WHEN ART FOR THE MARKET WAS BORN

Saints, Sinners, Lovers & Fools: Three Hundred Years of Flemish Masterworks at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Commentary by Sergio Martinez

The Garden of Eden with the Four Elements 
(Hendrick de Clerck, and Denijs van Asloot, 1613)

Until October 20, 2024, you can visit this interesting exhibition mounted by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with the support of the Phoebus Foundation of Belgium. The show covers the period from the 15th to the 18th century, with works by celebrated creators such as Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens and Michaelina Wautier, among others. Many of these works were created or unveiled in Antwerp, then one of the world's leading commercial and cultural centres.

The region of Flanders itself was then an important centre of commercial activity and the focus of political tensions and rivalries between the powers of the time: the Dutch, the Spanish and the French dominated or disputed the territory at different times in history. These confrontations also left an echo in religious and political matters and, of course, also impacted artistic creation.

A Pantry with Game (Frans Anyders, 1640) 

Book illustrations

However, the central fact that substantially changed the way art was made and why Antwerp and Flanders are so important, is that it was there that art began to be made for the market. During the Middle Ages works of art had been commissioned: the Church was in this sense the main entity that commissioned works to the creators of the time, the others who commissioned works were the kings and members of the nobility, who generally commissioned portraits. The artists of Flanders, on the other hand, began to create works that were to be sold in a market now open to the new fortunes that had arisen mainly from the trade of goods that began to come from the American continent to Europe from the 16th century onwards. The creation of an art market resulted in greater creative freedom for artists, although over the centuries this commercial approach would also have its downsides.

A sculpture of
that period

In terms of the aesthetics of this art, the emphasis on the human character of the subjects should be highlighted. Even in the works that present biblical or divine characters, this new way of looking at them by the artists of this period is notable.

A sarcastic look
at life 

The exhibition is divided into seven sections featuring some 150 works, including monumental paintings, sculptures, books, silver works and maps. These sections include works of a religious nature, portraits of famous figures of the time, works with a satirical tone and also some engravings and drawings that show the curiosity aroused in Europe by America, the new continent which, on the other hand, thanks to the flourishing trade, generated the fortunes of many of those who could now acquire the paintings of the famous artists of the time.

The New World arises
great curiosity

Vice, vertu, désir, folie: trois siécles de chef-d'œuvre flamands / Saints, Sinners, Lovers & Fools: Three Hundred Years of Flemish Masterworks is presented at the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, Level 2, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, main entrance through the Jean Noël Desmarais Pavilion, 1380 Sherbrooke West. Admission: $24 (ages 31 and over), $16 (ages 21 to 30), Free for children under 20. Tickets can be purchased online at mbam.qc.ca.

CUANDO NACE EL ARTE PARA EL MERCADO

Santos, pecadores, amantes y locos: Tres siglos de obras maestras de Flandes en el Museo de Bellas Artes de Montreal

Comentario de Sergio Martínez

MOVIES AT LA PLAZA: KIDNAPPING—The Power of Rituals

Movie Review by Sergio Martinez

The power of the Catholic Church, the vicissitudes of a minority and the tumultuous times of Italian unification intersect in this film by Marco Bellocchio based on a real historical event: the forced removal of the child Edgardo Mortara (Enea Sala, child) from his Jewish family by agents of the then Papal States, a territory that encompassed Rome and much of central Italy and was governed by the pope. In 1858 in the Jewish quarter of the city of Bologna, then part of the papal dominions, the boy, then seven years old, was taken by the authorities under the pretext that he had been secretly baptized. Now considered a Christian, the boy could no longer live with his Jewish family according to the law of the Papal States but should instead be raised and educated as a good Catholic.

Edgardo, in fact, had been baptized secretly from his family by a Catholic maid who had worked for the Mortara family. When the head of the Inquisition, Pier Gaetano Feletti (Fabrizio Gifuni), learns of the boy's secret baptism, he orders him to be taken by force from his family and sent to Rome where he will undergo a process of conversion. Edgardo becomes one of Pope Pius IX's (Paolo Pierobon) favourite forced converts.

The Mortara child became
one of the favourite converts of
Pope Pius IX 

While his parents, the Jewish community and even several foreign governments demand that the Church return the boy to his Jewish family, the pope does not budge. Edgardo will only occasionally see his parents, on one such occasion the boy assures his mother that every night he silently repeats words from a Jewish ritual.

However, Edgardo (Leonardo Maltese, adult) will not have new contacts with the family until several years later and under very different circumstances: the Italian peninsula enters a very tumultuous political period that culminates in the unification of the country and with it also the end of the temporal power of the pope.

The demands of the father for the 
child to be returned to his family
were not heard

The film gives a good historical account of the elements that contributed to the case of Edgardo Mortara: the situation of discrimination to which the Jewish minority was subjected at the time, the power of the ecclesiastical institutions, such as the Holy Office (Inquisition), which for its arbitrariness is abolished when Bologna is liberated by the forces that favour Italian unification. Above all, the power that a ritual like baptism had, even though in this case it was not done by a priest but by a very young and illiterate woman who had believed that the child was in danger of death as a baby and then proceeded to baptize him, so, in her way of thinking, she wanted to avoid that the baby, once dead, would go to limbo.

A recommended film for those interested in historical facts, the power of rituals and how religious prejudices worked.

Running time: 135 min.

Italian with English or French subtitles (check theatres)