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"The Martyrdom of St. Pantalon," Venice.
"Nature abhors a vaccum."
— attr. to Aristotle
I got to wondering the other day about large paintings, that is canvases.
About which painting is the largest in the world. At the same time my new
primary care doctor, Dr. Lowe, happened to mention on Wednesday the famous
philosophical concept "nature abhors a vacuum." Here, the two come together.
As far as I can determine the largest traditional oil on canvas painting
is "The Martyrdom and Apotheosis of St. Pantalon" by Gian Antonio Fumiani.
The work is hung on the ceiling of the Church of Saint Pantaleon in Venice.
It took 24 years to complete, and evidently Fumiani fell to his death from
a scaffold in 1704 while painting it. I imagine that pretty much brought a
completion to the work — though his apprentices may well have put on some
finishing touches (just guessing).
But there also is one painting on canvas in Australia that might give Fumiani's
work some competition — "The Big Picture" by Ando. This is claimed to be the
largest acrylic painting on canvas.
And there are a few others. In terms of non-canvas works, "Mother Earth," by
Swedish artist David Aberg, is currently the Guinness Book record holder for
largest painting. It was painted on the roof of an aircraft hanger. And for
a while there was "Hero" by Canadian artist Eric Waugh, which was a work done
for charity and which was eventually auctioned off section by section. Then
there was "The Wave," another charity project by Croatian artist Djuro Siroglavic,
which was also pieced off. Finally, there was a very large work by Pakistani
painter Sadequain which, strangely, seems to have disappeared entirely.
We humans certainly do have a strong desire to fill up empty places and spaces.
Or at least that is true in most cultures. In Japan, there seems to be more of an
acceptance of the vacuum, of the void, of emptiness — I think it's a Zen influence.
Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto.
This Insubstantial Pageant Faded 
NOTE: This post talks about canvases — not frescoes or environmental art. I.e. the Sistine Chapel et al. don't pertain.
We made those comments at exactly the same time, Edward. I just now saw your comment and picture when I posted my comment.
The "Mona Lisa", sure.But if you want the most bang for your buck in the Louvre, you might check out David's "The Coronation of Napoleon," which is (or is not) the biggest painting in the Louvre.
And vegetable and fruit art doesn't count either, does it? haha. I don't believe I have ever seen a photo of that painting above, Edward. If I have, I don't remember it. Most of the people who did that kind of work got paid little or nothing! Now, I wonder what someone would charge to do a painting like that?
I definitely feel more sympathy for the Oriental way of dealing with space – an influence that is pretty clear on many 20th century artists. Luckily, we have a Japanese garden here in St. Louis at the Botanical Gardens. I haven't been for a while, but it's very soothing.Lovely post, Ed.
Surpised me too! Ah, weird.
Linda, it would have to be a pretty big vegetable. Mutant, really. Perhaps alien. :pI don't know how much they got paid. I wonder how much Mark Rothko got paid for his Seagram's set? Would be interesting to find out.
Loved the painting by Ando, disliked The Wave and Mother Earth.
I like that "less is more" philosophy of visual art and space. Those large paintings always seem so, well, BUSY to me. Make me nervous, somehow.May just be a side effect of the severe claustrophobia I've had all my life, though.:DCool post, Edward. I love coming here. Learn so much.:up::heart:
SUPPLEMENT: And oh, on large canvases there is this update:"Julie Mehretu’s 80-foot-long painting for the lobby of the Goldman Sachs office in New York provides an apt lesson in the ethics of corporate patronage in 2010. Revelations of the investment bank’s misleading mortage investments (which lead Gordon Brown to describe the firm as “morally bankrupt”) had not appeared by the time Mehretu accepted the commission. Interviewed by Calvin Tompkins in The New Yorker recently, the artist made her motives quite clear: this would be her largest commission to date, and would be visible to the public through the glass-fronted lobby (with more than a shade of Rothko’s quasi-socialist aspirations for the Seagram murals). The huge canvas, made in Mehretu’s signature exploded-diagram style, hasn’t been entirely popular with staff (see Courtney Comstock’s blog post here, which berates the painting because it doesn’t even have a title!), but what’s more interesting is Tompkins and Mehretu’s awkward justifications for its existence."
Thanks, Star. 🙂 Did you ever see that scene in The English Patient where the guy pulls Juliette Binoche up by ropes and pulleys so she can see the frescoes at the top of the church?A beautiful scene! :heart: to you too.
I suppose that in an age of faith that grandiose canvases of heaven and the saints did make sense. I mean, heaven is REALLY BIG is it not? :p What I do like about them though is the pure skill that it took to craft such things. Usually, I would prefer the moss garden aesthetic myself. Even if my living room does look like a packed Victorian parlor. :lol:Thanks for the kind words!
Never saw that movie, Edward. I was married to a redneck when it was released, and just never got around to it after the divorce.:lol:
😆 I think there might have been a few rednecks in that movie — Nazi rednecks. :p
😆
Wow, that's amazing! I can't wait to see it from a big screen. I love old churches too, but find the artwork can be somewhat of a distraction if you want to pray.Interesting post, Ed! :yes:
And most art museums don't have nearly the quality of Sandalwood incense that churches have. :)Thanks, mags!
Wasn't something like that in an Indiana Jones movie?:lol:
this is an amazing entry Eddie,:love:"Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto."I was the other day visiting the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City NY and your picture above reminded me of ithttp://static1.px.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/ZxFO01y55OuIJvG3RuixNw/lsince recently an authentic Picasso made the news as the most expensive painting (not the largest by any means), I came across this site that you might enjoy too 🙂http://www.karemar.com/blog/top-ten-10-most-expensive-paintings-all-time-w-picsHave a great weekend! and thank you for another great entry!
So have you run into anything there in NYC about that Merhetu painting for Goldman Sachs. You are our reporter on the scene!Thanks for the links. The garden looks very nice — anyplace to sit down there and meditate? :)I don't know what to make of the high prices for paintings. We discussed that in one of my anthropology classes but never could really come up with any good response to it. I guess that my own way of looking at it in terms of culture-critique, and following Andy Warhol, is that the art world tends to be like an extremely expensive department store. :pYou have a great weekend too! 😀
I sometimes fill out the Os in the newspaper with doodles while reading it… Is that Zen?
I have no comments to your video idea, Ed, since I am crazy enough to actually do things like that.Isn't there a Clint Eastwood film where he takes this girl home and she looks at the cat's litterbox and asks 'Do you have a cat?' and he answers 'No, that is a Zen-garden.'?
I have seen some very big paintings in Museum of Art in Vienna, Austria. Details on some of them were amazing, one could easily spend an hour looking at it, noticing things.Karesansui – stone gardens – are usual in Japan. Mostly, they present sea and islands and watching them has close connections to Zen. Also, a nice way of escaping the rudnesses and dangers of everyday life in middle age Japan :cool:I saw this one from a hotel room window near Aizu-Wakamatsu 🙂
Martin, I think that is more like ophobia — the irrational fear of "o"s.Incidentally I thought of an idea yesterday for a video (if I did vids, which I don't) loosely based on horror vacui and watching CNN.As the video opens, I'm standing (3/4 body shot) looking into the camera. "I don't fucking understand any of this" I say into the camera. Then I stare at the camera for about 5 minutes. At which point I say "I don't fucking understand any of this." Then, a couple seconds later, the video ends.
Originally posted by Aqualion:
Well I don't know if there's a movie like that. But let's put it that way — there should be. :pAnd BTW I do KNOW you are crazy enough to do a video like that. :up: :up: 🙂
I was thinking back, and thought that you might have been in Kyoto. I'll have to go back and check out your photo album again. :up:
NOTE: Well after spending several days on all this I have concluded that the Wiki article on 'Horror Vacui (Physics)' has a problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Horror_vacui_(physics)#Source_of_Term_Horror_Vacui
Анонімний writes:This is well known that cash makes us free. But how to act when one does not have cash? The one way only is to get the mortgage loans or just sba loan.