Intending to stay well clear of museums today, I walked around for a couple of hours before giving in and going to the Národní galerie v Praze Šternberský palác (I thought it was one of the others, three of them being jammed together in various palaces) to look at more stuff from the 14th to 16th centuries.

Well, I was spoilt yesterday, well and truly. I looked at some of the Dutch Masters, Italian stuff, felt like I’d seen it all before, so loitered in the collection of (mostly) religious art of the 15th and 16th centuries. There was a greater Italian influence, and me being so committed to Central European mediæval stuff, I couldn’t quite get into it. By comparison also much of it wasn’t so fine, possibly being mass-produced. From a distance they would often look attractive, but close-up, the brushwork, forms, details, everything really was blurry and approximate.

A few charmers though: two saints giving each other the side-eye in Jacopo di Cione’s The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints; the blood running from Jesus’ feet in Piero di Giovanno’s The Lamentation falling onto the halos of the group below and causing them to glow; the woodcut block print style of the Madonna’s clothes in The Virgin Enthroned with Saints Peter and Paul, something I don’t recall seeing before; Lovro Dobričevič’s Pseudopolyptych of Twelve Saints, with possibly Saint Justina holding the palm frond of martyrdom. Three different works of the Adoration of the Magi by various Netherland artists.

The Epitaph of Jan Cleemenssoen with the Well of Life I was kindly reminded to stay more than 10cm away because I kept setting off alarms. It has Jesus, with what looks like a table on his back squatting in a fountain topped with flying buttresses. He is bleeding, nay gushing for all he’s worth from his spear wound. As fast as he fills the well, angels are drawing his blood off into golden chalices and giving it to the faithful to drink. Faithful or wealthy. Jesus is up to his ankles in blood; he looks like he hopes it’ll end soon.

The Šternberský palác museum is mostly not these kind of works. It’s plenty of 17th to 19th century art of the kind National Museums are known for: big expressive semi-realist works from the big names of Netherlands, Germany, Italy. I love seeing this in context, say in Antwerp (or in colossal-ity in the Gemäldegalerie), here it feels a little out of place, especially in contrast with the Národní galerie v Praze – Klášter sv. Anežky České I went to yesterday (The Wood Carvings and The Paintings in separate posts), which to me is far more of a properly Prague and Czech gallery.

National Gallery Prague’s mediæval collection in the Convent of St Agnes of Bohemia destroyed me. I had no idea how to deal with almost 400 images, almost all of them I wanted to blog, and none that seemed to fall naturally into a coherent subset. Ignoring all the photos of the captions, and all the closeups of details it seemed best to split the lot in two. So first up was the The Wood Carvings, and here are The Paintings (Madonna of Březnice gets her own post).

I almost didn’t make it past the second room. Nine large square works comprising the Vyšší Brod Altarpiece, with such detail, colour, movement … I spent half and hour there, and somehow convinced myself there wasn’t all that much to see in the further rooms so examined closely Jesus’ wound, blood springing in arcs and oozing like thick flowers around a mouth black and depthless.

St Catherine turned up so frequently, I began to wonder if I’d missed her in Berlin or if this was one of those specific regional subjects. And so much strangeness, such as the one I forgot to photograph the caption, with the woman on the right petting an animal I’m fairly certain is of the cryptozoological type, while her companion on the left is eyeing it and wielding a sword half her height.

As usual, ever since reading Carolyn Walker Bynum I’m enjoying the mediæval blood of Jesus in all its variety. And it gets everywhere, staining Mary’s cowl, elsewhere he looks apologetic while gushing mightily, as though he’s got messy hands and can’t come to the dinner table. Sometimes though the companions at the crucifixion get on their knees and cup the falling blood in their hands.

Also, just a phenomenal amount of women represented. Not just Mary, though she’s around in all her stages. Many saints, some more regular subjects than others: Saints Catherine and Barbara in particular, then many Abbesses and other women. Some works normally filled with male Saints were restaged with female; others had substantial numbers of women. Then there was Saint Mary of Egypt, a truly strange Saint and painting. She was a prostitute who converted to Christianity and decided to spend her life as a hermit in the desert. Her clothes soon fell apart and her body became covered in thick hair (or in this painting just covered by her long head hair), and she carries three loaves of bread which kept her alive for 47 years. There are also many works illustrating female friendship, such as in the St George Altarpiece and the Puchner Ark Altarpiece (where there’s also another St Francis of Assisi).

There’s so many works and closeups that didn’t make it here, and this is only one of three collections I’d like to see before I leave Prague.

After, I wandered in the Abbey itself, empty and restored, reading about Agnes of Bohemia.

National Gallery Prague’s mediæval collection in the Convent of St Agnes of Bohemia destroyed me. It’s not a massive collection of the scale of Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, though it’s substantial enough for me to be half-way through and realise I’m only half-way and brace myself for endurance mode. It is exceptional. Most of the works—around half paintings and half wood carvings, the latter divided between sculptures and altarpieces—are superb, really genuinely superb; there’s very little average at all, and then mostly to demonstrate the difference between the unique and mass produced pieces. Which meant I poured over each having emotions and marvelling at the artistry and craft until I was exhausted, and then wandered the vast, empty abby alone.

Most of the works also date from mid-1300s to mid-/late-1400s, with a couple of works from the 12th century and a few more from early 1500s. This means there’s 300 or so pieces from a hundred-year period and a single geographic location, which gives a profound documentation of the development, influences, styles, everything. To see carved statues of Mary go from hard, blocky, abstract lines and folds to the soft and curved of mid-14th century International style, and then back again to a late Gothic style makes glorious sense, and to see the faces wax and wane with Italian influence—and even what looks to me like Sino-Indian Buddhist influence in the half-closed, beatific eyes—I went crazy. After, it took seven hours just to sort the images and make a pragmatic selection, which ended up being the 87 split between here and The Paintings post (and Madonna of Březnice gets her own post).

There were also a few Pietàs, Jesus doing his excessive bleeding, and this also in paintings where the blood sprang and sprayed, or clotted like flowers, or dripped like honey, or ran into the earth like worms. Less than a century later the wounds were all but bloodless, the spear wound in his side becoming almost a small mouth.

Many works of St Catherine, she of her wheel, also Madonna Protectress, for a time with a cloak thrown over small figures to give asylum.

Plenty of Middle East, Arabic, North African and Levantine figures also, especially the Magi, all with varied and diverse headwear. As well, a diversity of skin colour. At first I thought there was a noticeable lack of the usual multiculturalism I’ve become accustomed to seeing in mediæval art. Then I realised I’d missed the subtleties, from pale northern skin to mediterranean, browns and reds, different noses, cheekbones, chins, hair, beards. When everything takes time and costs money, nothing—present or absent—is without meaning, is deliberate, conscious, intended. There is so much symbolism and language in these works, which would be comprehensible to viewers of that time, that I simply can’t doubt the difference in two figure’s skin tone denotes a specific meaning.

There was one crucified Jesus, minus head and one hand, whose legs were those of a dancer, leaping, arms allongé, legs together in soubresaut, the shawl around his hips too is caught levitated.

To exit, you must walk back through the entire exhibition. There’s far too much here, I had no hope of reducing it to make sense. I wanted to put every work here, along with all the closeups of details and notes from the captions.