Art History Today

Ruskin & Tintoretto

Ruskin "discovered" Tintoretto in 1845 on a visit to the Scuola di San Rocco. Later in The Stones of Venice (Vol. III), he declared that the traveller in Venice should "give unembarrassed attention and unbroken time" to the marvels of Tintorettos within. In his guide to the churches of Venice, Ruskin described nearly every work by Tintoretto in the city, and he would eventually come to rate Tintoretto above all other renaissance painters. Here is Ruskin in full flow:

But for that porter's opening, I should, have written the Stones of Chamouni, instead of the Stones of Venice[…] but Tintoret swept me in away into the mare maggiore of the schools of painting which crowned the power and perished in the fall of Venice; so forcing me into the study of Venice herself; and through that into what else I have traced or told of the laws of national strength and virtue."

Dispensing with the systematic approach of 19^th century art historians like Franz Kugler, J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle who organised painters into schools and their subdivisions, Ruskin merely elevated Tintoretto to the top of the food chain. His initial classification of renaissance painting was as follows:

Division 1: "Pure Religious Art: The School of Love"- Fra Angelico, Raphael and John (Giovanni) Bellini.

Division 2: "School of Great Men" Michelangelo, Giotto, Leonardo, Ghirlandaio and Masaccio. Ruskin rated these painters second class because in their art the Christian content coexists with their profound observations of the human.

However, once Tintoretto's art had fired up Ruskin, he had no option but to crown Tintoretto with the ultimate honour.

I never was so utterly crushed to the earth before any human intellect as I was today- before Tintoret. Just be so good as to take my list of painters and put him in the school of Art at the top-top-top-of everything, with a big black line underneath.

I think I'm not wrong in saying that nowadays this kind of subjective ranking would be considered eccentric, if not downright barmy. Like Ruskin I'm tremendously moved when standing in front of Tintoretto's Crucifixion, which stunned the critic into an awed silence- but I could never put Tintoretto above Titian whose Assunta- in the Accademia when Ruskin saw it, was dismissed by him as not measuring up to the genius of Tintoretto. I saw both paintings in the space of a couple of hours last April, and found them equally stupendous. I could never elevate one over the other though. 

 So, what was it about Tintoretto that Ruskin liked. It's difficult to find the core reason buried in Ruskin's effusions about the Venetian master, but perhaps a clue is found in his remarks on the copy of Tintoretto's Circumcision by one of his disciples Edward Burne-Jones, who drew many renaissance works, mainly at Ruskin's insistence. Ruskin said that Burne-Jones's drawing (made about 1862) gave "an idea of the subdued tones of dark colour employed in the higher schools of the Venetians after their complete acceptance of chiaroscuro as a collateral power." Ruskin  praises Burne-Jones for not adding more vivid colour, but especially for emphasizing chiaroscuro, an element of painting that runs alongside colour, though without ever eclipsing it.

Strangely enough, this was precisely what Ruskin did in his own pencil sketch (with watercolour and body colour) of the Circumcision made 7 years later in 1869; here, he virtually eliminated colour, choosing instead to emphasise the interplay of light and shadow. It's almost as if that "collateral power", chiaroscuro has attained full supremacy, much as it does in many of Tintoretto's pictures.  Ironically, it was chiaroscuro that the P.R.B. would dispense with in favor of a more pronounced graphic style, the unforgiving harsh line which so provoked their critics. Coincidentally, I'm about to attend an exhibition of P.R.B. drawing at my local museum, so it seems logical to do the next post on that.

Ruskin and Venice

Sorry for the slowdown; the start of term and illness this week put me behind. As I don’t have time to write new posts at the moment, I thought I’d share with you abridged versions of my current lecture notes which might interest some; these are for a course on the influence of the renaissance on 19th century art. This one- and the next- deal with John Ruskin’s fascination with Venice.

Ruskin’s initial interest in Venice was sparked by reading the poet and art collector Samuel Rogers’s Italy, which included engravings of Venice by the artists J.M. W. Turner, Thomas Stothard and Samuel Prout. Turner is familiar to millions, but Stothard and Prout have been relegated to the margins of English painting. Stothard belongs to an earlier, forgotten era, but Prout was part of the Ruskins’ aesthetic education. As noted by Julian Treuherz in his Victorian Painting, Ruskin’s parents were inspired to visit the continent after looking at a book of Prout’s sketches, their interest in continental views having links with the rise of tourism in Victorian England..

 

 

Prout was much admired by Ruskin who would eulogize the water-colourist in a memoir published in the Art Journal in 1849, saying that if he tired of Turner, he never tired of Prout. Ruskin admired Prout because his brand of the picturesque was not “vulgar” or contrived; but instead conveyed feelings of age and decay deeply felt. Like Prout, Turner fell into the category of the non-vulgar, the only difference being the latter concentrated on the infinite variety of nature while the former preferred to depict the cityscape.

 

Rogers had these artists engrave their designs on steel in a sumptuous edition of 1830, which not only introduced John Ruskin to Venice through travel literature, but acquainted him with Turner also.  Ruskin later said that Roger’s Italy “determined the main tenor” of his life.

“At the time I had never heard of Turner, except in the well-remembered saying of Mr Runciman’s that ‘the world had lately been much dazzled and led away by some splendid ideas thrown out by Turner.’ But I had no sooner cast eyes on the Rogers vignettes that I took them for my only masters, and set myself to imitate them as far as I possibly could by fine pen shading.”

 

 Ruskin next encountered Turner in 1836 when he launched a juvenile defence of Turner’s treatment of Shakespearean subjects in, amongst others works, Juliet and her Nurse (Private Collection, Argentina); this drew an embarrassed acknowledgement from Turner who would eventually meet his young admirer in person, in 1840.  Why has Turner transposed Romeo and Juliet to Venice?

 

 

“I have found nothing in Italy comparable to Venice…Thank God I am here! It is the Paradise of cities.”

Ruskin.

Ruskin made his first visit to Venice in 1834, though he had stepped on Italian soil a year after receiving Roger’s illustrated album of poems. In 1845, he was allowed to travel to Venice without his parents, to start preliminary research for his magnum opus, The Stones of Venice. At that time, Ruskin was not focussed on this project, as he was concentrating on Turner the artistic hero of Modern Painters, whose first volumes were soon to appear. The first volume of The Stones of Venice would have to wait until 1851, and the other two volumes in the autumn of 1853. The first instalment presents the most difficulties to the modern reader. Presented in an oracular style, Ruskin hands down architectural history like an Old Testament prophet intoning divine truths, which takes some getting use to.  As John Batchelor notes in his very readable biography of the man, Ruskin “created a vogue for Venetian Gothic as an architectural style” in the first book, which despite its dry style, was a revolutionary study. 

 

What was also innovative was Ruskin’s method: the books were the result of microscopic research and physical labour examining the buildings and monuments of Venice in situ. As with any project he embarked upon, Ruskin went back to basics, quarrying the material of raw data, and eventually processing his findings through rigorous analysis. He made extensive drawings of architectural features such as capitols, griffons, lintels, which bring the reader back to first principles. 

 

 

 

 

This time-consuming endeavour left little time for his young, beautiful bride Euphemia (Effie) Gray whom Ruskin had married on 10th April, 1848. Ruskin shunned the social life and worked solidly on The Stones of Venice all the time he was there, leaving his wife to while away her time in lonely palaces and crowded balls. Ruskin was far too preoccupied with the architectural story of Venice to be distracted by his marriage. This would have tragic consequences for him in a few years time. Sorry Effie, you had no chance against Venice! 

 

 

 

Next time, I’ll say something about Ruskin’s views of Titian and Tintoretto.

  

Exhibitions in 2011

I promised to give a short overview of the exhibitions coming up in 2011. Before the new term kicks in and my blogging time is severely curtailed, I’d better make good on that promise.

The Poetry of Drawing: Pre-Raphaelite Designs, Studies and Watercolours, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 29th January- 15th May.

 The year kicks off with a exhibition of 19th century graphic work encompassing all generations of the Pre-Raphaelite movement; artists include John Ruskin, Elizabeth Siddal and Simeon Solomon.  

Jan Gossaert’s Renaissance, National Gallery, 23rd February- 30th May.

 I don’t know about you but I’ve already got the Jan Gossaert (Mabuse) exhibition plotted into my schedule. The National Gallery hosts this show in late February. It’s on transfer from the Metropolitans, NY, and judging by what I’ve heard, it’s going to be well-worth seeing.  I’ll be heading down there in early March. 

 

Jan Gossaert, Adoration of the Kings, London, NG.

A Collector’s Eye: Cranach to Pissarro, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 18th February to 15th May.

I like exhibitions about collectors and taste. This easily fits the bill: a comprehensive survey of art in the Schorr Collection “assembled by private collector David J. Lewis for his family interests.” 

Watteau’s Drawings: Virtuosity and Delight, Royal Academy of Arts, 12th March- 5th June.

J. A. Watteau, Head of a Woman, Hermitage, c. 1710.

One exhibition I’ve been looking forward to ever since it was announced has been this, an event showcasing the beautiful drawings of the rococo artist Jean-Antoine Watteau. Sad and lonely, an outcast who painted fete galantes, a completely new genre,Watteau was also an incomparable draftsman. With over 80 works on paper, this promises to be special.  

Life, Legend, Landscape: Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, Courtauld Institute, Feb 17-May 15

The second exhibition of 19th century drawings, this time at the Courtauld.  It will be interesting to compare the aims and contents of this specialist event with the Birmingham show, as well as last year’s Pre-Raphaelites and Italy, held at the Ashmoleon. At the same time as Brian Sewell asks, in an exhibition note, what does “Victorian” actually mean in this context. Judging from the artists on display, I would say the Courtauld are using it as a synonym for the PRB.

John Martin, Tate Britain, 21st September-15th January, 2012.

John Martin, The Bard, 1817, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle.

After Turner, John Martin is the next greatest romantic painter. Who can forget his Welsh Bard about to leap of a cliff in defiance of the English? This exhibition is co-organised with the Laing in Newcastle, which boasts the greatest collection of Martin’s art. You want apocalypse in your art- look no further than this tempestuous painter from Newcastle. 

twombly and poussin: arcadian painters, 29th June-25th September, Dulwich Picture Gallery.

 This exhibition has come straight out of left-field. I have no idea who the hell is behind this, but take it from a Poussin scholar who has tried to introduce new ideas into the field; you may be riding for a massive fall. I can already see the critics sharpening their darts and dipping them in poison. I welcome new approaches in Poussin, but know from experience how insanely defensive the field has become. 

 Art for the Nation: Sir Charles Eastlake at the National Gallery, 27th July- 30th October.

Sir Charles Eastlake, John Prescott Knight, R.A., 1857.

Eastlake is the master-builder of the renaissance collection at the N.G. At last he gets an exhibition celebrating his erudition, taste and vision. One of the N.G.’s free summer shows, it’ll be interesting to see what selections are made to honour the first- and most important- director of the museum.  

Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, 9th November  5th February, 2012.

Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks, London, NG, 1495-1508.

To cap the year, a true blockbuster billed as an “unprecedented exhibition – the first of its kind anywhere in the world. “ In the light of current rows about loans, the next section of the endorsement is interesting…"brings together sensational international loans never before seen in the UK.” One thing is for sure: if loan disputes are resolved, this show will be really worth visiting.

There’s more of course, but that’ll do for now. Happy exhibition-going.

Francia: A Forgotten Master.

Some painters get a really raw deal. Take Francesco Francia (1450-1517), originally a goldsmith from Bologna, and influenced by Raphael’s teacher Pietro Perugino. Admired in the 19th century, chiefly for his Raphalesque compositions, but virtually unknown today. If you want proof, try S.J. Freedberg’s voluminous survey of 15th century Italian painting; Francia merits only a few lines; none of his paintings are reproduced.

I started thinking about Francia during last term’s course I did on the history of the National Gallery, London; and in connection with a course I’m putting together on the influence of renaissance art on 19th century English painting and collecting. In his indispensable history of the NG, Jonathan Conlin refers to what could be considered Francia’s masterpiece: the Saint Anne Altarpiece from San Frediano, Lucca. (1511-17) Composed of two elements, the main panel with Virgin, Child and Saints; and a panel showing a Pieta, the two works are currently displayed in a 19th century frame. As pointed out by Conlin, the two fragments were acquired in 1841. a year that also saw a Parliamentary select committee report on the question of working-class access to museums. Presumably, it was thought that the devout quality of art such as  Francia’s would serve to inculcate Christian values and beliefs into the labouring classes.

Judging by Charles Compton’s image of NG visitors observing Francia’s Pieta in 1855, it was the middle-classes that this kind of saintly art appealed to. An intriguing observation poised halfway between social commentary and parody; is the little boy staring raptly upwards towards heaven a deliberate comic touch? I don't really know, but I can see why this Pieta might have resonated with the Victorians. It blends sentimentality with the grimness of death; the pinched face of the Madonna, her red-eyes and bony face; it is almost as the skeleton is forcing itself out into the space of the viewer.  There is an earnestness to Francia; the faces of his angels are very grave and despite the beauty of his figures, a heaviness seems to settle upon his compositions; as if there were personal tragedy beneath each brushstroke.

Away from the crowds, connoisseurs and collectors evaluated Francia. They perceived his art- and similar- to exhibit the characteristics of Pre-Raphaelite painting. W.P. Bayley, writing in the Art Journal in 1860, described Francia’s art  “as the cor cordium, the heart of hearts of the real Pre-Raphaelites: a softness and warmth of humanity above seraphic painters, are here under the shadow of the Dove’s wings.” This is quoted in the best book on taste and collecting ever written , Francis Haskell’s Rediscoveries in Art, where Haskell discusses taste and Christian art, well before the PRB came into existence in 1848. It’s interesting to speculate on how the PRB would have turned out if they’s taken Francia, Luini et al as the model for their painting. Studying Francia, they would have discovered the values of good composition, perspective, geometry, all in the service of pictorial excellence.  Alas, such precedents were cruelly ignored, thus ensuring Francia would be consigned to oblivion, remembered by the odd connoisseur or two.

 One of these connoisseurs was the American Bernard Berenson whose Italian Painters of the Renaissance of 1952 (which incorporates material from earlier published work), while not exactly effusive, grudgingly notes Francia’s achievement.

“Francia, whose meticulous finish, gracious angel faces, and quietistic feeling render popular, was, from the point of view of universal art, a painter of small importance. Trained as a goldsmith, he became a painter only in his maturity, and thus he missed the necessary education in the essentials of the figure arts. But his feeling, before it grew exaggerated (when it anticipated his townsmen of a century later [he means Bolognese baroque artists like Guido Reni and the Carracci] was, in its quietism, at least as fine as Perugino’s. No work by the Umbrian master is more solemnly gracious, tender, yet hushed with awe, than Francia’s Munich picture  of the Virgin stooping, with hands reverently crossed on her breast, to worship the Holy Child within the mystic rose-hedge. Perugino, without his magical command of space effects, could never have moved us thus; and even Francia owes much of his modest triumph to his landscapes.”

Francesco Francia, Madonna, Child and Infant St John, Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest. 1500.	Pietro Perugino, Madonna, Child and Infant St John, London, NG, 1505-10.

Berenson’s phrase “ solemnly gracious” nicely describes Francia’s figures, especially his Madonnas who seem the saddest young women in renaissance art. The psychological associations I pick up are not good; this is far from the innocent charm of Perugino whose art  seems devoid of these underlying complexities. Perhaps this might explain Francia’s “modest triumph”  in the 19th century. Francia was primarily admired for his formal perfection, which as I’ve suggested here might be linked with his mental state. Only such collectors as W.P. Bayley, who was both a devout Christian and connoisseur, would be able to comprehend the various levels on which Francia’s art worked. Bayley not only acknowledged the technical skill of Francia, but also by his phrase “under the shadow of the Dove’s wings” discerned something more, a hint of sadness, possibly, elevating Francia higher than other “seraphic painters”. because of his piety.  This distinctiveness may have been lost on the public, our Victorian family studying his art, who would have seen Francia as just another religious painter, no different from Perugino or a score of others.