the start of an infrequent series.
i was at the recent holbein exhibition at the tate britain. it was a wonderful example of how uplifting art can be (it is a shame that the turner prize, also showing, was utter pants and more interested in being clever rather than “artistic”, grim rather than uplifting, vacuous rather than engaging).
one of the lesser
holbein’s on show (a man on an unbridled white horse) carried the following: e cosi desio me mena or more commonly “and so desire carries me along”.
they are words that i wished characterised my life; currently i am a slothful lump, looking for a bit of desire.
4 comments:
I reckon that quote will carry me along today...
Excellent exhibition. Excellent quote. G and I noticed this one when we were there a while back. It did get a mention in my notebook.
what a pisser the link doesn't work...
so this is the details of the painting
The Allegory of Passion
The painted roundel in the center of this diamond-shaped wood panel features a rider in classical attire on a galloping white horse. A panel of this format usually depicted a coat of arms, but here it was adopted for a personal emblem. The unbridled horse-symbolic of vigor, ambition, or passion-carries a rider whose individualized features suggest it might be a portrait. Below, a cartouche holds the Italian inscription E cosi desio me mena (And so desire carries me along) taken from Petrarch's Canzoniere , written about 1342. The patron who commissioned the panel was probably a scholar and a humanist familiar with this text.
The Allegory of Passion has a rich history of ownership. On the back of the panel is the monogram HP , which stands for Henry, Prince of Wales, the older brother of Charles I and one of the first serious art collectors in England. Richard Symonds, a British diarist, next mentioned the painting as being seen in the "Closett of the Lady Anne Mary Howard" at Arundel House in London in 1653.
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