Asking again: painted by a madman?

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1895. Private Collection.

If you think I’m being rude – or insensitive – I should point out that the title of today’s post is simply a quotation, in English, from the words that Edvard Munch himself wrote on the first (or second) version of The Scream. An infrared photo of the offending text is at the very bottom of the post, if you want to check it for yourself… There are several versions of today’s painting – two in paint, two in pastel, and a lithograph which survives in a number of different versions, some coloured, some not. I am reposting this entry today as an introduction to the talk I will be giving on Monday 21 April, Edvard Munch Portraits, introducing the eponymous exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Sadly the exhibition doesn’t include today’s work, even if you could argue (at a stretch) that it is a form of psychological portrait… but that’s not the point of the exhibition. The talk will be the second of three looking at exhibitions currently on show in London. The third will be Evelyn de Morgan: The Modern Painter in Victorian London (which has just opened at the Guidlhall Art Gallery) on 28 April. After this, I am devoting May to German art from the 19th and early 20th centuries, starting with German Romanticism (5 May), and then The Nazarenes (12 May). I will also cover German Impressionism (19 May) and the series will conclude with a talk focussing on the sculptor Ernst Barlach (details still to be defined) – but all that will find its way to the diary before too long.

The Scream is one of those images which needs no introduction, so familiar are we with it, and with all the versions, mainly satirical, that it has spawned. Let’s face it, it’s the only painting I can think of that has inspired an emoji 😱, and the film franchise, Scream, uses the protagonist’s face for the mask worn by the killer. Like the many pastiches of Munch’s masterpiece, this franchise is a ‘comedy’ hommage (French pronunciation) to the slasher genre it apes. I’m sure the irreverent approach is just a means to undermine the darker implications of the painting. It is so familiar, perhaps, that we no longer look at it properly. We think that we know what is there, and we just stop looking: familiarity breeds disregard. So let’s look again. I’m going to focus on Munch’s third version of the subject, the pastel painted in 1895, but will consider the development of the series (briefly) below.

When you look at this image (and try to look at it as if you’ve never seen it before), what is the first thing that you notice? My first response, when I started thinking about this post, was surprise at the brilliance of the colour. The colour is why I’ve chosen this particular version to focus on – the others have faded, or were, in any case, duller. The sky is an intense vermillion, the bold, wavy lines interspersed with buttercup yellow and a couple of bands of pale blue. It takes up just under a third of the height of the painting, with a clear horizontal line in a darker blue marking, as the adjective suggests, the horizon. The lowest band of the sky appears to be made up of undulations of this darker blue – although reference to other versions imply that these ‘undulations’ are based on distant hills, blue as a result of atmospheric perspective. The majority of the land and sea is formed from a mid-toned blue, although small amounts of the reds and yellows creep in, in the same way that there is some blue in the sky. Overall, therefore, we have warm colours in the sky and cold down on earth. This lower section is almost square in shape, cut across diagonally by a straight path, with a fence or railing running alongside it. The path is formed of a series of straight lines, individual strokes of the crayon, and the railing consists of three parallel bars. The lines of the path and the bars of the railing conform to a strict, if exaggerated, perspective, converging at a vanishing point on the horizon at the far left of the image. The depiction of the land and sea is all curves, contrasting with the rigid, linear depiction of the path – we are looking at geometric forms and abstract values, particularly contrasts: warm and cool colours, straight and curved lines, squares and triangles, horizontals and diagonals. These abstract values are given meaning by what is represented. The path is presumably a jetty, and we see the sea with a curving coastline forming a bay, and, judging by the greens interspersed on the right, some vegetation. There is an androgynous figure, just to the right of centre, cut off by the bottom of the image. Its mouth and eyes are wide open and its hands are clasped on either side of its face. Further away on the jetty two more figures – men, as they wear top hats and this is 1895 – are sketched out full length. There is a boat on the sea, and buildings on the land, just visible on the horizon.

Looking closer at the figure at the bottom we can see its alarm more clearly, although the precise nature of the expression of this skull-like face is not easy to define. What is the wraith-like figure actually doing? The body seems almost immaterial: it is wavy, rather than solidly vertical, and is made of strokes more like the sky than the earth, all of which gives it a sense of insecurity. Is this person screaming, or does the open mouth speak of surprise, shock or horror? And do the hands express surprise as well, or are they clasped over the ears to shut out sound? There seems to be an unbearable pressure here, either coming from within, or closing in from the outside. As suggested above, the perspective of the jetty is distorted. It seems to recede too quickly, or, rather than receding, it could be seen as rushing towards us, giving the impression that we are zooming in, focussing on a close-up of the protagonist in a moment of high drama. Even the vegetation pushes in, the curved lines echoing the bend of the inflected wrist, pressing claustrophobically on the fragile figure.

Compared to the heightened drama of the protagonist, the two characters in the background seem relaxed, nonchalant even. One walks away, another stops to lean on the railing. If there is an audible sound – a scream – they do not seem to hear it: they certainly do not appear to be reacting to it. The boat just off the shore is a common feature in Munch’s work, and may imply the possibility of escape – but this is a possibility that is all too distant.

The sky is searing, with rich and brilliant colours, although oddly only the yellows are reflected in the water. The railing along the jetty, and even some of the planks of the path do take on some of the reds, but the intense colour is really the preserve of the sky, and is its defining feature. However, the nonchalance of the two figures could suggest that there is nothing unusual about it. Or maybe it is simply that they do not see it – or, that they do not see it like this. But then, the character in the foreground is not looking at the sky: he (is it ‘he’?) may have turned away.

I think that everything I have said so far is visible in the painting, although I can’t help wondering that so much of what I ‘see’ is coloured (deliberate choice of word) by what I have always known. It seems like ‘always’, anyway. I can’t remember when I first became aware of Edvard Munch, let alone The Scream. However, although there are unanswered questions in the interpretation of the image, we do know what Munch himself thought about the painting, as he wrote about it on more than one occasion. His first account was written a year before he made the first image. In a diary entry dated 22 January 1891, he said,

I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun went down – I felt a gust of melancholy – suddenly the sky turned a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, tired to death – as the flaming skies hung like blood and sword over the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends went on – I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I felt a vast infinite scream through nature.

This makes considerable sense of the image: it is Munch and two friends. They have moved on, but he remains, ‘trembling with anxiety’. Maybe this explains the wavy forms of the torso, even if he is not now leaning against the railing. The sky is ‘bloody red’ and we get a sense of the ‘blue-black fjord and city’ even if the colour chosen is not quite as dark as that might imply. What is key here is the last phrase, ‘I felt a vast infinite scream through nature’. He is not screaming (it is ‘he’), but there is a scream, a scream that maybe he is trying to block out with his hands. However, this is problematic, as he doesn’t hear the scream, so he can’t silence it – he feels it. What is truly ground-breaking about this image is that it isn’t a picture of something seen, but of something felt. We are at the very beginnings of Expressionism.

The year after Munch had this experience he tried to capture it visually twice, once in pastel – which may have been the first version, it’s not entirely clear – and once in paint, using both oil and tempera, with pastels as well. These two are both in Oslo, and are owned by the Munch Museum and the National Gallery respectively. The reason for thinking that the pastel is the earlier of the two is that, although the basic ideas are sketched out, the details are absent – no boats, and no buildings – features which do appear in what is, presumably, the later version.

There were two more versions in 1895 – the pastel which I have discussed (the only one in which one of the ‘friends’ leans on the railing), and a lithograph. We don’t know how many prints were drawn from the original stone, but about 30 survive, some of which were hand coloured by Munch himself. They were published in Berlin, and bear the title Geshrei, i.e. ‘The Scream’ in German, although the literal translation of this would be ‘Screaming’ or ‘Shouting’, apparently (‘The Scream’ would be Der Shrei in German, or, in Norwegian, Skrik). There is also a phrase at the bottom right, ‘Ich fühlte das grosse Geschrei durch die Natur‘ (‘I felt the great screaming through nature’). Often the image has been trimmed down, effectively cutting it out of the original ‘page’, meaning that the words do not appear – even if they were clearly important to Munch. This particular version, in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was signed by the artist in 1896.

A final version was painted in tempera in 1910. This, too, is in the Munch Museum in Oslo, and, like the others (with the exception of the lithographs), is on cardboard. The first version in paint (1893) is the one which bears an inscription. It says (in translation): ‘Could only have been painted by a madman!’ It is written in pencil on top of the paint, and recent analysis has confirmed that it is in Munch’s handwriting. It was probably his reaction – presumably ironic – to the public response to the painting when it was first exhibited in Norway in 1895. Typical of this was the comment of critic Henrik Grosch, who wrote that the painting was proof that you could not “consider Munch a serious man with a normal brain.”  The implications of this statement would have been more profound for the artist than Grosch would have realised – probably. I don’t know how aware he was of Munch’s family background. Born in 1863, Edvard was the second of five children. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was five, as did his elder sister when he was fourteen. He was a sickly child, and was often kept out of school, which created an enduring sense of isolation. One of his younger sisters was diagnosed with a mental health disorder at an early age, and by the time The Scream was exhibited, she was cared for in a local institution. For the rest of his life the artist was haunted by the possibility that he had inherited the same condition.

Somehow, through all of this, he seems to have captured the essence of what could be described as one of the defining features of the 20th and 21st Centuries: angst. A quick internet search defines this as ‘a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general’. The painting would have been perfectly at home in Vienna at the time of Sigmund Freud, but it also appears to visualise the Existentialists’ post-war fear of ‘the Void’: if there is no God, what is the point? For that matter, it could be an expression of man’s inhumanity to man, as seen in the holocaust, or even the cold war fear of nuclear annihilation. It speaks of the inner horror of so many of Francis Bacon’s subjects – even if it isn’t one of the usually acknowledged sources – and, oddly perhaps, it seems to demand to be owned. Both paintings have been stolen – the 1893 version in 1994, and the later one ten years later. And in 2012 the 1895 pastel – the one we have looked at – was sold for $119,922,600 to a private buyer. That’s very nearly 120 million dollars, which at the time was the most ever paid for a single painting.

‘Could only have been painted by a madman!’? It was as much the fear of the implications of this phrase – even before he had written it – that must have inspired his initial experience, and the images that flowed from it. This total honesty is what people have found hard to face, and yet, at the same time, it is so totally compelling. What else can have made it an early modernist Mona Lisa, ubiquitous and instantly understood? It undoubtedly touches a nerve, triggering an understanding of the human psyche. And, as we shall see on Monday, it was Munch’s psychological perception that helped to make him such a great portraitist.

245 – Out of the Corner

Édouard Manet, Corner of a Café-Concert, probably 1878-80. The National Gallery, London.

This week, after the splendour of Siena in the 14th century, it is time to turn our attention to another flourishing city – Paris, in the second half of the 19th century – but we will look at it via Switzerland. Over several decades in the 20th century the Swiss businessman Oskar Reinhart acquired a remarkable collection of paintings and works on paper. These included an admirable selection of the Impressionists and Post Impressionists, some of which I will be talking about this Monday, 7 April at 6pm, as they have been lent – for the first time as a group – to The Courtauld, where they form the nucleus of their enormously successful exhibition, Goya to Impressionism. I want to lead into this by writing about a painting by Manet from the National Gallery, at the other end of the Strand in London. It is not in the exhibition, but it was, for a while, part of a painting that is. Two weeks later, on 21 April, I will look at the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition of Edvard Munch Portraits – some of his finest work, frankly. And finally, for April, I want to go to one of London’s great, but under-visited, free museums, the Guildhall Art Gallery, to introduce their exhibition Evelyn de Morgan: The Modern Painter in Victorian London. I am planning to devote May to German art – but more news about that as the series develops: keep an eye on the diary!

The Café-Concert of the title would have been just one of at least 150 such establishments in Paris at the time this was painted. They varied in size and in the scale of their entertainment – from a piano in the corner to a full-sized orchestra – but the basic idea was the same: they provided musical entertainment and refreshment. However, up until 1867 they were strictly regulated: the performers were not allowed to wear costumes, being restricted to everyday ‘streetwear’, and no more than 40 songs could be performed in one evening. Even then, the entire programme had to be passed by the police to prevent any seditious material being heard. There was to be no dancing, no dialogue and no sets – the aim being to protect musical theatre. Theatre as a whole had long been under ‘royal’ control, but by 1867 Napoleon III’s popularity was waning, fifteen years into the ‘Second Empire’. The relaxation of the law in 1867 not only led to the flourishing of the Café-Concerts, but also helped just a little to keep the Emperor going – until France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War just four years later. The Café-Concerts, on the other hand, went from strength to strength, and, as a feature of contemporary society, they became a popular subject for avant-garde artists such as Manet, hailed as ‘the painter of modern life’. In the painting, we see members of the public seated at a table being served drinks. A waitress places one glass of beer on the table while holding two more in her left hand. She looks off to our right, perhaps checking for other customers in need of service, or reminding herself who ordered the drinks she is still holding. In the background we can see a singer, or dancer (or both) on stage, with an orchestra seated in front.

One of the reasons for the popularity of the Café-Concerts was probably because they were – like the ballet – some of the few places where you could see a woman’s legs in public. Indeed, the performer appears to be dressed for the ballet, wearing something like a tutu. She has a remarkable slim waist (and is presumably corseted), and sports a décolletage which is low-cut, even given the word’s definition, and held up by the slimmest of shoulder straps. Leaning forward with her arms flung out she could either be taking or bow, or maybe singing. The setting is non-specific, with just a hint of a pale château with a blue roof seen between trees, in the midst of a Renoir-like array of light turquoise and blue brushstrokes. The gilded curtain can be seen to the far right just inside the proscenium arch, which frames the stage. The orchestra is separated from the performer by a screen topped by a row of glowing footlights and what looks like a low fence.

The orchestra itself is painted remarkably freely. A trombonist sits on the left, his instrument stretching behind his head on a diagonal from bottom left to top right, and, neatly framing the grey hat, a tuba player sits behind him. Both instruments are only just sketched in with creamy yellow and blue dashes, a style of painting that would be more at home in a late Impressionist or a spontaneously Divisionist painting. But then the freedom with which Manet could deploy paint, yet still hold onto the essence of his subject, is demonstrated clearly by the dashes of colour with which the beer is painted, a slight head of foam visible through the glass, the waitress’s black dress seen through the beer, but broken up by the colour of the light which both illuminates the beer and reflects off the glasses. There’s a real sense of how much these drinks would weigh – and therefore of the waitress’s skill in delivering one drink whilst focussing elsewhere. Nearby, the man in the foreground holds a clay pipe, from which curls a puff of smoke. The stem of the pipe rests on his thumb and his forefinger is curled over it, clamping it onto the knuckles of the remaining three bent fingers.

The central ‘drama’ of the image is not whatever is happening on the stage, but the split focus of the two protagonists: the waitress looking to our right, the smoking man to our left. Both appear to be focussed on things beyond the frame: there are aspects of this Café-Concert that we will never know. This fragmentary depiction is one of the truly modern features of the painting: the artist is not showing us everything, but allowing us a glimpse of just one of the things which interests him, a moment of alienated interaction which suggests that these two people have no interest in each other. While we may not know everything that is going on, this impersonal interaction is one of the hallmarks of life in modern society: Manet is showing us not only what people look like, but also how they behave. He is also giving us a small cross-section of Parisian society. The smoker, in the customary workers’ blue – the Bleu de Travail – is wearing a black cap and smoking his pipe. Next to him another man wears a slightly smarter hat, like a taller version of a bowler hat, but in grey and with a broad back ribbon – I think it’s a tall crown bowler (or, for the Americans, a high crown derby). Beyond him, a woman turns away, her hair pulled back behind her ear and piled on top of her head, where it is dressed with yellow ribbons which merge, visually, with the brass of the trombone. Is she with the man in the grey hat? There is no evidence that she is, but could she be her on her own? It would seem unlikely, in the 1870s – unless she is there alone professionally… draw your own conclusions.

The Bleu de Travail is the dominant element in the foreground, baggy so as not to restrict movement at work, hardwearing and cheap. But it’s not evenly blue – a hard line cuts down the worker’s back directly below the two beers, lighter on the right and darker on the left. This is a sure sign that Manet extended the painting, adding a new section of canvas on the right. When originally completed it would presumably have looked more coherent, but as the new section was not prepared in the same way – the surface blue doesn’t have the same layers of paint underneath it – it has faded to reveal the addition. While we’re looking at this detail I’d like you to try and find something else. The beer is not necessarily for this worker – he has a dark brown drink in a tall glass in front of him. To the left of the top of this glass, just above the level of the liquid, is a tiny pink detail, at the bottom of a green drink that looks suspiciously like absinthe. This pink detail casts a shadow on the table beneath it – remember it, because I’ll come back to it later.

According to the art critic Théodore Duret, Manet was particularly impressed by the waitresses in the Brasserie de Reichshoffen, ‘who, while placing with one hand a glass on a table in front of a customer, were able to hold several more in the other, without spilling a drop.’ Manet asked one of these waitresses to pose for him, but she was reluctant, and said she would only agree if her ‘protector’ could be there too – and he would have to be paid as well. He is the worker in the foreground: the ‘alienation’ is a fiction, as they knew each other well. This may have allowed Manet to develop a particularly taut composition. The waitress’s left arm hangs down from her shoulder to her elbow and then up to her hand holding the beers, while the worker’s left arm goes down to the elbow, resting on the table, and up to his hand holding the pipe. The two hands, together with the beers, frame the worker’s head. The waitress’s right arm, clad in black, fills the gap between the worker’s brilliantly illuminated left forearm, and her white cuff meets his blue. Her hand remains hidden behind his arm, even though we can see the beer she has placed on the table. The far left and right of the composition are framed by the heads of the trombonist and a double bass player respectively, and also, on the right, by the proscenium arch. Its visibility on the right, but not the left, implies that the stage spreads far beyond the frame of the painting on the opposite side. Whatever the apparent spontaneity of the image (and remember, Manet never exhibited with the Impressionists – he wasn’t necessarily painting what he saw when he saw it) this is a rather brilliantly planned composition. However, it isn’t called Corner of the Brasserie Reichshoffen – we are in a Café-Concert, not a Brasserie. But then, Manet had changed his mind.

This is actually a screen shot taken from Monday’s talk. On the left is Manet’s Au Café (1878) from the Oskar Reinhart Collection – one of the paintings in the Courtauld’s exhibition. On the right is Corner of a Café-Concert. The painting of the Brasserie Reichshoffen was originally intended to be a reasonably sized composition, but Manet was unhappy with its progress, and cut it in two. Most accounts say he ‘cut it in half’ – but they are nowhere near equal ‘halves’. If you remove the addition from National Gallery’s painting, it is about half the width of its Swiss companion: he effectively cut a third from the original composition. Both were then re-worked into independent paintings, with the setting of the left section remaining securely in the Brasserie, while the other was transformed by the addition of a stage, a performer and an orchestra into a Café-Concert. All of these elements are far more freely painted, showing that the younger generation of Impressionists had a notable impact on their older mentor. I haven’t read a full account of the precise relationship between the two paintings (stuck in my study on the Wirral I don’t have access to the right libraries), but this is the best match I can come up with, the shadows of the drinks on the right matching those on the table on the left. Not only that, but the tiny pink detail at the bottom of the ‘absinthe’ is revealed to be the fingertips of the girl on the left. The Reinhart painting shows a more obviously respectable couple – a man in a top hat with a cane (of a ‘higher class’ than the men opposite him, clearly), with a woman modestly dressed in a beige-coloured coat and hat – who is probably his wife. The girl at the far end could even be their daughter, but she wouldn’t be drinking absinthe. Maybe that belongs to the unaccompanied woman at the end of the table who is turning away from us. [A few days after I wrote this I finally got round to reading Rachel Sloan’s entry about the Reinhart painting in The Courtauld’s catalogue – the re-working of the original painting was more complex than I had realised, and initially the canvas was cut between the man in the top hat and the ‘girl’ at the end of the table – who might originally have been a young man: look at the stiff white collar… That’ll teach me to research things properly!]

The additions to the Corner of the Café-Concert turn it into the very type of establishment mentioned in the title – a place of popular entertainment, which would in its turn evolve into the British Music Hall. By extending the canvas Manet also makes the waitress central, so that she becomes the real subject of the painting, rather than leaving her cornered. It does leave me wondering, though: if he hadn’t done this, how would he have painted her particular skill – delivering one drink while securely holding several more? Surely there would only have been just enough room for one glass of beer, if that. Maybe it was this that led to his dissatisfaction.

244 – Full of Grace

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Madonna del Latte, about 1325. Museo Diocesano, Siena.

I will complete my series of talks relating to the National Gallery’s truly glorious exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting this Monday, 31 March with Ambrogio Lorenzetti. I always thought I knew his work, but there is so much more than I imagined – although his masterpiece, The Allegory of Good and Bad Government in the Palazzo Pubblico, does loom large: we will look at it in depth on Monday. However, today I want to have a look at a painting which is in the exhibition, the Madonna del Latte, bearing in mind that this Tuesday (25 March) was the Feast of the Annunciation. The painting belongs to the Museo Diocesano in Siena, a museum I have never visited. However, I am hoping to get there next year as part of a visit to Siena with Artemisia. We will also go on a daytrip to Massa Marittima to see the painting I posted last week. We’re still very much in the planning stages, but if you are interested at all, contact Charlie Winton via the Artemisia website and she will get in touch when the plans are more secure.

If you’ve missed my talks in this series, I am repeating them in an edited form for ARTscapades, combining my five talks into a two-part short course, Four Sienese Artists. I delivered part one, about Duccio and Pietro Lorenzetti, on Tuesday, but it was recorded and will be available on catch up for a month. Part two, Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, will follow next Tuesday, 1 April – you can book them separately via those links.

After Siena, April will be taken up with talks based on exhibitions in London, introducing shows at The Courtauld, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Guildhall Art Gallery. They are, respectively, Goya to Impressionism (7 April), Edvard Munch Portraits (21 April), and Evelyn de Morgan: The Modern Painter in Victorian London (28 April). I plan to dedicate May to German art – but more news about that soon. Of course, you can always check on the diary! But for now, back to Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

The painting is called the Madonna del Latte – a literal translation would be ‘Madonna of the Milk’ – i.e. the breastfeeding Madonna. It is a subject that was relatively common in medieval and renaissance art, stressing the humanity of the holy mother and child, something which is also clear from the child wriggling in its mother’s firm grasp, and distracted from feeding by something over our left shoulders. At the same time as making the figures entirely human, Lorenzetti assures us of their sanctity through the prominent inclusion of richly tooled haloes. These touch the gabled frame at top left and middle right, ensuring that we focus on the couple and nothing else. The composition is beautifully rigorous, with Mary leaning to our left, so that her elbow (and, almost, Christ’s right toes) are effectively touching the frame, while the hem of her cloak, which hangs down from her left hand, leads down to the bottom right corner. The flat gold background is delicately tooled around its edges, and is surrounded by a red-brown painted frame. The base of the outer, wooden frame of the triangular gable is slightly narrower than the rectangular base on which it rests. It forms an equilateral triangle, triggering thoughts of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the realisation that God the Son is now also a man, sprawling in his mother’s arms. Whether or not the triangular form of the gable does refer to the Trinity, its combination with the lower, rectangular shape seems to imply something more about this painting, an idea confirmed by comparison with Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s earliest known work, the Madonna di Vico l’Abate, painted in 1319 and currently in the Museo di Casciano in Val di Pesa, about 19km outside of Florence.

The rigid and sculptural qualities of the earlier Madonna (on the right) echo not only the paintings of Giotto, but also the sculptures of Arnolfo di Cambio, reminding us that Ambrogio, like his elder brother Pietro, spent a considerable time in Florence in his early years. That the later work is more fluid, and lyrical, suggests a return to the ethos of Siena, even if we don’t know the original location of the Madonna del Latte. However, by this stage he had been painting frescoes alongside Pietro in the Chapter House of San Francesco in Siena, which we will look at on Monday. The main point of this comparison, though, is not necessarily to point out Ambrogio’s stylistic development, but to explain the shape of the frame. The earlier work, named after the town for which it was painted, has a similar shape, although the triangular gable is narrower in relation to the rectangular section below. The shape of the painting is defined by the shape of the throne on which Mary is seated. Its arms are depicted in an early form of perspective, with the result that the nearer, splayed ends are cut off by the frame of the painting. Nevertheless, the inlaid panel behind Mary’s legs fits the width of the picture surface perfectly, while the equivalent panel behind her back is further away, and so appears narrower, allowing it space for a flat, fictive frame of its own. This upper inlaid panel is equivalent to the flat gold background of the Madonna del Latte, while the framing element, painted as if made of a pale wood, is replaced by the red-brown frame in today’s painting. When we look at the panel of the Madonna del Latte what we see is actually the throne itself, with Mary and Jesus painted in front of it. By doing this, Ambrogio presents mother and child with an unparalleled immediacy – not unlike the image of Christ in his brother Pietro’s Cut-out Crucifix.

Mary’s apparent proximity is enhanced by the layering of forms: her halo is in front of the painted frame, and her head is in front of the halo, thus pushing her closer to us. I can’t be certain how the red-brown frame was made, and I don’t have access to any technical reports, but if you look in the corners where the halo touches the wooden frame, there are small patches where the colouring seems to have flaked off, revealing gold. I am fairly sure that the painted frame is a rich, reddish, translucent paint applied over tooled gold leaf – but don’t quote me on that! You can see the gold through the paint, which creates a slightly unusual effect, almost like tooled and gilded leather. The asymmetry of the placement of Mary’s head – with the halo covering the painted frame on the left, but clear of the delicate tooling along the edge of the flat gold background on the right – emphasizes the way she is leaning back to get a better look at her son. Her gaze is incredibly subtle, but I can’t help seeing a contained, inner radiance, a subtle look of profound love combined with awe, and the slightest hint of a smile on her pink lips.

Jesus does not return this gaze, but looks out beyond us, his tiny hands firmly clasping Mary’s breast. Admittedly Ambrogio wins no prizes for anatomy here, but there is the possibility that he was trying not to be too explicit – or naturalistic. The Madonna Lactans – the Latin term for the genre of breastfeeding Madonnas – fell out of popularity in the second half of the 16th Century, a victim to the Counter Reformation, which considered it ‘inappropriate’ – in a somewhat 21st century way. The decorated pattern at the end of Mary’s white veil curves around the breast, and the veil hangs down in narrow, wrinkled folds, implying that it is made of the thinnest and most delicate of fabrics. Ripples of the hem frame Mary’s face, and the veil is twisted, rope-like, as it curves across her chest and under her blue cloak, which appears to be turned back near her left shoulder to reveal a green lining.

The same green appears as a belt around Mary’s waist, gathering her dress which is a bright, un-patterned red. Jesus has got himself into one of those awkward positions in which babies excel, wriggling so much that Mary looks in danger of losing her grasp. His left foot is lifted, and rests in the crook of her right elbow, while the right foot hangs down by her side. Ambrogio has tried to emulate the folds of flesh in a chubby baby’s limbs and stomach with curving lines which I suspect were more subtle, and less evident, when the painting was first completed. Their curves clearly show us the three-dimensional forms of his body. I am intrigued by the pink swaddling cloth in which Jesus is wrapped. It is not the usual white, which so often looks forward to the shroud, and I am not aware of an others of this colour (although it could be that I have simply not registered them). It may relate to the red loin cloths with which Jesus was painted in Crucifixions of the late 13th Century (and also, later, by Raphael, in the Mond Crucifixion), a reference to Christ’s royalty – but that might be an interpretive step too far. What is clear is that Ambrogio has thought very carefully about the way it hangs: notice the folds that are pinched up by Mary’s right forefinger, and the sagging of the drapery behind the child’s back, held up by the middle finger.

The same is true for her left hand, where her fourth and fifth fingers pull up curves of drapery, marked by little pools of shadow ringed by highlights above. The flat back of her hand is strongly marked by shadow, and separated from the light on her fingers by the knuckles. The pink cloth curves over the thumb and forefinger, falling down to the left and right, hemmed by the thinnest of black lines. The gold hem of her cloak cuts between the pink cloth and the back of her hand with an almost abstract geometry. This photographic detail was taken from a different file to the others, and dates from before the recent conservation. It still shows signs of woodworm in the panel – the tiny black holes in Jesus’s forehead, for example. But it also shows clearly the delicacy of the tooling of the halo, a splayed cross-shape marked out to remind us that this is indeed Christ, created with a variety of tools. There are smaller and larger rings, dots, and a stippling between the shapes in the one arm of the ‘cross’ that we can see clearly. The leaf-like forms were probably ‘drawn’ into the gold leaf with a stylus after the gold had been burnished. The rings would have been made then too, using a tiny tube tapped onto the gold with a hammer. After this, a thin stylus would have been repeatedly pressed onto the gold to make the stippling which fills the gaps in between.

I took this detail at an angle from below in order to catch the reflection of the light. Up close you can see how egg tempera is applied, with small, unblended brush strokes in different colours. From a distance they combine to create the overall effect. The brush strokes themselves help to define the form of the jaw and chin, modelling the contours, and creating shadows as more dark strokes are introduced. The thicker black lines along the nose and the profile cut the face away from the veil which hangs behind, thus making the head look more sculptural. The veil itself hangs in thin folds in front of Mary’s forehead, and faintly reveals the hair underneath. But the point of the photograph was really to look at the intricacy of the tooling. The halo is defined by the thinnest of circular guidelines, created with a sharp stylus and a pair of compasses. There are eight of these, and going in from the outside, between the third and fourth is a circle of rings containing dots. Between the fifth and a sixth guidelines, letters were incised in the burnished gold and surrounded by stippling. Further in still is another circle of dots, but without the rings. This is hidden at a point in front of Mary’s forehead by the veil, enhancing the sense that all this is real and solid. As for the letters, they can be read more easily where the light is reflecting from the gold, but if you move your head as you look at the painting itself you can read quite easily the words of the angelic salutation:

AVE · MARIA · GRATIA · PLENA · DOMINUS · TECUM · BENE

‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee’. The ‘BENE’ is cut off, but is the beginning of the next phrase ‘benedicta tu in mulieribus’ – ‘blessed are you among women’. This is a quotation from Luke 1:28 in the Vulgate, the official Roman Catholic version of the bible. In this context, ‘grace’ refers to acceptance and goodwill, regardless of whether or not it is deserved. Another term would be ‘favour’ – which is why the King James Version renders the phrase as ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’ – Mary’s name is not included in either translation, but it becomes an essential part of the one of Christianity’s most essential prayers – the ‘Ave Maria’, or ‘Hail Mary’.

Ambrogio’s inclusion of this prayer in Mary’s halo is a first, and the combination of word and image would become one of his areas of expertise. We will certainly see it as vital to the interpretation of the Allegory of Good and Bad Government on Monday. For now, though, the inscription in the halo is a fitting reminder that the good news brought to the Virgin on the Feast of the Annunciation – celebrated on Tuesday – was fulfilled by the birth of Christ. Full of grace, Mary now holds Salvation in her arms.

Revisiting the Virtues in Colour

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Maestà, c. 1335. Museo di Arte Sacra, Massa Marittima.

Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350 at the National Gallery is undoubtedly the most beautiful exhibition I have seen for many years, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it this coming Monday, 24 March at 6pm. It charts, as the title suggests, the rise of painting to become ‘top art form’, taking over from the work of goldsmiths and enamellers which had flourished in the 13th century. As my recent talks have outlined, the exhibition ‘stars’ four main artists: Duccio, Simone Martini, and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, although the exhibition includes much more besides. I will cover as much as I can this Monday, and then the following week (31 March) I will come back to Ambrogio Lorenzetti. As yet, I haven’t dedicated an individual talk just to him. Details about the subsequent talks, introducing exhibitions at the Courtauld (From Goya to Impressionism) and the National Portrait Gallery (Edvard Munch) will be posted soon in the diary.

To make up for the delay in talking about Ambrogio, I’m going to have a look at one of his paintings today. It is not in the exhibition, but I do hope to go and see it in Massa Marittima with Artemisia next year, as a daytrip during a visit to Siena itself. This is actually an entry I first posted back in 2021, about a year into the blog. As it happens, the fifth anniversary of the first post was yesterday.

Evidence about the two Lorenzetti brothers is scarce, although both were, in all probability, born in Siena (Pietro around 1280, and Ambrogio about a decade later). It is possible – but by no means certain – that they both trained with Duccio. Ambrogio spent some time in Florence, as did Pietro, who also worked in Cortona, Assisi, and Arezzo. It may well have been in Florence that they became familiar with the work of Giotto, whose naturalism and solid humanity influenced both brothers, although neither ever let go of the lyricism inherent in Sienese practice. They worked alongside one another on the façade of the Hospital opposite Siena Cathedral (although sadly these frescoes have not survived), and each painted an altarpiece for the cathedral as part of the elaboration of the themes of Duccio’s Maestà.  As there is no mention of either brother after 1347 it seems likely that both died during the Black Death. Today, I would like to look at the Maestà which Ambrogio painted for one of the churches in Massa Marittima, famous enough to have been mentioned by Vasari, but lost for centuries. It turned up in 1867 in the attic of the Convent of Sant’Agostino, where it had been split into 5 sections, and, although some of the altarpiece has probably been lost, to look at it today you would never know that for a while the panels were used as a bin used to clear ashes from a fireplace.

Maestà means, quite simply, ‘Majesty’, and as the title for a painting it implies the full majesty and splendour of the Madonna and Child enthroned in the Court of Heaven. Ambrogio pulls out all the stops, packing the firmament with more saints than you will ever have seen, and, for that matter, more than you could identify, or even count. They are arranged in three ranks, although precisely how this works physically is by no means clear. It could simply be that all the saints at the bottom are really short, although there could be three platforms on which they stand. However, apart from the six angelic musicians – three on either side – who are clearly kneeling, or the three figures sitting on the steps, it is not at all obvious what is supporting any of these people. But then, they are souls in heaven, so the question is immaterial, in more senses than one. You can see the front row of each of the ‘ranks’ of saints quite clearly, and this disguises the number of people who are present – until you look closer.

You might start to see that the halos overlap like waves, each ‘rank’ of saints being three or four deep. You might also realise that there is, actually, no throne. The steps are the only solid element. The cushion on which Mary is seated is actually supported by a pair of angels, whose inner wings are raised. The stone-grey feathers suggest the back of a throne – but there is nothing there. It is a matter of faith: you know there must be a throne, and so you believe it. At the very top, another pair of angels is preparing to scatter flowers in celebration of the Virgin, who is herself associated with so many different flowers, although the splendour and majesty is subtly undermined by the oh-so-human affection demonstrated by mother and child. They bump noses, slightly cross-eyed, and yet maintain what is, under the circumstances, an almost comical gravity. This is God made Man in a very real sense, and a detail to the left suggests that Jesus has only just been born: as yet, nothing has happened to write about.

John the Evangelist stands in the position of honour at the right hand of the throne (that is, on our left – although on the right of this detail). He is poised to write the opening of his gospel, ‘In the beginning was the Word’ –  but as yet the page is blank, apart from the illuminated initial ‘I’. His quill is held delicately between thumb and forefinger, all of the feathery bits removed as was the practice at the time. The beautiful and elaborate illumination is made up of scrolling leaf-like forms reaching down the left hand side of the left hand page of the otherwise empty spread, looking for all the world like the sort of decorated paper you can still buy in Tuscany today. Standing next to him is St Peter, with the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and then St Paul, sword held informally over his shoulder. Although the halos are gold leaf (would it be possible to count them?) his sword was silver, but it has tarnished to black. Behind and below these three most of the saints cannot be seen, let alone identified, but at the bottom left is St Catherine of Alexandria (see the full painting above for her wheel), and next to her, St Francis, in the brown Franciscan habit.

In the foreground, and forming the foundations and support of the spiritual throne, are three steps, each of which is a different colour, with a figure dressed in the same colour sitting on it. The white, green and red steps are labelled ‘FIDES’, ‘SPES’, and ‘CARITAS’ respectively – Faith, Hope and Charity. The three figures are personifications of the three ‘Theological Virtues’ which I first discussed back in April [2020] (see Day 42 – Some Virtues and Day 45 – Virtues, again…). The relevant biblical text is, of course, the first epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 13, which ends with verse 13:

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Faith sit on the lowest step and holds her left hand to her chest while looking at a painting – or a decorated shield, perhaps? – on which we can see two faces looking left and right, both bearded, the former with a shorter beard. What we can’t see, hovering above the heads, is a dove – the Holy Spirit – but technical analysis must confirm that it was there, as this is identified as an image of the Holy Trinity, the very thing in which Faith believes. She wears a gorgeously fashionable, beautifully painted semi-transparent wimple, held in place with a crown. She also has gold work on her bodice for which the gold leaf was applied, then tooled (circular ‘punches’ of different sizes have been pressed, or tapped, onto the gold leaf to create indentations) and then, in part, painted. A pair of wings spreads out behind her, crossing the top, red step, which is delicately decorated. This is another way of using gold. In this case the leaf was applied to the panel, and the red painted over it. Much of the decoration you can see – including the ‘TAS’ of ‘CARITAS’ – was revealed by scratching away the red paint to reveal the gold underneath, a technique known as sgraffito – which, like modern-day ‘graffiti’, means ‘scratched’ (even if today graffiti is applied with a spray can).

Hope sits on the middle, green step. Unfortunately her robe has discoloured, and looks more brown than green now. Usually we would expect her to look up towards heaven, hands joined in prayer, but here she supports a tower, representing the Church. The image of the Virtues in this painting is derived from a 12th Century French theologian called Peter the Chanter.  Faith forms the foundation of the Church, Hope lifts it towards Heaven, and Charity, which St Paul says is ‘the greatest of these’, sits at the top, expressing the burning passion of the unqualified love of – and for – God.

An ethereal pink, rather than the richer vermillion of the step, Charity has a more spiritual feel than the other two, partly because she is all but monochrome, and partly because she lacks the naturalistic, contemporary dress of her companions. In her right hand she holds an arrow, or dart – more like the pagan Cupid, perhaps – and in her left, a heart, just as Giotto’s Charity does in the Scrovegni chapel (See Day 45) .

Colour symbolism is notoriously unreliable in art, but the common understanding that white, green and red stand for Faith, Hope and Charity is given its fullest and clearest exposition in this painting. It was this symbolism which led the colour combination to be so widely used – by the Medici in Florence, the Gonzaga in Mantua and the Este in Ferrara, for example. Raphael’s portrait of Pope Julius II (in the National Gallery) also uses precisely these colours: so many virtuous people. As for modern Italy – well, the tricolore was inspired by the French tricolore (different pronunciation!) Apparently the Italian press (or equivalent) had mis-reported the French Revolutionary colours as red, white and green (rather than blue), and the Italian nationalists adopted these instead – and stuck with them. Subsequently they have become associated with the Theological Virtues, although that was not the original intention. However it would have been driven home by reference to the Divine Comedy, for centuries the second most widely-read book in Italy. When Dante first encounters the semi-divine Beatrice, to him the paragon of virtue, towards the end of the Purgatory (Canto XXX, 28-33), she wears precisely these colours:

‘within a cloud of flowers which rose from the angels’ hands within and without, a lady appeared to me, girt with olive over a white veil, clothed, under a green mantle, with the colour of living flame’.

I can’t help thinking that, in Ambrogio’s Maestà, Charity looks like a ‘living flame’ – and that the angels at the very top of the painting scatter flowers in much the manner that Dante describes. Between Dante and Peter the Chanter, much of the imagery of this altarpiece can be explained. But how much of this would Lorenzetti have known? In 1347 he appeared before the Council of Siena and impressed them ‘with his words of wisdom’. So he must have been learned, a reputation which lasted long enough for Vasari to mention it in the 16th Century. But someone else must have suggested the elements to be included – and in particular, precisely which saints he should paint – although by no means all of them would ever have been identified. As yet, we do not know who that was. I shall leave you with one more saint, though, as it is one you have probably never seen before – and may never encounter again.

On the far right of the painting is a bishop in black. It is San Cerbone, the patron saint of Massa Marittima, and dedicatee of their cathedral: he is believed to have been the bishop in the middle of the sixth century. Once appointed to the diocese, his flock were soon disappointed because he always said mass at daybreak, which was far too early for most. After a while he was summoned to Rome to explain his behaviour to the Pope, and on the way he tamed a gaggle of wild geese with the sign of the cross. They followed him all the way to Rome, only flying off again when he made the sign of the cross a second time. He may have to do it again, though, as the geese have just rushed into the bottom right-hand corner of the painting. That’s how we know who this is.

This Monday, when I talk about the National Gallery’s glorious Siena exhibition, I will include the few images by Ambrogio Lorenzetti which are included, but will discuss his work as a whole – including his masterwork, the Allegory of Good and Bad Government – the week after. I do hope you can join me for either – or both – of these talks!

243 – Our most delightful Simone

Simone Martini, Christ discovered in the Temple, 1342. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

As an undergraduate studying the History of Art, I and my fellow students held Simone Martini in especially high regard, finding our developing vocabulary inadequate to describe the ineffable beauty of his paintings. We were incredibly lucky to have a great, local treasure, the panels showing three saints and three angels in the Fitzwilliam, a public museum which belongs to the University of Cambridge. I will, of course, talk about these panels when I look at Simone‘s work this Monday, 3 March, the third in my series of lectures building up to the National Gallery’s Sienese exhibition, even though, sadly, they will not make the journey into London themselves. There will be no talks the following two weeks: I have regrettably had to reschedule the talk about the fourth artist, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, to 31 March – apologies to those who have been trying to book in the interim. So the fourth talk in the series will be the overview, Siena: The Rise of Painting, on Monday 24 March. To be honest, this won’t upset the flow of the series too much, as Ambrogio turns out to be the least well represented of the four main artists in the exhibition. His greatest work is undoubtedly a remarkable secular fresco cycle, the Allegory of Good and Bad Government in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. A thorough exploration of these paintings will be a fitting conclusion to the series, as the frescoes help to explain the ideology which made Siena such an important centre of the arts in the first half of the 14th century.

Having celebrated Simone Martini as a student, I have had little opportunity to talk about him since. Apart from anything else, none of his paintings have made their way to the National Gallery in London. However, I have now been in Merseyside for a year and have a new local treasure (which also happens to be one of the best): the so-called Christ discovered in the Temple at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Having said that, it hasn’t been there for the past four months and won’t be for the next four either: it has recently returned from New York and will shortly be going on show in the exhibition in London.

I say ‘so-called’ because there are no signs of the titular Temple. What we do see is the Holy Family – Jesus, Mary and Joseph – engaged in a conversation which looks all too familiar, and familial, but not entirely happy. The painting was clearly a luxury object, the elaborate, engaged frame being both gilded and painted, with the flat gold background delicately tooled to enhance the framing and to create the resplendent haloes. Mary is seated on a gold cushion, while Joseph stands, his left arm on Jesus’s shoulder, apparently presenting him to his mother. The boy stands with his arms crossed, looking for all the world like a contemporary teenager – with the exception, of course, that he is wearing what the 14th century considered to be standard biblical clothing. I don’t doubt that the subject of the painting is related to the incident in which Jesus was discovered talking to the Elders in the Temple, but it would be worthwhile revisiting that episode so that we can see exactly how it fits in. The story can be found in the Gospel according to St Luke, Chapter 1, verses 41 – 52:

1 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. 43 And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. 44 But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. 45 And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. 46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. 47 And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. 48 And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. 49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? 50 And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. 51 And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

So – Jesus was 12, an age at which a child knows what’s what, although we still wouldn’t feel safe letting them travel to a nearby city on their own. Consequently, as far as I’m concerned, the idea of travelling for a day before realising that your son was not with you is (a) almost inexplicable and (b) surely terrifying. And then to go back and not find him for three days… I can’t imagine. This time-frame must be relevant, though – three days until he was seen again, as if he had died, and come back to life… It must look forward to the resurrection. Having finally found him, Mary attempts to get an explanation. “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing”. Is Jesus contrite, ashamed, or even apologetic? No! In one of those slightly insensitive statements which he very occasionally made, he replies, “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”. I’m using the King James Version (published 1611) as I usually do, and find it interesting that when Mary says ‘father’ she says it with a small ‘f’, whereas when Jesus say ‘Father’, it is capitalised. It’s not something that Mary and Joseph could have heard, and I’ve always thought it would have been a real slap in the face for poor Joseph, the loyal stepfather, caring for Mary and bringing up somebody else’s Son. I’m also a little surprised that Mary and Joseph “understood not the saying which he spake unto them”, given that Mary had experienced the Annunciation, and Joseph had been blessed with an equivalent dream. However, it is notable that from this point on Jesus “was subject to them” – he clearly did as he was told – and “increased in wisdom and stature.” He grew up, in other words, both physically and mentally, and he presumably learnt how to deal with problems with more sensitivity and greater compassion.

Having reminded ourselves of the story, let’s have another look at the painting.

This is undoubtedly the right situation, but not the setting suggested by the title of the painting. We are not in the temple, as I said earlier, but then, there is no evidence where we are. Mary is seated on a very expensive looking gold cushion, on a nondescript floor. I suspect that, by removing the specifics of time and place, the story becomes more universal – and I wouldn’t mind betting that we have all experienced a similar situation, either with our own parents, or with our children. Let’s have a closer look to see how the details help us to read the narrative.

There’s not a lot to go on in this detail, admittedly, but it does help us to appreciate the material qualities of the painting as an object. The precisely carved, engaged frame includes a number of differently shaped and decorated elements. From the outside, going in, there are two flat sections, wider and narrower, with the inner one being carved in greater depth. Both are tooled with a repeating sequence of round forms. The next section has an undulating, wave-like profile, and contains another flat area tooled with ovals which enclose quatrefoils. These are alternately painted in blue and red. A projecting element frames this coloured border, and this curves down to the flat picture surface, after one final, thin strip. Inset within the top of the rectangular frame is a semi-circular moulding forming an arch, which is itself inset with five more semicircles containing further tri-lobed arches, with finials in the form of fleur-de-lis. Could this complex sequence of arches represent the Temple, I wonder? The spandrels to the top left and right of the main, round arch are painted with seraphim: six-winged angels’ heads. The thin, transparent paint allows them to glow, the light reflecting from the gold on which they are painted, their ethereal forms probably rendered more ethereal by some thinning of the paint over time – although there is little about this painting that suggests wear and tear. The seraphim, looking down from above, remind us that we are looking at a religious scene. They could also imply that, while absent from his earthly family, Jesus was nevertheless under the protection of the Heavenly Host – present, as he was, in his Father’s house. Joseph’s concern is all too clear. The tilt of his head to our right, and his eyes, looking in the same direction, speak of the attention he is paying his stepson, while the furrowed brow tells us he is worried. The grey hair, beard and eyebrows speak of his maturity.

Seen in relationship to Jesus – and a little closer in – Joseph’s expression might read another way. Concern, yes, but possibly a little disappointment too. Maybe even a little anger – it depends which eye you look at (emotions are so complex). Meanwhile, Jesus’s expression is very hard to read. From this detail alone we wouldn’t know what was going on, but having already seen the painting as a whole, we know that he is looking towards his mother.

Whatever Joseph’s expression says to you – and I think we all read expressions differently – there can be no doubt that the delicate placing of his hand on Jesus’s shoulder implies tender care, and the raised tip of the thumb, at the base of Jesus’s halo, implies that the boy has not been hauled into the presence of his mother by brute force, nor is he in any danger of running away. I could elaborate all the different elements of these two haloes, but I will leave you to look at them, differentiate between the forms from which they are constructed, and wonder at the number of different tools which must have been used by a highly-skilled goldsmith to make them. What I will point out is the cross in Jesus’s halo, which is just one of the things that tells us that this is indeed the Son of God. The gold on the hems is stuck on rather than tooled – it’s called mordant gilding. I love the way in which the patterning around the hem of Joseph’s cloak starts in front of his chest, curves down and then up to our right around his neck, emerging to curve up further before swooping down again across his chest, and leading to Jesus’s halo. This spiralling form seems to express the complexity of the relationship between stepfather and -son, and they way they are bound together. It also delicately frames the hem of Joseph’s red robe.

Isn’t body language eloquent? On its own Jesus’s expression wasn’t saying much, but with the crossed arms it speaks of mute refusal to communicate. Joseph’s subtle sway says so much, his head focussed on Jesus, the torso leaning towards Mary, led by the open offering of the hand – a gesture suggesting an opportunity to talk. Mary looks directly and clearly at her son, and gestures towards him just as clearly and directly, as if to take a welcome explanation. The hands are so important – Joseph’s and Mary’s outlined against the flat gold background, hanging unanswered in space, Jesus’s tucked away, ineloquent (and yet saying so much), Mary’s, resting on the open pages of her book, the thumb indicating the first word of the text…

There is some distance between Mary and the men of the family – the gold, flat background seems to keep them apart. The men, on the other hand, are bound together not only by their physical proximity, and the way their forms overlap, but also by the echoing of their drapery. Jesus wears his traditional red cloak over a blue robe, while Joseph wears purple over vermillion. To my eye, the transition from vermillion to red, and purple to blue, results in a beautiful colour harmony. The lines, too, play their part: trace the patterns of the hems in your mind’s eye. The gold decoration falls along parallel, broken diagonals, and in both case the underside of the cloak, with no golden hem, hangs in a point at the bottom. The rise and fall of these fragments of golden embroidery remind me of a musical duet, with the melody rising and falling, shared between the two instruments – or the rhyming lines of a poem, perhaps. Maybe I am being overly imaginative, but Simone was friends with the poet Petrarch, who once described him as ‘our most delightful Simone’. He dedicated two of his verses to one of Simone’s portraits. I don’t think I’m going too far if I say that poetic beauty can be expressed in the fall of drapery or the echoing of hems. Simone also communicates through footwear, whether it is seen or unseen. Mary’s feet are completely hidden: she is a pure, respectable woman. Joseph, the most worldly of the three, wears ‘normal’ shoes, which are delicately hatched with the fine brushstrokes typical of egg tempera. Jesus, on the other hand, wears sandals. He would later tell his apostles to take no money with them on their travels, “Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves” (Matthew 10:10) – meaning no bag, no spare coat, no shoes and no walking stick. This text inspired the ‘unshod friars’ – members of a religious order who, following Christ’s exhortation, wore no shoes, or, at the most, only sandals. Even as a boy – who has, admittedly, just spent three days in his Father’s house – Jesus has already renounced contemporary footwear. At the bottom, running along the painted section of the frame, is the signature:

·SYMON·DE·SENIS·ME·PINXIT·SVE·A·D·M·CCC·XL·II·

“Simone of Siena painted me in the year of Our Lord 1342” – I can’t find any reference to the meaning of the letters ‘SVE’ though – if any of you are good at Latin (and in particular, medieval Latin inscriptions), what do you think?

What might seem to be most important for the understanding of this painting, though, is the book which Mary is holding, and what that text says.

Although worn, it is possible to read “fili quid fecisti nobis sic” which can be translated as, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us?” This is, of course, part of Luke 10:48, a quotation from the passage cited at the top of this essay. What we are witnessing is is undoubtedly the conversation arising from the discovery of Christ in the temple – but the biblical text only serves to confirm what we already knew. The sense of the painting, the ‘meaning’ of the narrative, is clear to the eye, given the eloquence of the imagery, the expressions, the body language… in many ways the image transcends the text. In one of his poems Petrarch said, ‘Simone must have been in Paradise…’ and at times, when he is not depicting a narrative, his heavenly style goes beyond words. No wonder our vocabularies failed us as students.

242 – Take a little space

Pietro Lorenzetti, Saint Sabinus before the Roman Governor of Tuscany, 1335-42. The National Gallery, London.

It’s not long until Siena: The Rise of Painting opens at the National Gallery. I’ve already talked about Duccio, and now, after a week’s break (please do check the dates of the talks you are booking for!) I will continue my series celebrating the four main artists who form the focus of the exhibition. This Monday, 24 February at 6pm it will be the turn of Pietro Lorenzetti, and the third talk, looking at the wonderful Simone Martini, will be one week later (3 March). The week after I’m heading off to follow The Piero della Francesca Trail once more, so Ambrogio Lorenzetti will follow after another week’s break on 17 March, by which time the exhibition will be open. To round the whole thing off, on 24 March I will introduce the exhibition itself, with a ‘virtual’ guided tour which could either prepare you for a potential visit, remind you of what you have already seen, or make up for the fact that you can’t get to London…. Siena: The Rise of Painting explores the development and influence of painting in Siena in the first half of the 14th Century, and also includes works in a wide range of other media by contemporaries of the four artists and by future generations. When seen all together we will be able to decide if the curators are right when they assert that some of the major developments in Western European painting originate in this time and place. Spoiler alert: today’s post will suggest that, in one way at least, they definitely are… more will follow!

I have a confession to make. I have worked at The National Gallery in one way or another for around three decades, but I have not previously looked at today’s painting in detail. I suspect that it has not been on display a great deal, or, if it has, it has been ‘outshone’ by the Duccios (which have almost always been accessible), or something as unique as the Wilton Diptych… Let’s face it, we are incredibly lucky to have such a rich collection of medieval art in the heart of London. One of the things I love about writing this blog is discovering something new, or getting to know something that has lurked in the corner of my eye – like this painting, for example – and finding out that it is truly remarkable. I suspect that one of the things that has kept it slightly out of reach is the obscurity of the subject matter, but, as ever, close looking makes everything clearer.

We are looking at a relatively small-scale painting (33.7 x 33.2 cm), which suggests that it was either made for private devotion, or was part of a larger ensemble. The painting is surrounded by a gold frame, which appears to be the same width at the left, top and bottom, but a bit narrower on the right. As the frame is clearly old, slightly battered and with traces of woodworm, it could well be original (…it is), and as the right section of the frame is narrower, it might have been cut down from something to the right (…it was). The perspective of the imagery also implies that we are seeing it from the right, and is another feature which suggests that this was just part of something else. But wait a moment: Brunelleschi discovered, devised or invented single vanishing point perspective around 1415, and Pietro Lorenzetti almost certainly died as a result of the Black Death some seven decades earlier in 1348… so is this really perspective? Well, yes, it is a form of perspective, an approximation to the way in which we experience space, and a way of representing three dimensions on a two-dimensional surface: the Sienese really were that innovative. The ‘space’ in this case is defined as a large room with a double-arched opening on our side, and three windows at the back. Through them we can see the flat gold background typical of paintings of the time. A number of people are standing in the room, gathered around a seated ruler – but who (or at least ‘what’) they are will become clearer if we get closer.

The three men on the left of this detail have haloes, so must be saints. The haloes are shown as flat circular disks of gold leaf, each punched with a ring of circles and stippled with small indentations to catch the flickering light of the candles that would have illuminated the painting. The man at the front wears a mitre, a two-pointed Bishop’s hat: this is St Sabinus, one of the four patron saints of Siena, who features in Duccio’s Maestà kneeling to our left of the central throne. He is believed to have baptised the first Christians in Siena way back at the beginning of the 4th Century. As well as his mitre he wears a cope – the semi-circular cape in a pink cloth of gold – which is fastened at the chest with a large, circular, gold morse. Both of these items confirm his status as a bishop, and, given that, back in the day, it was only bishops who baptised, this adds coherence to the story, even if Sabinus is supposed to have been beheaded in the year 304 at the tender age of 19. It should be pointed out, though, that ecclesiastical hierarchy and fashions were not the same in the year 304 as they would be a millennium later, but then Pietro Lorenzetti wanted to make this story comprehensible to his contemporaries. Behind Sabinus stand two deacons, named as Marcellus and Exuperantius. Deacons are minor church officials, ranking just below priests. The thick rings of hair around the bald crown suggest they have been tonsured (the hair on the top of the head has been shaved off), a sign that they have taken religious orders. Their robes are relatively simple in form, and have square-cut collars, which can be seen more clearly on the right – because the simple blue robe doesn’t have the rich patterning of the other (presumably worn by a more senior deacon – or one who was simply richer, or less humble). These are the robes worn by deacons. St Sabinus is slightly obscured by the slim column at the front of the room (Lorenzetti is trying to make this space look as ‘real’ as possible: it is almost as if we are chance observers of the narrative, physically present in the room). This colonette also hides his gesture: he is pointing back over his right shoulder with his right thumb, an unusual and seemingly very modern thing to do, but a gesture which the artist used often (as we will see on Monday). Sabinus is communicating something to the seated man, who leans forward, also gesturing with one hand. He is clearly interested in whatever Sabinus has to say, or trying to convince him of something. The seated man wears a red, fur-lined cloak (signs of royalty and of wealth respectively), and has a garland of golden leaves in his hair. Together with his seat, a gold, lion-headed faldstool, usually used to denote a ruler, we need have no doubt that this is the ‘Roman Governor of Tuscany’ mentioned in the title. He has his own bodyguard, standing to the far right of the image and partly obscured by the frame. The guard also wears red, which connects him to the ‘royal’ court, and also has a helmet and a mace – a heavy club with a spiked metal head – which he is clearly prepared to use. But what is Sabinus gesturing towards?

Another group of people enter from the left. One, with greying hair and beard, has his head covered with a shawl. He is carrying a white sculpture – presumably carved in marble – which depicts a woman carrying a golden, spherical object. He is not touching it though – his hands are covered by a white cloth, so that he does not sully what is clearly a revered object. This older man – some kind of priest, presumably – is flanked by two younger men each of whom carries a candle. Again, this shows us the regard in which the sculpture is held: we are witnessing a religious procession, of sorts. A fourth man follows, but we can only see the top of his head. Given that we are in Roman times we can assume that the sculpture represents a classical goddess. Lorenzetti has made the men treat it in the way that Christian priests might revere the consecrated host, but Christian priests did not dress like this, nor did they revere sculptures: that would be idolatry. This is Venus, goddess of love and beauty, holding the golden apple which Paris awarded her, thus recognising her as the most beautiful of the goddesses.

If we take a step back, the story might be a little clearer. Sabinus, looking suspiciously older than his supposed 19 years, has been arrested as a Christian, along with Marcellus and Exuperantius: the Edict of Milan, allowing freedom of worship, would not be issued until 313, 9 years after the traditional date for Sabinus’s martyrdom. According to legend, the Governor’s name was Venustianus. He gave Sabinus a choice: either prepare to die yourself, or sacrifice one of your people to the pagan gods. Accompanied by the two deacons Sabinus held off, and asked to have one of the ‘gods’ brought before them. Lorenzetti shows us the point at which the god – a sculpture of Venus – is brought into the audience chamber in procession. In the original story it was supposed to be Jupiter: Lorenzetti may simply be punning on the Governor’s name. This is as far in the story as the painting goes: we do not see what happened next. Sabinus and the deacons prayed, and then smashed the idol to pieces. Venustianus responded by torturing the deacons to death. Sabinus was allowed to live, though, and later was able to cure the governor of blindness. This inevitably led to the governor’s conversion, and, almost equally inevitably, to the martyrdom of both Sabinus and Venustianus. So, like all good stories, they both lived happily ever after – albeit in heaven.

What I find remarkable about this painting is the complexity of the space which Pietro has created to tell the story. We are excluded by the arcade made up of a pink pier on the left and a slender column in the middle which support two very shallow arches (there is just a sliver of a second capital supporting the arch at the far right). The spandrels (curved, almost-triangular shapes above the arches) have shallow recesses, with shadowed edges, and are inset with mosaics created from triangles and squares of black, white and brick-red stone. The procession enters through a door on the left, the entrance passageway topped by a coffered barrel vault, the like of which can still be seen in the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome, or, in Pietro’s day, in the bronze roof of the Pantheon’s portico (it would be several centuries before Bernini had that melted down, at Urban VIII’s suggestion, to make the Baldacchino in St Peter’s). On the other side of the entrance is another arcade, beyond which is an empty side aisle. We could be in a side aisle, too – with windows behind us – leaving Sabinus and the other men in a central ‘nave’. The bishop and the deacon in blue are directly between two identical slim columns, with the one at the back just to the left of an equivalent colonette in the middle of the middle window. You will realise that I am talking in terms of church architecture, and this clearly isn’t a church, but if it were, then the Governor would in the position of the high altar, up a few steps. But this is exactly the structure of a classical basilica (such as the Basilica of Maxentius I have already mentioned – check the ground plan on that link), which takes its name from the Greek basileus, meaning ‘king’ or ‘monarch’. A basilica was a building in which you would have an audience with the ruler, and it was the form adopted by early Christians for the house of the King – the King of Heaven, in this case. However, the early Christians took away the monarch’s throne (in this case, the golden faldstool) and replaced it with an altar. I get a strong sense that Pietro Lorenzetti really knew what he was doing.

He brings the edge of the relevant space – the ‘nave’ – right to the bottom of the painting, with the base of the pier on the left and the column in the middle all but touching the frame. Apart from this the foreground is empty – as if we could step through the arcade and join the gathered assembly. The governor’s dais takes up the right-hand side of the space, the corner of the lower step just touching the colonnette. However, this is not the only way in which the painting is asymmetrical. There is no pier on the right, and the bodyguard is trimmed in half, cut off by the frame. My initial thought was, ‘this is just a fragment: the painting must have been cut down’.

However, I checked the exhibition catalogue, and in the list of exhibited works at the back it tells us that Pietro Lorenzetti’s Saint Sabinus before the Roman Governor of Tuscany is ‘Tempera on poplar, 37.7 x 33.2 cm (with engaged frame)’. I’ve told you the measurements before, but not they include the frame: this really is a compact pictorial field. And I didn’t say that the frame is engaged, meaning that it was attached before painting began. This tells us that the painting surface has not been cut down, even if the frame has (as we said, it appears to have been trimmed on the right). This really sparked my interest. It was a deliberate choice to paint the narrative asymmetrically. This helped Pietro to create a far more naturalistic space, with bold framing at the top and to the left. I find the slab of pink wall at the left of the image truly surprising, a large area of flat, featureless painting at the very front of the pictorial space. In itself, it is devoid of interest, but it serves its function perfectly, helping to create the space behind it, and to reveal the movement of the procession arriving from the pronaos, or vestibule. Throughout this small image the architecture is an active agent in the narrative. Enclosing Sabinus and the right-hand deacon between the two colonettes helps to give a sense of their captivity. The bodyguard is upright, his stance defined by the frame, and parallel – and equivalent – to the pink wall on the left. From this we get an idea of his strength, but his posture also makes the governor’s forward lean, his interest in Sabinus, all the more marked. And being cut off by the frame we again get the sense that the guard is located within a real space outside which we are physically present.

In 1317, just six years after Duccio’s Maestà was completed, the Sienese started to build a new baptistery down the hill from the Cathedral, and the choir of the Cathedral was extended above it. In the early 15th century a new baptismal font was commissioned, decorated by some of the leading sculptors of the day. Donatello modelled a relief of the Feast of Herod, completed in 1427, which I have discussed in two separate posts (see 154 – A Feast for the eyes and 156 – Second Helpings at the Feast) – you can see it on the right here. This is often credited with a photographic, ‘snap-shot’ naturalism, because one of the figures – on the far right – is trimmed by the edge of the relief. But Pietro Lorenzetti had got there almost two centuries before with his own dramatic scene which also occupies a complex space built up from several other interlocking spaces. The empty surface of the floor, leading us in, also performs a similar function in both images. Given that Pietro’s small painting was upstairs from the Baptistery – in the Cathedral – maybe this is where Donatello got his ideas from – adding in single vanishing point perspective, which he would have learnt from his friend Brunelleschi. As for the ‘ensemble’ that today’s painting originally belonged to… well, you’ll have to wait until the talk on Monday to find out – but it is one of the greatest paintings in the exhibition!

Double Duccio

Duccio, The Virgin and Child with Saint Dominic and Saint Aurea, and Patriarchs and Prophets, about 1312-15 (?). The National Gallery, London.

I first posted today’s blog just before I gave my first independent Zoom talk four years ago, on 8 February. And here it is, back again, to announce the first of my series about the glories of Siena in the 14th Century, Duccio, this Monday, 10 February at 6pm. I’ve also managed to pin down the subsequent dates. The second talk, Pietro Lorenzetti, will follow on 24 February, and the third, Simone Martini, on 3 March. These three are all on sale. The next two, Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Siena: The Rise of Painting – an overview of the National Gallery’s forthcoming exhibition – will follow on 17 March and 24 March respectively, and I will put those on sale – and in the diary – soon.

It’s always worthwhile taking another look at Duccio’s glorious triptych. It is a small devotional panel that could have been kept in pride of place in a bedroom, study or cell, or, for that matter, given the right members of staff, carried from place to place. On arrival at your destination, miles away from those you knew and loved, you could put it on a table, open it up, and, looking at the picture in front of you, speak to someone a long way away. As video artist Bill Viola pointed out some years ago, this is not unlike turning up to a hotel room, getting out your laptop, opening it up, and skyping your nearest and dearest. To be honest, I don’t think he said ‘skype’ as I don’t think that had been invented back then. And in any case it’s more like zoom. We’re clearly on Active Speaker view, with the Madonna and Child holding court, and thumbnails of patriarchs and prophets, also present at the meeting, lined up above. OK, so the saints on either side don’t quite fit this layout (it’s more like ‘gallery view’ with a limited number of participants) but you get the idea. This painting is about communication, and allowing the viewer to communicate with characters in whom they would have believed 100%, and who they would have believed were actively present and listening intently.

Duccio, The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Aurea, about 1312-15 (?). Egg tempera on wood, 61.4 x 39.3 cm Bought, 1857 NG566 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG566

That doesn’t get away from the fact that it is a luxury object of the highest order. It would first require a carpenter to create the panels. There are three here – one in the centre, and two attached by hinges (not the original hiinges in this case, though). The panels would have been made, smoothed down, and the framing elements attached before painting began. The vertical and horizontal elements are carved out of wood, while the curving arch is modelled from gesso (see below): you can read the full details of the painting’s construction in Dillian Gordon’s admirable catalogue entry, which the National Gallery has posted online. Duccio’s workshop would then have prepared the panel with size, an animal-based glue, to stop the paint soaking into the wood, and it was common practice to cover the panel with canvas as well. This was then painted with gesso, made of gypsum (calcium sulphate), a bit like plastering a wall to make it nice and smooth (in the north of Europe chalk – calcium carbonate – was used, the choice of material being related to availability). Many layers of increasingly fine gesso would be added, and sanded down, before starting to paint. And even before that, any areas to be gilded – and there are many – would also need to be prepared by painting bole – a red, clay-based paint, often containing some form of glue – onto the gesso. This would show through the translucent gold leaf to make it look even richer. And finally the painting. Don’t worry about the expense of the gold – that’s very thin – the blue itself would have been more expensive, as it is the finest ultramarine. Derived from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, which, at the time, was only known in one source (modern-day Afghanistan) it was imported along the silk route and then over the Mediterranean – hence the name ultramarine: ‘from over the sea’. However, this is not what you would see of the triptych (a three-panelled painting) most of the time, as most of the time it would have been shut. I’ve never seen what this looks like, but the Museum of Fine Art in Boston has a triptych with exactly the same structure, and it looks like this.

The arched gable at the top is an additional panel, stuck over the panel bearing the main image, to make sure that, when the wings are shut, the painting as a whole is more or less flat. As a result, even when shut, the painting on the gable is still visible. The Boston example shows Christ in a mandorla, possibly representing the Ascension of Christ (or the Second Coming?). The central image is of the Crucifixion, meaning that the scene in the gable follows that seen when the wings are opened. In London, though, the order is different.

The figures gathered around the top are the ‘Patriarchs and Prophets’ of the modern title. There are seven of them, six of whom have scrolls. This in itself is usually enough to tell you that they are prophets, as anyone from the New Testament is far more likely to hold more modern technology, the codex (i.e. a book with pages you can turn), as opposed to an old-fashioned scroll (a book with one page that gradually unrolls).  The first reference to a codex occurs in the 1st century, and by the 4th there were as many codices as scrolls. This development is associated with the growth of Christianity, and so the symbolic division of scroll and codex between old and new testaments is entirely apt. What are the prophets prophesying? Well, the Virgin Birth, and the arrival of the Messiah on earth, naturally enough: prophesies which are realised by opening the wings. This is an interactive work of art, and the act of opening it up fulfils the promise of the exterior. The central image is King David – the crown tells us as much, but then so does the fact that his name is written next to him (or was, at least – some of it has worn away). Notice that he wears the same gilded blue and red as Mary: in the bible Joseph is of the House of David, and, according to the Golden Legend, so is Mary.

When you approach a set of double doors, do you ever hesitate, wondering which one might open first? Clearly the owners of this triptych had a similar problem.

Reverse of: ‘The Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Aurea‘ Bought, 1857 NG566 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG566

This may seem an odd statement, but both the Boston and London paintings have the same cunning ‘device’ – although in London (at least) this may not have been original, as early in its history the outside of the triptych was extensively repainted, possibly at the behest of the second owners of the painting. Nevertheless, above you can see the ‘back’ of the London painting when it is open. Each wing is decorated with geometrical patterns, five versions of more-or-less the same motif, a single large lozenge with four more small ones, one at each corner. At first glance each panel looks the same – but look closer.

Do you notice that the lozenges on the right are interlinked, but those on the left are separate? Well, if you want to open the triptych, you have to start with the wing where the lozenges are apart, and if you want to close it, you would start with the one where they are together. There is a rebate on the right-hand wing (as seen from the back), over which an equivalent rebate on the left-hand wing will shut, thus keeping the triptych closed.

Once open, this is the glory you see: Mary, as Queen of Heaven, in heavenly blue, and as ‘Star of the Sea’ (Maris Stella) – in ultramarine – with stars on her shoulder and forehead. There is a naturalness in the interaction of mother and child, a humanity of emotion, which is not common in earlier art – even if the appearance is anything but naturalistic. We are in a world of elegance and delicacy: her long, slim fingers are rendered longer and slimmer than is humanly possible, devoid of skeleton and articulation, as these would only get in the way of the decorative line. Mother and Child look into each other’s eyes, joined by their mutual gaze, and linked by Mary’s white veil. Jesus holds one end in his left hand, and grasps the hem, higher up, with his right, the crook of his arm echoing the flow of the fabric. He wears an almost-transparent tunic – we need to see that this is God made flesh – with a pale-Imperial-purple cloth wrapped around it, hems picked out by the thinnest line of sinuous gold – as are the hems of Mary’s blue cloak.

The Virgin may look a little off colour. The green faces of trecento Madonnas are well known, but are not what the artists intended (trecento means ‘three hundred’, and is the Italian word for the 14th century – the ‘thirteen hundreds’, to use the ugly modern form). Flesh areas were underpainted with a pigment called terra verde – ‘green earth’ – so that, when the flesh tones were painted on top they would have depth and life. Unfortunately, though, the pinks of the flesh tones have a tendency to fade – thus revealing the green underneath. Nevertheless, it has its own familiar charm – for me, at least. On either side we see angels, looking on in adoration. One prays, one holds his hands over his chest, but two seem to hold objects. Time has worn them away, but originally they would have held thuribles – the metal censers on chains that are swung to create clouds of ethereal odour during worship. The problem here is that, although it is possible to paint on top of gold leaf, the paint doesn’t always stick. This could have been a problem with the identification of the saints on either side.

One is well known, the other quite obscure. On the left we see St Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers – or Dominicans – wearing the habit of the order – a white robe and tabard, with a black hooded cloak on top. He holds a book in his left hand, to which he gestures with his right: these are the scriptures, which are to be correctly understood. St Dominic was particularly concerned with orthodoxy – the right belief – and so, with the defeat of heresy. The small, red, starred circle just to the right of his head is a reference to his godmother, who, when he was baptised, saw a star on his forehead which appeared to illuminate the entire world. It is a common attribute of the saint, and it is not unusual to see paintings of St Dominic with this star still firmly in place on his forehead. As for his companion – well, a female saint holding a cross is hardly specific…

It is just as well that Duccio painted the names of both saints onto the background. Even though that of St Dominic has all but worn away, his habit and the star tells us who he is. The other saint’s name has gone entirely. However, in this case the paint does seem to have stuck, and when it was brushed off, however that happened, it took the gold with it. What we can see, therefore, is a gap in the gold, revealing the orange bole underneath, and the letters ‘Au’, which, as if by some Divine Revelation, is the chemical symbol for gold. The very absence tells you what has gone. This is no mere coincidence, for this is St Aurea, the golden girl of Ostia, the port of ancient Rome. Because she was a Christian she was exiled there from the nearby capital of the Empire in the middle of the third century. When she refused to worship pagan idols a stone was tied round her neck and she was thrown into the sea. Inevitably she became the patron saint of Ostia, with a church dedicated to her. In 1981 excavations nearby discovered an ancient inscription reading CHRYSE HIC DORMIT – ‘Chryse sleeps here’ – chrysós being the Greek word for ‘gold’.

In 1303 a Dominican, called Niccolò da Prato, was installed as the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia. It therefore seems possible – as both St Dominic (Niccolò was a Dominican) and Saint Aurea (the patron of Ostia) are in this painting – that he commissioned this triptych. Another of Niccolò’s titular churches was dedicated to St Clement, and as the Boston triptych shows St Nicholas (his name saint) and St Clement on either side of the Crucifixion, it seems likely that he owned that painting too. With the infant Christ in one, and the Crucifixion in the other, they could have been used during different celebrations in the church’s calendar. Niccolò’s will, which was written in 1321, the year of his death, specifes that ‘three painted panels to be put on altars’ should be left to the Church of San Domenico in his home town of Prato. These could have been two of them (I’ll leave you to look up the Boston triptych for yourselves).

Whatever the origins of this painting, there is no denying its beauty, nor the refinement of the application and decoration of the gold. I will include it, with many more treasures, in the talk about Duccio on Monday…

241 – Vasari vs Veracity

Amanzio Cattaneo, Parmigianino surprised by landsknechts in his studio, 1854. Galleria Nazionale di Parma.

I am reaching the end of my series of talks examining all aspects of The National Gallery’s The Vision of Saint Jerome, and will conclude with a talk about The Sack of Rome this Monday, 3 February at 6pm. To tie in with this I want to look at a painting which has been used to illustrate the most dramatic moment in the painting’s history, when its completion was interrupted by German soldiers who broke into Parmigianino’s workshop in 1527. The talk will be subtitled Politics and Painting – and will cover both of those topics in precisely that order: what were the politics of the day which led to this devastating event, and how did it affect the history and art of Western Europe? As this concludes my Renaissance series – a re-birth for the new year – a new series will follow. I will take a step back to the middle ages, and revel in the unparalleled art of Siena in the fourteenth century, celebrating the National Gallery’s much-heralded exhibition: Siena: The Rise of Painting, which opens on 8 March. I will give individual talks dedicated to Duccio (10 February), Pietro Lorenzetti, Simone Martini, and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and then bring these all together with an introduction to the exhibition as a whole, including the wonderful art and artefacts by other artists which will also be on show. I will post the dates as and when they are settled. Of course, you can always check on the diary…

Back to today – or rather, the middle of the 19th century, which is when Cattaneo painted his typically romanticizing view of Vasari’s account of the events of 1527. We can see the artist himself seated in front of his tall, narrow painting. Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (1503-40) became known as Parmigianino because he was the little artist of the family, the grandson, son, and nephew of a family of artists from Parma. However, Vasari always refers to him as Francesco. In the left foreground a woman in a red skirt and white headscarf holds a baby, and to the right a group of soldiers has entered the room in haste. The leader of the group, in the centre of the painting, holds back the others as they take stock of what they see. Parmigianino, who sits calmly in his chair, looks over his shoulder towards them. On breaking in they seem to have knocked over a stool – a sign, perhaps, of their haste – which has toppled onto a portfolio from which project a few sheets of paper – preparatory drawings, presumably. A curtain divides the main body of the room from what could be an entrance hall or lobby. The curtain is held back by another soldier, and there is more activity in the shadows. How well does this coincide with Vasari’s account?

If you didn’t know, it is possible to find the whole text of Vasari’s Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Artists online. This link will take you to the translation by Gaston de Vere which was published by Macmillan between 1912 and 1914, and specifically to the Life of Francesco Mazzuoli [Parmigiano]  – the spelling of his various names has developed over time. Vasari starts this anecdote by telling us that Francesco (Parmigianino) had been commissioned to paint a panel for ‘Madonna Maria Bufalini of Città di Castello’,

But he was prevented from bringing this work to completion by the ruin and sack of Rome in 1527, which was the reason not only that the arts were banished for a time, but also that many craftsmen lost their lives. And Francesco, also, came within a hair’s breadth of losing his, seeing that at the beginning of the sack he was so intent on his work, that, when the soldiers were entering the houses, and some Germans were already in his, he did not move from his painting for all the uproar that they were making; but when they came upon him and saw him working, they were so struck with astonishment at the work, that, like the gentlemen that they must have been, they let him go on.

This is exactly what Cattaneo has painted: the artist has not moved from his painting even given ‘all the uproar that they were making’. Although it is shadowy, you can see that there are at least three soldiers in the lobby – one, fully armoured, is crouching down, while others move around, perhaps searching for what they can loot. One figure either wears, or carries, a flowing red fabric, which could be seen as evoking the flames which were engulfing buildings elsewhere in the Eternal City. But that is all just noise in the background. Closer to us, one soldier is pushing back the curtain to enter from the lobby, and five are already present. One, with a helmet, shoulder pauldrons, and a breast plate covered by a slashed red doublet, is being held back by the man on the left of the group. This less impulsive man wears the same armour, but with a yellow sash rather than a red doublet, which may indicate some kind of authority. He has red breeches, and mustard- or buff-coloured hose. His sword is held up in his right hand in front of his chest – an almost involuntary gesture of surprise – while his left hand is extended to hold back the energetic man in red. The colour is telling – not only is the doublet red, but so are the breeches and hose. This is the colour of danger, impetuous anger, and blood. He reaches to draw his sword with his right hand, while his left holds onto its scabbard. My feeling is that it is he who has knocked over the stool, which lies with its red top towards us: the two are linked together by colour. Two more men wear helmets. One, in full armour, stands at the far right, wielding his sword low in his right hand as if to swing it, while another peers through the gap between the leader and the man in red. The fifth member of this group is little more than a boy, with a full head of hair, no beard, and no armour – although he does hold a pike in his left hand. He reaches through the gap between the two foremost men as if to touch the painting – or, maybe, to take the leader’s sword. It looks as if Parmigianino has only just realised they are there, so intent was he on his painting. He turns round and rests his left arm on the back of his chair, holding his palette, brushes, and a mahlstick in his left hand. His sleeve is green – notably, the complementary contrast to the red worn by the soldiers, so potentially illustrating that they have opposing views. The artist seems barely perturbed that these soldiers are there. They are called ‘landsknechts’ in the title – so what was a ‘landsknecht’?

This is an etching by Daniel Hopfer from the Art Institute of Chicago. Made around 1530 – three years after the Sack of Rome – it shows a group of Landsknechte. If anything, their dress is more outlandish that that painted by Cattaneo, although the puffing and slashing of the sleeves and breeches, and the double tying of the same, clearly has the same origin. The meaning of the word is confused by the ways it changed over time: it originally meant ‘servants of the land’ – they ‘served’ the land by fighting for it. But as pikes were one of their main weapons, it was sometimes written as ‘Lanzknechte’ – as in ‘lance’. Whichever way you interpret their name, practically speaking they were well-trained, well-armed and experienced mercenary soldiers, and the main force behind the Holy Roman Empire. If you know the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence – right next to the Palazzo Vecchio – it took its current name from them: in the middle of the 16th Century Cosimo I had his German mercenaries stationed there. Their outlandish clothing was a ploy – apparently it was meant to strike fear into the hearts of their opponents!

So far, so good – Amanzio Cattaneo seems to have painted a convincing illustration of Vasari’s anecdote – which he could have heard first hand. Both Vasari and Parmigianino ended up in Bologna in 1530 (we’ll see why on Monday), and it seems likely that this account came straight from the horse’s mouth – along with everything else that Vasari wrote about ‘Francesco’. I must confess, though, I don’t know what interested Cattaneo in the story. He was born near Milan in 1828, and studied at the Accademia di Brera under Francesco Hayez. One Italian website implies that his work was made up of ‘historical subjects of a romantic stamp,’ and this painting certainly fits that description. However, that’s about as far as it goes – apart from the fact that he died in Genzano, about 30km southeast of Rome, in 1897. There is nothing else about him or his paintings on the internet – but he seems to have had no direct connection to Parma, or to Parmigianino. What is entirely clear, though, is that he had not seen Parmigianino’s painting.

Comparing his depiction of the work in progress with the painting itself, we can see that he has put the Virgin and Child at the top, with Jesus standing at Mary’s feet, and that there is a golden glow around the Virgin. However, it is she who holds the book – on her left knee – rather than Jesus (who rests it on her right), and the boy does not kick out one of his feet. At the bottom the two Saints are the wrong way round, but it’s not as if he’s been looking at a print, which would reverse the imagery. Both heads are at the same level and, even if Jerome has nodded off, with his head falling forward, he is certainly not lying down. While John the Baptist looks towards us and points up with his right hand, this is not Parmigianino’s elaborate invention. It’s not even as if we can blame Vasari’s description of the painting. When writing about the panel for ‘Madonna Maria Bufalini’ he says:

Francesco painted in it a Madonna in the sky, who is reading and has the Child between her knees, and on the earth he made a figure of S. John, kneeling on one knee in an attitude of extraordinary beauty, turning his body, and pointing to the Infant Christ; and lying asleep on the ground, in foreshortening, is a S. Jerome in Penitence.

What Cattaneo has painted is fine, and arguably a good interpretation of Vasari’s description – until it gets to Saint Jerome. Even if he is sleeping, there is no way the saint could be described as ‘lying asleep on the ground, in foreshortening’ – but, if you think about it, Parmigianino’s conception of St Jerome such an extraordinary idea that you really would have to see it to know what it looked like. And it certainly isn’t a ‘S. Jerome in Penitence’ as Vasari suggests. Cattaneo probably wanted to make sure that we could see the figure, and even identify him, given the red fabric propped up somehow behind him. However, aspects of the painting are right, even if not mentioned by Vasari: the golden glow surrounding the Virgin, and the clouds with which she is surrounded, for example. It is almost as if Cattaneo has read another description in addition to Vasari’s.

He does seem to have made a very specific choice about how he should represent Parmigianino himself. Cattaneo’s depiction of the artist looks remarkably like Parmigianino’s ‘Portrait of a Young Man’, which was acquired by the Uffizi in 1682. At the time it was identified as a self portrait, with the same identification appearing in print until 1773 at least. However, this idea has never really gone from the popular imagination, and it seems fair to suggest that Cattaneo held on to the traditional interpretation – with a slight trim to the beard, and a larger white collar to make the face stand out. Elsewhere, however, his romanticizing view of an artist’s practice in the 16th century is a little anachronistic.

Cattaneo implies that Parmigianino has painted the Virgin and Child from life models dressed in appropriate costume. The woman on the left wears a white headdress and blouse and a red skirt. Behind her, on the box or stool she is sitting on, is a mass of blue fabric. These colours are precisely those of the Virgin Mary in the painting on which the fictional Parmigianino is working. The model leans protectively towards a small child – a toddler – looking over her shoulder to keep an eye on the intruders and thus keep the baby safe. This little being looks helplessly over its right shoulder – not unlike the child looking over his left in Raphael’s Madonna della Seggiola. However, even in the 1520s it seems to have been remarkably rare for there to be female models – even if fully dressed – and it was even less likely that they would have been dressed in costume and posed with props (e.g. children) in the way that Cattaneo has suggested. This is far more redolent of 19th century practice, which serves as an important reminder that each painting is the product of its time. While the 19th century loved to romanticize the past, Parmigianino’s Vision of Saint Jerome really was created in the fervid period leading up to the Sack of Rome. But precisely why that happened, what happened, and what its consequences were will have to wait until Monday…

240 – A mother’s grief

Raphael, The Deposition, 1507. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

I will be talking about Women as Patrons in the Renaissance this Monday, 27 January at 6pm, and so today I want to take a look at one of the most famous of the relatively few works of art which actually was commissioned by a woman. One of the things we will think about is why there were so few, the answer being, of course, ‘men’. It’s slightly more subtle than that, but not much. We will also consider how some women came to be in a position where they were able to act as patrons, and think about why they may have chosen to do so. The following week (3 February) I will talk about the origins and implications of The Sack of Rome in 1527, which had a lasting impact on the History of Art, not to mention Western European history. However, my diary still isn’t pinned down thereafter. What I want to do is to explore the remarkable artistic talent of 14th century Siena by dedicating individual talks to four of its greatest artists: Duccio, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Simone Martini. This will lead up to an introduction to the National Gallery’s forthcoming exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting which will open on 8 March. I may start this series on 10 February, but, if I’m honest, I’m so behind with everything at the moment I may leave it until later: keep an eye on the diary (or these posts).

The body of the dead Christ is carried by two men, its weight implied by the way they lean to left and right. Three other people look on behind, as if they want to help in this arduous task, but are unable to do so. To the right, three women look after a fourth, who has fainted. All this takes place against a delicate landscape, which includes a hill topped by three crosses to the right, a valley with a river and lakes in the middle, and a rocky outcrop at the left. The foreground is far more barren, when compared to the verdant pastures in the background. The complexity of the groupings, the subtle interactions of the figures, and variety of actions suggest that the traditional title of this painting – The Deposition – is not strong enough to bear the weight of everything that is going on.

The action is divided into two principal groupings. In the foreground, to the left of the painting, is the predominantly male group around the body. The corpse is, in itself, the single most important element of the painting. It is aligned along the foreground plane so that it is closest to us, and so that we can see its full length. Raphael has subtly contrived to have the two men bearing the weight standing behind it, with only their nearer arms crossing in front of it, and only a little, even then. The body is cradled on white fabric, which the backward lean of the bearers pulls taut, thus supporting the dead weight. The fabric continues over the left shoulder of the man in blue and billows out behind him, to our left. This extensive length of cloth will become the shroud in which Christ will be buried. On the far left is a dark cave in the rocky outcrop: this is the tomb which, according to the bible, belonged to Joseph of Arimathea. According to Mark 15:46, Joseph ‘bought fine linen, and took [Jesus] down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.’ Steps lead up to the tomb, and the man in blue takes a tentative step back and up with his left foot, looking up as he does so, his face subtly showing the physical – and mental – strain of carrying the precious load. I have little doubt that Raphael had taken the idea of including steps from Michelangelo, who frequently used them to enhance the tension within the bodies he was depicting, creating more dynamic forms, and adding to the psychological complexity. There is also drama in the combination of the legs alone, enhanced by the rich and brilliant colours that surround them. From left to right we see red, blue, green and yellow. It is no coincidence that the right hand of Christ – with its dark red wound – hangs in front of a deep shadow where three of these colours coincide. A woman steps forward to get closer to the Saviour, her left hand supporting his left, and her right poised near his head. Her legs echo those of the weight-bearing figure on the right. He must be moving from right to left, towards the tomb, but has to lean back to support the weight – this contradictory movement helps to express the difficulty of the task. A man in green, with a yellow toga, steps up to the left, and at the top of the steps another stands, hands clasped, looking down at the body. We shall see who they are later.

On the right of the image, a little further away, is the group of women. One has fainted – she wears a purple dress and a blue cloak. It is, of course, the Virgin Mary, and while she is usually depicted in blue and red, Raphael often seems to have had his eye on some of the earliest images which survive. Mary was often depicted in purple – the colour of the emperors of Byzantium – up until the 13th century, and the use of purple here emphasizes her status. Later she was also depicted fainting, either on the Via Crucis – the road to the Crucifixion – or at the foot of the cross. This was known as Lo Spasimo, ‘the swooning’, and shows that she too, like Jesus, suffered for us, thus underlining her vital role in our salvation. Lo Spasimo is most beautifully and profoundly depicted by Rogier van der Weyden in his Descent from the Cross in the Prado. After the Counter Reformation the subject lost its currency, particularly given the statement in John 19:25, ‘Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother…’. She stood there, it says, she did not faint. The implication of Lo Spasimo was that Mary was neither mentally nor physically strong enough to bear the grief, and the Counter Reformation seems to have abhorred weakness: this episode is rarely depicted thereafter. Notice how one of the three women with the Virgin kneels on the ground, twisting at her waist to face the swooning Mary, thus adopting the spiralling form, or ‘figura serpentinata’ which became more common with the development of Mannerism. Again, only one artist could have inspired Raphael.

This is such a brilliant quotation it could easily be missed – if it weren’t so recognisable. In Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo the Virgin sits on the ground with her knees falling to her left, while she twists and reaches over her right shoulder to take the Christ Child from Joseph. Raphael’s figure is in a very similar position, although her arms are stretched out and up to take hold of the Virgin, and her hips are raised in accordance with this action. What I think is so brilliant about it is that Raphael has seen Michelangelo’s invention for the sculptural form that it is, and in his mind’s eye has taken a few steps around it and drawn it from a different angle. Michelangelo complained of Raphael that ‘everything he had in art he had from me’, but this shows that Raphael could use his own mind to complement, not just steal, Michelangelo’s vision. Intellectually this borrowing is also profound. In the Doni Tondo the Virgin reaches for the Redeemer, in the Deposition the woman reaches for the Co-Redemptrix (the feminine of co-redeemer). This was one of the many titles given to the Virgin, in this case stressing the vital role – already mentioned – which it is believed she had in our salvation. But who are the other women?

If we get closer we can see that all four have haloes – they are all holy – unlike the man who is carrying Christ, whose bright clothing and bold form grab our attention. We will come back to him, but for now it is worthwhile pointing out that his lean echoes Mary’s swoon, and that the green diagonal of his overshirt (which has an admittedly undefined relationship to the red robe) continues along the blue of Mary’s cloak, leading our eyes to her, and tying her into the composition. All four women are simply dressed, but dressed with great refinement – a sense of classic good taste. Well-cut clothes are complemented by minimal decoration in gold. The elaboration of the coiffures of the two on the right suggests that they have ample time on their hands, not to mention maids with nimble fingers. We are among the leading ladies of the society, and we’ll come back to that idea too. For now, it is worth quoting the whole of John 19:25 (I only included the first half of it above): ‘Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.’ So, as well as the Virgin Mary, there was also her sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas. According to apocryphal sources, Mary Cleophas was actually the Virgin’s half-sister. Her mother Anne is supposed to have married three times, and to have had a daughter with each husband: the Virgin Mary, and two more daughters often known as Mary Cleophas and Mary Salome. But other Maries are also mentioned. Matthew 27:56 says that ‘Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedees children’ visited Jesus’ tomb after his death. It would make sense that we are looking at these three women, given that the two mothers mentioned here are often identified as Mary Cleophas and Mary Salome. However, there is a slight problem…

The woman next to Christ with long, red hair flowing over her shoulder is undoubtedly Mary Magdalene (she too has a halo) – which makes the identity of one of the three women on the right uncertain. However, Luke 24:10 helps to resolve the problem. He explains that, ‘It was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.’ So, it could be Joanna. Or one of the other women – Luke doesn’t specify how many there were: clearly quite a few. But what ‘things’ did they tell the apostles? Primarily, that Jesus had risen. I think this suggests that women were essential in conveying the message of Christianity… so why should there be any problem now with women priests? But let’s not get into that! At the ‘top’ of the grouping on the left is a young man with a halo, long hair and no beard – John the Evangelist, the youngest of the apostles, who had also been present at the foot of the cross according to the scriptures. Next to him in light green with a yellow toga is another saint (again, he has a halo). He is usually identified as Nicodemus, the man who brought precious spices to anoint Jesus’ body. However, it could equally well be Joseph of Arimathea, and some scholars suggest that it is. Nicodemus could be the man with the turban, although as he doesn’t have a halo, this seems unlikely… As so often, I need to do further research – but I suspect that it is not entirely clear anyway.

Jesus also has a halo – one that contains the shape of the cross, implied by the two curving forms at the crown of his head and by his right ear. A remarkable detail I had not noticed before is the pink colour of his loin cloth (but then, I don’t think I’ve seen the painting since it was conserved in 2019-20, and the colours of this photograph initially surprised me by their freshness). It reminds me of the Mond Crucifixion in the National Gallery, in which Jesus wears a red loin cloth – and again, Raphael was looking back to paintings from the late 13th Century, and making an allusion to the royalty of Christ as King of Heaven. The body shows the pallor of death, with the right hand hanging down – much as it does in Michelangelo’s Pietà. The left hand is supported by the Magdalene, and although the knees are bent, the feet do not hang lower – a sign of rigor mortis, perhaps? However, despite the pallor, I can’t help thinking that he looks asleep rather than dead. Of course, he will ‘awaken’. Images of the sleeping Christ Child remind us that he will wake up soon, and are symbolic of the later death and resurrection of the adult Christ. This is also hinted at in Michelangelo’s Pietà, which also has the head lolling back, the left shoulder tilted towards us and the left foot higher – thus making more of the body visible – so I can’t help but see Buonarroti as Raphael’s inspiration once more.

But who is the un-haloed bearer of Christ on the right? And what significance does the landscape have, if any? Well, ‘there is a green hill far away’ (to quote the hymn): Golgotha, on which stand three crosses. A ladder still leans against the one in the middle, and two centurions, one with a spear, stand there in contemplation and awe. But this painting is not a Deposition – the body must have been taken down some time ago. The crowds have dispersed and the body has been carried some considerable distance. It is also not quite an Entombment, as the group is not quite at the tomb. All present are lamenting, but it is not exactly a Lamentation either, in which the focus is on the dead body and the lamenting figures. It is, effectively, a combination of all three iconographies. The Galleria Borghese’s website even gives it an alternative title: ‘Deposition (The Carrying of the Dead Christ to the Sepulchre)’ a subject which is almost unprecedented. However, this is, more or less, the title of one of the National Gallery’s paintings by (surprise, surprise) Michelangelo: ‘The Entombment (or Christ being carried to his Tomb)’.

Whatever else it includes, today’s image is a painting of a dead man, and of a mother’s grief. That has led some people to identify the handsome youth bearing the body of Jesus as a portrait of Grifonetto Baglione, son of the patroness, Atalante. They were members of the family who ruled over Perugia, a city which tumbles across several hills high above the River Tiber, some way before it reaches Rome. And although the town perched on the hillside to the left of the young man’s head does not resemble any particular view of Perugia, it may well be intended to represent the city in some way. A track appears to lead from the brow of the young man, in between two ranks of trees, curving up the hill to the left, with a single traveller approaching the town below a prominent palace.

The story of the Baglione family is a complex one. Powerful and wealthy, it was not at peace within itself – and there were frequent struggles for dominance between two separate branches of the family. As well as being a member of the Baglione family by birth, Atalante was also the daughter of a countess, a remarkably high-ranking member of society – which may well have a bearing on the appearance of the Three Maries who accompany the Virgin. She married another member of the family, Grifone Baglione, who was killed in exile in 1477. Her son Federico, born shortly after his father’s death, took his nickname ‘Grifonetto’ from his father – ‘the little Grifone’ – and it is worthwhile bearing in mind that the griffin is one of the symbols of Perugia. As a young adult he was determined to take control from the more powerful branch of the family. According to the family chronicle, on 3 July 1500, together with other family members, he broke into one of the Baglione palaces to kill his cousin Giampaolo where he was sleeping. However, Giampaolo escaped, climbing out of the window and over the roof… On returning home Grifonetto’s mother Atalante refused him admission to the house, presumably angry and frustrated by the continuation of the feud. So he headed back into town – only to be killed by Giampaolo, or, others say, another cousin, Carlo. Grifonetto’s dead body was stripped naked and left on the street in full view of the people of Perugia, a sign of his ultimate humiliation. It was left to his mother, Atalante, and wife, Zenobia, to have him buried. He was only 23, but prior to his death he had gained burial rights in a chapel dedicated to St Matthew in the Perugian church of San Francesco al Prato. However, when Atalante came to commission an altarpiece for the chapel from Raphael some years later, she did not choose a subject relevant to St Matthew, but one telling the story of a mother accompanying the naked body of her dead son on the way to his burial – the relevance is only too clear. Originally there were also three predella panels showing the theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, which are now in the Vatican Museum, and a painting above the main panel with God the Father blessing, which is still in Perugia, in the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria. All in all, the horrendous story is rendered acceptable to God, and the mother’s unimaginable grief – and guilt, having turned her son away from home – resulted in great beauty. But the criminal origins of the painting were followed – coincidentally, surely – in a criminal ‘coda’. Contrasting the way this is explained by the Galleria Borghese and Wikipedia is intriguing, I think. According to the museum, “The work remained in the Umbrian city for a hundred years, until one night, with the complicity of the friars, it was secretly smuggled out and sent to Rome to Pope Paul V, who gifted it to his nephew Scipione Borghese (1608).” However, Wikipedia suggests that, “The painting remained in its location until, in 1608, it was forcibly removed by a gang working for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V.” Either way, I think it’s fair to say it was stolen to order…

At the bottom left of the painting we can see Raphael’s signature, ‘RAPHAEL · URBINAS · MCVII’ – ‘Raphael from Urbino, 1507’. This is inscribed next to the seed head of a dandelion. While the juice of the plant itself was used for its healing properties – a ‘salve’ that became symbolic of ‘salvation’ – all seeds resemble dead things. When planted, though, they give rise to new life. The seeds contain the promise of the resurrection of the body, not just for Jesus, but also, ultimately, Grifonetto – which, for his grieving mother, Atalante, must itself have been some kind of ‘salve’. I have said nothing as yet about how Atalante came to be a patroness, but I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that until the talk on Monday.

Bringing ‘The Resurrection’ back to life

Donatello, The Resurrection, c. 1460-65. San Lorenzo, Florence.

On Monday 20 January at 6pm I am going to try and answer the question What is Mannerism?. I hope this will put Parmigianino’s masterpiece, which I discussed earlier in the week, into a broader artistic context. However, it’s been one of those weeks, and as there hasn’t been enough time to write something new, so I’m bringing back a post from Easter 2020 when we were three weeks into lockdown. I’ll leave it exactly as it was (unless there are any typos), but will explain why I am re-posting this in particular at the end. The following week, as I continue to explore the world of Parmigianino’s The Vision of Saint Jerome, I will talk about Women as Patrons in the Renaissance, starting with the patron of The Vision, Maria Bufalini. We will consider what stopped women from commissioning more works of art and architecture, find out the situations in which they could, and try and work out if female patronage resulted in any specific qualities… The following week, 3 February, I am planning to talk about The Sack of Rome – but I’m going to wait until I know I am definitely free on that day until I put that on sale. As ever, keep your eye on the diary for that – and also for information about a second trip to see the Fra Angelico exhibition in Florence for anyone who found out that the first one is full.

Day 25 – Donatello, The Resurrection, c. 1460-65, San Lorenzo, Florence.

Happy Easter! And to celebrate: my favourite image of ‘The Resurrection’. Why this one, of all the possible examples? Quite simply, because it’s not easy: this is a hard won victory. And because it breaks all the rules.

Most versions of the Resurrection make it look effortless. Jesus springs forth without a care in the world, just like all good comic book escapes: ‘in one bound he was free’. Here again is Andrea Bonaiuti’s version, which I ended with yesterday (#POTD 24 [see also Easter! as I focussed on this painting the following year]).

CF541C The Resurrection, by Andrea di Bonaiuto, 1365-1367, Spanish Chapel, Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Florence Italy

Two angels sit serenely on either side of the empty tomb, the soldiers sleep just as serenely on the floor, while the lid of the tomb looks as if it has toppled off, and is now lying where it fell, just behind the sarcophagus. Jesus floats effortlessly in the sky, the Flag of Christ Triumphant over his shoulder: it’s a red cross on a white background. No, he wasn’t English – but I’ll tell you about that another day. In other examples, the Resurrection is more explosive, with fragments of tomb flying in all directions. In yet more, Jesus appears above the still-closed tomb, apparently without even lifting the lid or disturbing its structure. Donatello sees it differently. This is hard work. He drags himself out, one foot on the edge of the tomb, grasping the standard with both hands as if he is going to use it to push himself up in that one final effort to escape the horrors of hell. He is still almost entirely wrapped in his shroud. Look back again at the Bonaiuti: as so often the shroud has been nonchalantly thrown round his shoulders as an improvised toga. For Donatello it clings to his limbs, wraps tight around his face, and slips off the shoulder with no hint of sensuality and every sign of inconvenience. And his face – this is the face of exhaustion – the face of someone at the end of their abilities. The suffering he asked his Father to free him from in the Garden of Gethsemane less than three days before is not yet over. One last push. Meanwhile, the soldiers sprawl on the ground, uncomfortable and unaware.

Like the pictures I’ve shown you over the past couple of days [back in 2020…], it is part of a larger whole. It is just one image on a pulpit which was erected for the first time in 1515, some fifty years after Donatello died. Even then it didn’t take the form in which we see it today. There are actually two pulpits in San Lorenzo, both of which were constructed out of incomplete elements left behind at Donatello’s death in 1466. They were finished by his assistant, Bertoldo di Giovanni. If we’re honest, we don’t know what these reliefs were intended for. They are probably connected to Donatello’s great patron, Cosimo de’ Medici – not the Grand Duke of Tuscany I mentioned yesterday, but the man who cemented the power of the dynasty in the 15th Century. He was awarded the title of  ‘Pater Patriae’ – Father of the Fatherland. This is the old Cosimo – Cosimo il Vecchio. He and Donatello grew old together, and, some say, they became friends. Cosimo is supposed to have commissioned work from Donatello to keep him busy in his old age, although he himself died two years before the sculptor. Cosimo was involved in a complete re-building of the local church, San Lorenzo, and was buried directly in front of the high altar. The theme of death and resurrection seen in the pulpits would be ideal for a tomb, and one suggestion is that these bronze reliefs were commissioned for Cosimo’s own funerary monument. Another suggestion is that there was a plan for the church which involved two pulpits from the outset. However, even though the pulpits have been given the same form, the shape and format of the imagery is different on each, and gaps have been made up with later work: they were not meant to be part of structures quite like this.

This scarcely matters for the consideration of this picture though. As you can see from the figure standing on the left, it is the continuation of a story – as it happens, the same story that we saw yesterday, ‘The Harrowing of Hell’ (#POTD 24). You might even recognise the figure on the right, with his camel skin and his long, messy hair and beard: St John the Baptist.

He is reaching out to Jesus, who is struggling through the souls in hell. Working his way across the space, flag already over his shoulder, Jesus will get there. He grasps the hands of one of the souls, while others reach out to him. There is none of the orderly waiting we saw yesterday: it really is hell in here, with people reaching, grasping, striving, each with their own particular need. And Jesus keeps wading through the dead. John the Baptist reaches out to give him a helping hand, to pull him on, towards the gate on the far side of hell, opposite the one through which he entered. Donatello uses four buttresses to structure the narratives on this panel, which now makes up one side of the pulpit. There is one at either end, and two in the middle, dividing the surface into three: John the Baptist stands in front of the second from the left. These buttresses are shown in a rough perspective, as if our attention were focussed on the centre, on the Resurrection. 

Going from left to right the first three buttresses all have apertures in them, presumably doors. Jesus drags his way through hell, where he will step through the door behind John the Baptist. It is from this door that he hauls himself up, out of hell and onto the sarcophagus. Or rather, he will – he hasn’t done it yet. The perspective of the buttresses is centred, and implies that the focus of the relief is in the middle of the sarcophagus, where the two arches meet. This point is marked by a trophy, made up of a shield, two spears and two helmets, the sort of trophy used, typically, in monuments celebrating a victory. Jesus hasn’t got there yet. He won’t truly triumph over death until he makes it up onto the tomb, and stands, full height, in the centre of this relief. He’s nearly there.

That’s what I love about this version: it’s so original. So unexpected. Not only that: it goes against every single idea we have about this era. The Renaissance, or at least the Early Renaissance, developed a sense of order, clarity, and balance, making images that look more like the world we live in and experience, with accurate anatomy, naturalistic scale and a measured perspective. In relief carving – or modelling like this – this was achieved by giving the foreground figures higher relief than those further back, the relief gradually getting flatter as things get further away, with some details in the background being effectively drawn in. In all cases, the space depicted is imaginary, not real. But not here! We can see this clearly in the next story that Donatello has included: the Ascension. This bit of the narrative won’t happen for another 40 days – but nevertheless, here it is.

Jesus is in a tightly crowded space, surrounded by thirteen other people. The Virgin Mary, with her head covered, is just to the right of him, and to the left of her is probably John the Evangelist: young, and beardless, with flowing hair. And the other 11? Well, the remaining Apostles, although by this stage Judas was dead. The new 12th Apostle was St Matthias, and he must be here, even though, according to the Bible, he wasn’t appointed until just after the Ascension. The figures are corralled in by a fence, which stands free of the rest of the sculpture – you can see its shadow cast on the figures behind. This isn’t imaginary space Donatello has created, this is real space, and there are far too many people crowded into it: no order, no rationale, but, instead, expression. Indeed, you wouldn’t really get anything else quite as ‘expressionistic’ as Donatello’s late style until the early 20th Century. Not only are the figures crowded too closely together, but it is also hard to see their relationship to the floor of the room. Donatello is manipulating the space, and manipulating the movement of the people in it. As they gather around Jesus, they emphasize his upward movement, while also making way so that we can see more of him, from his knees to his halo. Tiny angels help him upwards – another unprecedented feature: in most versions he can do this on his own. As it happens, he cannot leave any other way: the buttress on the far right is the only one of the four with no way out. As we saw yesterday, the only way is up. 

He is so much larger than the other figures. So much for proportion and perspective! In this case, size doesn’t tell us where he is, but how important he is. Donatello has returned to a medieval hierarchy of scale, where size is equivalent to status. And not only that, on his way to Heaven, Jesus is physically leaving the picture space, head and shoulders above the frieze marking the top of the wall, his head and halo standing free from the background, solid and sculptural. Look back at the Resurrection, though: this escape from the bounds of the picture frame started there.

As Jesus progresses from left to right, from the ‘Harrowing of Hell’, through ‘The Resurrection’ to ‘The Ascension’, he gets bigger, and higher, and the relief gets increasingly deep. In ‘The Resurrection’ his head is already above the arches, with his halo in front of the circles of the frieze. And by the time he gets to the Ascension, both head and halo are clear of the frieze altogether. Jesus has left the building. Or he will do, in forty days.

In the meantime, Happy Easter! We are still in the middle of it all. Maybe we are not yet quite in the middle, we’re still waiting, but we’re getting there. It’s not easy, the last step – and who knows when the last step will be? But we will get there, and before too long we will also be able to go out. That might even be within the next forty days.

[Reading this again, it is clear that we really were still in the early days of Covid. This was Picture of the Day 25, the end of the third week of lockdown. By the time I got to POTD 100 museums were starting to open up – but they hadn’t in time for the Feast of the Ascension that year.

But why repost this now? Well, as I said, the bronze reliefs, whatever they were for, were finally erected as pulpits in 1515. No one had ever seen the like before – and they seem to have had a profound effect on the artists of the time. It has been suggested they are one of the sources of the overpopulation of imagery which is one of the key features of Mannerist art – but we’ll think about that more thoroughly on Monday.]