1. long considered the preserve of the few who had a proper education …

2. Writing
in Western paintings

3. A young woman from a cultured and wealthy family writing with a stylus
on a four wax tablets – tetraptychon.
Based on the hairstyle, very much in vogue in the Neronian period,
the work can be dated between 54 and 70 AD.
-
Donna con tavolette cerate e stilo cosiddetta "Saffo"
Woman with wax tablet and stylus so-called "Sappho" from Pompeii
Femme de Pompéi appelée "Sappho" avec une tablette de cire et un stylet
54 and 70 AD
Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples

6. An unusual painting:
the Virgin Mary writing holding the infant Jesus.
The Virgin Mary, writing the canticle "Magnificat anima mea Dominum"
(My soul doth magnify the Lord),
Jesus touching a pomegranate, a fruit with many symbolic meanings,
its red seeds recalling the blood shed by Jesus to save mankind.
A window that opens out onto a bright, peaceful country landscape
and
the angels (who, as in various other works by Botticelli, are without wings).
Sandro Botticelli
Madonna of the Magnificat
La Madone du Magnificat
1481
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

9. Hypsipyle writing to Jason …
Robinet Testard illustration of Hypsipyle in translation of Ovid’s Epistulae heroidum
by Octavien de Saint-Gelais
Written between about 25 and 16 BCE, Ovid’s The Heroides (The Heroines) or Epistulae Heroidum
(Letters of Heroines) is a set of imaginary letters from famous women, most taken from mythology,
who had been wronged by their lovers.
Robinet Testard
Hypsipyle écrit à Jason
Hypsipyle writing to Jason
1496-1498
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

11. Saint John is seated, writing, his right hand holds a quill pen.
An angel points towards the sky, where the Woman of the Apocalypse has appeared.
Since the Middle Ages this heavenly vision has been identified with the Madonna.
At the bottom left is a falcon - a reference to the symbolic animal of the Evangelist, the eagle.
The bird guards its master's writing tools, which a demon is trying to steal, an inkwell
and a knife for sharpening his quill.
A river landscape reminiscent of the Lower Rhine, but meant to be the island of Patmos,
where John received the Revelation of the Apocalypse.
Hieronymus Bosch Jérôme Bosch
St. John the Evangelist on Patmos
Jean l’Évangéliste à Patmos
1489
Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

14. a congregation of philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists ...
An elder Plato walks alongside a younger Aristotle,
Archimedes displaying his Principle,
Aeschines, discuss with Socrates, who seems to be counting on his fingers
the arguments of his dialectic ...
Epicurus, crowned with ivy, writes in a book, leans on a small capital ...
Pythagoras writing in a large book, with a chalk drawing on a small blackboard
in front of his left foot ...
Heraclitus, the pessimistic philosopher, is isolated from the others
(because of his bad temper) and leans on a block of marble to write his new treatise …
Raphael Raphaël
The School of Athens
L'École d'Athènes
1509-1511
Palazzo Apostolico, Rome

20. The teacher wears the headgear with raised side flaps within
which he has tucked bits of parchment with ideas and notes,
is in slippers, thus assuming almost a caricatural appearance
The bas-relief on the side of the chair seems to come to life,
to animate itself and to look attentively towards
so much source of wisdom …
Amico Aspertini, attributed, attribué à
Un maestro in cattedra con i suoi scolari
A Teacher on His Chair with His Pupils
Un maître avec un de ses élèves
1505-1515
Pinacoteca di Obrera, Milan

23. a rocky backdrop,
a cloister on the banks of a river,
a mountainous landscape
a lion lies behind a tree,
a cardinal's hat
and
the penitent Jerome sits writing at a table
Lucas Cranach the Elder Lucas Cranach l'Ancien
St. Jerome in Rocky Landscape
Saint Jérôme dans un paysage rocheux
1515
Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

26. Erasmus writing the first lines of his Paraphrase of the Gospel of John …
Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein le Jeune
Portrait d'Érasme écrivant
Erasmus
1523
Musée du Louvre, Paris

29. one of the masterpieces of Lotto ...
the Madonna and Child
and
the saints who conversing Joseph, Bernardino, John the Baptist, Anthony Abbot
and
the green canopy, which the angels stretch between them with difficulty
and
a most well-known detail of the altarpiece:
the angel at the foot of the throne has suddenly stopped writing,
and casts a penetrating glance toward the viewer
Lorenzo Lotto
San Bernardino Altarpiece
Retable de San Bernardino in Pignolo
1521
San Bernardino in Pignolo, Bergamo

33. Two strikingly ugly men in extraordinary clothing are seated at a table.
One writes in a ledger, the other, his features contorted into a sneer,
designates the currency to the viewer and avidly monitors
the activity of his neighbor.
Marinus Van Reymerswaele
Les collecteurs d'impôts
The Tax Collectors
1540
Musée du Louvre, Paris

37. Saint Jerome, a Doctor of the Church in Roman Catholicism …
A thin old man, sitting outstretched arm with quill.
A work table cluttered with books,
the memento mori of a skull placed on another open book.
Caravaggio Le Caravage
Saint Jerome
Saint Jérôme ou Saint Jérôme écrivant
1606
Galleria Borghese, Roma

40. the dialogue between St Matthew the Evangelist and the angel ...
the apostle Matthew looks and listens attentively to the angel
who dictates the text of the Gospel, which the saint records
with the quill on the blank pages of his book.
Guido Reni
St Matthew and the Angel
Saint Matthieu et l'Ange
1635
Pinacoteca vaticana, Vatican City

42. The angelic messenger is dictating to the saint …
Despite his dignity, his noble, bearded face and bald head, and his robes reminiscent
of an ancient philosopher's, Matthew he is in a very unsettled pose,
not having had time to sit down.
with the bench under his knee tipping a little whimsically over the edge of a ledge
he is writing on the inspiration of the moment, coached by the angel.
Caravaggio Le Caravage
The Inspiration of Saint Matthew
Saint Matthieu et l'Ange
1602
San Luigi dei Francesi Church, Roma

44. On the Greek island of Patmos Saint John the Evangelist is having a vision,
which he records in writing: he sees the Woman of the Apocalypse
(Revelation 12: 1–4 and 14).
With an oversized book in his lap, his quill pen poised,
looks towards the tiny illuminated female figure hovering in the clouds above him.
Alongside her we can see a dragon – the devil – ready, as Saint John writes,
‘to devour her child’ as soon as it is born. She is given ‘two wings of a great eagle’,
faintly visible behind her, to help her escape.
The eagle is one of Saint John’s attributes and one sits beside him.
Diego Velázquez
Saint John the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos
Saint Jean à Patmos
1618
National Gallery, London

47. writing down their prophecies ...
writes with a quill pen on sheet of paper,
while resting her left elbow on a book inscribed Sibilla Persica
Guercino Le Guerchin
The Persian Sibyl
La Sibylle persique
1647-1648
Musei Capitolini, Rome

49. the quill, inkpot, and letter …
Gerard ter Borch
Woman writing a letter
Femme écrivant une lettre
1655
Mauritshuis, The Hague

51. writing a letter ...
She appears to have been interrupted, as she has turned her head
away from the letter to look towards the viewer, while she continues
to hold the quill in her right hand.
She is dressed elegantly in a lemon-yellow morning jacket
and wears a necklace with ten pearls and two pearl earrings.
Johannes Vermeer
A Lady Writing a Letter
Jeune femme écrivant une lettre
1665
National Gallery of Art, Washington

54. While a maidservant gazes out of a window, her mistress writes an epistle.
On the floor
a red seal, a stick of sealing wax
and
a letter with a crumpled wrapper
(discarded by the lady in some agitation?)
Johannes Vermeer
Lady Writing a Letter, with her Maid
Femme écrivant une lettre et sa servante
1670-1671
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

57. an open window,
an Persian rug,
an silver writing set on the table
and
a young man writing a letter, presumably for the lady represented in its pendant …
Gabriel Metsu
Man Writing a Letter
Homme écrivant une lettre
1665
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

59. ... God’s hand appeared and wrote in Hebrew script:
‘You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.’
Within hours, Belshazzar was dead …
The man in the gold cloak is Belshazzar, King of Babylon.
His father had robbed the Temple of Jerusalem of all its sacred vessels.
Using these to serve food at a feast, as Belshazzar does here,
was seen as sacrilege.
Rembrandt
Belshazzar's Feast
Le Festin de Balthazar
1635-1638
National Gallery, London

62. an bloodied knife lies on the ground ...
Marat’s body slumped over the side of his bath,
a quill pen,
Corday's note to Citizen Marat: "It is enough that I am very unhappy to be entitled
to your benevolence"
an inkwell, a second pen, an assignat
a sheet of handwritten paper
...
on the crate the words: « À Marat, David. — L'an deux. ». ("To Marat, David. Year Two”)
Jacques-Louis David
Marat assassiné La Mort de Marat
The Death of Marat
1793
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

65. Towards the end of the century, writing had become so common that it featured
in many paintings of domestic interiors.
An everyday interior with a woman, sitting writing at her bureau-style desk.
Lesser Ury
Woman at a Writing-Desk
Femme au bureau
1898
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

67. Cordier deep in concentration,
surrounded by books, writing
Gustave Caillebotte
Henri Cordier
Portrait of Henri Cordier
1883
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

69. A conventional portrait of a well-dressed woman sitting at a table to write a letter.
Pierre Bonnard
La Lettre
The Letter
1906
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

71. One of the last portraits painted of Bonnard’s former muse and patron
Misia Natanson (or Sert).
Pierre Bonnard
Misia Godebska écrivant
Misia Godebska Writing
1910
Private collection

73. The café culture of the years prior to the First World War …
a rough unshaven man
and
an woman is elegantly dressed, and engaged in writing a letter.
and
in front of each of them a glass of absinthe …
Jean Béraud
La Lettre
The Letter
1908
Private collection

74. Six years later, far too many of the men of Europe were writing from the trenches to their loved ones.
What had started out as a means of keeping accounts on clay tablets had changed society ...

76. o.esqsegues@gmail.com
Writing in Western paintings
L’écriture dans la peinture occidentale
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