Italian Art and Culture
For the Week of Italian Art and Culture at IU, we invite you explore a wide range of artworks spanning from fifteenth-century Italy to contemporary works inspired by Italian culture. At each stop, consider our questions and enjoy creative ways to connect with and experience art together.
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, or, Queen Tomyris of Massagetal
What is mysterious about this artwork? If you could speak with the artist, what questions might these mysteries lead you to ask?
Artist(s):
Attributed to Matteo di Giovanni (Italian, b. 1430)
Title:
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, or, Queen Tomyris of Massagetal
Date:
1491-95
Medium(s):
Oil on panel
Dimensions:
27 3/8 × 23 5/8 × 3 5/8 in. (69.5 × 60 × 9.2 cm)
Accession Number:
62.163
Credit Line:
The Samuel H. Kress Study Collection
Gallery Directions
Enter the Jane Fortune Gallery (European and American Art, Medieval to 1900, 1st Floor) and turn right. Continue forward and turn right again. *Judith with the Head of Holofernes* hangs on the right-hand side.
The Myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha
What story can you tell about this artwork? First, look for visual details that might feature in your story. Stuck? Try these prompts*:
Once there was...
Every day...
Until one day...
Because of that...
Then because of that....
And then because of that....
Until, finally, one day...
*Adapted from How to Improvise a Full-Length Play: The Art of Spontaneous Theatre by Kenn Adams
Artist(s):
Niccolo Giolfino (Italian, b. 1476)
Title:
The Myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha
Date:
ca. 1550
Medium(s):
Tempera on Panel
Dimensions:
50 1/2 × 67 1/4 × 6 1/8 in. (128.3 × 170.8 × 15.6 cm)
Accession Number:
62.159
Credit Line:
The Samuel H. Kress Study Collection
Gallery Directions
Enter the Jane Fortune Gallery (European and American Art, Medieval to 1900, 1st Floor) and turn right. Continue forward and pass through the opening to the right of Sigmund Walter Hampel's painting, *The Vision*. *The Myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha* hangs to the right on the back wall of this Focus Gallery.
Landscape with Ruins
What might the artist of this painting care about? What do you see that makes you say that?
Artist(s):
Giovanni Paolo Panini (Italian, b. 1691)
Title:
Landscape with Ruins
Date:
ca. 1715-18
Medium(s):
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
36 1/8 × 46 1/4 × 3 1/8 in. (91.8 × 117.5 × 7.9 cm)
Accession Number:
74.19.2
Credit Line:
Given in Memory of Marguerite Lilly Noyes by Thomas T. Solley
Gallery Directions
Enter the Jane Fortune Gallery (European and American Art, Medieval to 1900, 1st Floor) and turn right. Turn right, again, and walk around the center wall dividing the gallery. After you turn the corner, proceed forward. *Landscape with Ruins* hangs in the Neoclassicism section of this gallery.
Horseman
What song might you pair with this artwork? What do you see that makes you say that? Can anyone else in your group think of another song that might pair with this artwork?
Artist(s):
Marino Marini (Italian, b. 1901)
Title:
Horseman
Date:
1947
Medium(s):
Bronze with residues of wax patina
Dimensions:
63 7/16 x 61 x 26 1/2 in. (161.1 x 154.9 x 67.3 cm)
Accession Number:
76.137
Credit Line:
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Henry R. Hope in Memory of James Adams, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Gallery Directions
Enter the Eskenazi Gallery (European and American Art, Modern and Contemporary, 1st Floor) and Horseman can be seen on the left near the gallery entrance.
Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires
Although Mickalene Thomas's collage explicitly quotes French painter Gustave Courbet’s Le Sommeil (1886), the tradition of representing women as reclining nude figures returns us to the Italian Renaissance where painters such Giorgione and Titian established this motif in Sleeping Venus (1510) and Venus of Urbino (1538). What surprises you about this artwork? What do you want to remember about it?
Artist(s):
Mickalene Thomas (American, b. 1971)
Title:
Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires, edition 7/25
Date:
2013
Medium(s):
mixed media collage, wooblock, screenprint and digital print
Dimensions:
38 1/2 x 80 1/2 in.
Credit Line:
Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer
Location:
Featured Exhibition Gallery, Henry Radford Hope Wing, 1st floor
Gallery Directions
Enter the Featured Exhibitions Gallery, Henry Radford Hope Wing, 1st Floor, then turn right and continue walking along the gallery's outer wall. *Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires* hangs on the right side of the Featured Exhibitions Gallery.
