Art History Today

Warburg Seminar on Salvator Rosa

On Monday 10th Jan, the baroque scholar Helen Langdon is giving a seminar on philosophers in the art of Salvator Rosa. Author of a book on Caravaggio, and the leading curator of the Rosa show at Dulwich, Helen is an expert on 17th century art. I’ve heard her speak on this subject and it is fascinating. Anybody interested in the baroque should go. I wish I could make it myself.

Representations of Philosophers in the art of Salvator Rosa. January 10th 4.30 pm Warburg Institute.

“This seminar traces the development of Rosa's treatment of philosopher subjects and suggests the strains of contemporary thought and feeling to which they so deeply appealed.  It starts with his Cynic and Stoic subjects, which are connected to his role as satirist, and denounce the corruption of his times, and concludes with his later interest in the pre-Socratics, in magicians and natural philosophers, who 'seek out the secrets of nature' and who in may ways anticipate the 18th century sublime. “

 

Featured painting. Salvator Rosa, Diogenes and Alexander, Althorpe House, Northampton, 1643.

Art Themes and Memes of 2010

Connoisseurship and Science.

  The topic of how science can help us identify painters, styles, authorship etc, has figured highly on this blog over the past year. In a July post, I said that Martin Kemp’s and Pascal Cotte’s book on the troublesome La Bella Principessa drawing showed how the two approaches could function for the artistic good, without feeling the need to outdo each other. I’ve received e.mails and comments from top Leonardo scholars/connoisseurs who believe that this compromise augurs well for an age of increasing complexity in museum politics and practice. Yet, despite this attitude of rapprochement, why do some still harbour doubts and clamour for a “return to traditional connoisseurship.” Perhaps that’s valid; one word that didn’t feature much in the National Gallery’s Close Examination exhibition was connoisseurship.

Rediscoveries, Rediscoveries, Rediscoveries!

We ended last year with the rediscovery of a Velasquez at the Met in New York, and guess what? We’re concluding 2010 with another Velasquez (pictured) dredged from the vaults of the Met. I found last year’s attribution completely convincing, but have to agree with Culture Grrl about the lamentable quality of this year’s find, despite the attribution’s support by one of the leading experts on the painter. This seems to be a cumulative trend: curators making claims about the dusty old masters in their basements; claims subsequently endorsed by a leading authority. Some attributions hold water, but I can’t help feeling a little jaded and cynical at the rediscovery phenomenon, particularly with such headline attracting names like Rembrandt and Velasquez. And for every authenticated old master, there is one that simply doesn’t pass the test. I’m looking at that so-called “Caravaggio” St John in Amsterdam, which doesn’t convince me in the least.

Refurbishment, Refurbishment, Refurbishment!.

  If there was one word that caused my blood to boil it was the dreaded word refurbishment. It reminded me of Baudelaire’s complaint about Paris being full of road works and construction; or Ruskin’s rants about restoration and dropping cement on classical figures in Venice, all in the name of progress. In much the same curmudgeonly mode, I cry “Excuse me, but do we have to close whole museums, or deprive the public of their permanent collections for such as long time, purely so we can have a 21^st museum experience”? Particularly reprehensible is Tate Britain (pictured) which is about to embark on a 45m makeover, necessitating the storing of most of the pre 1900 collection. After writing this post, I got comments and messages from lots of readers who have seen this modern construction imposed on their own museums. And there’s another dimension to refurbishment:, it seems to have replaced loan exhibitions as a way of unintentionally hiding the permanent collection from the people.

Art History and Cyberspace.

What have Facebook, Twitter et al have to do with art history? On the face of it nothing, but look again and you might change your mind. I’ve used Facebook to discuss the iconography, style etc of old master paintings; the messaging system seems to be ideal for that. I’m not exactly a Twitterholic, but the software obviously has its attraction for art enthusiasts who have found my blog through it, and as a communication device, it’s awesome.  It’s not yet clear what social networking and the rise of cyberspace can do for art history, but we’d be fools to ignore its potential, especially as education is likely to become more open-source and accessible in the future. As I said here, I think it’s inevitable that web technology will be absorbed into our discipline, especially as the paradigms of publishing change, as they must, due to the mass amateurization of publishing caused by the rise in weblogs, wikis and other on-line resources. That can only mean that we’ll learn more about the benefits of sharing information and ideas on line.   

Art and the Age of Austerity.

If there is one word that needs to be re-defined to make it reflect a specific historical moment, it’s austerity and the programme of momentous and callous measures associated with it. From now on we won’t be able to hear that word without thinking of effigies of Nick Clegg burned by furious students, or David Cameron reassuring pensioners their winter fuel allowance was safe, whilst planning to take it away from them, as we learned over the festive season. The austerity programme glanced off the major museums- no admission charge, only a 15% cut, and financial reserves to be accessed, up to 50% in the NG’s case- but the axe hacked mercilessly away at the Arts Council and other arts organisations. Timber! Down they went, the funding for a broad swath of arts ventures, not to mention provincial museums, libraries, and other targets which are deemed too much of a luxury for the incoming Age of Austerity. If we took austerity to its logical conclusion, I would be sitting on the floor of my study with my net book powered by my own battery; and when that packed up, I’d be reading books by the light of the candle, desperately trying to block out the noise of the anti-culture police bulldozing the libraries and universities outside. Still, I guess we should give thanks to the ConDems for not imposing admission charges on the major museum, but can we really believe it’s going to last? Can you really trust a government on culture that is so mean that it gleefully deprives young children of the delight of discovering reading? And what chance has culture and the arts got in this country when it’s represented by people like this?

Art and Protest

Situationist fun or serious engagement with an administration that seems to have abandoned the young to their economic fate? I don’t know, but the outbreak of sit-ins, art school occupations and tactics (as reported on here) that fused the aesthetic and the political certainly caught the attention and imagination of those who had been, hitherto, politically quiescent, myself included. Who can forget the book block as a spirited response to kettling, a word that has huge resonance for the protest movement. I think it’s copyrighted, otherwise I would have shown you an image of a kettle cop laying into Derrida’s Spectres of Marx. Away from the physical fray, the most symbolic expression of young artist rage appeared at the Turner Prize, shaming the glitterati inside who should have opened the door for free education, but settled for business as usual instead. Forget about Susan Phillipsz, the students should have won, since 2010 protest could be the new modern art! Pictured are the Arts Against Cuts movement who briefly occupied the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, whilst enroute to a demonstration.

AHT wishes all its readers a happy new year! I’ll be back in Jan with an overview of exhibitions to look out for in 2011.

Merry Christmas to Everybody!

Art History Today would like to wish all its readers a very merry Christmas!

 Nicolas Poussin, Adoration of the Shepherds, London, National Gallery.

Art History Today’s Top 10 Exhibitions of 2010.

Paul Nash, The Elements, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, February 10 – May 9.

Paul Nash deserves to be considered one of the finest painters England has ever produced. His wonderful blend of Blakean fantasy and modern surrealism, set against the background of the two World Wars make him utterly compelling. Such works as Totes Mare, a bleak abandoned graveyard of bombers, say more about the tragedies of war than any words ever could. 

Michelangelo's Dream of Human Life, Courtauld Institute, London, February 16 – May 18.

Walter Pater said that Michelangelo had a "capacity for profound dreaming." He had in mind Michelangelo's early art, but dreams appear later, most famously in Michelangelo's undecipherable drawing dedicated to Tommasso Cavalieri. It was a clever idea to include this and others such as the "Bacchanal of Putti" in a focused exhibition that brought connoisseurship, iconography and graphic analysis together in a productive and interesting way. The Michelangelo sheets were accompanied by other images of fancies and nightmares, notably Marcantonio Raimondi's "Raphael's Dream."

Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Masterpieces from the Uffizi, Italian Renaissance Drawings, British Museum, London, 22 April–25 July.

Easily the best exhibition of renaissance graphic art mounted in the U.K. this year. A show conceived with the aim of educating the general public about the technique of Leonardo, Raphael and other renaissance draughtsmen. Judging by the number of people I saw there, it was completely successful. Verrocchio's beautiful 'Head of a Woman' was worth the price of admission alone.

 

Caravaggio's Friends and Foes, Whitfield Fine Art, London, 27^th May- 23^rd July.

This exhibition organised by the baroque specialist Clovis Whitfield and other curators would have slipped completely under the radar. Forget the Caravaggio blockbusters on the continent; this was more interesting. No Caravaggio, but artists inspired by him such Louis Finson, Antiveduto Grammatica, Guido Reni and Giovanni Baglione, whose self-portrait was the perfect riposte to Caravaggio's dismissal of him as an artist. A refreshing approach to the over-used rival theme in exhibitions, and a perfect complement to Whitfield's new book on Caravaggio- Caravaggio's Eye.

Salvator Rosa (1615–1673): Bandits, Wilderness and Magic, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 15 September–28 November.

Salvator Rosa could be considered the world's first independent artist. Impatient with patrons, and fiercely committed to his art, Rosa epitomises the wayward artistic genus. Dulwich's second outing this year was expertly curated by Helen Langdon, Xavier Salomon and Caterina Volpi. It threw light on such themes as philosophy, bandits and witchcraft, while giving us a much more complex picture of this recalcitrant artist. It probably didn't get a large audience- but it deserved one.

Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries, National Gallery, London, 30^th June-12^th September.

Offsetting the magnificent accomplishments and acquisitions of the National Gallery are the mistakes, misattributions and curatorial embarrassments which have plagued since its founding in 1824. Typical of the introspective, and self-reflective events that the gallery is mounting these days, Close Examination showed such mortifications as the "bad Holbein", Kenneth Clark's "Giorgione" and the "Madonna of the Pinks", although that was presented as a triumph. Though sometimes it seemed like paintings in search of an exhibition, there's no escaping the fact that Close Examination was timely given the climate of "discoveries" and false attributions of the last decade, which, alas, continue to trouble us.

The Pre-Raphaelites and Italy, The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, 16 September–5 December.

Pre-Raphaelite is one of the most problematic terms in art history, so an exhibition like this was long overdue. Perhaps it promised more than it delivered, but there was no doubting the originality of the exhibition, and the quality of the works on display. Painters like William Dyce- post-Raphaelitism- and Sir Edward Burne-Jones- post Pre-Raphaelitism, inflected by Michelangelo- suggest both ends of the spectrum. And the bedrock of the show was John Ruskin's drawings of Venice, Verona and other centres, visual notes for an aesthetic and social manifesto for a new England.

Raphael: Cartoons and Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, September 8^th-October 17^th.

Accompanying a papal visit of Benedict XVI to the U.K., this exhibition strove to transport us back to the time of Leo X and the tapestries commissioned for the Sistine Chapel. It largely succeeded by constructing an "installation" of tapestries, cartoons and ancillary drawings. Thus, the evolution of the whole design was laid out right in front of the public; from drawings of Raphael's pupils modelling for the apostles to the grandeur of the tapestries themselves. It was particularly good to see those, including the detailing on the detached borders, little allegorical worlds of meaning lost to a modern audience.

Treasures from Budapest, Royal Academy of Arts, 25^th September- 12^th December

This was an exhibition of blockbuster proportions that didn't seem like a blockbuster. Consisting of 12 rooms crammed with old master paintings and drawings, modern art and beyond, all from Budapest, the effect was overwhelming. With the £12 admission cost, that works out at a £1 a room- value for money. I spent over two hours there, but still didn't manage to see everything. Honourable mention should go to the 17^th century selections including Poussin, Ribera, Artemesia Gentileschi and Lanfranco. A cornucopia of an exhibition.

Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance, National Portrait Gallery, 21 October–23 January 2011

One of the best exhibitions the NPG has put on in years. Lawrence was unjustly ignored and disparaged until scholars like Michael Levey and others began to plead his case. Now, this genius painter of portraits gets his place in the sun with a fine selection of paintings. Equally compelling is Lawrence's back-story of humble beginnings in Bristol, failed amorous relationships, and inexplicable financial problems despite his mercurial success in London. Many masterpieces here, such as his portraits of Angerstein, Payne-Knight, and a pictorial bouquet of beautiful women; but it is his group portrait of Francis Baring and Co which really captures the mix of wealth, romanticism and tragedy underpinning Lawrence's art. After this, Lawrence's stock can only rise.

AHT will be back after Christmas with more, including a post on trends, memes and themes in 2010.

In the meantime, have a great Christmas!

Genius infected by Romance: Sir Thomas Lawrence at the NPG

Last Thursday I visited Sir Thomas Lawrence, Regency Power and Brilliance, currently on at the National Portrait Gallery. With the snow bringing the country to a freezing standstill, this is likely to be my last exhibition of 2010, but a good show to end the year with.

Lawrence's is a rags to riches story. Born to a Bristol tavern keeper, Lawrence showed a precocious skill for drawing, and eventually rose to the position of PRA, President of the Royal Academy. His Self-Portrait of 1788, executed about the time he came to London and met Reynolds, indicates tension and self-consciousness; he may be on the brink of a magnificent career, but the prospect seems to make the artist uneasy. Half turning away from the viewer whilst looking out of the picture, the work is a study in ambivalence; the wide saucer eyes may convey the arrogance of a young talented painter, but to me they seem full of dread.

 It's said that Lawrence belonged to the "Golden Age" of British portrait painting; the period of Gainsborough and Reynolds, who eclipsed him. Lawrence, though equally as skilled as those two English purveyors of the painted face, never quite received the acclaim he was due, at least in England. Lawrence was feted in the USA and France; in the latter country he earned the respect of none other than the romantic painter Delacroix, who according to Richard Holmes in his essay on Lawrence, said that the artist knew how to paint women's eyes; he also was praised by the critic/poet Baudelaire, who set him at odds with the neo-classical school of Ingres and David. I can see why the Americans would like him: he conveys a kind of idealized Englishness; his ravishing women look like they've strayed from a BBC costume drama. This beautiful portrait of Lady Selina Meade (1819), the daughter of an Irish peer, is a good example of the Jane Austen effect, incidentally, one of Lawrence's favourite authors.

Though Lawrence's fortunes may have vacillated on the oils front, his reputation as a draughtsman has never been in doubt, at least with scholars and connoisseurs. He had a wonderful collection of old masters from which to learn, which may explain his enigmatic debt despite his financial success. One of the delights of this exhibition is Lawrence's drawing of Mary Hamilton (1789), which is a graphic work worthy of Watteau and Rubens. Those two masters used coloured chalks, a technique that Lawrence easily mastered too. Rubens, Watteau, Lawrence! This is one of the finest works in the show; you marvel at how he manages the red and black chalks so that they work in unison. I like the way the red shading eases into the black hatching; and the red spots on the woman's cheeks capture a blush, either a real emotion of the sitter, or a detail imagined by the painter.

Lawrence painted many of the movers and shakers of his day, from the Prince-Regent to aristocrats and bankers. His revealing group portrait (1806-7) of the merchant banker, Francis Baring and his partners, is one of the best dissections of high finance in western art. Baring sits in an ornate chair which seems to have been borrowed from a renaissance papal portrait; he holds a document in his hand, possibly another renaissance- inspired motif. The banker cups his ear due to deafness, but the action seems almost nervous, like a tic, suggesting pathology as much as financial decision making. The painting reminds me of Walter Benjamin's comment in his book on Baudelaire; the 19^th century financier hid his nervous reactions under a slack, almost phlegmatic expression. As Benjamin put it, "the face of an elegant man must always have something convulsive and distorted." Through this portrait of wealth runs an undercurrent of nervousness. On the table lies a huge ledger which one man hovers over like an angel with the book of the dead at the Last Judgement. The paper dangling from Baring's hand bears the inscription "Hope & Co", the name of an Amsterdam bank that did business with Baring. A judgment was coming in the future; little did Baring know that it would be a Dutch bank that would purchase his bank for the nominal sum of £1 in 1995, due to Baring's collapse brought about by rogue trader Nick Leeson. Maybe that stormy sky portends something in the future that none of these financial soothsayers could forecast. I would sub-title this "The Physiognomy of the Banker."

Lawrence described himself as "Genius…infected by Romance, and Wasted by Indolence and Languor." That seems a good epitaph for this remarkable painter whose art of celebrity conceals tragic depths of self-doubt. Holmes says that Lawrence believed that he had betrayed his own genius in relinquishing a project of Milton's Satan. Lawrence wanted to be a history painter, but fate decreed otherwise. It may be significant that none of Lawrence's history paintings are present, unless you count the oversize portraits of soldiers and generals like Blücher, which try for the heroic look. These are an acquired taste; I get the feeling that Lawrence could do them in his sleep, though there's no denying their quality. Interestingly, when Lawrence tried for the big history painting, the results weren't impressive, so maybe genius wasn't betrayed after all. His Milton's Satan summoning the Legions –not in the show- may aspire to the romantic gold standard of a James Barry, but it's cheap coinage, an awkward academic essay based on the antique. Within the exhibition, a chalk drawing of Satan as a Fallen Angel is more successful; history painting only works in Lawrence when it is scaled down and intimate, but that surely disqualifies it as history painting, doesn't it? Still, the presence of the Miltonic theme suggests Lawrence's desire to be associated with painters like Barry and George Romney who likened themselves to the rebel Lucifer, a symbol of romantic aspiration, and ultimately personal and artistic failure. Like them, Lawrence was cast into outer darkness by the arbiters of fashion, and had to suffer exclusion and ignominy until time and taste deemed him worthy of re-admittance to the canon. That time has now come.

Eating the Young

While watching the events that that led up to last and this week's decision to give the turbulent tuition fees bill an easy ride through Parliament, an image came to me: Goya's grotesque and unsettling Saturn Devouring His Son (1819-28), itself based on a harrowing precedent by Rubens.

Why? Because, despite all the ambiguity and difficulty of the image, it seems to me to symbolize the devouring of the young by an ideological monster that is completely out of touch with the real problems and trials faced by youth. Maybe it's not surprising that I should recall Goya's bleak canvas in these ideologically combustible times: Goya's art always had a political layer burning below its surface, which burst into splendid flame in some of his revolutionary paintings. This is hardly surprising as the artist lived through an era of seismic upheavals, something like those beginning to characterize our own times.

In his searching book on Goya, Robert Hughes says:

"What Goya painted is the combination of uncontrollable appetite and overwhelming shame that comes with addiction- Saturn goggle eyed and gaping, tormented by his lust for human meat, for an unthinkable incest. If he were merely hungry, he would not appall and move us so. And in what sort of society would the fathers eat the young? Surely, one in which the old perceive the new as a deadly threat: a society so reactionary that "tradition" imagined as the absolute reign of total authority, is worth murdering for."

In our society things haven't got that bad yet, although the fathers of this contemptible administration, this no-mandate Con-Dem coalition, are slaughtering the dreams of millions of innocents. But the category of young cannot be confined to age; it extends to older and middle-age people who feel young at heart, and have sympathy at the plight of the EMA- deprived school kids, the students and other disenfranchised groups being cut loose from society because of the government's reckless austerity plans. Even Daily Mail readers, God help us, support the students despite them breaking out last week.

It seems to me that the government see those who don't agree with them as infants- the word actually means without speech- so that they can be more easily controlled and reduced to silence. You've only got to listen to their language. Listen to Prime Minister David Cameron who came out of Downing St after the so-called Battle of Parliament Square to admonish the children with a stern rebuke; he resembled a cross between a father figure and a headmaster pronouncing condign punishment on the whole of the family or school. Listen to Home Secretary Theresa May describing the students' behavior as "disgraceful", like a schoolmarm wagging the finger at errant children. Then there's the police's method of kettling, which is surely a brutal form of detention. Concluding this family plot, there's the avuncular side of the family, the House of Lords, some of whom may want to intervene, but feel that by and large the headmaster paterfamilias is right, and they should just let him get on with punishing the children.

One of these oligarchs, Lord Browne, is the author of one of the most damaging documents ever devised for higher education in the U.K. It advocates nothing less than the wholesale commoditization of learning; every part of the educational process reduced to a transaction that can be measured on the balance sheet. Browne, a previous head of B.P. is a Gradgrind for our times; but what perturbs me most about the Browne Report is its attitude to the arts and humanities. The word "arts" only appears once in the entire document, and it's clear that it's a charter for philistinism.

But as James Vernon, in one of the best analyses of the Browne situation, points out, rather than playing the philistine card, we should make it absolutely clear to everybody how relevant arts, humanities and social sciences courses are to higher education. As Vernon notes, there were more studying in these subjects (1,073, 465) as opposed to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) subjects (829,115) during 2008/9). That's a 28% increase since 2001/2 as opposed to a 20% increase for STEM. And another conclusion Vernon draws, is that arts, humanities and social science studies are "cross-subsidizing the more expensive STEM fields that have fewer students." Doesn't it therefore make sense economically to try to build educational institutions and programmes that incorporate a cross-disciplinary approach between the humanities and STEM instead of eliminating one at the expense of the other? Though strategies like Vernon's are worth praising, I sometimes feel like Martin McQuillan who laments that a government that doesn't see the value of the arts never will.

There's also the argument that the humanities improve the quality of society; that they make us more rounded citizens; that they are essential for democracy. That's the tenet of a book, Not for Profit: Why Democracy needs the Humanities, just published by the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who's also speaking at conferences on the humanities this week.

It is evident that at the heart of the students' protest towards the regime of austerity lies great ingenuity and inventiveness. The counter-austerity movement is powered by creativity, an urge to construct imaginatively, expand the horizons of debate, rather than destroy self-expression and reduce ambition, which is what this government's measures will result in. The Top Shop demonstrations have the look of performance art, and watch this video of the demonstration, teach-in inside Tate Britain from last week. It's just one of many examples of how youth is making its voice heard loud and clear, almost drowning out the drone of the self-satisfied media and artistic managerial elite, represented by the Turner Prize dinner guests and the modern art magnifici. I particularly liked the students' use of the dunce's cap because there's another Goya reference there- his paintings of victims of the inquisition forced to wear carozzas, which evolved into the dunce's cap. The juxtaposition of students wearing these and frowning police is purely accidental, but it's a nice update of Goya's repressive state apparatus and innocent victims in a carnivalesque setting.

Though the Con-Dems may attempt to silence this legitimate protest movement, to choke the spirit of youth before it has been allowed to express itself, I'm confident they won't succeed. Just look at the expression on the face of Saturn, the personification of this ideological, youth-destroying monster. Rubens settled for a cannibalistic ogre munching on the belly of his son, but Goya's version taps the psychological just as much as the visceral element. His Saturn displays fear because, going back to Hughes's fascinating commentary on this darkest of Goya's "dark paintings", the father is finding the young hard to literally stomach and he knows it, but must keep going because he is suffering from some kind of compulsion.

Looking around at the tireless resistance that is cemented by imagination, passion and an unflinching belief in its aims, I think the student movement, and its growing affiliations – composed of people of all ages-, are all set to give the Coalition the biggest upset stomach of its life.

There's more from me on the Browne report (and other topics) in an interview at Three Pipe Problem, and for another U.K. academic's view of it see this interview on the same site.

Art Watch U.K. Site re-activated.

With the tragic death of James Beck in 2007, the art pressure group Art Watch U.K became less visible on the web because their site went dark. But I've just received news that the site has been re-launched.

 Artwatch may have been dormant on the cyber front, but they've not been idle in reality. A number of projects have been on-going, including a campaign to alert both professionals and public to the dangers of touring art for high-profile blockbusters.  

 

Artwatch draw attention to a letter they've received from art historians and curators at Krakow concerning the inadvisability of loaning Leonardo da Vinci's 'Lady with an Ermine' – aka 'Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani- to the forthcoming Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery, London, 2011-12.

As the pressure group say, there are three main points at issue here:

1 That this particular painting is artistically invaluable and irreplaceable and should, therefore, incur no unnecessary risks of loss or destruction;

2 That this intrinsically fragile work should not be jeopardised by the inevitable physical traumas and risks that attend movements across countries in varieties of vehicles and environments;

3 That the especial role and rootedness in Polish cultural and historical life that this work has acquired should be cherished and honoured, not violated.

It is difficult to deprive the public of this lovely painting, but that has to be weighed against its fragility. In a recently published article in the Guardian, Michael Daley, the head of Artwatch U.K., explains that "any movement is dangerous" with paintings on panel. There's also the issue of security: Leonardo is a high profile target for art thieves. What's to stop enterprising art criminals having a go, especially with the lapses in security these days?

 Artwatch also reproduce the sorry spectacle of the Sienese painter Beccafumi's "Marcia" after it had been dropped on the ground and smashed in 2008 at the N.G. I well remember that accident that marred another blockbuster, held in 2008: Renaissance Siena. The poignant image of Beccafumi's smashed panel says more about the dangers of moving art than words can.

I don't know what the outcome of this dispute is going to be, but things may get worse for the organizers of the Leonardo show; concern is being voiced about whether others works earmarked for loan are fit to travel.  

Welcome back Art Watch UK

(Thanks to Maaike Dirkx for telling me about this)

More than Meets The Eye?

I'm sure that you know I have zero patience with Da Vinci code flights of fancy. If not, read this. Now we've got a similar situation with another scholar claiming that there's more to Leonardo than meets the eye.

According to the Guardian, Silvano Vinceti claims that the initials "LV" can be seen in Mona Lisa's right pupil, and maybe the letters of the name of the unidentified woman in the left pupil. Here's an extract from the Guardian article.

"Invisible to the naked eye and painted in black on green-brown are the letters LV in her right pupil, obviously Leonardo's initials, but it is what is in her left pupil that is far more interesting," said Vinceti, the chairman of the Italian national committee for cultural heritage.

Vinceti said that the letters B or S, or possibly the initials CE, were discernible, a vital clue to identifying the model who sat for the Renaissance artist. She has often been named as Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant, but Vinceti disagreed, claiming Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa in Milan. He said he would announce his conclusions next month.

"On the back of the painting are the numbers '149', with a fourth number erased, suggesting he painted it when he was in Milan in the 1490s, using as a model a woman from the court of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan," said Vinceti, who claimed earlier this year that he had identified the lost remains of the painter Michelangelo da Caravaggio."

 This reminds me of a claim made about a Poussin painting, about a decade ago. The researcher in question stated that the hem of the gown of a female figure in his London Saving of Moses contained the word "CAPO", an allusion to the woman's head, Moses as the head of the Jewish people, and the French king as head of state, the monarch often being compared to Moses. I gave this scholar the benefit of the doubt at the time, but several years later under microscopic analysis the letters were shown to be random brush marks. What lies beneath, or not.

The moral here- as with the Leonardo- is that there might be more than meets the eye- but there could also be considerably less. We await with baited breath Vinceti's report next year.

(Thanks to Ben Sweeney for tipping me off about this story).

Art Kettles

I've just completed a really enjoyable course on the London National Gallery. I've taught its history from its inception in 1824 to its fortunes in the Comprehensive Spending Review of last month. However, had I finished the course this week, I would have had to include another event in its glorious history: its occupation by a group of students and artists; its precincts protected by riot police in Trafalgar Square.

That last image is something I never expected to see, but it recorded a real event; it also brings home the link between art history and what is happening on the streets of our cities these days, something I've tried to capture on this blog over the last few months using examples from the discipline. The NG occupation was the latest in a series of sit-ins, teach-ins that have seen art schools and museums like the Slade, Goldsmiths, and Tate Britain temporarily – some still going- taken over by arts, humanities and social studies students determined to highlight the importance of the arts to our culture and civic life in a peaceful and collaborative way. Controlling some of the other outbreaks of artistic resistance inevitably took the form of "kettling", a police containment tactic that is rightly attracting its fair share of criticism. I fear there are worse things than kettles to come in 2011 though.

It is telling how students are utilizing culture to battle kettling. The first T.V. pictures I saw on Thursday lunchtime were students shielding themselves with "book-blocks", each having the name of a famous title on its shield cover. So you had the bizarre spectacle of riot police laying into Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Adorno's Negative Dialectics", or whatever. It was potent in its symbolic impact, though the message was undoubtedly transmitted at the risk of serious damage to the sender. It was resourceful and brave for students to borrow a counter-measure from Italian students who seemed to have invented it in response to kettling in their country.  

Literature is literature though, and I'm an art historian who mainly deals with images. I found myself wondering what the effect would have been if images of famous paintings had been on these blocks making the situation a true art kettle? Sadly, I can't take credit for this phrase; it was coined by a colleague in the States who is observing the events with interest. I don't know the history of the kettle, but imagine my surprise when I discovered a possible example of an art kettle, although the story is likely to be apocryphal. The story is that the Russian anarchist Bakunin was helping a rebellion in Dresden in May, 1849; he suggested that Raphael's Sistine Madonna , a canonical work at the Dresden Museum, be hung on the barricades because the Germans were "too cultured" to open fire on such a precious masterpiece.

"Well, brother, no! A German is a civilized person, but the Russian is a savage, he'll start shooting not only at Raphael, but at the very Mother of God herself, if the authorities so command. Against Russian soldiers with Cossacks it would be irresponsible to use such means - you wouldn't protect the people and you'd destroy Raphael!"

I was lucky to get this information from a journal article by Irene Pearson on the perception of Raphael by Russian writers. According to her, there's a comparison to be drawn with "the native Russian tradition of carrying holy icons in front of a procession bearing a petition to the authorities." She mentions the view that because the Sistine Madonna was painted on canvas- rare for Raphael- it may have been intended as a processional banner. Checking my books on Raphael, I don't see this theory being entertained. It's true that the Sistine Madonna was an expression of Piacenza ceding voluntarily to the papacy of Julius II who seems to have commissioned the painting. Check out John Pope- Hennessey's discussion of the work in his lectures on Raphael. Julius was a warrior pope, and he surely would have ridden into battle with the papal standard- but not the Sistine Madonna! The idea of it as a processional banner seems to have originated in Russian folklore and religion, but it's a very compelling image in the context of 19^th century civil disturbance in Europe and Asia.

So, would the celebrated Sistine Madonna have been used to taunt the forces of a German kettle? Probably not. As Pearson says, Bakunin was almost certainly joking. One look at the photograph of him suggests a kind of anarchist dandy, causing violence, then melting into the multitude.  

I'm teaching in the NG next Thursday. It'll be interesting to gauge the atmosphere in the museum after the metropolitan uproar of the last few weeks. Things will have calmed down, I'm sure, but I won't be able to get that image out of my head- the riot police standing outside the NG. I don't know if they were kettling the demonstrators inside or those in Trafalgar Square. Recalling the pictures on the BBC unfolding on Thursday, it's an odd juxtaposition: a few days before, culture guarded in Trafalgar Square; a few days after, culture attacked – albeit symbolically- in Parliament Square by the same riot squad who protected it. The irony was probably lost on the kettling kops.

Sources.

John Pope-Hennessy, Raphael, 1970.

Irene Pearson, "Raphael as Seen by Russian Writers from Zhukovsky to Turgenev," The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 59, No 3 (Jul., 1981), 346-369.

National Gallery occupied 9/12/10

 

 

 

Nearly every museum and art school seems to be in occupation these days.  

This time it's the National Gallery's turn.