Whenever we travel, as retirees are wont to do, we’ll often include a museum or two on the itinerary, an art museum. I find a visitation to past imagery of our civilization instructive on many levels, with particular attention paid to the depiction of old men, like myself. At the Sternberg Palace gallery in Prague, I happened upon these aged gents.
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| Johan Michael Rottmayr, 1692 |
Seneca, at 68, is having his veins cut on order of the Emperor Nero for alleged participation in a conspiracy to assassinate him, Seneca’s former student and imperial advisee. While premature to consider seriously as a form of self-administered euthanasia, bleeding out represents an exit strategy of some appeal to me in certain dire circumstances—inoperable, painful cancers; dementia; boredom and disgust with this world—though Seneca’s execution required poison and a warm bath as well. I’ve given blood enough to know that my flow rate would probably do the trick.
St. Jerome is not looking long for this world as he handles a crucifix and a skull. (Both Jerome and the skull have my hairline.) He is thought to have lived into his mid- to late 70s and looks it, or worse here.
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| Jusepe de Ribera, 1646 |
Actually, he appears more than once in the Sternberg, with the Ribera capturing “all the details of the old man’s body.” Some of which, I recognize all too well.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, ca.1755
On a lighter note we have Tiepolo’s “luminous” Bust of an Old Man.
“Tiepolo’s character heads of old men—often depicted with Oriental stylisation—were originally created as study materials but soon became so popular with collectors that the painter even bought them back to meet demand.” Imagine that. A world in which bald and bearded old goats in exotic headwear were a thing.
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| Jan Miensze Molenaer, mid-1600s |
Or there’s the tippling peasant senior modeling and encouraging all sorts of questionable behaviors in the dark of a bar. Under the title of an old Dutch proverb, As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young, we corrupted elders entail our corruption unto the following generations.
And as winter approaches, the last detail of Allegory of Four Seasons and Human Ages, a dapper old fellow shares a meal and a brazier with his beloved, probably an art history major.
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| Simon De Vos, 1635 |
All of which is to say that even amidst the the tyranny and the mortality or our own times, we can seek and find a little truth, a little beauty, the warmth of companionship, and good humor. We must.
