The document discusses the use of transparency in paintings over centuries to depict various materials and objects. It provides numerous examples from famous paintings where artists showed transparency through techniques like diaphanous veils, glassware, bubbles, and other materials. The summaries highlight how transparency was a tool for artists to represent different textures and symbolic meanings in their works.

3. in search of transparency ...
over the centuries, a large number of paintings have shown the transparency of materials and objects

4. Transparency in paintings

5. the flowers,
the red of Venus's cloak,
the dress of Flora,
the transparency of the robes on the Three Graces ...
Sandro Botticelli
Primavera (Spring)
Le Printemps
1470-1480
Uffizi Gallery, Florence

9. the small details:
the set of boxes,
the bowl of lush fruits
the pages of the book,
the transparent veils …
Sandro Botticelli
Madonna of the Book
La Madone du livre
1480-1481
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

11. the diaphanous crimped veil of St Veronica …
The “Veil of Veronica” with the miraculous image of Jesus Christ,
according to legend, appeared on the cloth that Veronica offered Christ
a towel on which he wiped his face as he carried his cross to Golgotha.
Master of Flémalle, Robert Campin, Maître de Flémalle, Robert Campin, workshop,
atelier
Sainte Véronique
Saint Veronica Saint Veronica with the Veil
1428-1430
Städel Museum, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt

14. hands clasped in prayer,
hair tied back
and
a small black hennin with a transparent veil
Hans Memling
Portrait of Barbara van Vlaendenbergh, wife of the burgermeister, Willem Moreel
Portrait de Barbara van Vlaenderberch, femme de Willem Moreel, bourgmestre
1482
Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles

16. Double-Cone (Divided) Hennin ...
The high butterfly hennin fingers denote nobility.
Rogier van der Weyden, Workshop of, Atelier de
Portrait of Isabella of Portugal
Portrait d'Isabelle de Portugal
1450
Getty Center J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

19. a veil covers the right half of the painting ...
Archinto was appointed archbishop of Milan in 1556, but political
troubles prevented his taking possession of the post.
The veil stands for these difficulties.
The episcopal ring, which the artist carefully reveals just outside
the veil, symbolizes Archinto's legal right to office.
Titian,Titien
Portrait of Cardinal Filippo Archinto
Portrait du cardinal Filippo Archinto
1558
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

21. Madonna and Child,
Saint Ursula, Saint Dominique,
Saint Nicholas,
and
a fully transparent vase in the Magdalene’s hands
Antonello da Messina
San Cassiano Altarpiece, Madonna with the Saints Nicholas
of Bari, Mary Magdalene (Anastasia ?), Ursula and Dominic
Retable de San Cassiano, Madone avec les saints
Nicolas de Bari, Marie-Madeleine (Anastasie?), Ursule
et Dominique
1475-1476
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

25. a large carafe of red wine
and
a shallow goblet of the same wine, which Bacchus holds
up by pertly cocked fingers with grimy nails,
inviting the spectator to join him
Caravaggio, Le Caravage
Bacchus
1598
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

29. the transience of life ...
the portraits, an extinguished candle,
a skull
and
transparency
of a ornamented Roemer cup toppled,
of a perfectly painted white wine glass
and
the fragile bubbles, white touches of brilliant light
David Bailly
Self-Portrait with Vanitas Symbols
Vanité au portrait, Autoportrait avec symboles de Vanité
1651
Museum De Lakenhal, Leyde

33. a gap-toothed skull,
an expired lamp,
an overturned glass roemer (a Dutch wine glass)
with its fleeting reflections ...
Pieter Claesz
Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill
Nature morte avec un crâne et une plume d'écriture
1628
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

36. a glass of water
and
the beautiful transparency of the glass ...
(A fig floats in the glass. A mysterious fruit full of symbolic power.
In antiquity, a symbol of fertility, sensual pleasure, abundance.
In the New Testament the fruit of knowledge is the apple,
but in the Old Testament it is a fig.
Dante in his "Inferno" depicted the fig tree as a metaphor
of human development towards good, of goodness itself.
Does the old man hand the fruit of knowledge to the young?)
Diego Velázquez
The Waterseller of Seville
Le Porteur d'eau de Séville
1623
Wellington Museum, Apsley House, London

38. an elegant young man,
an finely dressed young lady,
and
the transparency
of the wine glass
and
of the colored stained-glass window
Johannes Vermeer
The glass of wine
Le Verre de vin
1658-1660
Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

42. a procuress, shifty gaze,
a fashionable young,
a young girl, elegant white cap bordered with a fine bobbin lace -
unusual for her profession,
a grinning man, a stock figure of brothel scenes of the Utrecht
Caravaggists,
a beer glass
and
the transparency of a Roemer, a traditional drinking glass,
frequently used in the 16th century in Holland and Germany
Johannes Vermeer
The Procuress
L'Entremetteuse
1656
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

45. a porcelain chocolate cup
and
the perfection of a crystal clear glass of water:
refraction of objects, reflections, transparency ...
a miniature "picture in a picture"
Jean-Etienne Liotard
La Belle Chocolatière
The Chocolate Girl
1744-1745
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

48. a most curious detail ...
a transparent glass cylinder covers a sore on the left ankle
This partially naked figure at the hut's entrance, has been interpreted
as the Judaic messiah which, after having been struck by leper,
has become the Antichrist.
Hieronymus Bosch, Jérôme Bosch
Adoration of the Magi
L’Épiphanie ou L'Adoration des Mages
1495
Museo del Prado, Madrid

51. HVMANA VANA (Human Vanity)
a human skull and, floating above it, a transparent bubble ...
…
Democritus and Heraclitus, the philosophers of Ancient Greece, laugh and weep
cut flowers, smoking urn, the skull, large bubble refer to the brevity of life,
images floating in the bubble a wheel of torture, a leper’s rattle refer to human folly.
Jacob de Gheyn II, Jacob de Gheyn le Jeune
Vanitas Still Life
Vanité Nature morte
1603
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

54. in a strange transparent sphere a couple encased,
victims of their torrid passion
and
a transparent glass cylinder with a man's head in it,
and into which a rat, symbol of falsehood, has entered
Hieronymus Bosch, Jérôme Bosch
The Garden of Earthly Delights, central panel
Le Jardin des délices, Panneau central, L'Humanité avant le déluge
1503-1504
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

58. the transparent chamber pot of the "Prince of Hell" ...
Sitting on a toilet or a throne, a gigantic bird-headed monster feasting
on human corpses, which he excretes into the transparent chamber pot.
Art historian Walter Samuel Gibson compares this "Prince of Hell" to a figure
in the 12th century Irish religious text Vision of Tundale, who feeds on
the souls of corrupt and lecherous clergy.
Hieronymus Bosch, Jérôme Bosch
Triptych of Garden of Earthly Delights, Right panel, Hell
Le Jardin des délices, Panneau de droite, L'Enfer
1500
Museo del Prado, Madrid

62. a remarkable work from the artist's period
of nuclear mysticism …
a transparent dodecahedron,
thirteen figures gathered around a table
Christ is the central figure, its body is partially transparent.
He points upward directing the viewer's attention to
a dominating transparent torso.
The outstretched arms might represent the resurrected Christ,
but the nail holes are absent from the hands, and the wound
does not appear on his side.
Perhaps this figure embodies Dalí’s idea that
“heaven is to be found exactly in the center of the bosom
of the man who has faith!”
Salvador Dalí
The Sacrament of the Last Supper
La Dernière Cène ou Le Sacrement de la dernière cène
1955
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

65. a transparent, cylindrical bowl …
a fragment of life in the form of two crimson patches signifying goldfish
and
a window and the Seine
Henri Matisse
Intérieur, bocal de poissons rouges
Interior with a Goldfish Bowl
printemps 1914
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

67. Paris, Mercury
and
the transparencies
of the veils of the three goddesses
and
of the finely rendered glassy substitute for the golden apple
in The Judgment of Paris
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucas Cranach l'Ancien
The Judgment of Paris
Le Jugement de Pâris
1512-1514
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

70. 16,8 cm

71. The young woman accepts her young lover by pinching his finger
and dismisses the old lover by handing him his glasses to make
him realize how powerless he is ...
...
a young gentleman,
an old lover
and
a young lady
and
two transparent motifs:
the transparent veil
and
transparent glass spectacles
Anonyme Français, Anonymous
Ecole de Fontainebleau, School of Fontainbleau
La Femme entre les deux âges
The woman and her two lovers, the old and the young
1575
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes

74. o.esqsegues@gmail.com
Transparency in paintings
Transparence dans la peinture
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