I saw a Massacre of the Innocents at Buckingham Place!

moI — MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS Pieter Breughel. One of the most astonishing depictions of state violence against a civilian population. Breughel does not hide behind classical allusion or myth: he brings the religious story right up to date.

breughel-detila — Thugs instructed by soldiers to batter down a door – presumably finding the family inside trying to protect their children.

After reading about it and seeing lots of photos of it online and in books I finally FINALLY got a chance to see Pieter Breughel’s great painting Massacre of the Innocents, at the Queens Gallery Buckingham Palace, yesterday.

The woman in the centre of the detail here has some unspecified shapes beside her. These were originally depictions of the corpses of the murdered babies, which is the subject of the Biblical story. Later, someone painted out the corpses, presumably to make the paining more bearable to look at. Now the overpaint is disappearing and the corpses are slowly being made visible again.

The painting is part of an exhibition about King Charles II. He purchased it and clearly valued it highly.

Charles II was king from 1660 -1685. He’s interesting for a lot of reasons – as a patron of the arts, he commissioned and collected loads of amazing works which are in this exhibition. Great paintings by Dutch and English artists, plus he collected Italian art too. The exhibition has many of these works and is a feast for the eyes.

Charles patronised Christopher Wren, who rebuilt London after the Great Fire, creating St Paul’s and other exquisite buildings that still characterise the best of London.

St Paul’s at night. In Charles’s day there were no floodlights nor bus stops.

He also patronised science, and founded the Royal Society.

There are a few films that feature Charles II as a character. He was pretty complex, neither hero not villain, but could be portrayed as either, depending how you want to cut it. My favourite film featuring Charles is The Libertine.

It was a really fascinating exhibition.

THE ART TRAVELLER

Gillian McIver writing about ART and TRAVEL

I saw a Massacre of the Innocents at Buckingham Place!

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