An Allegory of Divine Wisdom and the Fine Arts by Paolo de' Matteis & Essay

An Allegory of Divine Wisdom and the Fine Arts by Paolo de' Matteis & Pictura by Frans van Mieris the Elder - Essay Example The essay "An Allegory of Divine Wisdom and the Fine Arts by Paolo de' Matteis & Pictura by Frans van Mieris the Elder" explores paintings by Divine Wisdom, Paolo de' Matteis and Frans van Mieris the Elder. Divine Wisdom is a conglomeration of many subjects to include men, women, angelic beings, and artifacts of a compass and a drawing, clock, laurel wreath, and paddle while Pictura is of a lone woman holding a palette, brushes, and a small plaster sculpture for a model for larger works. Hanging from her neck is a mask on a chain. Divine wisdom suggests a hierarchy of the disciplines where Science is paramount before Painting and Architecture, which may point to the necessity for these two fields of human interest to uphold principles, facts, and knowledge. But these may have to be tempered with Virtue, Time (the clock) and Truth (the unfolding canvass). On the other hand Pictura is said to refer to the Arts and seems to warn of the capacity of art itself to deceive sights through th e art of illusions as suggested by the mask. Both paintings expectedly were influenced by the stylistic characteristics of their period, the masters with whom the painters worked, and the clients of these painters. Paolo trained under Luca Giordano which explains his leanings toward naturalism, a trademark of the Neapolitan school. In his Divine wisdom, he employed the delicate graceful manner (the hand of Science, for example), an influence of a French master, but â€Å"broke into baroque† as exemplified by the rich his work.