
International Art | Sculpture
Satyr with wineskin cast 19th century
after UNKNOWN ROMAN
International Art | Sculpture
Satyr with wineskin cast 19th century
after UNKNOWN ROMAN
International Art | Painting
The prodigal son c.1780-1840
UNKNOWN
International Art | Sculpture
Spinario cast late 19th century
after School of PASITELES
Asian Art | Print
Courtesans (reprint) unknown
after EISEN
Asian Art | Sculpture
Flying horse of Kansu cast 1973
after EASTERN HAN ARTIST
International Art | Sculpture
Bust of Niccolo da Uzzano unknown
after DONATELLO
International Art | Sculpture
Borghese warrior 19th century
after AGASIUS THE EPHESIAN
Pacific Art | Fibre
Jipai (mask) 2011
AFEX, Ben
International Art | Glass
Decanter c.1875-1900
AESTHETIC STYLE
International Art | Glass
Vase c.1880-1900
AESTHETIC STYLE
International Art | Glass
Vase c.1880-1900
AESTHETIC STYLE
Contemporary Australian Art | Installation
Blackboards with pendulums 1992
KENNEDY, Peter
International Art | Drawing
Design
ADAM, Sicander
International Art | Metalwork
Tea urn c.1770-1800
ADAM STYLE
International Art | Ceramic
Long necked vase c.1900-50
ACOMO PUEBLO
Pacific Art | Photograph
'Te Waiherehere', Koroniti, Wanganui River, 29 May 1986 1986, printed 1997
ABERHART, Laurence
Pacific Art | Photograph
Nature morte (silence), Savage Club, Wanganui, 20 February 1986 1986, printed 1999
ABERHART, Laurence
Pacific Art | Photograph
Angel over Whangape Harbour, Northland, 6 May 1982 1982, printed 1991
ABERHART, Laurence
Australian Art | Drawing
A memory of Gumeracha (study of flies) 1908
HEYSEN, Hans
Pacific Art | Print
The boxer 2009
ABEL, Patrik
By Geraldine Barlow Ineke Dane
International galleries February 2024
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the early modern period was a time of enormous change in Europe, marked by fierce competition for global influence and the upheaval of the Protestant Reformation. Still-life paintings of the Flemish and Dutch Golden Age celebrate exotic fruit and flowers introduced by expanding trade — and serve as reminders of the brevity of life. The importance of military power, finance and diplomacy are embodied by Anthony van Dyck’s imposing portrait of a Genoese nobleman.
Art may have the near-magical power to conjure a long-dead person into the room, but there remain many gaps in who we see and which stories are told. Exploration and conquest drove the growth of European states, as they drew resources from Africa, Asia and the Americas. Curiously, as in Adoration of the Magi, the convention of depicting one of the three travelling kings as a black man was popularised with the rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Contemporary artist Hew Locke seeks to counter such historical trauma and absence, creating a new sense of strength. Locke’s Ambassador 2 sits proudly mounted and adorned, one of his ‘survivors on horseback, in a dystopian, burnt-out landscape, heading to the future and burdened by the weight of colonial history’.
Sometimes a single figure might represent many, personify a myth or convey an ideal of beauty. We see the latter in Peter Paul Rubens’s homage to Titian’s image of a young woman — naked, but for her jewels and fur. These works remind us that women were often represented in tragic tales: as ‘Lucretia’, sculpted by Giacomo Ginotti; as Melpomene, the Greek muse of tragedy, by George Romney; and as the deserted ‘Costanza’, a character from an operetta, painted by Angelica Kauffmann. While this final painting illustrates a trope, Kauffmann was rare as a female artist enormously successful in her lifetime.
Faith and religion were central to this period. Paintings of the Virgin and Child tenderly celebrate new life, while other works depict the suffering and resurrection of Christ. Drawing from the Book of Revelation, Albrecht Dürer’s ‘Apocalypse’ woodcuts remind us of the power of art to renew inherited stories – setting our darkest fears against the luminous potential of our dreams.
Feature image: An installation view featuring (l–r) work by Angelica Kaufmann, George Romney and Peter Paul Reubens, QAG, April 2024 / Photograph: J Ruckli, QAGOMA