The Age of Pleasure and Enlightenment European art of the ...

Domenico CorviItalian, Roman, 1721–1803The Miracle of St. Joseph Calasanz Resuscitating a Child in a Church at Frascati, 1767Oil on canvasThe Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1981.24The Spanish saint, Joseph Calasanz (1558–1648) was canonized in 1767, the same year hisfollowers, known as Scolopians or Piarists, presented this altarpiece to Pope Clement XIII.Devoted to education, especially of the homeless and neglected, Joseph Calasanz went to Romein 1592, and founded a free school for poor children there five years later.Corvi’s painting encourages the emotional involvement of the observer by presenting the sacreddrama in a convincing narrative manner. The saint kneels before an altar adorned with a largepicture of the Virgin and Child, and appeals to the Madonna to revive the dead child in his arms,as the mother looks on. A Scolopian father enters the scene with his pupils, their animatedgestures and facial expressions injecting energy and emotion into the scene.Carle Van LooFrench, 1705–1765Offering to Cupid, 1761Oil on canvasThe Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1979.186Offering to Cupid reflects the fascination with antiquity—fueled by excavations of ancient sitesin Italy—that swept mid-eighteenth-century France, influencing all aspects of culture andfashion. The subject is a contemporary interpretation of an ancient rite, in which a young maidenmakes an offering to Cupid, the god of love. The elongated figures and sheer, clinging draperyrecall ancient Greek paintings and statues. But the feathery brushstrokes and pastel colors reflectthe decorative Rococo style of the eighteenth century, marking Offering to Cupid as a work inwhich old and new elements combine.Carle Van Loo, the most famous member of a family of painters and artists, was trained in bothParis and Rome, and known for his ability to paint a range of subjects and styles. By the time ofhis death in 1765, he had been ennobled and appointed Premier Painter to the King, Louis XV.