Allegory Art in The Metropolitan Museum: Expressing Complex Ideas Through Personifications and Symbols

Allegory is a technique employed in the literary and visual arts to express complex or abstract ideas through the use of personifications and symbols. In art, allegories often take the form of personifications and/or symbols which, based on a conventionally agreed relation between concept and representation, refer to an idea outside the work of art. There are numerous examples of allegorical art in The Metropolitan Museum, many of which date back to the medieval and Renaissance periods. These artworks provide insight into how different cultures and religions have used allegory to express ideas and concepts.

Allegorical Figure Representing Arithmetic

    Like the other frescoes in this gallery, this allegorical figure of Arithmetic, identified by the inscription on the base of the feigned statue, is from the Palazzo Valle Marchesini Sala in Vicenza.
    The simulated architecture, foreshortened from a viewing point in the center of the room, was carried out by a specialist in this type of work, Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna, who collaborated with Tiepolo on a number of commissions.
    The frescoes were probably commissioned by Count Giorgio Marchesini, and their iconography may reflect his particular interest in Freemasonry.

Allegorical Figure Representing Metaphysics

    Like the other frescoes in this gallery, this allegorical figure of Metaphysics, identified by the inscription on the base of the feigned statue, is from the Palazzo Valle Marchesini Sala in Vicenza.
    The simulated architecture, foreshortened from a viewing point in the center of the room, was carried out by a specialist in this type of work, Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna, who collaborated with Tiepolo on a number of commissions.
    The frescoes were probably commissioned by Count Giorgio Marchesini, and their iconography may reflect his particular interest in Freemasonry.

Charity

    This allegorical figure of Charity follows a well-established iconographical model of a woman breastfeeding a group of children.
    Reni commanded the highest prices and greatest admiration among his contemporaries for such idealized faces and jewel-like tones.
    This painting may have been commissioned or bought by Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein (1611 - 1684), who traveled to Italy in 1629 - 30.

An Allegory

    The fantastical subject of this painting has eluded scholars.
    The woman holding dividers over an open book with diagrams has been identified as Circe or Melissa, but is probably a more generic sorceress surrounded by symbols of her dark magic:skulls, a bat, and a chimera (a fantastical winged creature).
    The representation in the left foreground of a coati, a member of the raccoon family native to South America, is unique in early modern painting and was probably based on an animal living in a private zoo in Genoa.

The Muse of Painting

    By 1870, La Farge had moved away from his early realistic manner to a more decorative, academic style of easel painting.
    "The Muse of Painting" synthesizes the different and somewhat contradictory tendencies found in his work at this time.
    The landscape represents a site that artist painted frequently, the ridge behind Bishop Berkeley's Rock near his farm outside of Newport, Rhode Island.
    The figure belongs to the mainstream of nineteenth-century ideal painting, representing an allegory of the art of painting.
    In an odd twist, La Farge depicted the muse as an artist rather than as the inspiratrice of an artist.
    Her inspiration is the surrounding landscape of Newport, proving that nature is the true muse of painting.
    The landscape and overall composition are handled in highly decorative manner, mingling carefully observed details with dreamy, evocative colors.