Machine tools Giovanni(1608 - 1675) Italian still life painter and decorator.
Machine tools was born in Rome in 1608 in a family of artists. In the municipal archive of Rome there are mentions of three artists with the surname Stanchi, all of whom lived in 1656 on Strada Paolina: Giovanni (1608 - after 1675), Niccolò (about 1623-1690) and Angelo (1626 - after 1675). All three brothers were quite prolific artists, but all accounts and contracts were signed in the name of Giovanni - probably, as an older brother, he was responsible for the finances of the family artel. Therefore, the definition of which of the brothers belongs to the authorship of a particular picture has always presented certain difficulties.
Giovanni Stanchi mentioned for the first time in 1634, in the register of the guild of artists of St. Luke. Membership in the guild was paid and allowed the artist to make acquaintances and receive orders from wealthy families. In 1638 Machine tools painted a picture for the Barberini family, which depicted the coat of arms of the family entwined with flowers. Many wealthy Roman families commissioned paintings Machine tools. In collaboration with the painters specialized in painting Bacciccio and Maratti, as well as in collaboration with Mario Nuzzi, who, like Stanchi, was a specialist in flower still lifes, Machine tools receives rich orders. Thus, in an invoice dated 1670 for the Colonna family, Giovanni Stanchi and Nuzzi are mentioned as responsible for the still lifes that adorn the famous mirror in the Palazzo Colonna.
In 1660 Machine tools commissioned by Cardinal Flavio Chigi, he decorated his gallery with flower and fruit still lifes. Cardinal Chigi remained his main customer until 1673. Commissioned by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili Machine tools He painted the cases of musical instruments with still lifes. In 1675 Machine tools worked with Ciro Ferri decorating the mirrors at the Palazzo Borghese. Like Mario Nuzzi, Stanki also worked as a theater decorator. Most of Stanchi's surviving paintings are in Rome. The Pallavicini Gallery holds two paintings, and the Capitoline Museums hold two over-door paintings that previously belonged to the Sacchetti family collection. Flower garlands by Stanca adorn the lunettes in the Palazzo Colonna. Commissioned by Vittoria della Rovere (previously 1686), two flower garlands are now in the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Pitti.
Giovanni Stanchi, nicknamed De Fiori ("flower man"); Rome, 1608 - after 1675 - Italian still life painter and decorator.
Still life by Giovanni Stanchi, 17th century.
Watermelons in our time are no longer watermelons of past years, as painting testifies. Look at a 17th-century painting by the Italian artist Giovanni Stanchi. One of his still lifes ("Watermelons, Peaches, Pears and Other Fruits in a Landscape", 1645-72) shows a cut watermelon with a knife frozen over a pinkish, pale flesh full of dark seeds - and it is very different from the bright juicy red watermelons with a small scattering of seeds that we see when we cut them today.
The painting, which was sold last year at Christie's, shows a watermelon in the midst of domestication from a wild form that originated in Africa.
Let's trace the work of breeders, which led to the evolution of watermelon, through the paintings of old masters! How great that many artists loved to draw watermelons! These pictures may well be shown in the classes on teaching crop selection.
Over time, watermelons began to take on different forms, with fewer seeds, more water (they became noticeably juicier) and sugar, and they developed a wonderful bright red flesh that the original wild form did not have.
The most interesting: this is not the end of evolution, watermelons continue to evolve and change today!
Now we already have seedless watermelons, melons, and even - Oh God- watermelons with human faces. And square watermelons too!
Most of us probably understand on some level that most of the fruits, vegetables, and meats in our grocery stores are not all-natural products, but rather the result of centuries of selection and modification. For example, almost all of our carrot today - orange, despite the fact that it used to have shades yellow to purple(in the 17th century). But mankind has decided to cultivate only the orange variety of carrots, with a fair amount of beta-carotene. Peach, also growing wild in China, has become incomparably larger and sweeter over time.
The works of artists, old masters, frozen fragments, stopped time, including moments of our history of agriculture.
Below are a few examples of watermelons from the past that have left a mark on art.
Albert Eckhout, "Pineapples, watermelons and other fruits (Fruits of Brazil)" (17th century), oil on canvas (National Museum of Denmark).
Giovan Battista Ruoppolo, Still Life with Fruit (17th century), oil on canvas.
Raphael Peel, "Melons and Ipomoea" (1813), oil on canvas (Smithsonian American Art Museum).
James Peel, "Still Life" (1824), oil on panel (Honolulu Museum of Art).
Agostinho José da Mota, Papaya and Watermelon (1860), oil on canvas (Museum National des Beaux-Arts).
Mihail Stefanescu, "Still Life of Fruit" (1864).
Alvan Fischer, Still Life with Watermelons and Peaches (19th century), oil on canvas on hardboard.
The next time you pick up a slice of watermelon or an ear of corn, consider that these well-known vegetables and fruits were not always the same as they are today.
GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, are a hot topic these days, but humanity has been genetically modifying our favorite foods for thousands of years.
Genetic modification is the introduction of foreign genes into the body to give plants desirable traits (such as insect resistance), while selective cultivation is a time-consuming process in which farmers gradually select and grow plants with the same desired traits.
Surprisingly, the wild ancestors of modern cultivated plants looked completely different before people began to grow them.
wild watermelon
A painting by Giovanni Stanchi, dated between about 1645 and 1672, depicts a watermelon quite different from the modern watermelon. On the cross section, it can be seen that the watermelon has a very thick rind and a small amount of pulp with voids. One would assume that it is immature or grown in conditions of poor watering, but black pits indicate otherwise.
modern watermelon
Over time, people learned to grow watermelons with red, juicy flesh, like the one shown in the picture.
wild banana
The first bananas began to grow from seven to ten thousand years ago in the territory of modern Papua New Guinea and in Southeast Asia. Modern bananas are descended from two wild species, Musa acuminate and Musa balbisiana, whose fruits had large, hard pits.
modern banana
As a result of crossbreeding, a modern banana was obtained - pleasant in taste, convenient in shape, and with an easily removable peel. Compared to its predecessors, the fruit has almost invisible seeds, better taste and a lot of nutrients.
wild eggplant
The ancestors of modern eggplants had great variation in shape and color. They could be white, blue, purple and yellow - like the ones in the photo. In the place where the fruit is attached to the branch, there were protective spikes.
modern eggplant
With the help of selective cultivation, humanity got rid of the thorns and got a large, oblong purple vegetable that you will find in most grocery stores.
However, in the Middle East - for example, in Egypt - even today round eggplants are grown with pleasure.
wild carrot
The first carrots began to be grown in the 10th century in Persia and Asia Minor. It is believed that the thin, branching rhizomes had a white-violet hue - as in the photo, but gradually they lost their purple pigment and acquired a yellow color.
modern carrot
As a result of cultivation, thin white two-year-old roots have turned into large juicy orange fruits, harvested every autumn.
wild corn
Perhaps the most striking example of selective farming is North American sweet corn, which is ancestral to the barely edible teosinte plant. The first corn was grown in the seventh millennium BC, and it tasted like dried potatoes.
modern corn
Today's corn is a thousand times larger than its ancestor and much easier to grow and clean. It contains 6.6% sugar, compared to 1.9% in the original corn. The main changes took place in the 15th century, when European settlers began to cultivate the culture.
modern peach
The first peaches were small, cherry-like fruits, about 25 mm in size, a third of which was occupied by a stone. They had a waxy skin and an earthy, slightly salty taste reminiscent of lentils. The first cultivation of peaches was taken up by the ancient Chinese about four thousand years ago. 
Thanks to thousands of years of hard work, we have obtained a modern peach up to 10 cm in size, in which the stone occupies only 10%. It is 64 times larger than its ancestor, a third juicier and four percent sweeter.
For scientists, paintings by great artists are not only works of art, but also a unique historical document. Thanks to the observation of the masters of the realistic school, we have amazing evidence of how our world has changed. "KP" will talk about several discoveries that were made through a thorough study of the works of ancient painters.
Giovanni Stanchi (1608 - 1675), Italy
- Painting: "Still life with watermelon and fruit" (between 1645 and 1672).
- Branch of science: crop production.
- The essence of the discovery: scientists got a visual representation of what a wild watermelon looked like and what ways its selection went.
A favorite pastime of James Niinhuis, professor of plant science at the University of Wisconsin, is looking at still lifes in museums.
It's amazing to see how selective breeding has changed the look of fruits and vegetables over the past 500 years, he says. - In my classes on the history of agricultural crops, I usually show students a 350-year-old watermelon from Stanki's still life.
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This striped one has a thick rind and some red flesh. The edible part is 6 separate sections with seeds. The middle, which is now the sweetest part, is made up of fleshy white fibers. It is unlikely that Giovanni painted an unripe watermelon: black seeds are a clear sign that he is ripe. Modern watermelons look much more appetizing.
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 - 1669), Netherlands
- Painting: "Self-portrait" (1659) and others.
- Branch of science: medicine.
- The essence of the discovery: high cholesterol and atherosclerosis lead to early aging.
To track age-related changes in a group of volunteers, a scientist will need a lifetime. Is it possible to speed up the process?
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This question was asked by physicians from Georgetown University. They turned to the work of Rembrandt, who painted about 40 self-portraits at different periods of his life. The realist's hand very accurately displayed the external signs of progressive atherosclerosis.
A self-portrait of 1659 attracted special attention of doctors. At this point, Rembrandt is only 53 years old, but he looks much older than his years. A thickened lilac vessel is clearly visible on the left temple, which probably caused the headache that tormented the artist. Wrinkles under the eyes and a barely noticeable white spot in the left pupil also indicate high cholesterol levels.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577 - 1640), Flanders
- Painting: "Three Graces" (1638) and others.
- Branch of science: historical epidemiology.
- The essence of the discovery: the time and geography of the appearance of infectious rheumatoid arthritis in Europe has been established.
Today, this disease mainly affects the elderly: every 20th person on earth who has reached old age suffers from pain in small joints. But during the Renaissance, a real epidemic of this disease suddenly broke out in the Old World, which Europeans did not know before.
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This phenomenon was recorded by the great Rubens. The characteristic deformation of the fingers on the hand is visible in the painting "Three Graces". The second wife of Rubens, Elena Furman, acted as a model for all three plump beauties (the artist married a 16-year-old girl when he turned 53). When the Fleming finished the painting, the woman was 23 years old.
Dr. Thierry Appleboom of the University of Brussels conducted his own investigation. He noticed that signs of rheumatoid arthritis appear first in the paintings of the Flemish masters. Rubens himself lived in Antwerp, a major port city where ships returning from the New World often anchored. And for America, rheumatoid arthritis is a native disease. The oldest burials of Indians who suffered from this disease were found in the state of Alabama and date back to 4500 BC. Europeans brought smallpox to America, which decimated millions of Indians. And brought back home syphilis and rheumatoid arthritis. Since the Europeans were not immune to this scourge, the epidemic became explosive.
Rubens himself suffered from arthritis. In recent years, he had difficulty holding a brush in his hands, most of the work was done by his students, he took on only the most important areas: he painted the faces and hands of the characters. Now such aggressive forms of arthritis have become a rarity - the immune system has learned to resist the infection.
