Paris Olympics Start with a Bang, Bernini’s Dark Side Revealed, and More: Morning Links for July 29, 2024

The Headlines

EPIC, UNIQUE, OLYMPIC. After giving his blood, sweat, and tears for 18 months, Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of Paris’s Olympics opening ceremony, the first one not to take place in a closed stadium, can be proud. His intention was to capture France in all its diversity, and it was widely applauded in France . The extravagant four-hour show, inspired by a 4.5-mile stretch of the River Seine, was divided into 12 tableaux, juxtaposing tradition and modernity. One scene, with a group of drag queens sitting along a fashion catwalk in a configuration that appeared to mimic Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, has given rise to some controversy. Mike Johnson, a Republican who serves as the United States’s Speaker of the House, called the scene “shocking and insulting,” and French Bishops’ Conference deplored “scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity.” But generally, the reception was positive. The Los Angeles Times called the event a “unique opening ceremony in the history of the Olympic Games.”

SCARFACE. The Baroque sculptor Bernini was 40 when he decided to immortalize the features of his 23-year-old mistress Costanza Piccolomini. The couple’s affair was wild and intemperate. For just months after lovingly carving Costanza’s bust in marble, Bernini caught wind of her sleeping with his younger brother Luigi, and ordered one of his servants to slash her face with a knife. This is the shocking story that Rachel Blackmore writes about in her upcoming book, due to be released on August 1. Blackmore started digging into Constanza’s past, after hearing the presenters of a documentary make a passing remark about her disfigurement by Bernini. “I wanted to free Costanza from the male gaze which has clouded our view for the past 400 years,” she said. “Writing [her story] was also a way for me to examine the ways in which male coercion and violence are still used to control women today.”

The Digest

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York attracted more local visitors last year than it did prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. International numbers, on the other hand, are about half their pre-2020 figure, reflecting a broader drop in foreigners visiting the city since that year. [The Art Newspaper]

The Paisley Art Institute’s £1.5 million art collection, with works from the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists, will be sold off after the organization’s relationship with the Paisley Museum, where the works were previously shown and held in storage, became strained. [Scotsman]

The hills around Vari, 10 miles southeast of Athens, are etched with more than 2,000 graffiti from the 6th century BCE, some containing images of trireme warships, speeding horses, packs of hunting dogs. A new one has been discovered on a dirt track leading from the costal highway to a hilltop communication tower. The tiny graffito seems to show the presence of a lost temple on the site of the Parthenon. [Artnet]

According to art historian and professor Martin Kemp, there is no case for returning the Mona Lisa to Italy, since the painting was spotted in France after Leonardo da Vinci left Florence in 1507. “If we are to have a measured discussion of restitution, we need to get the history right,” Kemp writes. [The Art Newspaper]

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has announced the restitution of a 1918 Egon Schiele work to its rightful owners. The Nazi-looted drawing had been in the possession of an Austrian Jewish family, which recently became suspicious of the its provenance. [The Art Newspaper]

The Kicker

RISING AND FALLING. The pop star Lady Gaga was the first musical act of Friday’s memorable Olympics opening ceremony in Paris. Gaga took to a specially built stage on the bank of the River Seine to perform Zizi Jeanmaire’s cult song “Mon Truc en Plumes.” She appeared to experience some sound issues that, according to fans quick to react on social media, were marring her performance. Some even called her accent “French-adjacent.” On X, she rebutted her detractors, writing, “I studied French choreography that put a modern twist on a French classic. I rehearsed tirelessly to study a joyful French dance, brushing up on some old skills.”  [Deadline]