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Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp - The Building
Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp - The Art
Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp - The Surroundings
Paris 1924
Joan Miró's Dozen
Palais Lascaris
Peter Paul Rubens, oil sketch of right panel of triptych for St Bavo, Ghent,1611-12, National Gallery
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THE SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM
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LA JUSTICE DE DAUMIER A PLANTU : CENT CINQUANTE ANNEES DE JUSTICE
EXHIBITION AT THE PEYNET MUSEUM IN ANTIBES
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e-LUMINATE FESTIVAL 2016
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THE DESIGN MUSEUM
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STRAWBERRY HILL
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MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS MUSEUM
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RENOIR MUSEUM
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Peter Paul Rubens, 1611, The Death of Hippolytus, oil on copper, Fitzwilliam Museum
Peter Paul Rubens, the discovery of Tyrian purple, c.1636, Bonnat-Helleu Museum
Peter Paul Rubens, oil sketch for The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, 1618-19, National Gallery
In the last few days a controversy has blown up over whether the National Gallery's Sampson and Delilah is a 20th century fake.
I have only seen it once - at the big Rubens exhibition at the National Gallery bringing together about 40 works many years ago.
At the time I immediately did not like it. It did not sit well within this assemblage. The architecture and perspective felt wrong for Rubens. The armed men looked more English than what Rubens might have imagined for antiquity or seen in Antwerp (look at the men with spears in the Bavo panel as a starter). The light, figures and emotion were a bit off for Rubens.
Then I saw it was a National Gallery acquisition, and it was their show, so doubts were quelled but that painting made me resolve to see as many more Rubens as I could in Flanders so I could have a better handle on why I might doubt a painting in the oeuvre if I had to. After all, Rubens ran a flourishing business which employed other painters.
Be that as it may, I've been wondering how Sampson could have brought down the temple.
Roman columns
Roman columns were sometimes made of cylindrical units. An iron rod passed through the centre kept them located. However, iron, unlike steel reinforcement, can quickly rust to minimal strength. Theoretically, the columns would also be kept in place by compressive load from above but calceriferous material can be subject to degradation - as from acid rain - and so some columns might only bear load at one side.
If Sampson knew which columns were dodgy and seemed to move when given a shove, he could have known where to come back to to finish the job.