gallery, London, signed and dated 1648. The large oil-on-canvas painting was commissioned by Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d’Auvergne, Duc de Bouillon, general of the Papal army, together with Claude’s Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, also now in the National Gallery. It depicts the departure of the Queen of Sheba to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem, described in the tenth chapter of the First Book of Kings. A more usual subject would be their meeting; this is one of many harbour scenes painted by Claude. The Queen is departing from a city with classical buildings, with the early morning Sun lighting the sea, as vessels are loaded.
The composition draws the eye to a group of people on the steps to the right, at the intersection of a line of perspective (the steps) and a strong vertical (the left column of the building’s portico). The Queen wears a pink tunic, royal blue cloak, and golden crown, and is about to board a waiting launch to take her to her ship – perhaps the ship partially concealed by the pillars to the left, or the one further out to sea, over the picture’s vanishing point.
The painting was one of the first works to be acquired by the National Gallery in 1824, being one of five works by Claude Lorrain bought from the collection of John Julius Angerstein. It has the catalogue number NG14. This and similar works by Claude inspired J. M. W. Turner to paint Dido Building Carthage and The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire, which Turner left to the nation as part of the Turner Bequest on the condition that they were to be hung besides Claude’s pair of works.
It is numbered 114 in Claude’s Liber Veritatis.
The painting is knowingly inaccurate, but in a way that was part of the style of its time. The video below explains a lot of the work’s details, with an explanation behind the artist’s choices.
