"The Combat of Love and Chastity" by Gherardo di Giovanni del Fora (Florentine, 1444/45-1497), Probably 1480s, Tempera on panel, The National Gallery of Art, LondonArt and Love in Renaissance Italy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (-Feb. 16)
"...offers continuous bodice-ripping and much evidence that romance has its price. The love-token-heavy show makes upper-crust Italians of the 15th and 16th centuries into libidinous serial divorcers who only courted, married and sired children to get the jewelry, ornamental jugs, commemorative plates, portraits, fertility objects and erotica with which they celebrated weddings, betrothals and birthdays. Full of marvelous gift ideas, especially for the rich and titled, the show’s first two galleries resemble the bridal registry at a Renaissance-era Neiman-Marcus. ... Aside from its appeal to carnal appetites and dangerous liaisons, this show, on the whole, is more chaste than lewd. Leaning heavily toward the scholarly and the saintly, it’s mostly prim and distant, disheveled rather than defiled. ... A show about fertility and romance should be more than mildly interesting or simply appreciative of the craft involved in it. Love is complicated and messy, while 'Art and Love' is just too neat." -Linda Yablonsky/Bloomberg
"It promises romance, desire, youthful beauty, ritual, expensive gift items and possible sex in the land of Romeo and Juliet. It delivers on all counts. But the exhibition, at the Metropolitan Museum, is not an unbroken string of masterpieces. It has its ups and downs, both visual and emotional. It mixes happy endings and cautionary tales and, toward its finish, throws in some Renaissance pornography. ... The works here reveal the ease with which Christian and neo-classical motifs mingled in secular arts during the Renaissance; the centrality of painting as both record and decoration; and the extent to which weddings were big business for artists who found themselves between religious commissions." -Roberta Smith/NYTimes"The exhibition delved into the esoterica of 500-year-old wedding rites just as the issue of marriage itself surged into the news, with demonstrations and counter-protests all across America. ... While poets sang amorous lyrics and artists conjured sentimental scenes, real unions were governed by dowry negotiations and strategic alliances. The proof of a marriage's success was not happiness but heirs, whose status and destiny were mapped out years before their birth. ... The Met never mentions gay marriage, of course; the Renaissance would have found a same-sex ceremony preposterous. But the implications of all the deluxe paraphernalia is clear: that to consider marriage as a fixed and timeless practice is to miss its history of adapting to society's inconstant needs. At the same time, by documenting the rights and privileges that marriage can confer - the degree to which it binds people to the social order - the show explains why the current debate simply cannot be willed away." -Ariella Budick/FT
"It's in the decorative and printed arts that this exhibit surprises, coming alive with a gossipy, almost Boccaccio-like love of the commonplace." -Dan Bischoff/Star-Ledger "For the second time this year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has felt it necessary to advise visitors to exercise parental discretion. Over the summer, a Courbet retrospective featured at least two works as pornographic as anything on the Internet." -James Gardner/WSJ
The exhibit's official site is here. In addition, the Met has no fewer that 19 videos on the exhibit, including an excellent talk by curator Andrea Bayer. Finally, blog posts by Radiocain, lowercaseletter and The Met Everyday.
