symbolizes the passage from one world to another symbolizes access to knowledge and learning ...

1. symbolizes the passage from one world to another
symbolizes access to knowledge and learning

2. The Open Door
in paintings

3. A chest containing a large red heart,
a young woman, completely nude aside from a strip of fabric.
A young man has come through the door, stands there and looks ...
it is his heart ...
…
Magic at its most banal ...
to conquer a man, a young witch uses her powers to cast a love spell.
Unknown Master German, Maître anonyme allemand
The Love Charm or The love spell
Le Charme d’amour ou Le sortilège d'amour
1470-1480
Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig

6. On a seat raised by a cushion, the Virgin is seated,
holding the Child Jesus on her knees ...
a rich house in Bruges,
the windows are ogee-shaped with their small panes set in lead,
and
the columned door opens onto the Flemish countryside
Jan van Eyck
La Vierge et l'Enfant au chancelier Rolin
Madonna of Chancellor Rolin
1435
Musée du Louvre, Paris

9. an open doorway ...
the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary
and
a bright, airy country scene dominated by a single tree,
which might refer to the Crucifixion
Fra Bartolomeo
The Annunciation
Annonciation
1497
Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta, Volterra

12. the Virgin and Child on a cloud carried by angels,
five saints with their different attributes
and
kneeling, the sponsor, Ferry Carondelet in his red clothes
and
through the open doors
an ideal landscape with four naked figures ... an evocation of ancient pagan humanity
Fra Bartolomeo
La Vierge aux saints
Madonna and child with saints
1511-1512
Cathédrale Saint-Jean, Besançon

15. St. Jerome remains unperturbed in his reading of the Scriptures
while we look at him through a wide open door …
Antonello da Messina
St Jerome in His Study
Saint Jérôme dans son étude
1474
National Gallery, London

17. a wayfarer dressed in rags, different shoes, hat in his hand
leaves a miserable inn ...
a jug hanging from a pole,
a long stick leaning against the façade,
a magpie in a cage,
an woman looks out from a broken window,
a man relieves his bladder in a dark corner,
a white swan outside,
a man negotiating with a woman at the door
... they indicate the character of the inn:
the wayfarer dressed in rags, different shoes, hat in his hand
leaves a place of bad reputation, a place of sin ...
Jheronimus Bosch, Jérôme Bosch
The Wayfarer
Le Vagabond
1500
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

21. Gabriel with a huge lily runs in through the door
and suddenly falls on one knee ...
Lorenzo Lotto
Annunciation
L'Annonciation
1527
Pinacoteca Civica, Recanati

24. Access to the world beyond is gained through the triple-arched door
with more slender pillars.
Outside is a country palace amidst fields on a rolling plain.
Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens
The Five Senses, Hearing
Allégories des cinq sens, L'Ouïe
1617-1618
Museo del Prado, Madrid

27. An elegantly dressed man has walked through the door of a bourgeois house ...
head down, he respectfully delivers a letter to a young woman.
The painting on the wall shows a naked woman in the arms of an old man,
a passage from the biblical story of Lot and his daughters. The erotic scene
is interpreted as a pictorial commentary on the delivery of the letter.
The young man is thus a messenger of love
who brings a letter on behalf of his master.
Pieter de Hooch
Young woman in an interior, receiving a letter
Le messager de l'amour
1669
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

30. Death in the form of a skeleton appears in the doorway ...
a cloaked man with a red cap, an ironic smile on his face,
points to …
an old man, a scholar sitting at the desk, deep in thought
and
a boy with a laurel wreath on his head, showing an hourglass,
warning that earthly time is over.
…
The scene presents the confrontation of man and death.
The skeleton is accompanied by a small weeping boy, bringing a vessel
containing urine in a wicker basket - at the time a patient’s diagnosis
was predominantly based on a urine sample. The result of the examination
is not good, Death is arriving to end the scholar’s lifetime.
Jan Steen
The Scholar and Death
Le savant et la mort
1660
Národní Galerie, Prague

34. An open doorway and an backlight they lure our eyes inescapably into the depths …
silhouette on a short flight of stairs,
right knee bent and feet on different steps ...
Nieto standing in pause.
…
Detail showing Don José Nieto Velázquez, the queen's chamberlain during the 1650s,
and head of the royal tapestry works—who may have been a relative of the artist.
(Nieto is the queen's attendant and was required to be at hand to open
and close doors for her.
Nieto appears in the doorway so that the king and queen might depart.
In the context of the painting, the scene is the end of the royal couple’s
sitting for Velázquez and they are preparing to exit, that is why the menina
to the right of the Infanta begins to curtsy.)
Diego Velázquez
Las Meninas
1656-1657
Museo del Prado, Madrid

38. The door with the curtain raised in the foreground,
creates the impression that the viewer is looking at an intensely private, personal scene.
Johannes Vermeer
The Love Letter
La Lettre d'amour
1669-1670
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

40. A painting very symbolic ...
the abandoned tables, the scattered chairs and the inexpressive people in the scene:
Van Gogh is abandoned by his friends, and those who are still there are indifferent to him.
...
but
not all avenues are closed:
the door at the back of the room is open to another door,
and the bouquet of flowers reinforces this idea of hope.
Vincent van Gogh
Le Café de nuit
The Night Café
September 1888, Arles
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

43. The painting illustrates a theme a subject from the Third Ode
of the sixth-century BCE Greek poet Anacreon.
Ode III.
'And who art thou,' I waking cry,
'O gentle sire!' the infant said,
'In pity take me to thy shed; Nor fear deceit: a lonely child
Chill drops the rain, and not a ray Illumes the drear and misty way!'
I hear the baby's tale of woe; I hear the bitter night-winds blow;
And sighing for his piteous fate, I trimm'd my lamp and oped the gate.
Twas Love! the little wandering sprite, His pinion sparkled through the night!
I knew him by his bow and dart;..
…
(Supposedly, it's cold and rainy, but it doesn't appear at all wet to me;
Cupid merely looks like he needs to pee ...?)
Jean-Léon Gérôme
L'histoire d'Anacréon 1: Cupidon à la porte sous une pluie torrentielle, L'Amour arrive .
The Story of Anacreon 1: Cupid at the Door in a Rainstorm, L'Amour arrive.
1899
Private collection

46. The heavy church door
leads the viewer's gaze to the outside world,
where the mother is bringing her child in for their baptism …
in the half-light of the church
a man stands by the door,
and two women are sitting on a pew waiting for the arrival
of the baptismal procession
Harriet Backer
Christening in Tanum Church
Baptême à l'église de Tanum
1892
National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo

50. A bright light of a summer morning …
an old gardener, a begonia in his hands,
has kicked off his working clogs before stepping through the doorway
and
a garden, a haven of peace teeming with life, that invites you to take a walk …
Émile Claus
Le Vieux Jardinier
The Old Gardener
1885
Musée d’Arts moderne et d’Art contemporain, Liège

53. two women
and
a green countryside beyond the doorway …
Nikolai Astrup
By the Open Door
A la porte ouverte
1911
Private collection

56. the small living room on the second floor ...
the vividly colored landscape,
the red roofs of Le Cannet
the railing of the balcony,
the round table covered with a tablecloth, a tea tray
the chair with its canine occupant
and
the open ‘French window’ door
Pierre Bonnard
La porte-fenêtre avec chien
The French Windows with Dog
1927
Private collection

58. a country house in Verbon ...
the dining room,
the large table, with a white towel,
cats perching on the chairs,
Marthe leaning on the windowsill
and
the resplendent garden seen through the open glass door
(Bonnard, who considered himself "the last of the Impressionists,"
Unlike the Impressionists, however, Bonnard painted entirely from memory.
Bonnard walks, takes notes, but the alchemy from which the true work
will emerge always takes place in the studio.)
Pierre Bonnard
Salle à manger à la campagne
Dining Room in the Country
1913
Institute of Arts, Minneapolis

61. o.esqsegues@gmail.com
The Open Door in the paintings
La porte ouverte dans la peinture
images and text credit www.
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