Weathered and chipped, it's like folk art - perhaps an elegant ship's figurehead. It is a life-size wood carving based on Gainsborough's ''Blue Boy,'' which he saw in reproduction in an art book. The first piece in this exhibition was made when Hanson was 13 and had yet to see a real work of art. He seems to have been a figurative sculptor almost from the start, born to do exactly what he ended up doing. A late bloomer, he spent the last three decades of his life making uninflected, minutely detailed cast replicas of resoundingly average Americans - stoical, often fleshy denizens of malls, tract houses, group tours and gyms - and enjoying what must have been a painful combination of financial success and critical neglect. Hanson was born in the tiny farming town of Alexandria, Minn., in 1925 and died in Davie, Fla., in 1996. After much changing of names, depending on which part of the globe you were from – in Europe they finally settle by the seventh century on the names Balthasar, Gaspar (or Caspar) and Melchior.In theory, the Duane Hanson retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art could not be better timed. The names, also not mentioned in biblical texts, are more than likely an invention of Origen. Although this is also not mentioned in the Bible it seems a reasonable assumption as three gifts are mentioned – gold representing homage to Christ’s kingship, frankincense representing homage to Christ’s divinity, and myrrh, used in embalming, to foreshadow Christ’s death.
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It is left to the third-century theologian Origen (d.254 AD) to say that there were three of them. The idea that the Magi were from distant lands and they were kings probably came about via the writings of the Christian theologian Tertullian (c.160–c.230 AD), who in the year 200 AD was the first to infer that magi in distant lands were more or less seen as kings. What part of the east is not explained, it does not say how many of them there are, they have no names, and crucially there is no mention of a black magus or king.įlemish School The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology As for their origins, we are informed only that they came from the east. However, there is no mention of any crumbling ruins or lean-to structures, and the men in this passage are not referred to as kings or magi. This text seems to set the scene that most of us are familiar with, because it ends with the iconic gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. they presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. When they had heard the King, they departed and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
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For example, one of the pieces of biblical text commonly associated with this story is Matthew 2.
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What can clearly be established at this point is that not every artist across the ages has been singing from the same song sheet, and this must be due in large part to the ambiguity of texts purporting to tell this story. Unknown artist Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery
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Artists familiar with this custom use the iconography of grey hair, a beard or both to depict old age (a convention which still holds true today). In line with customs of respect, the eldest king is always first to present his gift of gold and is often given the name of Caspar. Legend also tells us that there is an older king, the youngest king, and – of course – a black king. If not resplendent in the decorative effects of their garments as we see in Strozzi's Adoration, they are made with beautiful fabrics as we see in Bassano’s depiction.Īccording to legend the Magi/kings went by the names of Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. However, what is consistent across centuries of depictions are the splendid sumptuous clothes worn by the Magi. Zanobi Strozzi (1412–1468) (attributed to) The National Gallery, LondonĪn adoration painting of 1433–1434, attributed to Zanobi Strozzi (at the National Gallery), also dispenses with the classical ruin, this time setting the scene in a humble shed-like structure.