Psyching myself up

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Psyche showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid, 1753, National Gallery, London.

I was going to write a new post today, but it turns out I’m still in acting mode. After two weeks in Sidmouth playing three different roles in the four playlets that make up Neil Simon’s California Suite we have half a week at the New Theatre Peterborough. Thank you so much to those of you who joined us on the South Coast – and if anybody would like to see the show in Peterborough, it is only 50 minutes from London on the train (and there is a matinee at 2.30 on Saturday…). Then I will psyche myself up to get back into lecturing mode for Tuesday evening (31 August), when I will be telling the story of Cupid and Psyche, illustrated with art from across the ages (most notably, of course, the decoration of the Villa Farnesina by the workshop of Raphael). Then the following week, on Monday 6th September at 6pm I will be talking about Two Swedish Masters – Anders Zorn and Carl Larsson – both of whom deserve to be better known. Those of you who were with me during lockdown 1 will have read my lengthy musings on the story of Psyche – but as an introduction (and while I’m still trying to get my head in gear) – I thought I’d repeat a post from April 30th last year… So here is Psyche showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid by Fragonard. 

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732 – 1806 Psyche showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid 1753 Oil on canvas, 168.3 x 192.4 cm Bought, 1978 NG6445 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG6445

The story of Psyche is a wonderful one, and sufficiently long to be shared over a couple of days…  It is peppered across Greek and Roman myth, but the version that is best known isn’t myth at all, but part of a late Roman novella, The Golden Ass, written by Apuleius in the second half of the second century AD. It tells of a man, Lucius, who, as the result of a freak magic-related accident, is turned into a donkey (if you think you’ve heard this before, yes, this is probably the origin of the Bottom sub-plot in A Midsummer Night’s Dream). He wanders the world trying to regain human form, and on his journeys hears various stories, which are recounted as part of the novella. The longest and most thoroughly told tale is the story of Cupid and Psyche, which became a particular favourite in the Renaissance. It is illustrated in full by Giulio Romano in the Palazzo Te in Mantua, and Raphael started a cycle in the Farnesina in Rome, although sadly it was never completed. I will come back to both, though, as well as throwing in other interpretations as the mood takes me!

Luca Giordano, Psyche Honoured by the People c.1695-7, Royal Collection Trust.

Psyche was a mere mortal, but as a girl, was said to be more beautiful than Venus herself, the Goddess of Beauty. She was so beautiful, in fact, that people started worshipping her instead of Venus. Gods never like a threat to their status, and Venus was no exception. 

Workshop of Raphael, Venus and Cupid, 1518, Farnesina Palace, Rome.

She sent her son Cupid to make Psyche very unhappy, by making her fall in love with a monster (another feature of the story which is echoed in the Dream, perhaps?), but when he saw her he understood what all the fuss was about. Leaning closer to get a better look, he accidentally pricked himself with one of his own arrows, and fell madly in love with her. Knowing that his mother would have been furious, he knew he had to get her out of the way, so he got his good friend Zephyr, the wind (who we have already seen in Picture Of The Day 8 and POTD 37) to pick her up and carry her off to his castle. Once there, she was brought food by invisible servants, played music by invisible musicians, and showered with gifts from who knows where. He came to her at night, in the dark… and the earth moved. Clearly she was happy to be there, and he told her that she could stay, on condition that she never tried to find out his name or see what he looked like. This suited Psyche, although she was a bit concerned that her sisters might be worried about where she’d got to, so she persuaded Cupid, much against his better judgement, to get Zephyr to bring them to the castle so they could see that she was alright.

On arrival she shows them all the gifts she has been given – some of these are scattered on the ground: a basket of roses, tipped up for inspection by the sister in red, and in front of that an elaborate golden bowl, with turquoise fabric lying in and around it. There is a pipe and a tambourine – evidence of the magical music, perhaps – and leaning against the frame of Fragonard’s painting is another frame, an oval one, with a blue ribbon tied onto the loops at the back so that it can be hung. We will never know what this is – a mirror, perhaps? Or a painting? Also lying on the ground is a quiver full of arrows – this should be a clue. Psyche is not the sort to go out hunting (unlike Diana and her virgin nymphs), so these must belong to Cupid. If only she had noticed them, and stopped to think what they were doing there!

She seems to have been given a vast amount of fabric. One sister, blonde, who is facing us, holds up a length that is a very pale lemon yellow and white, with a sky blue border, while the redhead with her back to us in shadow clasps what appears to be cloth of gold. The fabric pours across the floor and over the step on which this woman is kneeling. As this woman is in the left foreground, and in shadow against a lighter background, she should really be a repoussoir, encouraging us to look further into the image, but she looks off to her left, and directs our attention away from Psyche, the focus of the story. I can only imagine that Fragonard is implying that these bolts of brocade are spread far across the floor, way beyond the edge of the painting.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1732 – 1806 Psyche showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid 1753 Oil on canvas, 168.3 x 192.4 cm Bought, 1978 NG6445 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG6445

Fine fabrics would appear to be the stuff of the sisters’ dreams, they are so well attired themselves. The primrose yellow of the standing blonde woman is one of my favourite colours in any painting – don’t ask me why – but Fragonard makes it ring out by surrounding it with different yellows and turquoises. Despite this, there is no doubt that Psyche is the most important person here. Her brilliant white drapery – it could hardly be called it a robe, as it barely covers her, despite its length and breadth – shines out between the shimmering yellow and the deep red. She is the only person seated, her feet resting on a splendid cylindrical cushion, in turquoise velvet, with gold tassels. Her hair is being coiffed by one of her more attentive sisters, who looks over her shoulder to see a swarm of amoretti  – ‘little loves’ – bringing yet more jewelry and roses. It is almost as if they are embodiments of the rich perfumes emanating from the large, gold censer on the far right. 

Her chair is elaborately carved and gilded, and next to the cherub’s head at the end of the arm is a cushion in delicate pink, with feathery gold embroidery appliqued freely and plentifully as if it were the cherub’s wings. All this appears to be taking place in a fantasy setting – well it is rather fantastic! A stage set, perhaps, or the courtyard of a grand palace, with a terrace that has been strewn with rich materials for a tête-à-tête – en plein air – as it were. Fragonard has himself changed his mind about how it is represented, as there is a ghost-like vase hovering above right of the two standing sisters. This is what is known as a pentimento – or change of mind – which has, through the aging of the paint, become visible again.

What do Psyche’s sisters feel about all the attention she has been getting? Well, flying through the sky is a woman with snakes in her left hand and a flaming torch in her right, looking down at the two standing sisters. This is Eris, the Goddess of Discord – the Goddess of Arguments. I’ve always assumed that she has the snakes to freak people out, and the torch to heat up the arguments. Of course, the sisters were jealous! They wanted to know who he was, this wonderful lover, and what did he look like? Psyche couldn’t answer. As he only came at night, she had never seen him. When they pointed out to her that he could be a monster, she lost the calm that she is so clearly enjoying in this painting, and got into an argument (Eris always gets her way in the end). She then told Zephyr to take them away again. But what should she do next? Well – you can look up the ‘Psyche’ archive, or join me for the talk on Tuesday!

134 – Displaced Angels

Raphael, The Sistine Madonna, 1512-14. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.

I am constantly reminded of something that, when I first heard it, was attributed to Mark Twain: ‘I am sorry to have written such a long letter: I didn’t have time to write a short one’. Since then I have heard it attributed to any number of other authors, and really, I don’t have the time to research a short conclusion – so I shan’t. I was reminded of this during my lecture last week. Having tried to cover the life of short-lived artist Caravaggio in three talks, I thought four would be ideal for Raphael, who lived one year less (he died at 37, unlike Caravaggio, who lived to the ripe old age of 38). And yet, and yet… there is always more to say. So today I want to think about one of the glorious paintings which I just haven’t had time to include in the lectures. Why so busy? Well, that’s enough about me. There are two more talks in the Raphael series, though. Tomorrow, Monday 19 July, at 6pm I have re-named Telling Tales and Spinning Yarns, and then next Monday, 26 July, I will discuss the last phase of his prodigious career in the talk Competition and Collaboration. And then no more talks for at least a month. It’s not a holiday, but a break from art for acting. So if you like theatre, and find yourself on the South Devon Coast (Sidmouth, to be precise) or near Peterborough, I will be appearing in three of the four one-act plays which make up Neil Simon’s California Suite. But for now, back to Raphael.

You are aware of the concept of fallen angels, I presume, but have maybe not come across a displaced angel… but these two have certainly been cut adrift. You can find them in almost any large Italian town, staring up from the pavement and accompanied by an assorted array of different posters of varying standards and sensibilities. However, should the police appear, they will be whisked away, caught up in the sheet on which they have been reclining. Perhaps they serve a function as the guardian angels of street vendors, alerting them to the imminent arrival of rain or sun, thus explaining the supernatural ability of these outcast men (they are always men) to appear beside you with an umbrella or an array of sun glasses within seconds of the downpour or subsequent brilliant glare. And yet, despite their ubiquity, these angels are far from home: far from their original home, that is, and even further from their current place of residence. They are seen completely out of context, and few people – from among those likely take them home – would be able to tell you what they are and where they really live. And that is because no one on their holidays in Italy would have seen them: they too are on holiday, from Dresden. I should say that I do find them entirely charming, both leaning on the window sill, it seems (although as often as not, as here, that has been cropped out of the image), looking up at we know not what, one with his chin on his crossed arms, the other resting his head on his hand, that typical gesture of thought. Both are on the verge of boredom, it seems, and yet they still hold the possibility of being entertained. What is it that they are contemplating? And is their interest sustained by the possibility that things will get better or worse? Well, let’s put them into context.

They come from Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, which he completed in 1514, a painting which is now one of the highlights (if not the highlight) of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. Despite the name, it was not painted for the Sistine Chapel, nor was it painted for Pope Sixtus IV, after whom the chapel is named, as he died in 1484, the year after Raphael was born. However, it was painted for his nephew, Julius II, the Pope who commissioned Raphael to paint his Rooms in the Vatican Palace, and commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine ceiling. The ensuing disputes between the two great artists will feature in next week’s talk. Julius died the year after he commissioned the painting, and the year before it was completed, during the papacy of Leo X, the Pope who asked Raphael to design him a nice set of tapestries (the subject of tomorrow’s talk). However, the painting never had a home in Rome: it was commissioned for the Church of St Sixtus in Piacenza. More of that later, though, let’s have a look at the painting.

We see the Madonna standing on the clouds in a form of contrapposto – her weight on her right leg, the left leg bent, with the heel lifting off the ground, for all the world as if she is walking towards us, carrying her child – or, in theological terms, as if she is carrying her child towards us for the salvation of all the world. Her blue cloak is blowing to the right and the golden veil billowing as a result of a breeze. Two saints, male and female, kneel at her feet, the man looking up at her while gesturing to us, the woman exchanging glances with the angel on our left. The heavenly vision has been revealed to us thanks to a pair of green curtains, which have been drawn back to frame the Virgin on either side of the painting.

Tied visibly on our right, and behind the frame on the left, the bunching of the curtains means that the rings with which they are hung are unevenly spaced – a touch of naturalism to help us believe the supernatural. The slim rod bows from the weight, revealing more sky at the top of the painting, suffused with ethereal members of the heavenly host – pale blue cherubim and seraphim merging with the clouds. Both Mother and Child look out at us – or do they look just past us? – wide-eyed, even concerned. Jesus sits cross-legged, like the monarchs of medieval manuscript illumination, preparing to judge us – to condemn, or have mercy. The motif of the curtain is also medieval in origin. In Matthew’s account of the crucifixion – Chapter 27:50-51 to be precise – we read:

50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent…

This event – the rending of the curtain – is interpreted as the revelation of divine truth, and here too, in this painting, the truth is revealed, as Mary presents us with her child, our saviour. Note how the curtains are at a level to frame the standing Virgin, but would not necessarily hang low enough to cover the saints. Like us, they are witnesses to this vision, this revelation, not part of it.

On the left is St Sixtus, who, as Pope Sixtus II, was the Bishop of Rome from 257-258, at which point he was martyred under the Emperor Valerian along with the better known St Lawrence. He puts his left hand on his chest, and gestures towards us with his right hand. On the right is St Barbara, a saint whose life spanned the late third and early fourth centuries. Like St Sixtus, she also puts her left hand on her chest and, given the implied symmetry, not to mention the turn of her body, may well be using her right hand to indicate her attribute, the model of the tower in which she was imprisoned by her pagan father. This can be seen over her shoulder at the bottom of the visible section of the curtain. She is dressed in a complex, but elegant, fashion, with overlapping yellow and blue puffed sleeves, and a blue/violet cloak with a green lining. The diagonal of the green continues up through the flicking cloak of the Virgin, leading our eye towards the Christ child’s left foot – which is notably at the eyeline of both martyrs. They are ideally placed to kiss it, a sign of their humility and obeisance.

But then, if the painting were in place on an altar, the Virgin’s own feet, so delicately poised on the weight-bearing clouds, would be at the right height for us to do the same. Sixtus’s cope, the hem of which is subtly embroidered with saints seated in shell-topped niches, hangs down below him, linking us to the more heavenly realm. He has placed his triple tiara – the headgear worn by popes up until the 1960s (when they also tried, unsuccessfully, to remove St Barbara from the Canon of Saints) – on the same ledge on which the cherubs lean. Their melancholy gaze (which, like the startled look of Madonna and Child, probably results from the inevitability of Christ’s death, combined with a subtle hint of the awe that his revelation entails) leads our eye back up to the top of the painting.

Visually, this is a masterpiece in direction and redirection. The angels, closest to us, look up towards St Barbara, and she gestures back to her tower. Rising from this, the curtain takes us up to the Virgin. The green lining of Barbara’s cloak takes our eyes to Christ’s foot, at the same level as her head and that of St Sixtus. He looks up to the Madonna and Child while she looks down, a different form of contrapposto which Raphael uses to keep us attentive, and to keep our eyes exploring, travelling across the surface of the painting, discovering every detail. Sixtus is interceding on our behalf, looking up to Jesus, begging him for mercy for us, miserable sinners – and pointing back towards us, making us reflect on our own existence, and reminding us that we too should pray. His cope hangs down close to us, we could even reach out and touch the hem of this garment, just as the woman with ‘an issue of blood’ did in Luke 8:43-48 when she thought Jesus wasn’t looking. The golden cope catches our eyes, and leads our attention back up to Sixtus’s face, and so back to Mary and Jesus. Its red lining echoes the visible section of Mary’s dress, both forming curved arrows which, like so much else, point up towards Jesus: there is constant upward motion. If you join the heads of the saints to Mary’s head, and the hands of the saints to Christ’s foot, you will have two parallel arrows pointing upwards, framed by the hanging curtains, echoed at the bottom by the angels – all leading us up towards the un-depicted God the Father, imagined as looking down from heaven. This upward motion is part of the inspiration for this painting.

On the left is a late 15th Century drawing by one of the followers of Perugino, part of the collection of the Albertina in Vienna. It shows us what the fresco Perugino painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel looked like. The chapel is dedicated (not that you’d know it now) to the Assumption of the Virgin, and this image was painted in fresco as an altarpiece, only to be destroyed when Michelangelo created his Last Judgement.

At the bottom of the drawing we see Sixtus IV kneeling with his triple tiara sitting on the ground, much as it does in Raphael’s painting. He is confirmed as St Peter’s successor by the man himself, who places his left hand on his head, and taps him on the shoulder with one of the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, almost as if knighting him from behind. At the bottom of the mandorla – or almond-shaped glory – surrounding the Virgin Mary are three winged cherubim heads, looking up in much the same way that Raphael’s two angels do. St Paul stands on the right, resting one hand on his sword, and looking out towards us. It is all but impossible that Raphael did not know the original painting.

As a Franciscan, Sixtus IV – born Francesco della Rovere – had a strong belief in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (for which, see Day 71 and Day 72). In 1473 he made the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which had previously been a purely private affair, into a fully public, official celebration. Six years later he dedicated the chapel which bears his name on the Feast of the Assumption (which is a logical outcome of the Immaculate Conception), that is, on 15 August, 1483 – hence the subject of Perugino’s fresco. But why didn’t he become Pope Francis? Why did he choose a different name? St Francis was a worthy model, after all, and according to his followers, alter Christi – ‘another Christ’. Admittedly, most cardinals, on being elected to the Papacy, do choose a new name as a sign of their new life. The Conclave of 1471, at which he was elected, started on 6 August, which just happens to be the Feast of St Sixtus – hence his chosen name. But that doesn’t explain why his nephew, Julius II, commissioned this painting for a distant city. However, in 1512 the warrior Pope had captured the city of Piacenza and absorbed it into the Papal States. This made up in some way for the loss, the previous year, of Bologna, an the event which he mourned by refusing to shave. That’s how he got the beard with which we are familiar from Raphael’s innovative and influential portrait. Indeed, he looked more than a little like Raphael’s image of the 3rd Century martyr St Sixtus, who is indicating us. But then, that figure could feasibly also represent Julius II, the donor, showing Jesus the new city he has captured for God… It is also relevant that Piacenza had a church dedicated to St Sixtus, which boasted relics of the man himself, as well as some of St Barbara, which is why they are the saints featured in the painting. And as if this wasn’t enough, Julius was all too aware that he owed everything to his uncle, and did everything he could to commemorate him, and thus, the della Rovere family from which they both came.

The painting stayed in its intended location in Piacenza until 1754, when it was bought by Elector Frederick Augustus II of Saxony (also known as Augustus III of Poland) – the avid collector who amassed new fewer than 157 pastels by Rosalba Carriera – from which point on it became, for the Germans, the most perfect painting ever created. Among others, it was praised by Winckelmann, Goethe, Nietsche and Thomas Mann. And there is a whole subsequent history to go into, not to mention the peculiar presence of the charmed and charming angels all over Italy – but I really don’t have time to go into all of that right now. However, looking at that drawing again has made me realise that I will have to add another slide (or two) to tomorrow’s talk. I’m sorry, I won’t have time to write a short one.

133 – Cleanliness next to Godliness

Luciano Laurana, La Facciata dei Torricini, 1464-72. Palazzo Ducale, Urbino.

It’s a long time since I’ve talked about a building, but as today’s façade has a brief mention in the first of my new series of talks about Raphael, (A Boy from Urbino, this Monday 5 July at 6pm) – I thought I’d look at what a sophisticated piece of design it is. Monday’s a busy day, as it happens. I will also start a new course for the National Gallery – Women Artists – which covers women in Western European Art from medieval to modern, focussing especially on those whose work is included in the Gallery’s own collection. It will fill the gap between coffee and lunch on Mondays and Wednesdays for three weeks – there are more details in the link above. But today we will talk about architecture. The Palazzo Ducale in Urbino is sometimes described as the greatest Renaissance palace. It was built for Federigo da Montefeltro, Lord of Urbino from 1444, who was promoted to Duke in 1474. There is a lot of discussion still about who was responsible for the design of different sections of the palace: Luciano Laurana incorporated a slightly earlier building, but did not complete the palace by the time he left Urbino in 1472. However, I won’t be discussing the whole building: it is simply too large and too complex for one post. Instead, I will just look at one side, known as the Facciata dei Torricini – the ‘Façade of the Little Towers’ – which most authorities seem to be happy to attribute to Laurana himself.

Most of the palace is far grander and more austere in appearance. The palace is undoubtedly the largest structure in the city – with the exception of the encompassing defensive walls, I suppose – and most of it is far grander and more austere than this façade – both more simple and imposing. This section is more elaborate as a result of its function – or functions – as the apartments of the Duke himself. The façade looks out over the countryside, rather than in towards the city, and so is designed to demonstrate Federigo’s wealth and good taste to anyone approaching from this direction. But it also expresses, subtly, a whole system of beliefs and convictions concerning the character of a good ruler. The façade is elaborated by a vertical series of three arches. The bottom two are labelled with the letters ‘F’ and ‘C’, standing for Federico Comes – ‘Count Federigo’ in Latin –  reminding us that this structure was completed before he became Duke in 1474.

The top two arches are supported by marble columns, and are also faced in marble – implying the high status of the rooms which are behind them. The lowest is framed by brickwork – it is more down to earth, like the palace as a whole. By picking out these details in marble, it becomes clear that this part of the palace must the Duke’s (or Count’s) personal domain. Both of the upper two arches have two doorways leading from the balconies, whereas the lowest has only one. Nevertheless, in all three cases, the balconies allowed Federico to survey his realm. Access from one to another was via the spiral staircase in the torricino to the left. In between this and the upper balcony is a window which illuminates Federico’s famed studiolo – or ‘little study’ – decorated with paintings of ‘famous men’ by Justus of Ghent and Pedro Berruguete. Some – those in colour – are still in situ, whereas the remainder, represented by the reproductions in black and white, have been scattered around the world.

More famous, perhaps, is the intarsia work by Benedetto and Giuliano da Maiano, showing off their skill with perspective and other forms of illusionistic representation, using intricate inlaid woods. The imagery displays Federico’s military prowess and artistic interests, including music and the arts, science, weaponry, a display of his honours (among others he held the Orders of the Ermine, the Golden Fleece, and the Garter – the last of these bestowed by Edward IV of England), not to mention personifications the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, which we must assume Federigo was supposed to embody.

From the next balcony down the two doors lead into two small rooms, known as the Chapel of Absolution, and the Temple of the Muses. The entrance to the two is topped by a couplet in Latin, which translates as,

You see a pair of chapels, joined together with a small separation:
the one part is sacred to the Muses, the other sacred to God.

It has been suggested that Piero della Francesca’s painting of The Flagellation once stood on the altar of the Chapel of Absolution – although this is by no means certain. However, we do know that the Temple was decorated with paintings of the nine muses by none other than Giovanni Santi. Now, this name might not be familiar to you, but don’t worry, he wasn’t the most famous of artists. However, he did create some rather charming works, and did two things for which he has been considered especially important. For one thing, he wrote a rhyming epic in honour of his patron Federigo. This isn’t in itself remarkable, but Giovanni followed the encomium with a list of 27 recent and living artists who he considered to be important, praising their work and explaining what he thought were their chief qualities – one of the first and one of very few such statements from the Renaissance, and therefore an invaluable measure of how people in the 15th Century actually talked about art. Perhaps more important than this, though, he was the father of Raphael (one of those artists we tend to refer to by one name only, thus effectively denying his parentage any relevance). Even though he died when Raphael was only eleven, it seems likely that Giovanni had already taught his young son most of the technique he would need for a successful career.

Giovanni Santi, The Muse Clio. Drawing: Royal Collection Trust. Painting: Galleria Corsini, Florence.

This beautifully delicate drawing in the Royal Collection was used by Giovanni as the model for various works, but most directly for Clio, the Muse of History. The painting itself is one of several surviving Muses (not all nine have been preserved), and is probably the one in the best condition.

So Federigo’s apartments – including his bedroom, the antechambers, and audience rooms – and most specifically, his study – are above a Christian chapel and a humanistic temple to the Muses. What would be the function of the rooms down below? In moving from the study to the chapel and temple, we have moved down from head to heart, suggesting that the lowest level of the three could be related to the rest of the body, or, perhaps, to more lowly functions. And indeed, behind the lowest balcony are Federigo’s bathrooms, across the corridor from the stables. I would imagine that this allowed him, on getting home from one of his military campaigns (he earned much of his fame and wealth as a Condottiero, a leader of mercenary soldiers) to wash off the cares of the world before returning to the cares of the court, and having cleansed his body he could head up the spiral staircase to cleanse his soul, thanking God for his safe return and praying for forgiveness for any misdeeds. He could also consult the Muses for inspiration before heading up to his private study and other apartments.

When seen from above, we realise that one of the walls does not shelter a room, but acts as a screen for a ‘hanging garden’, which sits on the roof directly above the stables. There used to be a walkway above this wall, which led directly from Federigo’s apartments to those of his wife, the beautiful Battista Sforza. Sadly, she died in childbirth at the age of 26, but was immortalised posthumously by Piero della Francesco as one of the paired portraits in the Uffizi.

Piero della Francesca, Battista Sforza and Federigo da Montefeltro, about 1473-75. Uffizi, Florence.

The Duke had everything at hand. His own rooms, on a level, and within easy reach of his wife along a short corridor (passing between garden and countryside), worked along a horizontal axis, while, on the vertical axis, his study was supported by a foundation of God and the arts – the health of his soul and his mind. These in turn were supported by the wellbeing of his body in the bathrooms below (not to mention the kitchens, which are on the same level). This clarity of thought and the elegant disposition of spaces are just a couple of the features which mark the sophistication of the court to which Raphael belonged: this is where he grew up, and where he made his first steps in the world of art. It was undoubtedly an important foundation for the future development of his career, which is precisely why it seems an ideal place to start the series on Monday. I look forward to talking to some of you then.

132 – Giant, or Giant Slayer?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, David, 1623-4. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

I was blogging about Bernini two weeks ago, and I had meant to write a post about Caravaggio’s St Francis last week, as we still have one more talk about Caravaggio to go (this Monday at 2pm and 6pm), before I start a new series of four talks called The Raphaels in One Room. However, I moved house instead, so St Francis will have to wait. I’m currently surrounded by boxes, and piles of detritus, and it’s very hard to focus! I’ll get back to the early Caravaggio another day, although a ‘late’ work will make a guest appearance later on, much as a ‘mature’ painting did two weeks ago. That post covered a recently re-discovered work by Bernini (see 131 – Memento Mori), although I wrote about two of his most famous sculptures – The Ecstasy of St Theresa (Day 63) and Apollo and Daphne (Day 56) – way back in the days of Lockdown 1. Today I want to look at his David, which he carved at the same time as the Apollo – or rather, in a break in the latter’s execution (having said that, he didn’t carve all of the Apollo and Daphne himself, but I don’t often mention the fact: for some reason it tends to upset people). Today’s sculpture, like its contemporary, is in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, so people naturally assume that it was commissioned by Cardinal Scipio Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V. However, it seems likely that it was originally conceived for the garden of a villa at Montalto, on the edge of Rome, and for a different cardinal: Alessandro Peretti, nephew of Pope Sixtus V. Peretti had planned a theatrical setting for the work which might explain the composition of the David. However, the patron died in 1623, shortly after the sculpture had been commissioned, and Bernini was probably worried he that would not get paid. Nevertheless, there was apparently no difficulty in persuading Scipio Borghese to take on the commission. Although he already had Bernini’s Pluto and Persephone, and was looking forward to Apollo and Daphne – which was was already well underway – a biblical subject could have been enticing. If nothing else, it might help to allay any criticisms that the Cardinal was too caught up with pagan myth – and if so, then this subject was ideal, given that it celebrates the death of the infidel.

We see David in the act of throwing the stone that will slay Goliath. According to the biblical account, after he had taken up the Philistine’s challenge, Saul thought it wise that he should wear armour. But this is how David responded, according to 1 Samuel 17:38-39:

And Saul armed David with his armour, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail.
And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him.

The text basically says that David didn’t want to wear the armour because he wasn’t used to it, so he took it off. It does not say ‘and so David went to fight Goliath naked’ – which is how both Donatello and Michelangelo show him. Although David is not entirely naked here, there is only a swathe of drapery to preserve his dignity, and even that is a tease, coming so close to falling off his thigh, and revealing just enough to be provocative.  Entirely naked may well have been less sensual. Bernini’s predecessors make no reference to the rejected armour, but it sits here behind the figure of David at the back of the base. There is also a lyre lying on the ground, a reminder of David’s musicality (he has traditional been identified as the author of the Psalms).

The sculpture has no hint of the staff which is mentioned in 1 Samuel 17:40, but Bernini does include other details:

And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.

One of the five stones has been put into the sling, and David is holding it in his left hand, with the end of the sling is in his right. The shepherd’s bag,or scrip – apparently made from the skin of one of the flock – is slung over his right shoulder. He twists around to increase the momentum of the shot, concentrating so hard that he frowns, and bites his lip, as he looks up towards the giant, judging his aim. From the direction of his gaze we get a good sense of how tall Goliath must have been. His height is even mentioned in the biblical account: according to 1 Samuel 17:4 David’s foe was ‘a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.’ Or, to put in in other terms, just 3cm off 3m – or 9’9”. While we’re talking about height, it’s worthwhile pointing out that Michelangelo’s David measure 5.17m: 2.2m taller than the biblical Goliath – and has also been known as Il Gigante: ‘the Giant’.

The subject of David is familiar, and is one that sculptors – especially Florentine sculptors – had excelled at long before Bernini was born. You could even say that some of the giants of the field had created examples that Bernini would doubtless want to emulate and even surpass. Donatello created at least two, an early version in marble, and a mature – and rather bizarre – work in bronze. This was followed by Verrocchio’s bronze, which I happen to think is one of the best. Not only is it superb in terms of its execution, but it also fits the biblical description of the young shepherd boy more than any others. He shows David with the head of Goliath at his feet, as all other artists depicting the young man had done before. The boy’s challenge has been fulfilled successfully, and the young hero is at peace, with all the balance, and charm, that the Early Renaissance could muster. In all of the early images the head is vital as David’s attribute – the symbol which tells us who this young murderer is: God’s chosen victor.

Verrocchio
Michelangelo
Bernini

Michelangelo’s innovation was to show David before he had slain Goliath – he was the first artist to do so. This introduces the psychological tension so typical of works of the Renaissance, not to mention the angst which Michelangelo loved to portray physically, although here it is limited to the strong turn of the head. David looks out for his enemy, anxious, his brow slightly furrowed, but calm in the knowledge that God is his strength. However, although this was new for a depiction of David, it did have a precedent: Donatello had earlier shown St George prior to slaying the dragon, alert, on the front foot, and seeking out his foe across the streets of Florence. HOwever brilliant it is, though, you could argue that there is a fundamental problem with the way in which Il Gigante is conceived – apart from the fact that it is, in itself, a giant: he appears to be looking for someone at the same level as himself, someone who must, therefore, be the same height. As a contrast, Bernini’s David looks up, and we can tell instantly that he is aiming at someone far taller than himself. Bernini also does that typically Baroque thing of showing us the moment of greatest drama. Not ‘it’s over, and we are at peace’ like Verrocchio, or ‘oh no, will he do it?’ like Michelangelo, but ‘IT’S HAPPENING NOW!’ – something he could easily have learnt this from the paintings of an artist of the previous generation: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The energy and drama he has depicted means that the sculpture looks good from almost every point of view.

From the side (on the left), the shoulders are turned towards us, and so this could arguably be considered the ‘front’ – even if the hero turns and looks away from us. His arms frame the body, and make the composition look ‘contained’, even if the angle of the right leg below the knee shows us how much David is leaning into his task. If we hadn’t understood this before, this lack of balance we see here should make us realise the extent to which the armour is there to anchor the body, and to support its weight. When seen from the front left corner (on the right), the drapery and the strap of the scrip are seen to be parallel, enhancing the harmony of the composition, and are counteracted by the line of the left arm. It is also clear from this angle that none of the weight of this block of marble can be supported by the left leg, as only the ball of the foot seems to be touching the ground.

The front view balances the extension of the left leg with the reach of the left arm – with the right leg halfway between the two. The armour reads as a separate unit, but is the only central element at ‘ground level’ – the extreme asymmetry of the composition is one of the things that generates the sense of energy, motion and momentum. Even viewed from behind the overlapping diagonals are interesting, even though, if you look at the armour itself, you can see that the sculpture was never meant to be seen from this side.

Some of the detailing has not been carved, and, like the base at the back, it is relatively un-worked. We can also see that the left foot, poised so delicately on the toes when seen from the front, is blockier than you would expect. This is a standard sculptors trick. In the setting for which the sculpture was originally intended – Cardinal Peretti’s garden – it was presumably meant to be set against some form of wall, with vegetation on either side to create an appropriately theatrical setting, and prevent us from going behind. In a domestic interior, which is what it was given – simply placing it against a wall would suffice.

The way in which Bernini imagines David is remarkable not only because it fits the story so well, but also because he was adapting a two-dimensional image, and one which, as he himself must have realised, subverted the idea of fighting a giant. The composition was based on a painting of the giant Polyphemus, by Caravaggio’s contemporary – and rival – Annibale Carracci, which was painted in fresco in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome in 1605.

Not only is Polyphemus a giant, but he is a giant throwing stones – at the fleeing Acis and Galatea. The choice of Polyphemus is not the only way that Bernini is playing with giants. I mentioned earlier that ‘some of the giants of the field’ had made sculptures of David. And Bernini – not yet 25 – was aiming to slay them. He particularly wanted to surpass Michelangelo himself, who completed his David at the age of 29. As a 19-year-old, Bernini had used Michelangelo’s Risen Christ – who is carrying the cross – as the model for his own Aeneas carrying Anchises. The intellectual leap required to replace the cross with the hero’s father is quite remarkable, I think. But apart from this, is there any reason why I should think that Bernini was putting himself in the position of David, wanting to slay the giant Michelangelo? Well, look at these two faces:

This is a self portrait, painted around 1623, when Bernini was carving this sculpture. David is Bernini, it’s that simple, it is another self portrait. And as a young man – not yet 25 – who else would be the one giant that he would want to overthrow, if not Michelangelo? All of this means that Bernini, at the beginning of his life, saw himself in a very different light to Caravaggio, at the end of his. I’ve always enjoyed the contrast between two Davids, both in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, one by Bernini (1623-24) and the other by Caravaggio (1610). This is the image I will end Monday’s lecture with. Although the focus of the talk will be the Salome in the National Gallery, if you are thinking about the last years of Caravaggio’s short life, the David says it all really.

Caravaggio, David with the head of Goliath, 1610. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

The regret in David’s eyes is astonishing: no triumph, no victory… The richly coloured palette of the youthful works has gradually faded away, and darkness seeps in from every shadow. David looks down at the conquered hero with compassion, while the severed head, which still seems to be conscious, appears to be confused, and tired, as much as anything. But compare these two faces:

Ottavio Leoni, Portrait of Caravaggio, c. 1621

Caravaggio is Goliath, it’s that simple. He seems to say, ‘I am a giant, and you have killed me’ to the public who failed to understand him. Of course, that was not the story at all. Caravaggio was a star, his works were popular, highly praised, and in demand, while he was famous across Europe. The was no problem with the art, it was the artist – the man himself, who was the problem. His behaviour was erratic and unpredictable, and he grew increasingly argumentative, and, it would seem, insecure. We will explore these final years, and the dark, evocative, profoundly moving works he produced this Monday, 21 June at 2pm or 6pm. And following Caravaggio, I will move on – if back in time – to another short-lived genius: Raphael. This series will include four talks inspired by the images in one room of the Pinacoteca Vatican – the Papal picture gallery – in a similar way to our exploration of the work of Caravaggio. You can find more details about this series, The Raphaels in One Room, on the diary page of my website. I look forward to speaking to you then, and even before, for the last of Caravaggio. And having renewed my admiration for this wonderful sculpture by Bernini, maybe I should do a series on him one day – although any other suggestions you have are always welcome.

131 – Memento Mori

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Skull, 1655.

It seems like it’s been a while since I wrote anything, but as I’m getting ready to talk again on Monday – the continuation of the series Caravaggio: A life in three paintings – I suppose it’s about time I got my brain in gear. It would make sense to focus on Caravaggio, I know, but I’ve been slightly distracted by a recently discovered sculpture by Bernini. Now, that doesn’t happen very often (I can’t remember it happening before), which is precisely why it was distracting. However, before you get too excited, I should warn you that it’s not his most dramatic work (and there are plenty to choose from), although it is brilliantly carved. It also appears to be entirely ‘autograph’ – i.e. he carved it himself. The question of originality is complex, but somehow we now have the feeling that artists should make all of their own work (this was not always the case with Rodin, for example, whose work I will discuss this coming Wednesday – for more details, see the diary). However, it would not have been possible for Bernini to execute all of the projects commissioned from him. These included sculpture, yes, but also architecture, and even, occasionally, painting. As a result he had a large workshop to help him out. Even the notoriously solitary Michelangelo had people helping him from time to time, but there were never that many – he rarely trusted others to get things right – and that is just one of the reasons why so many of his works remained unfinished. The fact is, in these cases, the artist knows exactly what the work should look like, and it is the assistant’s job to make sure that they recreate the master’s intentions with precision. But, as it happens, that is not the case today. For personal and political reasons, it seems likely that Bernini carved the work himself.

Die Sonderausstellung Bernini, der Papst und der Tod am 28.05.2021 in der Gemaeldegalerie Alte Meister von Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in Dresden. Foto: Oliver Killig

Now, if I didn’t know that this was carved out of the best carrara marble, and given that we are looking at a photograph, rather than the original, I think I would assume that this was not a sculpture, but a real skull. But then, I’m am art historian, not an anatomist. Indeed, it is probably because it is such a careful, naturalistic rendition – with no obvious stylistic traits, or period ‘flare’ – that it disappeared under the radar in the first place. The skull is currently being exhibited at the Ge,mäldegalerie Alte Meister – the ‘Old Master Painting Gallery’ – in Dresden, as part of an exhibition entitled ‘Bernini, the Pope, and Death,’ and it will be there until 5 September. Sadly I won’t get to Dresden until after the exhibition has ended, so I will miss the skull. Until now it has lived (if that word is appropriate) at Schloss Pillnitz, on the Elbe. Once out in the countryside, Dresden has expanded, and the Schloss now finds itself on the edge of the city, and easily accessible by public transport in about 50 minutes, so maybe I’ll try and make my way over there. The sculpture has been on display for years but nobody knew what it was. It had been included in the archaeological collection, where none of the curators would be likely to guess at its origins. However, when looking for illustrative material for an exhibition on Caravaggio, the art historians took over. Seeing the skull out of its display case made them realise precisely how impressive a piece of carving it was – and they decided to try and track down its provenance. They worked out that it had been part of the Chigi collection, which was acquired in 1728 by the Elector of Saxony, and King of Poland, Augustus the Strong, one of the world’s most impressive collectors. Apart from anything else, some of you may remember that he had no less than 157 pastels by Rosalba Carriera, all of which were exhibited in one room. Given that the collection, as bought, included 164 classical sculptures and a mere four from the Baroque, it is not surprising that the skull did not, for some long time, receive the recognition it deserved. When planning the Caravaggio exhibition, one of the curatorial team even joked, when they had found out that it came from Rome, that it could have been carved by Bernini. But you can’t just pull names out of a hat, and in order to find out who the true author really was – and, from my experience, with no expectation of ever finding out – they started scouring the archives. Among the correspondence which preceded the sale of the collection they found the phrase, ‘Una celebra testa di morto, opera del Cavalier Bernini’ – ‘A famous death’s head, the work of the Knight Bernini’.

The Chigi collection had remained with the family, having been put together by one of the nephews of Pope Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi). Further research revealed that the pope had commissioned the skull directly from Bernini in 1655, shortly after he was elected. Bernini worked under eight different popes, but not all of them were great patrons of the arts – or for that matter, interested in his work. Alexander VII’s predecessor, Innocent X (Giovanni Battista Pamphilj) had not been a great fan, and consequently, with a commission from the new pontiff, Bernini jumped to it and carved the skull himself, rather than handing a model to one of the assistants and letting them get on with the hard graft: it would be good to make the right impression. This choice paid off: Alexander VII turned out to be one of Bernini’s most ardent admirer’s and forthcoming patrons. It was not just the skull that Alexander commissioned in 1655 – there was also a life-size sarcophagus. The latter sat under the Pope’s desk, the former on top of it, both constant reminders that death comes to us all. Morbid, you might think, but given that, following the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, the Pope is St Peter’s successor, he is nominally in charge of the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. It was in his best interests to remember – and to remind us – that our actions will determine where we go after death. It was also relevant that, shortly after his election, there was an outbreak of the plague in Rome, and death visited every street. Alexander was quick off the mark – he insisted people wear masks, he introduced systems of self-isolation, and made sure people were quarantined. You know the drill. He might even have been painted holding this sculpture.

Guido Ubaldo Abbatini, Pope Alexander VII. with Bernini’s Skull, 1655/56. Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Rome.

This portrait is by a student of Bernini, Guido Ubaldo Abbatini, and is also featured in the Dresden exhibition. The publicity confidently asserts that the Pope is resting his hand on Bernini’s skull. I haven’t read the catalogue, but I can only assume that it would point out the most obvious difference: the skull in the painting has, as far as we can see from this viewpoint, all of its teeth, whereas the sculpture does not – and I’m fairly sure that that would be clear from any angle. The skull also looks considerably happier than the pontiff himself, but that’s beside the point. I’m not convinced that you can be sure which skull is in the painting, but as I’m also not convinced that Abbatini was an especially observant artist (not that I know his work, I’m only judging by this painting), I don’t suppose there’s any reason to argue that it isn’t the sculpture. However, it could be any skull. After all, people in the 17th Century were wont to hold skulls. Look at Hamlet (1599-1601, first performed 1609). Look at St Jerome (in this case, c. 1605-6).

Caravaggio, St Jerome Writing, c. 1605-6. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

As a scholar, Jerome is associated with the idea of melancholy, just one aspect of his relationship to the skull. In this, one of the most densely packed, and deceptively simple, of Caravaggio’s mature works, that is just one of the ways in which it functions. Another implication is that, after death – as represented by the skull – the soul is free to contemplate higher things, which is precisely what Jerome is doing. It is a reminder that we only have a limited time – and so we (like Jerome) should get on with our work. Or ‘seize the day’, it could work both ways. The skull is also, of course, the seat of the intellect. In the painting we see Jerome hard at work, deep in thought, translating the bible from its original languages into a consistent Latin – the version now known as the Vulgate. There is a wonderful contrast between the dry cranium and the saint’s bald pate, both reflecting the light (representing divine inspiration). One is… well, dry… while the other, slightly oily.  The brilliant light illuminating the aged man’s chest makes his shadowed, arthritic hand, grasping the pages of the original text, stand out clearly, while the other hand holds a quill, hovering over a page nearer the skull, ready to write. The reach of Jerome’s arm, slightly bent at the elbow, echoes the open halves of the book. I have always been in awe of this ineffable metaphor, an embodiment (quite literally) of the act of translation – the writing arm following the form of the original volume, making the old new, and creating a parallel equivalent. The angle of the elbow and book is then inverted by the red fabric behind them, part of the cardinal’s robes in which St Jerome is loosely wrapped. The book lies above the right leg of the table, the skull above its left, and while Jerome, alive, is clad in red, it is a lifeless white fabric that flows down beneath the skull. With its poetry and pathos, naturalistic making and symbolic meaning, contrasts and echoes, rich colour and deep shadows, this painting ranks for me as one of the all-time greats. Sadly I will only have time for a quick nod to it when I return to Caravaggio: A life in three paintings, this Monday, 7 June at 2pm and 6pm – but then, in recompense, I will be spending more time with The Supper at Emmaus which is also up there with the best. And as for Bernini – well, I suspect he always had an eye on the works of the older painter, and in a couple of weeks I will compare them again, although when I do, it will be more directly.

A view of Bernini, The Pope, and Death, in Dresden until 5 September.

130 – Sofonisba and Michelangelo

Sofonisba Anguissola, Asdrubale bitten by a Crayfish, c. 1554. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.

I have talked about Sofonisba before (see Day 77 – Sofonisba Anguissola and Day 90 – Sofonisba, too) but I am being drawn back again – drawn by a drawing, as it happens – because I want to examine a myth and ponder an influence. The myth is about the relationship between the first internationally famous woman of Italian Renaissance art, and the great genius Michelangelo. Almost anything you read about her will say something like ‘In 1554 Sofonisba headed down to Rome, where the story goes that she was introduced to Michelangelo.’ I know that, because that is precisely what I said on Day 90 of Lockdown 1. I also said, in the same post, ‘However, I really need to look into this incident – Michelangelo was a notorious old grump, and the idea that he would be interested in the work of a young woman seems inherently unlikely. However, if it turns out to be true, then how much more remarkable a man he was!’ That was on 16 June last year, and, nearly a year later, I’ve finally got round to it. If you want a reminder, I discussed Sofonisba’s background and her training as an artist back then – I won’t go into it here. I also included this drawing as an illustration, but said relatively little about it. Subsequently I have found a new, post-restoration image which is far clearer, and shows the drawing to be far more delicate, than the photograph I posted last year suggested.

We see a small boy crying. His mouth is open with the lips pulled back, and his cheeks look slightly puffed from the tension. His eyes are screwed up: the emotion is unmistakeable. Drawing this is not as straightforward you might think: it is all too easy to make someone crying look as if they are laughing – and vice versa. Film and T.V. often play on this potential confusion, creating double-takes, where you think you are seeing one emotion, and then are shown that it is the other. But here, we definitely see crying, it is clear from the face, and also from the gestures: the tension in the boy’s right hand, flicked back at the wrist, is one more sign. The left hand seems relaxed by comparison. He has short curly hair, and wears a 16th Century doublet. It has a slashed trim at the shoulders, and wrist-length sleeves which are slightly drawn back to reveal the cuffs of an undershirt, also seen in a modest collar. An older girl has her right arm around his shoulder, and looks at the boy with concern – and a hint of something else. A smile, maybe? Or perhaps she is impressed by the volume of sound this small human can create. Her hair is pulled back from her forehead, above her ears, and is held in place by a plait fixed around the crown of her head. She wears a chemise under a fairly low-cut bodice, with sleeves attached just below the shoulder, and holds something in her left hand.

If we look closer, we can see that it is a small basket. Her index finger stretches along the woven handle, and the basket itself, presumably wicker, or similar, can be seen vaguely below. The boy’s left hand hovers above hers, the back of it horizontal, with the thumb and one of the fingers – the ring finger, as far as I can see – hanging down. And from this bent ring finger hangs the crayfish which gives the drawing its title: Asdrubale bitten by a Crayfish. Now, Asdrubale Barca fought in the Second Punic War, and was the younger brother of the more famous Hannibal. They were both sons of Amilcare Barca. But we’re not dealing with classical history here. Even so, after the Carthaginians had crossed the alps with their elephants, one of the notable battles was near modern-day Cremona, where the 16th Century nobleman Amilcare Anguissola lived. He was presumably named after the warrior, and passed on the tradition by naming his only son after the younger of the brothers – Asdrubale – and by naming his eldest daughter (the eldest of six) after the tragic Carthaginian heroine Sofonisba. So the drawing shows us the artist’s brother – and, presumably, one of her five sisters, usually identified as Europa, the youngest.

One of the reasons why the drawing seems more than a little vague in parts is because it is not in a particularly good condition – large areas of the original paper on which it was drawn have been lost. The ground itself is a light, creamy brown. In order to strengthen it, the remains of the drawing have been mounted on another piece of paper, which is paler in appearance, and looks mottled. If you can distinguish these two background colours, then you will see that everything beneath Asdrubale’s right elbow is missing, as are half of the skirts of his doublet. The original paper ends just above the crown of his head, and cuts across the top of his sister’s, with some of her hair undoubtedly missing. There is also a lacuna between their heads, which goes very close to her right eye. Some of the basket is missing, too. This is a great shame, but given the high proportion of 16th Century drawings which must have been destroyed in their entirety, it is still a remarkable survival – and in all probability it had travelled widely, making that survival even more remarkable.

The story goes – as I was saying – that after her initial training with two ‘Bernardini’ – Campi and Gatti, probably from 1546-49 and 1551-53 respectively – she headed down to Rome, where she was lucky enough to receive instruction from none other than Michelangelo. It seems too good to be true, and is exactly the sort of anecdote that was made up just to make an artist look better, and more interesting. However, in this case it was, in some way, true – although the interaction may have been through correspondence. Letters from dad – Amilcare Anguissola – survive in the Buonarroti archives in Florence. I am quoting them here from an article written by Charles de Tolnay, the chief Michelangelo scholar of his day, back in 1941. So this is old news, it’s just not mentioned much now. On May 7, 1557, Amilcare wrote,

‘…we are much obliged to have perceived the honourable and affable affection that you have and show for Sofonisba; I speak of my daughter, the one whom I caused to begin to practice the most honourable virtue or painting… I beg of you that since, by your innate courtesy and goodness, you deigned by your advice in the past to introduce her (to art), that you will condescend sometime in the future to guide her again… that you will see fit to send her one of your drawings that she may colour it in oil, with the obligation to return it to you faithfully finished by her own hand… I dedicate Sofonisba (to you) both as a servant and daughter…’

A second letter, written just over a year later (15 May 1558), includes the following:

‘…I place among the first of so many obligations that I owe to God, that I am alive during the lifetime of so many of my children and that such an excellent gentleman, the most virtuous above all others, deigns to praise and judge the painting done by my daughter Sofonisba.’

So there we have it – I was entirely wrong: Michelangelo had not only seen Sofonisba’s work, but also praised it. How happy I am to know that! It doesn’t change my opinion that Michelangelo was, undoubtedly, ‘a notorious old grump’ – from time to time – but he was also, undoubtedly, generous with his time and advice – as de Tolnay goes on to say: ‘The correspondence between Amilcare Anguissola and Michelangelo… presents new evidence for the generous character of the artist’.

But does the correspondence have any bearing on this particular drawing? Well, yes, it does. Indeed, in some respects, it was well known for a drawing of its time. There is a reference to it in a letter from Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, the young nobleman with whom Michelangelo seems to have fallen helplessly in love some 30 years before. On 20 January, 1562, Tommaso sent two drawings to Cosimo de’ Medici, who at that point was Duke of Florence (he would become Grand Duke of Tuscany seven years later). One of the drawings was a Cleopatra by Michelangelo, and the other – well, in a letter accompanying the two drawings he wrote,

‘since I have one drawing done by the hand of a noblewoman of Cremona, named Sofonisba Angosciosa [sic], today a lady of the Spanish court, I send it to you with this one and I believe that it may stand comparison with many other drawings, for it is not simply beautiful, but also exhibits considerable invention. And this is that the divine Michelangelo having seen a drawing done by her hand of a smiling girl, he said that he would have liked to see a weeping boy, as a subject more difficult to draw. After he wrote to her about it, she sent to him this drawing which was a portrait of her brother, whom she has intentionally shown as weeping. Now, I send them such as they are, and I beg your excellency to consider me as a servant, which, in truth, I am.’

  • Sofonisba, Asdrubale, c. 1554. Capodimonte.
  • Michelangelo, Cleopatra, 1533-4. Uffizi.

What a wonderful combination of drawings! A pairing of people being bitten, moving from the mundane to the mythic. It seems that Sofonisba’s family name – Anguissola – was difficult even then, and I find it rather charming that Cavallieri’s spelling implies that she was ‘anguished’ – the literal translation of Angosciosa. His comment that the drawing shows ‘considerable invention’ was high praise indeed. No one doubted a woman’s ability to copy someone else’s ideas: it was the ability to come up with your own that would be respected, and so his use of the word ‘invention’ was a recognition of Sofonisba’s artistic talent. Cavalieri’s letter is not the only mention of the drawing. Vasari was also knew it, describing it as, ‘a little girl laughing at a boy who cries, because, she having placed a basket full of crayfish in front of him, one of them bites his finger; and there is nothing more graceful to be seen than that drawing, nor more true to nature.’ These comments were included in the second edition of the Lives of the Artist in 1568, as an addition to the ‘Life’ of Properzia De’ Rossi, the only woman to get her own ‘life’ in the first edition of 1550. Vasari goes on to say that he has a copy of the drawing in his own collection – so he must have thought highly of it.

Somebody else seems to have been impressed by this drawing – or at least, by the idea of it – and this is what reminded me to look into the story of Michelangelo and Sofonisba. Compare these two images:

  • Sofonisba, Asdrubale, c. 1554. Capodimonte, Naples.
  • Caravaggio, Boy bitten by a Lizard, c. 1594-5. NG, London.

The Boy Bitten by a Lizard will, of course, be the starting point of Caravaggio: A life in three pictures this Monday, 24 May at 2pm and 6pm. It bears a remarkable similarity – in some details – to Sofonisba’s drawing. The precise cause of the pain may be different, perhaps, although both boys have been bitten. A lizard, hiding among the cherries, has bitten the boy reaching for the fruit. The expression of pain, the flexing of one wrist and the bent finger of the other hand – held on an equivalent horizontal – are remarkably similar, even if the hands are reversed. There is only one problem with that. In the 17th Century Sofonisba’s drawing could still have been in the Medici collection in Florence. I have read different ideas about how the drawing got from the Medici collection to that of the Farnese, but there is no evidence that Caravaggio had been to Florence. However, it could have been in the collection of Fulvio Orsini in Rome in the 1590s. But even if Caravaggio hadn’t seen the original drawing, that is not necessarily a problem. One theory has it that the painter was surprisingly literate, and that he often attempted to reproduce images of which he had only read descriptions but never seen (more about that on Monday). In this case, he would have read about the drawing in Vasari’s Lives. However, the response to the pain seen in the two hands and wrists is so similar, it does seem likely that he had seen some visual evidence of it. If Vasari had a copy of the drawing (OK, so some people think that he had the original), maybe there were more in circulation. There are, as it happens, several painted versions of Sofonisba’s composition around: as I say, it was a well-known drawing. It has been suggested that one of the versions – drawn or painted – found its way into the studio of the Cavaliere d’Arpino, one of the first artists with whom Caravaggio worked in Rome. It seems unlikely that we will ever find out precisely what the connection between the two is – or indeed, if there really is one. Maybe this similarity is a coincidence. Maybe this is simply how boys behave when they’re bitten when they’re young – or when they forget the conventions that suggest that ‘real men don’t cry’. But that opens up a whole new topic of conversation better suited to a different forum, and I’m certainly not going to go into it now. So, until I come back to the young Caravaggio on Monday, have a great weekend – and don’t play with your food. Some of it bites.

129 – The Calm before the Storm

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels.

One more painting from the 18th Century before I head back to the Baroque – my next series of lectures is called Caravaggio: A life in three paintings, and will start on Monday 24 May (at 2pm and 6pm, as before) with the following talks on 7 and 21 June. Full details are on the diary page… and while you’re there, you can also find the updated details for trips to Rome, Stockholm, Ravenna and Dresden. But more of Caravaggio later – let’s get back to the 18th Century.

This is one of the great paintings of Western Europe, and it’s worth going to Brussels just to see it. It was painted by Jacques-Louis David – the High Priest of Neo-Classical painting – just as things were rapidly going from bad to worse with the French Revolution. Although it is not immediately apparent, we are looking at a man lying in a bath. This is Jean-Paul Marat, journalist, political thinker, and revolutionary, who suffered from a skin disease, and spent hours working in his bath as this was the only place where his symptoms were mitigated. However, true to the ideals of ‘noble simplicity and quiet grandeur’ on which Neo-Classicism was founded, David does not show us the effects of this illness: it would distract from the gravity of the scene, and the dignity of its protagonist.

The bath is surrounded by white sheets, and a board, just visible near Marat’s chest, rests on its sides, with a green, fringed rug lying over it. This functions as a desk, with the addition of a rough, wooden box on which are placed an inkwell, a quill pen and some papers. Marat, dying, if not already dead, holds a blood-stained piece of paper in his left hand. His right arm has fallen, and another quill is held in his right hand, as if he is about to write on the floor. To the left of his hand lies a bloodied knife.

The writing on the paper is clear enough to read:

du 13. Juillet, 1793. Marie anne Charlotte Corday au citoyen Marat. Il Suffit que je sois bien malheureuse pour avoir Droit a votre benveillance.

‘13 July, 1793. Marie-Anne Charlotte Corday to citizen Marat. Because I am so unhappy I have a right to your help’.

With this letter, Charlotte Corday gained access to Marat, who was at work in his bath, and then she stabbed him. They were both revolutionaries – although they were members of different factions. He was one of the Montagnards – one of its leaders, even – whereas she was a Girondin (although some believe she was an out-and-out monarchist). The difference between the factions was in approach. The former were hard liners, they wanted a Republic, and they wanted the king dead. The latter also wanted a Republic, but did not vote for the death of the king, and balked at the extreme tactics of the Montagnards. We are on the brink of the Reign of Terror, when the Girondins would be put to death, and then, soon after, the Montagnards would turn on their own. As a journalist and pamphleteer, Marat published his own writings, and was one of those most responsible for communicating the aims – and the propaganda – of the revolutionaries, and also for denouncing the Girondins. He might also have been the man chiefly responsible for the September Massacre of 1792, when over a thousand prisoners were put to death for fear that they might join the Royalist army in defeating the Revolution. Of this number, there were admittedly 200 Swiss soldiers, but the majority of those killed had no real interest in, or connection to, the politics of the day. It was because Corday believed Marat was responsible for this excess that she wanted him dead, and used her letter to get access to him, claiming that she knew about a counter-revolutionary plot amongst the Girondins. It was this, she claimed, that made her ‘so unhappy’.

David’s painted may be naturalistic, but it is not a realistic portrayal of events. This is not how things happened. Corday stabbed Marat, yes, but she left the knife in his chest. Here we see it lying on the floor, blade and handle both bloodied. The quill sits upright between Marat’s fingers, almost as if planted in the ground. He was working for the Revolution when he died – and that was the message David wanted to communicate: he was a good man, working for you. An ardent believer in the Revolution, David had voted for the King’s death. He also voted to close the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture – but that might have been a personal vendetta, as they had never been his greatest allies. He dedicated the painting ‘to Marat’ and added the date L’AN DEUX – ‘Year Two’. The monarchy had been abolished in 1792, and a Republic declared: this was year two of that Republic.

Stepping back we might – if we know the story – see another ‘edit’. Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat, left the knife in his chest, and waited by the bath until she was arrested. She did not leave. And yet David has focussed on Marat: there must be no distraction. The wooden box acts almost as a tomb stone, a bold statement of this man’s name, and witnesses how little time he had had to achieve his aims – it is only year two, after all. With the knife on the floor, we can see the wound in his chest, blood trickling down towards the white sheet. It might remind you of someone else whose chest was pierced.

The similarity to Christ in Caravaggio’s Entombment is not coincidental. David, as the Revolution’s chief artist during the brief Republic, not only knew the power of painting, but also wanted to find new martyrs to inspire the people, and to reaffirm their faith in the machinations of political change. Marat was that martyr, and portraying him on this canvas, alone and at work, was a powerful and easily comprehensible masterstroke. Caravaggio echoes the fall of Christ’s arm with the tumbling shroud, and David echoes the shroud with the sheet in Marat’s bath.

The fact that Caravaggio’s Christ depended from Michelangelo’s Pietà is also not a coincidence. As Mary shows us her dead son, David shows us the Revolution’s dead saviour. Marat did not have the time to fall from grace and be murdered by his own, unlike Robespierre soon after. How much more, David asks, not knowing what would follow, could he have achieved? For Michelangelo the pathos lies with Mary: no mother should see her son die before her. For David, it is the bath. The bath cradles him. Murdering a sick man in his bath can only be seen as an act of cowardice.

The light, entering from top left (much as Caravaggio’s light often does), enhances the ideal, sculptural form of Marat’s body, and imbues it with an ethereal glow. There is even the suggestion of a halo in the white headdress. But no angels fly down with a palm of martyrdom, as one does in Caravaggio’s Martyrdom of St Matthew, for example. Heaven is empty now, and the cool, grey background adds an oppressive solemnity to the scene, insistently focussing our attention on the inert body of this idealised man, on the white sheets sullied with his blood, on the sheet of paper, sullied with Corday’s lies, and on the fallen quill, Marat’s weapon of choice, which can no longer issue its compelling ‘truth’.

Such, it would seem, was the intention. Odd then that, once the Revolution had wrung itself dry, David should become court painter to the Emperor Napoleon. As a Revolutionary, though, and then a Son of Empire, it was not surprising that he should choose to go into exile after the Restoration of the Monarchy – even though he granted an amnesty, and offered the position of court painter to the new regime. He spent his last years – although less than a decade – in Brussels, dying there in 1825.

The Death of Marat was supposed to be one of three ‘Modern Martyrs’ – a second was destroyed in 1794, and the third was never completed. David reclaimed Marat in 1795, two years after it was painted. After Robespierre’s execution it didn’t have the same impact. The painting was still with his family as late as 1886, which is when they decided to give it to the city which had welcomed the great artist – if complex personality – as an honoured guest. That is why it is in Brussels to this day. I enjoyed seeing it last February, as rumours started to reach us of troubles in Italy – and a curious phenomenon called ‘lockdown’ – and I will certainly seek it out again. Whatever the reasons for its making, it communicates a profound sense of calm. Its echoes of Caravaggio have also inspired my next talks: I am looking forward to investigating the life of this remarkable artist through the National Gallery’s three paintings, each one representative of a different phase in his short life. I will probably also be blogging around the subject – Caravaggio and the Caravaggisti – over the next couple of weeks. But that remains to be seen.

128 – Unfinished Business

Johann Zoffany, The Academicians of the Royal Academy, 1771-72. Royal Collection Trust.

Two weeks ago I talked about Mary Moser, one of the two women who, in 1768, were founder members of the Royal Academy. Today I would like to talk about a portrait of her, which hangs next to another, which depicts her fellow founder Angelica Kauffman (who will be the last of my Three Women in the 18th Century this Monday (10 May) at 2pm and 6pm). They are not ‘real’ portraits, but details from a larger painting by Johann Zoffany, which is the nominal subject of this post. Angelica Kauffman is on the left – the rectangular canvas – with Mary Moser on the right, in an oval. The two still life paintings I discussed before (126 – Mary Moser) were also oval: I wonder if that is why the same format is used here? She was, as you may remember, famed for her flower paintings, which certainly explains why she has a large, yellow bloom attached to her bodice in Zoffany’s imagined portrait. In both, the bust-length image appears against a plain background. It might have become more elaborate: neither portrait has been completed. Today we are dealing with unfinished business.

Despite the fact that both paintings are ‘works in progress’, we can see that the two women are fashionably dressed, and elaborately coiffed. If I knew more about the history of hair I would probably go into raptures about the complexities of the crimping, curling, combing and powdering, and of the ribbons and bows with which they are bedecked, but I don’t – so just look for yourselves. Their barnets alone are a work of art (from Barnet Fair – hair), and could be a credit to one of the greater sculptors of the newly founded Royal Academy of Art, which is where they are supposed to be. For years it was assumed that what follows is a depiction of the Life-drawing Room in the first home of the Academy, Somerset House (now the home of the Courtauld Institute), but it is, in all probability, the invention of the artist, who was simply imagining a space suitable for such an august gathering.

Founded by George III in 1768, the Royal Academy of Art was the first British art school to receive the royal seal of approval. The idea was to promote the arts, and to train artists to be worthy of its status. Rather than just portraits of the great and the good, and of their land (i.e. landscapes), several of the Academicians, and especially its first President, Sir Joshua Reynolds, wanted British Art to aspire to the heights achieved by that of other nations. To realise their ambitions, not only should artists show an awareness of the work of others but they should also paint the highest category of painting – ‘History’. This was a narrative work, which could be based on history (usually classical), but which was more often inspired by myth (always classical), the bible, or the lives of the saints. And if what was commissioned didn’t match up to these exalted standards, the artists would just have to make sure that it did. Reynolds often based his portraits on the works of others, dressing sitters like mythological heroes, or theological virtues, for example. Zoffany does something similar here, basing the composition of his group portrait on one of the greatest works by one of the most famous renaissance artists.

Raphael’s The School of Athens (1509-11) in the Vatican Palace shows the major philosophers of the ancient world gathered together in one space, with Plato and Aristotle at the very centre, framed by the distant arch, wearing red and blue cloaks respectively. The other thinkers are arranged in a broad arc, a c-shape traced out on the floor, or a circle left open at the front to encourage us to look in. The image is flanked by two enormous sculptures of Apollo and Minerva, both inspirers of the arts, at top left and right, with smaller, square reliefs below.  Zoffany likewise arranges his academicians in an arc, although he doesn’t pull them so tightly together in the foreground. Almost all of the founder members are here, the most notable absence being Thomas Gainsborough. Zoffany also displays a number of casts of classical and renaissance sculptures on shelves and hanging from the walls at the back. In addition, there is an écorché figure – a sculpture of the human body with the skin removed to show the muscle structure – in the back right corner of the room: it stands against the wall with one arm raised.

Whereas for Raphael the incomplete building (not unlike the ‘new’ St Peter’s, under construction at the time) allows daylight to flood in, for Zoffany there is a single chandelier – or rather, a multiple oil lamp – hanging from the ceiling. Using a single light source like this serves to illuminate the models who are preparing for the life drawing class, while also casting deep shadows on the other side, thus enhancing their sculptural forms.

At the centre, in the place of Plato and Aristotle, on either side of a rectangular relief not unlike those in The School of Athens, are Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Academy, and William Hunter, who was not actually an artist. He was physician to Queen Charlotte, and served as the professor of anatomy at the Academy from 1678-82. He is also connected to the history of art through his own personal collection – which was, admittedly, mainly in the field of Natural Sciences – which he eventually bequeathed to the University of Glasgow where he had studied (he was born in East Kilbride, just 8 or 9 miles away). This collection forms the nucleus of the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery.

Reynolds wears sober black and ostentatiously lifts his ear trumpet. He had spent two years in Rome in the middle of the century, and while there suffered from a severe cold, which left him partially deaf. Nevertheless, the more cynical suspected him of using the trumpet to draw attention to himself. I can only hope that Zoffany chose Reynolds and Hunter deliberately to stand in for Plato and Aristotle. Quite apart from the fact that they were the ‘leading lights’ of the Academy, Reynolds was always seeking out the ideal, and dressing his portraits in the guise of an unseen image which existed elsewhere, while Hunter, as an anatomist, was totally involved in the evidence before his eyes. This is the implication of the gestures that Raphael gives the ancients: Plato points up to a higher plane, while Aristotle’s level hand gestures to what we see down here on Earth.

Johann Zoffany, the German-born artist who, after ten years in Rome, arrived in England in 1760 at the age of 27, shows himself in the left foreground, palette in hand, looking out towards us. In some ways he takes the place of Pythagoras, kneeling, tablet in hand, in the left foreground of The School of Athens. Just above him, his left knee raised, while he simultaneously looks over his right shoulder, is Benjamin West, who would become the second President of the Royal Academy (we saw him ‘enthroned’ in the centre of Henry Singleton’s painting two weeks ago). He is leaning against a curving desk, which arcs around the back of the room, and which would have been used by the students when they came to draw. His complex pose is ultimately derived from the Michelangelesque exaggeration of contrapposto which Raphael gives to the philosopher sometimes identified as Parmenides, thought by some to be a ‘hidden’ portrait of Leonardo da Vinci as well. Behind West – with his head just to the right of West’s wig – is Tan-Che-Qua, a Cantonese sculptor who just happened to be in London when Zoffany was painting, and whose image was not to be missed.

On the other side of Zoffany’s work we can see what is taking up most people’s attention: two naked – or nearly naked – men. A life drawing class is being set up, even if precious few of the Academicians seem prepared to participate. Sitting with his legs extended on the left of this detail, Charles Catton the Elder, a painter (no, I hadn’t heard of him either) echoes Diogenes, sprawled across the floor to the right of centre in The School of Athens. The academicians all look towards the model raising his right arm while someone hooks it into a sling – so that the model can keep his arm up for the duration of the drawing exercise. That ‘someone’ just happens to be George Michael Moser, father of Mary – although I’m afraid to say I have beheaded him in this detail. The model who is ‘next up’ is sitting a little closer, and looks out towards us as he takes off his left stocking. His shoes and clothes lie abandoned on the floor next to him. Holding one ankle as it rests on the opposite knee, he adopts the pose of the Spinario, a classical Roman bronze of a boy taking a thorn from his foot.

The painting tells us everything that the Royal Academy thought that a good artistic training – in whatever discipline – should include: a knowledge of the classical past – seen in the plaster casts, and embodied in the pose of the Spinario; a knowledge of the works of the Old Masters (not only is the composition based on The School of Athens, but the figure standing on one leg in the centre of the back wall is a version of the Mercury by Giambologna); the use of sculptures to draw from, as a starting point – suggested first by Alberti in On Painting, written in the 1430s; a good knowledge of human anatomy, expressed through the presence of William Hunter, and of the écorché figure in the back corner; and, ultimately, life drawing. Without an understanding of the male physique, gained by careful observation, how could any promising artist master History painting, and its depictions of the righteous battles and noble acts of mythological and Christian heroes? But if life drawing was essential to become a great artist, what chance did women stand? How appropriate would it be for a woman to be present while such an exercise was takiing place? While it may have been acceptable for men to draw naked women, the women in question were usually little better than prostitutes, or actresses. But for a respectable woman to behold a naked man? Clearly this was not on. The attitude that this apparent regard for female decorum represents is embodied, I think, in the action of miniaturist Richard Cosway, who stands in the right foreground, proudly erect, his gaze directed firmly over his right shoulder and his right arm extended, with the hand resting on his walking stick… which is firmly planted on the truncated and supine bust of a classical female nude. Am I mistaken in seeing this as profoundly disrespectful?

The women are side-lined. They cannot be present at the life drawing class, so they cannot become great artists, and Zoffany can only include Kauffman and Moser as portraits, hanging on the wall. They become, as women had always been, the subjects of art, rather than the creative people who make it. And not only that – they are unfinished, incomplete. They owed their position as founder members of the Academy to their brilliance as artists, but their connections undoubtedly helped. Moser’s father was, as we have seen, also a founder member. Angelica Kauffman was a personal friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds. But their admission was, like these portraits, unfinished business: after them, no other woman was admitted until Dame Laura Knight became an Academician in 1936. She was the first woman to be elected, and that wasn’t until 168 years after the Academy had been founded.

You could argue, of course, that Zoffany didn’t have a choice. If he wanted to paint a life drawing class – which would not only show off his skill, but also demonstrate everything in which the Academy believed – it really wouldn’t have been right, at the time, for a woman to be present. However, the fact that Henry Singleton included both of these women in his group portrait The Royal Academicians in General Assembly – a meeting they did not, in reality, attend – shows that it might have been possible for them to be included in person (although admittedly nobody at the Assembly was naked). But Singleton also depicted their paintings, which speaks of a great degree of respect for the women and for their work. As it happens, the ceiling paintings by Angelica Kauffman – which are visible in their original location in Singleton’s group portrait – have just this week been reinstalled in the ceiling of the Front Hall of Burlington House, the RA’s current home. I will include all four of them this Monday as part of my discussion of Angelica Kauffman: Academician at 2pm and 6pm.

These two women may have been marginalised by Zoffany, and made subjects rather than makers, but maybe that wasn’t his fault. Now, however, the tables have turned. Of all the founder members depicted by Zoffany, they are among the few whose names are becoming better known, and certainly the two in whom people are now more interested. Kauffman in particular embodied the ideals of the Royal Academy more than many others, and in the process created some truly glorious History paintings: she was one of the most famous artists of her day. I look forward to talking to about her on Monday.

127 – Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Self Portrait with Two Pupils, 1785. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A slight change of plan – rather than talking about a painting by a man this week, as I had planned to – even if it does impinge upon one of my Three Women in the 18th Century – I wanted to talk about another of the remarkable women who isn’t one of my three subjects. Trust me, there are plenty more! Born as Adélaïde Labille in Paris in 1749, she married Nicolas Guiard at the age of 20, but, unlike most women of the time, she held on to her family name, thus becoming the double-barrelled artist we know (although not nearly well enough) today. And this is despite separating formally from Guiard when she was 30 (they divorced, finally, in 1793 when new laws came in), and later marrying the artist François-André Vincent at the age of 50, just four years before she died.

This is her undoubted masterpiece. We see her seated, at work on a medium-sized canvas, which is resting on an easel at the left of the painting. She fixes her eyes on us with a focussed, penetrating gaze – although the conventions of self portraiture remind us that she is fixing her eyes on herself, looking in a mirror, assessing her own appearance, in order to immortalise it on the canvas placed in front of her. Behind stand the two pupils of the title, fashionably but not showily dressed – like their ‘master’ – one looking towards us/the mirror, the other looking at the work in progress – which we would assume to be the finished painting we are now enjoying. However, as this triple portrait measures 211 x 151 cm, it must be substantially larger than the canvas on the easel.

Let’s start from the bottom up. This detail alone must surely qualify Labille-Guiard as ‘the best artist most people have never even heard of’ – just look at that floor! A highly polished parquet, not unlike the ‘parquet de Versailles’ introduced in 1684, it has rectangles of wood, set so as to look as if they have been woven, framing smaller squares, the whole unit being contained within a diamond (you can see this more clearly in another painting, below). One of these diamonds is set symmetrically within the portrait, with a corner at the front centre of the painting, and two sides leading our eyes diagonally back in both directions, left and right. Placed parallel to these diagonals are the easel on the left, and a stool on the right. The latter is giltwood, upholstered with red velvet, and on it are resting a roll of paper, a pink cloth and a porte-crayon, or, simply put, a crayon holder. The paper would be for preparatory drawings, or perhaps, for pastel paintings. There is an old tradition that Labille-Guiard studied for a while with Maurice Quentin de la Tour, the undoubted master of the art, although there is no firm evidence to support this. Nevertheless, she regularly exhibited pastels – hence the porte-crayon – until the mid-1780s, from which time she increasingly focussed on larger-scale oil paintings. The fabric of her dress is sublime, a steely blue, lined with ivory, the precise width of the hem visible where it lies on the ground, and a seam, as carefully painted as the original was no doubt minutely stitched, falling diagonally towards the front leg of the easel. And – miracle of miracles – the steely blue is reflected in the high finish of the parquet. The toes of one delicately clad foot rest on the cross bar of the easel, catching the light with a brilliant sheen, while the other foot is further back in the shadows.

Her palette rests in the crook of her left arm, which is itself resting on her slightly raised left thigh. Running across her lap is the mahl stick, used as a rest for the painting hand when working on delicate details. No need for that now, though, as she is blocking out some less-detailed area with a broad-handled brush. She holds at least six more brushes in her left hand. Behind the projecting brushes is the lid of a box which can be locked – the key hole can be seen just below the mahl stick. This would have contained all of her materials – pigments, oil, etc. We can see the back of the canvas, with lengths of wood nailed together to form the stretcher, and around the stretcher, as its name would suggest, is stretched the canvas, tacked along the edge at regular intervals. There is no waste of material: the canvas only just reaches the back edge of the stretcher in some places. Once the painting was framed, of course, this would not be seen. The student on the right – Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond, who was to die just three years after this portrait was completed – rests her left hand delicately on the back of Madame Guiard’s chair – giltwood, upholstered in green – with her right arm around her companion’s shoulder. This is Marie-Gabrielle Capet, Guiard’s favourite student, who lived with her both before and after the second marriage, and remained even after her death, caring for Monsieur Vincent. Capet has her left arm around Carreaux de Rosemond’s back – a real sense of sisterhood. Labille-Guiard has created a great team.

The ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ gazes in this painting intrigue me. At the back, in the shadows, is a full-length, standing female sculpture. I’m not entirely sure what she is holding, but I suspect it is a brazier, with a stylised flame reaching up. The figure is wearing classical robes, but I would assume this is a contemporary, neo-classical sculpture, rather than an original Roman figure (but I could be wrong). My guess would be that it represents Vesta, the goddess of the hearth and home. How perfect, for the homely, familial atmosphere the artist has created. And then there is a classical – or neo-classical – portrait bust. Labille-Guiard might be stating her qualifications for the job: a knowledge and understanding of the classical past, of tonal values, and of their ability to create three dimensional form. Plus, as a painter, she has the added advantage of colour, which the sculptures lack. The colour brings the people to life. Vesta looks from left to right, her gaze parallel to the picture plane, whereas the bust look diagonally out to the right: his gaze is at an angle of 45° to hers. Labille-Guiard and Capet look out to the front – at 90° to Vesta – whereas Carreaux de Rosemond looks more-or-less directly to the left – in the opposite direction to the standing sculpture, although somewhat further forward. In this way the gazes define the space around and behind them, looking across several different axes, while also communicating the very idea of looking and of sight – the sense on which painting relies (if not the only one it evokes). Within this nexus of glances – real and imagined – it is entirely fitting that Labille-Guiard and Capet have the same point of view. They both look towards us – the imagined mirror – and the older painter may well have hoped that her similarly minded pupil would one day inherit her tradition. Carreaux de Rosemond, on the other hand, looks at the latest masterpiece with almost incredulous admiration – there is even a sense of love in her expression, as her mouth falls open with unvoiced praise. Capet looks at us, Rosemond at the painting, and it is as if there is only one pupil, alternating her attention between the reality she sees in the world – us – and the identical fiction being created on the canvas. Reality and illusion look the same: Labille-Guiard must be a superb artist, we are told. But we are also being told what to do – Labille-Guiard and Capet look at us, so we look back at them: they draw us in. But then Carreaux de Rosemond is so clearly captivated by the work in progress that we want to turn our attention towards this breath-taking creation, and see it for ourselves – only to be frustrated by a view of the back and side of the canvas, and the blind stare of the portrait bust: like the marble, we cannot see what is being painted. But we want to, and, I suspect, even if frustrated, we are more than happy with what we can see: this masterful (and I use the word advisedly) portrait.

As for the precise nature of Madame Labille-Guiard’s gaze – well, it is enigmatic, even sphinx-like. She is fashionably clad in a straw hat, the like of which Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun had portrayed herself wearing just three years before. Around the crown a ribbon of the same steely blue as her dress is tied in a large bow, and a white ostrich feather is pinned on. The pin is left visible as yet another display of virtuosa skill – enhanced still further by the slim shadow of the pin falling across the feather behind it. She wears gold earrings, one in the light, the other in shadow: this is another trick that Vigée Le Brun had deployed – although with pearl drop earrings – in her self portrait (see below). But what does Labille-Guiard expression communicate? What is she thinking? Is this a cold appraisal of her own appearance? Is she seeking approval in our eyes? Perhaps this is mock modesty as we show the same appreciation as Carreaux de Rosemond. Or maybe she is being ever-so-slightly flirtatious, lips slightly parted, teeth visible, light glistening on her lower lip. You’ll have to decide for yourselves.

It is a truly glorious painting, I think, and one in a long line of women showing themselves at work. I have written about several of these already, whether it be Catherina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, or Labille-Guiard’s contemporary, Vigée Le Brun. But this has an added extra: she shows her self at work, seated at her easel, like the others, but with her pupils. Yes – she had pupils (so did Judith Leyster, as it happens, and she sued when they left her to be taught by a man – but that’s another story). Today we are looking a fantastic painting, a great work of art – but it is also a political statement. In 1783 both Vigée Le Brun and Labille-Guiard were admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Vigée Le Brun had initially been barred as she was married to the art dealer Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun, and the oh-so-academic Academicians would have no truck with anyone associated with the market (laudable, perhaps, but under the circumstances, hypocritical: they all wanted to sell). Fortunately Vigée Le Brun was now close to the Queen, and, as an Académie Royale the Academicians could hardly fail to do what the royalty requested – and so Vigée Le Brun was ‘received’ as a full member – as was Labille-Guiard. However, the Académie insisted that from that point on they would only admit a maximum of four women. Labille-Guiard was not having it. Two years later she exhibited this painting at the annual Salon. It is effectively a manifesto, making clear that there were far more than four women who merited admission.

It was widely assumed that, as Vigée Le Brun and Labille-Guiard were two of the ‘four’, they must be rivals, and apparently there are stories to prove it. However, this supposed rivalry had another effect. According to a recently published book (which, like so many others, I haven’t had the chance to read), the myth of their rivalry meant that each woman’s work was only ever compared to that of the other, and not to that of their male contemporaries – yet another mechanism by which the work of women artists has been marginalised. If you are interested, here is a link to Friendship in Enlightenment France by Jessica L. Fripp. It grabbed my attention because this painting is on the cover.

  • Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun
  • Adélaïde Labille-Guiard

Was there a rivalry between Vigée Le Brun and Labille-Guiard? I doubt it! They both had more than enough work: Paris was large enough for the two of them. It would be easy for them to go their separate ways – and before long, they did. As the French Revolution loomed both were criticised for the royal patronage they enjoyed, but Labille-Guiard stuck it out in Paris. Among others, she lost the patronage of the Mesdames de France – the elderly maiden aunts of Louis XVI – and was told to destroy several royalist portraits. She carried on painting though, but as she died in 1803 she never really made it through to the ‘promised land’ of liberté, égalité, and sororité, and her name has all but been forgotten. Not so Vigée Le Brun: as painter to the Queen she was more heavily implicated – and so she fled France. But if you want to know more about that, then why not join me on Monday for Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun: How not to lose your Head at 2pm or 6pm? Meanwhile, I shall leave you with a charming painting by one of the pupils – Marie-Gabrielle Capet – showing The Atelier of Madame Vincent. Labille-Guiard, under the name of her second husband, is more practically dressed now, but could be sitting at the same easel, on the same parquet floor, with the same paint box. She looks towards an elderly gent in a blue and gold cape, in the same way that previously she looked towards us. And Capet sits at her right hand, palette and brush ready, looking towards us – or at a mirror – to paint the present scene. À bientôt!

Marie-Gabrielle Capet, The Atelier of Madame Vincent, 1808. Neue Pinakothek, Munich.

126 – Mary Moser

Mary Moser, Spring and Summer, c. 1780. Royal Academy, London.

One of the artists I won’t be able to cover in my admittedly brief series Three Women in the 18th Century is Mary Moser, which is a great shame. Her fame is eclipsed by her contemporary Angelica Kauffman (who will, of course, be the subject of the third talk in the series, on Monday 10 May at 2pm and 6pm), even though they had so much in common. Both were trained by Swiss fathers, for one thing, but whereas Kauffman was born in Switzerland, Moser’s father had moved to London in the 1720s, and she was born there in 1744. George Michael Moser was the son of an engineer and metal worker, and it was as a metal worker that he too was most successful, designing and making candlesticks, watch cases and snuffboxes amongst other things. He also enamelled these objects, attracting the attention of Queen Charlotte, for whom he made a watch case enamelled with portraits of the Princes George and Frederick (who would grow up to be King George IV and the Grand Old Duke of York). But then, George Michael had already been drawing master to King George III when the latter was a boy: these connections would stand Mary in good stead. Dad was well-enough regarded to design and make the seal for the Society of Artists, even if that was destined to be a short-lived group. Its first exhibition was held in 1761, and, although it only lasted six years, its demise was rapidly followed by the foundation of the Royal Academy of Art in 1768. George Michael Moser was one of the founding members – but then, so too was his daughter Mary, and, at 24, she was the youngest. She was also one of only two women, the other, of course, being Angelica Kauffman – this is the other thing they have in common. So why is she not as well known? I suspect it is because, unlike Kauffman, who is well known for her portraits, her allegories, and her narratives, Moser was famed for her paintings of flowers.

Mary Moser, Spring and Summer; https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/O2362 (c) Royal Academy of Arts. Photographer: John Hammond.

These two are still owned by the Royal Academy, and are dedicated to Spring and Summer. The names are clearly derived from the flowers which are depicted. Spring includes a tulip (top right), two varieties of narcissus, and what I suspect is a hyacinth, before horticulturalists bred them to be more compact (I should really ask the Ecologist, but we’re in different towns right now). Many of you are probably gardeners, and will recognise most, if not all, of the species anyway. Chief among the Summer flowers are roses, at the heart of the composition, a poppy, slightly shaded to the right of centre, and a carnation, more shaded, at the top right.

It’s not just the flowers which give the paintings their titles. I think the compositions themselves also express the seasons. In Spring the blooms look relatively bright across most of the surface, and stand out against a dark background. For me, at least, it is the appearance of flowers and leaves, their brightness most evident when they are freshest, which is the surest sign that the darkness of winter is over, and in this painting they really do shine out against that darkness. In summer, though, there is perhaps even more of a contrast. The brighter, stronger sun creates deeper, darker shadows – which in all probability are lighter than those of spring, but, compared to the brilliant sun, they appear to be darker. In the painting of Summer this contrast is evident in the background – dark, even black, on the left, and far lighter on the right. A subtly sinuous vertical axis of light flowers, white, pale pink and cream, shines out in the dazzling light against the dark foliage, with some of the less illuminated blooms rendered visible by being set against the lighter ground.

Mary Moser, Spring (detail); https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/O2361 (c) Royal Academy of Arts. Photographer: John Hammond

The genre of floral still life painting was developed in the Dutch Republic in the 17th Century, but Mary Moser was no fijnschilder. The direct translation of this word would be ‘fine painter’ – someone whose work we might describe, rather inaccurately, as ‘photographic’ in its naturalism. The paintings of a fijnschilder are intricately detailed, with almost no clue that the image has been painted: there is not a brushstroke in sight. Not so with Moser: this is clearly a painting. Most obviously, the highlight on the vase, where light reflects from its lustrous surface, is built up of several separate strokes of cream-coloured paint. There is no attempt to blend these lines, but that does not stop us from seeing an area of light, nor does it make us think that something striped is being reflected: the human mind developed to fill in gaps. Once you have seen her technique, you can begin to see that Moser built up the petals in a similar way, with individual brushstrokes placed over a base colour to create the effect of petals, without their minute and subtle variations. The skill lies in knowing how little, or how much, to do. Mary Moser clearly knew exactly what was needed, and as a result she was enormously successful. So why is she so little known today? I suspect it is quite simply because, although she did paint portraits and history paintings from time to time, she was best known for her flowers.

In terms of Academic values, Still Life came some way down the hierarchy of genres. At the top were ‘History’ paintings, from which the part of the word we want is ‘story’ – narrative images drawn from classical mythology, the bible or the lives of the saints, images which would inspire us by the nobility of the human spirit, or instruct us about the folly of others. After History came Portraiture – paintings of the great and the good, those destined to lead the way and show an example to others – and then Landscape – God’s creation, all the wonders of the world, which mankind was destined to rule. Penultimate, just before Genre painting (normal people doing normal things), was Still Life. The skill is purely aesthetic, you might think, the ability to reproduce appearances, which is, in any case, inherent in all the other genres, and to arrange forms and colours in an agreeable composition.

One of the problems of holding someone’s attention with a floral still life is that there is no narrative to hold on to, and, potentially no greater meaning. Of course, this is by no means always the case. Objects can carry symbolic meaning, and so a Still Life could easily be more fully packed with hidden messages than any narrative – I should show you an example of this one day! Nevertheless, Still Life artists were not as highly celebrated as those who focused on the ‘nobler’ genres, and so their names are more likely to have dropped out of the public imagination. So, in order to make amends in some way, let’s give our artist a face.

On the left is George Romney’s portrait of Mary Moser, painted around 1770-71, which was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2003. It is said to show Mary’s professional status – she stands at her easel working in oils, unlike other women who painted flowers, who used watercolour, not an unusual feminine accomplishment at the time. Despite doing what could be classified as ‘man’s work’ – i.e. painting in oils – she is still clearly entirely feminine. The fact that she is depicted at work, rather than as ‘just’ a decorative object (the fate of many women) is also important, particularly at a time when few women of her class worked. On the right is a detail from a group portrait, The Royal Academicians in General Assembly, painted in 1795 by Henry Singleton – like Spring and Summer it is in the collection of the Royal Academy. Angelica Kauffman stands on our left, looking directly at us, while Moser looks towards her more famous companion. Behind them is an equestrian statue. You might assume it is a reduction of the Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, judging by the other sculptures depicted in the painting, but it is actually a Study for an Equestrian Statue of George III by Academician Agostino Carlini. More importantly, hanging on the wall are Moser’s Summer and Spring – freely painted, which is hardly surprising given how small the detail must be, but recognisable nonetheless.

When you look at the painting as a whole it would be very easy to dismiss the appearance of these two women as ‘marginalised’ – they are, after all, pushed to the back of the gathering. However, they shouldn’t be there at all: Kauffman and Moser were not allowed to attend the General Assembly. So, despite this inexplicable bar, their inclusion in the painting is a sign of the great esteem in which they were held. They may be at the back, but they are more-or-less central, and just over the shoulder of the second President of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West, enthroned on his gold and red-upholstered chair. The women are perfectly placed to be seen. Not only that, but some of their paintings are also depicted – unlike the works of many of the Academicians who are present. We have seen the two by Moser hanging on the wall behind them: there are also two by Kauffman, Design and Composition, set into the coffering of the ceiling. If you want to know more about one of these – and another equivalent painting, Colour, then look back to Day 48 – Colour and Design. The fact is, the women are there, in the painting, their status acknowledged and their work on view: people could see them and know who they were. Next week we will look at a painting in which the situation is really rather different.