Art History Today

The Missing Picture

Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli, “Giampetrino”, Christ Carrying the Cross,  c. 1510-30, National Gallery, London, oil on poplar, 60 x 47 cms.

Here’s a hard-hitting article from the Michael Daley, the head of the art history watchdog, Art Watch, on restoration issues behind the blockbuster Leonardo show. I share their disappointment that Giampetrino’s Christ Carrying the Cross was not included,  This painting is important, as it throws light not only on the technique that Leonardo imparted to his Milanese followers, but also the pictorial effects that the workshop learnt from the maestro. It seems that for discovering the impact of Leonardo’s technique on his companions, Giampetrinio is the painter to study, rather than Boltraffio whose work was also restored in readiness for the Leonardo exhibition.

Just a thought of my own, which has been bothering me all this term as I’ve been teaching a course on Leonardo da Vinci. Presumably the reason Giampetrino wasn’t included is that somewhere along the line the decision was made to confine the exhibition to Leonardo’s first Milanese period, hence eliminating Giampetrino’s involvement, although Leonardo may have jotted his name down – “gian petro”- on a list dating from about 1497, in the Codex Atlanticus. True, Giampetrino’s copy of the master’s Last Supper is included; but if the parameters of the exhibition had been extended, we could have had more Giampetrino  and painters like Solario and even Luini, who are all represented in the holdings of the National Gallery, their Portrait of a Venetian Senator and Christ Amongst the Doctors, respectively. There wouldn’t have been any negotiations or politicking needed about these works as the museum owns them.It could also be argued that the second Milanese generation’s art provides more of an insight into the master’s influence than the likes of Marco d’Oggiono and Boltraffio- certainly the former, who is one of the most mediocre painters Italy ever produced! Surely Giampetrino’s Christ could have been accommodated; after all, the Leonardo cartoon- which has been traditionally dated to 1506-8, was chronologically re-located to the end of the first Milanese period- 1499-1500, presumably to justify its inclusion within the show.

As for the Giampetrino’s Christ Carrying the Cross, Michael Daley says, “Not only is it as closely related to Leonardo’s imagery and methods as has been acknowledged, it is arguably the best preserved Renaissance picture in the National Gallery.” It seems strange that it wasn’t included then. Still, it’s now out of the reserve collection, and available to view in a – one hopes!- quieter part of the gallery.

A New Art History Meme

Pepper Spray cop and Michelangelo's God.

There’s a new meme out on the web. The cop who sprayed students with pepper spray has become the target of a campaign to shame him. He appears in lots of images where he sprays famous art, like Michelangelo’s God.  I don’t know how many there are, but they range throughout art history- Michelangelo, Delacroix, Picasso etc. More from the Washington Post here.

Raphael and the Judgement of Paris.

I promised a follow-up post on the Graeme Cameron review, specifically with reference to the Judgement of Paris considered by that writer to be an autograph work by Raphael. What follows is a summary of the painting distilled from details in GC’s book, but set out in catalogue form. It’s followed by an essay on themes and ideas in the work. Thanks to Graeme Cameron for permission to use the images, and to his brother Norman for supplying information, and fielding my questions.

1. Raphael, The Judgement of Paris, 1512, Private Collection, U.K., 56 x 71 cm.

 

Raphael, The Judgement of Paris, oil on canvas, 56 x 71 cm, Private Collection, U.K.

Provenance.

First recorded in 1648 in the Casa Leoni, near Venice, by Carlo Ridolfi, in his Le Maraviglie dell Arte, as painted by Giorgione; bought by the Hon. James Harris MP, father of 1^st Earl of Malmesbury, in Venice in 1770. Subsequently housed in Malmesbury collection at Heron Court, near Salisbury, except when loaned out to exhibitions- see below. Mentioned by Gustave Waagen (fig 5) as a Giorgione in his Treasures of Art in Great Britain” (1854-7, Vol. 1, p.416) thus, “his Lordship possesses a number of (paintings) several of great value.” The Judgement of Paris”…slender yet powerful figures…warmest golden tones especially striking in this beautiful picture…delicately balanced masses of light in the different planes of distance…and in the background, of…the luminous light of the fine landscape.” A later endorsement of the painting was made by the renaissance scholar, Sir Martin Conway, who said in his monograph on Giorgione; “a very beautiful picture of Paris and the Three Goddesses.” He went on to say that “The Three Goddesses are a beautifully composed group of lovely figures.”

Exhibitions.

Manchester 1857 (“Art Treasures Exhibition”, Manchester, no. 251, “Giorgione”); Leeds, 1868 (“National Exhibition of Works of Art”, no. 214, “Giorgione”); London 1894 (New Gallery, “Exhibition of Venetian Art”, no. 29); London 1912 (R.A., Burlington House, accompanied by full page engraved plate, again as a “Giorgione” fig. 4); London 1929 (Burlington Fine Arts Club, “Early Venetian Exhibition”); Melbourne, 1984 (Special Exhibition.).

Related Works and Close Copies.

2.a-c. clockwise, Uffizi, Dresden and Stockholm copies.

3.Gubbio variant, almost certainly after Stockholm version.

4.1912, engraving, Burlington House exhibition.

Florence, Uffizi Gallery, cited as “Unknown 17thC artist’s copy after a lost Titian”, formerly in “Enrico Albuzio” Collection, Venice. Nearest to the original. (fig 2a)

Lost (destroyed during Allied bombing in WW2), formerly in Dresden Gallery. Revised copy; also recorded as by an Unknown 17thC artist, but content “much simplified” and “reduced.” Many original features missing including rear buildings and Mercury in the sky. (2b)

Stockholm, National Gallery of Sweden, formerly in the Larpent Collection, Oslo. Initially classified as by Unknown artist, but its previous owner, Sophus Larpent, was prepared to go into print to prove it as a Giorgione. (2c)

Gubbio, Gubbio Gallery. Almost identical variant to Stockholm version, attributed to “Dinesi”. Seems to be a later direct copy of the version owned by Larpent. (fig.3)

Engraving to 1912 RA. Exhibition. (fig. 4)

Technical Notes

5. Gustave Waagen

The painting is on canvas, a support that Raphael began to use about 1512- 13, probably in response to Sebastiano’s importation of Venetian methods. The canvas has been relined a long time ago; however, the weave of the original does not appear to exhibit the loose, rough facture evident, for example on the surface of Giorgione’s The Tempest. The canvas may be fine linen judging by the surface evidence. In his Treasures of Art in Great Britain, Gustave Waagen (fig. 5) included a reference to the condition of the painting as being in ...."an excellent state of preservation”, a condition it retains today, having been under glass in its frame. No substantial cleaning has been undertaken [unless many centuries ago] and it appears to retain its original glazes. Many of the photos do indicate craquelure (fig. 1), and it is both normal [and expected] for the period. How it appears in any particular photo depends on lighting angles etc.

6. Page from GC’s book showing hidden modello study and its location.

 

7. Magnified Vega scans of modello from GC’s book.

There are substantial sub-surface pentimenti suggesting that Raphael had used the canvas “like a drawing board” (G.C., 72). The basis of the composition was a rustic figure in a monk-like garment, seated next to a tree. At some point during the evolution of the composition, Raphael characteristically re-thought his design and decided to include his own features rather than an anonymous shepherd. The facial change was followed by new garments, in a renaissance style. Thus Raphael steered the composition away from a rustic pastoral into something more individual and personal. The changes also confirm that originally the painting was not intended as a specific mythology- no apple was originally in the man’s lower right hand- but some evocation of an Arcadian setting, with little narrative content. On the subsurface there is a Madonna and Child modello (figs 6-7), which might be an abandoned project from Raphael’s late 1512 period in Rome; it would be helpful to compare it with underdrawings in other Raphael Madonnas from that time slot. The Judgement of Paris is signed and dated “Rv 1512” on the golden apple that Paris holds; the date “1512” can also be seen on the headband of the central figure, Venus.

Subject and Themes.

8. Detail of Judgement of Paris, Paris.	9.Detail of Judgement of Paris, Minerva, Venus and Juno.

The Judgement of Paris was a favourite subject of many renaissance and early modern painters, as it offered the chance to depict nudes within pleasant surroundings. Although there are variations on the theme, the basic composition of three beautiful women regarded by a male was never changed. Charged with the task of choosing which of the three goddesses, Hera, Aphrodite and Athena (Juno, Venus and Minerva) was the most beautiful, the shepherd Paris chose Aphrodite/Venus, with dire consequences- the Trojan War. Raphael’s Judgment of Paris eschews the grand narrative theme in favour of a more intimate situation. It is a painting conceived to please the eye, with its glistening palette and warm colours. Paris lounges on the grass, dressed in attractive burgundy and white renaissance costume (fig.8); the three goddesses, painted in golden brown and moulded together into a unified form, charm the viewer (fig.9). In tone it is both sensual and courtly; in style, it’s both relaxed and ordered.

It’s no wonder that leading 19^th century connoisseurs like Waagen and Eastlake saw the lyricism of Giorgione in this painting, though by the 1950s, their modern successors were re-considering the attribution; although it was- unsurprisingly- still thought to be a product of the Venetian School. A scholar who has analysed the stylistic links between Roman and Venetian art, Paul Joannides, believed that it was a copy after a lost original of Titian, although he didn’t mention it in his book on early Titian, but did so in a presentation at a Giorgione exhibition held in the U.S.A., and later in an article.[1] To my eye, though the canvas undoubtedly evokes the Venetian Arcadian groves of Giorgione and Titian, there is something Roman about the nudes. In his discussion of it, Graeme Cameron- who’s worked on the painting since 1984- connects it with Sebastiano dell Piombo, a Venetian artist who came to Rome at about this time, to aid Michelangelo.[2] Sebastiano’s artistic relationship with Raphael has mainly been analysed in the context of the competition engineered by the Medici, out of which emerged Raphael’s Transfiguration (Vatican, 1518-20) and Sebastiano’s equally impressive Raising of Lazarus (London, National Gallery, 1518-20).[3] When competition in the earlier Roman period is considered, attention is usually directed towards Raphael’s Galatea and Sebastiano’s Polyphemous- both in the Villa Farnesina (figs 16,17). In the case of the Malmesbury Judgement, it may be more judicious to select another Sebastiano from the same period for comparison.

10. Raphael, The Judgement of Paris, 1512.

11. Sebastiano del Piombo, The Death of Adonis, 1512, Florence, Uffizi, oil on canvas.

It’s an interesting exercise to compare this Judgement of Paris with Sebastiano’s Death of Adonis (Florence, Uffizi), especially as both seem to have been painted in  1512 (figs 10-11). Studying the two paintings, one can discern similarities in mannerisms: the hook like configuration of forefinger and thumb that appears in the Sebastiano is repeated in the hand of the reclining figure of Paris, in the Raphael; there also seems to be echoes of the sharp, chisel like noses in the Raphael nudes. However, there are distinct differences, too. Unlike Sebastiano who’s content to conspicuously display his knowledge of classical sculpture, the Spinario, Crouching Venus et al, possibly as a concession to Roman taste, Raphael has naturalised his female antique sources, a process that can be traced back to the Three Graces (Chantilly, Musée Condé, 1507. As Cameron points out, the Judgement could be seen as a stylistic mid-point between the earlier Chantilly Three Graces and the Graces in a spandrel in the Loggia of Agostino Chigi, ( p. 74,) (figs 12-14).

12.Raphael, The Three Graces, Musée Condé Chantilly, 1507, oil on panel.	13.Detail of Judgement of Paris.	14.Detail from Loggia of Villa, Farnesina, Rome, The Three Graces, fresco, c. 1518.

As one might expect, Raphael’s figures do resemble real women while Sebastiano’s nymphs recall Michelangelo’s unhappy results when representing the female form, in the words of Sydney J. Freedberg, “an almost bulking massiveness, ponderous and sensuously splendid: idealizations, but of sensuous existence.”[4]

15.Hera? (La Fornarina) from Judgement and details of La Donna Velata, Florence, Pitti Palace, c. 1514, and Sistine Madonna, Vatican, c. 1512-14.

If Raphael borrowed, to use Freedberg’s word, a Giorgionismo style from Sebastiano, then what was the purpose? Assuming, as Graeme Cameron states, Raphael created the Judgment of Paris for private reasons, as “a pictorial message of love, set in a context of a mythical classical beauty contest” (p.64); if the painting has some connection with Raphael's own love affairs, which the presence of a woman resembling his lover “La Fornarina” definitely suggests (fig15), then Raphael might have seen in Sebastiano’s Death of Adonis, or similar works, a blend of Roman grandeur and Venetian sensuality appropriate for his aesthetic of love.  According to Joannides, Sebastiano may have painted the Death of Adonis immediately after his arrival in Rome; it may have hung in the Chigi Villa of the Farnesina since Peruzzi cited aspects of it in his Sala delle Prospettive of 1516, an illusionistic set of paintings based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, on the piano nobile of the Villa Farnesina..[5] If that were the case then Raphael would surely have seen the Death of Adonis and filtered its Giorgionismo through his antique, Roman style that he was using. Raphael started working for Chigi in 1510, and he was working on the Galatea in 1512, a possible pendant to Sebastiano’s Polyphemous (figs 16-17), who resembles the satyr at the rear of the nymphs in the Death of Adonis..For those who remain wary of admitting the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris to the Raphael canon, they will have to detect another Venetian painter practicing in Rome in 1512. Apart from an influx of Tuscan, Sienese and Umbrian painters, Venice is not really represented in the Eternal City until Sebastiano arrives, and his Giorgionismo is then assimilated into the Roman antique style in that crucial time slot of 1511-12.However, it seems highly unlikely that Sebastiano, or even Titian painted the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris. It should also be pointed out that the Judgement of Paris wasn’t really a Venetian subject.

16. Loggia di Galatea, Villa Farnesina, Rome, 1510-12.	17. Sebastiano del Piombo, Polyphemous and Raphael, Galatea, 1511-12, Villa Farnesina, Rome, Rome, fresco.

18 Marcantonio Raimondi, The Judgement of Paris (after Raphael), 1514-18. Detail: “piu grassa Minerva.”

In the “censored” version, known for centuries through the famous Marcantonio Raimondi engraving (fig.18), the aesthetic of love was played down, and the mythological overtones increased. Although little connection has been made by past scholarship between the Raimondi engraving and the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris, there are obvious compositional similarities, as pointed out by Graeme Cameron, (64-5). He notes the close juxtaposition of the heads of Venus and Juno, which repeats the configuration of the heads in the painting. The pose of the reclining river god in Raimondi’s engraving also closely matches Paris in the Malmesbury Judgement There is still the problem of Athena/Minerva, who was separated from the group and turned away from the spectator, unlike in the painting. In the engraving, Minerva has the proportions of Sebastiano’s oversize nudes; but according to Hubert Damisch, by placing Minerva on the “compositional central axis”, Raphael referenced Alberti’s distinction between painting and mathematics, “whereas geometry has need only of points without extension, of lines without thickness, of surfaces without texture, art requires a “fatter Minerva”, piu grassa Minerva.[6] Lines here refer to drawing, and the “fatter Minerva” to the needs of painting rather than graphic delineation. As Damisch observed, Raphael “cast his demonstration in black and white, without recourse to colour”.[7] This is simply a hypothesis, but I wonder if Raphael chose black and white in the engraving because he wanted to convey an altered idea of beauty, different to the vivid, warm colours of the painted Judgement of Paris?

19 Malmesbury Judgment of Paris.

20 Raimondi, Judgment of Paris.

21 Details of Judgement and Sistine Madonna

Damisch’s long study of the theme of the Judgment of the Paris concerns itself just as much with beauty as iconography; and we should consider beauty when we view the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris, especially when seen alongside Raimondi’s engraving, (figs 19-20). We should also take seriously Graeme Cameron’s claim that the Judgment of Paris is a personal statement of Raphael. Why else would the painter compare himself to Paris, and the goddesses to the women in his life? For those who doubt the attribution to Raphael, they will need to explain why Paris resembles Raphael’s self-portraits (fig.22); why the woman on the left of the goddess group resembles portraits of La Fornarina, and women like the Virgin in the Sistine Madonna, or La Donna Velata (figs. 15,21), who are thought to be modelled on Raphael’s lover. However, another problem emerges here. If the woman on the left is Athena/Minerva- the robes covering her suggest modesty- then why did Raphael neglect to give Aphrodite/Venus the features of his inamorata? As Damisch argued, though both Athena and Hera incarnated different notions of beauty, it was Aphrodite who was associated with a canonical idea of beauty, derived from the Greeks, (Damisch, 132). Out of the three goddesses in the painting, it is Aphrodite/Venus who seems to based conspicuously on an antique source. Despite Aphrodite according with classical canons of antique beauty, Graeme Cameron might be right to say the La Fornarina figure is likely to be Hera, as she was said to have the greatest beauty, (66). His identification may be confirmed by the fact that in one of the later related copies, attributes have been included to identify each goddess. In the Larpent version and its associated variant (figs 2c and 3) Athena’s arms appear on the grass behind the right hand woman; a cupid accompanies the central female, thus proving that she is Aphrodite/Venus, which means the remaining goddess must be Hera. Yet, there is a further complication since deep scans have detected Raphael’s monogramme “Rv” on the genitals of the middle woman. Such explorations into the technical and sexual boggle the mind, but they do underline the confusion over who is the most attractive woman, if Hera is modelled on “La Fornarina”, and Aphrodite is “branded” as an inamorata of the painter. We could account for this confusion over pulchritude by turning to Raphael’s own words on beauty and women. As he said in a famous letter to his friend Baldassare Castiglione, possibly depicted with Raphael in a later self-portrait (fig. 23).

“..in order to paint a beautiful woman, I would have to see several beautiful women …but because there are so few … I make use of a certain idea which comes into my mind. Whether it carries any excellence of art I do not know, but I work hard to achieve it.’[8]

22 illustrations from GC’s book: Paris figure (with varnish removed) compared with Raphael Self-Portrait. from School of Athens, 1510-12.	23 Raphael, Self-Portrait with a Friend, possibly Castiglione, Paris, Louvre, c. 1518, oil on canvas, 99 x 83 cm.

Was that “idea” to be associated with Aphrodite, Athena, Hera, or all of the goddesses? It’s difficult to say, but Raphael’s treatment of the goddesses in the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris suggests that he had a more complex notion of how feminine beauty could be calibrated. More work needs to be done on the relationship between the re-discovered Judgment of Paris and the engraving in relation to beauty. Damisch is the obvious reference point here. Questions remain of course. It needs to be determined where this painting was before the 17th century; was it in Raphael’s private collection, or maybe Chigi’s who was aware of the cross-over between Raphael’s love life and his painting. We also need to discover exactly what Raphael learnt about the Venetian school via Sebastiano’s paintings; this applies especially to his use of materials and supports. Though it may not be possible, it would help to compare the under drawing and pentimenti in the Judgment with other examples in Raphael’s oeuvre.

However, it seems fair to say for the present that the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris might be a visual counterpart to Raphael’s written meditations on seeking the ideal in women, especially given its personal associations. Raphael cast his aesthetic of love in terms of a subject which was perfectly appropriate, because it brought themes of selection, beauty and love together in close interaction, the Judgement of Paris.

Sources

Albert, Della Pittura.

Constant Barbieri, “Raphael, Michelangelo and Sebastiano” in The Cambridge Guide to Raphael, ed. Marcia Hall, (Cambridge, 2005), 141-164.

Graeme Cameron, The Secrets of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol 1, Vega Scan, 2011.

Hubert Damisch, Le Jugement de Paris: Iconologie analytique 1, (Paris, 1992); translated as The Judgement of Paris (trans John Goodman), (Chicago, 1996).

Sydney J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy 1500-1600, (New Haven and London, 1993).

Rona Goffen, Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian (New Haven and London, 2002).

Paul Joannides, Titian to 1518: The Assumption of Genius (New Haven and London, 2002).

Edward Williamson, “The Concept of Grace in the Work of Raphael and Castiglione”, Italica, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Dec., 1947), pp. 316-324.

---

[1] Joannides was one of several academics who gave public seminar lectures at the National Gallery, Washington exhibition, “Rediscovering Venetian Renaissance Painting", on 17/9/2006. His was entitled "Titian, Giorgione and the Mysteries of Paris.” In later correspondence, he advised that he had publicly stated [presumably in this lecture], that the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris subject was by Titian. He later published an article in Artibus 2010 with the same title, and he published the 1912 engraving in this article. The article is available here [in abstract]. http://artibusethistoriae.org/chapter649.html. Thanks to Norman Cameron for the information in this footnote. I haven’t read the Joannides article yet, as my institution’s run ends before the date of publication, so if anybody’s got a copy….

[2] Graeme Cameron, The Secrets of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol 1, Vega Scan, 2011, 58-75, 62.

[3] Constant Barbieri, “Raphael, Michelangelo and Sebastiano” in The Cambridge Guide to Raphael, ed. Marcia Hall, (Cambridge, 2005), 141-164; Rona Goffen, Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian (New Haven and London, 2002).

[4] Sydney J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy 1500-1600, (New Haven and London, 1993), 111. Friedberg’s short analysis remains the best on this fascinating painting.

[5] Paul Joannides, Titian to 1518: The Assumption of Genius (New Haven and London, 2002), 136.

[6] Hubert Damisch, Le Jugement de Paris: Iconologie analytique 1, (Paris, 1992); translated as The Judgement of Paris (trans John Goodman), (Chicago, 1996), 235. For Alberti’s quote, see Della Pittura, “Noi, perché vogliamo le cose essere poste da vedere, per questo useremo quanto dicono più grassa Minerva”.

[7] Damisch, The Judgement of Paris, 235.

[8] See the discussion in Edward Williamson, “The Concept of Grace in the Work of Raphael and Castiglione”, Italica, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Dec., 1947), pp. 316-324, who notes that “the work of Raphael is equally a commentary on this text.”, 323.

Three La Tours in the U.K.

 

Georges de la Tour, St Jerome Reading, The Royal Collection, Hampton Court, c. 1621-3, oil on canvas mounted on panel, 62 x 55 cm. Given to La Tour in 1972.

 

A bit more on Georges La Tour. As a correspondent to Art History News points out:, if you want to see La Tour in this country, you have go to Hampton Court (St Jerome Reading), Leicester Art Gallery (The Choirboy, A Young Singer), or Preston Hall Museum, Stockton on Tees, (The Dice Players). Remember there are none of his works in the National Gallery.

I had the privilege of seeing all three, along with loans from Fort Worth and Dublin in a small exhibition, Georges de La Tour: Master of Candlelight, held at Compton Verney in 2007.

The curator of the exhibition, and the U.K.’s leading expert on La Tour, Christopher Wright, pulled no punches when commenting on La Tour’s omission from the canons of taste.

“At no point in his long career did [Kenneth] Clark  see fit to bring La Tour into the structure of his criticism and art history. Had La Tour been included in his Civilisation, the artist would, at a stroke, have been brought to the attention of a much wider public”.

As I said in the previous La Tour post, Anthony Blunt was very keen for the NG to acquire a La Tour. This, as Wright indicates, was that despite having a solid preference for Nicolas Poussin, Blunt was not blind to the rest of the 17th century French school; Clark, however, had absolutely no interest in French 17th century painting at all.

A large blind spot for the director of one of the world’s leading museums!

Source

Christopher Wright, “The Genius of La Tour: a lesson in the history of taste” in exhibition cat, Georges de La Tour: Master of Candlelight, Compton Verney, 2007, 33-38.

 

Diagnosis, Drawing, and Doctors in the Renaissance.

Back to the long posts. This was originally meant to be just about Leonardo and anatomy, but as I’m also teaching a course on the body in art, it seems logical to include some of that material too.  The stuff on diligentia and drawing has been presented in various conference papers.

Just as we get ill today, so too did renaissance artists. Just as we like to diagnose ourselves, for better or worse, so did artists in renaissance Italy. A wonderful drawing (1) by the German artist Albrecht Dὕrer has come down to us; it is nothing less than the artist’s self-diagnosis, a visual note to his physician. The inscription on the drawing reads: Do der gelb fleck ist und mit dem finger drawff do ist mir we"  (This is the yellow spot and when I press my finger on it, it hurts). Some years earlier on a harrowing drawing of the Dead Christ (2), Dὕrer annotated the sheet to say that it was made “during my illness.” In the words of Pamela H. Smith:

1.Albrecht Durer, Self-Portrait during Illness, 1512-15, Kunsthalle, Bremen, coloured pen drawing, 127 x 117 mm	2.Albrecht Durer, Head of the Dead Christ, 1503, graphite on paper. “These two faces I made in awe (?) during my illness.”

“Artisans such as Durer, dependent upon their body and their senses for their livelihood, might focus particularly on their body. Durer recorded his own bodily state, once by providing an annotated drawing indicating with his finger where he had pain. This drawing has been read as a self-aware statement of his own melancholic nature, but could just as well be the correspondence between patient and physician. During another illness, Durer drew a vivid portrait of a dead Christ and then noted his own bodily state on the drawing thus linking his own bodily condition to the moment of his artistic production. The patient-centred “subjective” components of early medicine reinforced the bodily dimensions of artisanal knowledge and epistemology.”[1]

3. Jacopo Pontormo, Detail of the Deposition showing self-portrait, Cappella Capponi, Santa Felicità, Florence, 1528, oil on wood, 313 x 192 cm	4.Jacopo Pontormo, Detail of sheet of studies for San Lorenzo, figures for “The Deluge”, c. 1546, Red chalk on paper, 419 x 216 mm (whole sheet) Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Back in Italy we hear of a complaining Jacopo Pontormo whose self-portrait appears in his celebrated Deposition (3); he tells us he suffered from diarrhoea, and what I imagine would have been the renaissance equivalent of pyloric spasms, during his painting of the frescoes in San Lorenzo, now known only through a series of remarkable drawings. (4) Anatomical realism fused with morbid fantasy is my description of these. Recently Philip Sohm reproduced pages of Pontormo’s diary,, which contain figures that he thought resembled somebody suffering from “intestinal cramps”, a condition that he believed characterised many of Pontormo’s figures with their agonised, writhing bodies.”[2] Pontormo’s diary, written in the last two years of the artist’s life is fascinating reading. It is a compendium of notes on painting, self-diagnosis, dietary habits and weather reports. You can read selections from it here.  bodies.”

5. Leonardo da Vinci, Self-Portrait, c. 1512, Royal Library, Turin, Red chalk on paper, 333 x 213 mm.	6. Leonardo da Vinci, Anatomical Studies, The surface muscles of the neck and shoulder, Royal 1508-10, Library, Windsor Castle, pen and brown ink (two shades), with wash modelling over traces of black chalk, 292 x 199 mm.

But what of Leonardo (5) I hear you ask? With his profound knowledge of the human body, isn’t he the artist who helps us to understand the intersection of medicine and art in the renaissance?

Obviously, we have Leonardo’s many beautiful and detailed drawings (6) of the human body, as well some interesting textual comments and narratives pertaining to these. One of the most interesting of these is a famous, and from our modern perspective, grisly story about the artist during a brief trip to Florence between 1507-8. There, he tells us that he waited for a man of over a 100 years, a centenarian, to die so he could dissect him and discover the medical cause of his death.

“And this old man, a few hours before his death told me that he was over as hundred years old and that he felt nothing wrong with his body other than weakness. And thus, while sitting on a bed in the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence (8), without any movement or other sign of mishap, he passed out of this life. And I made an anatomy of him in order to show the cause of so sweet a death. This I found to be a fainting away through lack of blood to the artery which nourished the heart, and other parts below it, which I found very dry; thin and withered. This anatomy I described very diligently and with great ease because of the absence of fat and humours which greatly hinder the recognition of the parts. The other anatomy was on a child of two years in which I found everything contrary to that of the old man.”

7. University of Milan, formerly Ca’ Granda Hospital.	8. Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, Florence.

One scholar, Monica Azzolini, has argued that the description conforms to post-mortem procedures in renaissance Italy, rather than conveying the idea that Leonardo performed the dissection in secret, on his own. Azzolini saw no difference between medical practice in Florentine and Milanese hospitals and that Leonardo would have been familiar with both. This specific case of the centenarian has also been connected with the methods used by physicians in “documenting their autopsies” in fifteenth-century Italy.

[3] What is emerging through this scholarship is the question of what part medical knowledge played in artistic practice and techniques. According to Azzolini, drawings were made of dissections, fiat designum and these were meant to be kept on the premises of some hospitals.[4] One such institution was the Ca’ Granda (7) in Milan, a new building established by the Sforza family in 1456, now the site of the University of Milan. The Ca’ Granda must have been an institution that Leonardo knew as well as the older Brolo hospital. Sadly, none of these hospital drawings have been preserved, although attempts have been made to connect some of Leonardo’s extant drawings with the dissections and autopsies carried out at both hospitals in Milan, although there is no concrete proof of such involvement on Da Vinci’s part. Attitudes towards the problem of dissection in renaissance Italy have shifted with this new wave of scholarship, which does not see these operations as predominantly secretive, but sanctioned by ruling authorities such as the Medici in Florence and the Sforza in Milan.

It has to be said that this fresh, and extremely useful scholarship, is difficult to reconcile with the image of Leonardo the artist- anatomist cutting up the body in private, indulging his genius far from the suspicious eyes of authority. Leonardo himself seems to have conspired in this view with his description of what the aspiring medical-artist should be prepared to endure if he was to be successful in his endeavours. It is a wonderful evocation of the secret world of anatomy, but one wonders if Leonardo had his tongue slightly up his cheek here with his description of the art of anatomy carried out in the small hours.

“But though possessed of an interest in the subject you may perhaps be deterred by natural repugnance, or if this does not restrain you than perhaps by the fear of passing the night hours in the company of these corpses, quartered and flayed, and horrible to behold.”

9. Unknown artist, etching after drawing by Polidoro di Caravaggio, in Ashmoleon Museum, Oxford, date unknown.

At the same time Leonardo seems to be deadly serious, carrying out his researches during what Kenneth Keele calls the “long, distasteful hours of adventurous dissection and patient drawing.”[5] Something of this nocturnal practice is caught in a little-known drawing (9), probably by Polidoro di Caravaggio, but once attributed to Michelangelo by its owner Sir Thomas Lawrence. It does seem almost a caricature with its mannerist distortions and such gruesome details as planting a candle in the chest of the cadaver. There doesn’t seem to be much artistic skill visible here, either in the technique or in the subject matter, so it seems good idea to disassociate it from Michelangelo.

10. Frontispiece to Realdo Columbo’s De Re Anatomia, 1559.

We know that Michelangelo had a sophisticated knowledge of anatomy and nearly collaborated with the surgeon Realdo Colombo on an anatomical treatise. It has been conjectured that a figure on the right of the frontispiece (10) to Columbo’s De Re Anatomica of 1569 is none other than Michelangelo himself, although another artist is drawing the body, not Michelangelo. I can’t remember the name of the scholar who advanced this theory, but he believed that the putto or child holding the group of quill pens, whilst tugging at “Michelangelo’s” hand, was exhorting the great man to take up the pen and draw the human body, presumably because the sitting artist doesn’t seem to be making a good fist of it- he hasn’t even started drawing the body.

11. Leonardo da Vinci, Anatomical Studies, dissection of the hand, Royal Library, Windsor Castle, c. 1508-10, pen and brown ink (three shades), with wash modelling over traces of black chalk.

The role of the artist’s pen near the dissecting hand of the anatomist is important here because there are parallels between the hand of the surgeon who holds the knife and the artist’s which holds the pen. As Leonardo says:

“And if this does not deter you then perhaps you may lack the skill in drawing essential for such representation and even if you possess this skill, it may not be combined with a knowledge of perspective, while if it so combined you may not be versed in the methods of geometrical demonstration, or the methods of estimating the forces and power of the muscles; or you may be found wanting in patience so that you will not be diligent.” (11)

12. Frontispiece to Julius Casserius’s Tabulae Anatomicae, 1627.

In the above passage Leonardo uses the word “diligent”, and sometimes diligence was personified as a figure, “Diligentia.” Wielding a knife, Diligence sometimes sits next to Anatomia, a woman with a mirror and skull symbolising the science of the body. This idea is present in seventeenth-century anatomical illustrations (12), where Diligentia is contrasted with Ingenium (13), which refers more to the imagination, and innate ability rather than external practice, though both are necessary for the anatomical-artist. However, it remains to be seen how diligence in both an artistic and medical sense became united in the artistic and medical culture of quattrocento Italy.

13. Detail of Casserius showing personifications of Diligence, Anatomy and Ingenium.

One wonders how Leonardo’s diligentia would have been used in the context of anatomies and dissections performed in Milanese hospitals like Ca’ Granda and the Brolo, establishments in the city where he produced most of his anatomical illustrations, except for the brief sojourn in Florence mentioned above. Azzolini’s scenario of Leonardo attending dissections by surgeons and medics at these Milanese hospitals, while exchanging notes across the operating table is an attractive one, but it’s difficult to sustain given Leonardo’s extraordinary single-mindedness when drawing the body. Jonathan Sawday is probably accurate when he points out that Leonardo’s “rapacious consumption of bodies in the proto-gothic ambience of his nocturnal studio” did not really contribute to a contemporary understanding of the human body, so why should his drawings be located in the medical practice of Milanese hospitals.[6] It may be the case- though it is by no means an irrefutable fact- that Leonardo could have learnt from anatomists such as Fazio Cardano, and his son Girolamo. Even if we accept that some of these late anatomical designs reflect aspects of contemporary medical knowledge, there remains the problem that Leonardo’s extant anatomical drawings though, as Martin Kemp puts it, almost as good as viewing a dissection, yet really aren’t the result of viewing “a formal autopsy.”[7]

14.Leonardo da Vinci, The muscles of the shoulder, Royal Library, Windsor Castle, c. 1508-10, pen and brown ink (three shades) with wash modelling over black chalk.

Azzolini clearly wants to put Leonardo back amongst the doctors, right in the operating theatre; and as she notes, autopsies and dissections in renaissance Milan “required the presence of an artist.” While there is no concrete evidence that Leonardo visited the Ca’ Granda, she believes that the artist entered the Brolo- at the back of Milan Cathedral- as a reference to it exists in Leonardo’s writings. Part of her argument here- based upon the veteran Leonardo scholar, Carlo Pedretti- is that Leonardo didn’t set down his drawings and notes on the centenarian until he returned to Milan from Florence on 12^th September, 1508. Her assumption is that Leonardo’s description of the centenarian, who probably died from a coronary occlusion, reflects knowledge of the way “fifteenth-century physicians described their autopsies.”[8]

Admittedly, Leonardo must have had the chance to meet medical experts in Milan, and outside that city there is a documented association with Marcantonio della Torre, a professor of anatomy at Pavia. However, Marcantonio, a staunch follower of Galen, may not have believed in the validity of anatomical drawings at all. Galen thought it was better to actually watch an anatomy rather than try to understand one from the point of view of drawings. As Kemp points out, exposure, either “directly or indirectly” to Galen’s ideas may have solidified Leonardo’s resistance to those accounts of the human body that rejected the value of visual illustration.[9] Leonardo ultimately evolved a method of drawing and annotating the body that dispensed with all the time-consuming written description that could never rival the visual-textual configuration of Leonardo’s late anatomical drawings.(14)

15. Leonardo da Vinci, superficial muscles of the arms, Royal Library, Windsor Castle, c. 1508-10, pen and brown ink (three shades) with wash modelling over black chalk.

For some reason when looking at some of Leonardo’s anatomical drawings which show cross-sections of the body and emaciated old men  (15) on the same sheet, the idea of a renaissance patient popped into my mind. I don’t know why; perhaps it was the result of looking at Durer’s agonising diagnostic drawing or reading about Pontormo’s ailments; or maybe it was because Smith’s “patient- centred subjectivity” had wedged somewhere in my brain. In the case of Dὕrer, he’s his own patient although we assume that he showed this drawing to a physician; in the case of Pontormo, the artist comes across as a hypochondriac, someone who turns illness into a performance much like his contorted figures in his drawings. Leonardo’s drawings obviously function at more advanced levels than diagnosis, or examples of “patient-centred subjectivity.” The description of his encounter with the centenarian might put us in mind of a doctor-patient relationship, but it would be an incorrect interpretation. Renaissance artists weren’t doctors, and in the case of Leonardo, he cautioned against placing too much trust in their judgments, the “destroyers of life.” Drawings could be medically indicative, but for Leonardo, diligentia, the skill that the artist-anatomist needed, helped to put the whole man before the viewer, not create a diagnostic framework supported by knowledge of medical procedure in renaissance hospitals. That is probably what these individuals who appear in his anatomical sheets represent: they help us complete the circle; they help us to recognise the connection between the living and anatomized body, rather than conveying a “patient-centred subjectivity.”

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[1] Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution, (Chicago, 2004), 145.

[2] Philip Sohm, The Artist Grows Old: The Aging of Art and Artists in Italy 1500-1800, (New Haven, 2007), 107-127

[3] Monica Azzolini, “Leonardo da Vinci’s Anatomical Studies in Milan: A Re-examination of Sites and Sources” in Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550, (eds), Jean A. Givens, Karen M. Reeds, Alain Touwaide, (London, 2006), pp. 147-176.

[4] Azzolini, “Leonardo da Vinci’s Anatomical Studies in Milan”, 162.

[5] Kenneth Keele, “Leonardo’s Influence on Renaissance Anatomy”, Medical History, 157, 1972, 360-370, 369.

[6] Jonathan Sawday, The Body Emblazoned, 111.

[7] Martin Kemp, “Dissection and Divinity in Leonardo’s Late Anatomies”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 35, (1972), 200-225, 203.

[8] Azzolini, “Leonardo da Vinci’s Anatomical Studies in Milan”, 163.

[9] Kemp, “Dissection and Divinity”, 215.

 

Sources consulted.

Monica Azzolini, “Leonardo da Vinci’s Anatomical Studies in Milan: A Re-examination of Sites and Sources” in Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550, (eds), Jean A. Givens, Karen M. Reeds, Alain Touwaide, (London, 2006).

Kenneth Keele, “Leonardo’s Influence on Renaissance Anatomy”, Medical History, 157, 1972, 360-370. available here.

Martin Kemp, “Dissection and Divinity in Leonardo’s Late Anatomies”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 35, (1972), 200-225.

Jonathan Sawday, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture, (New York, 1995).

Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution, (Chicago, 2004).

Philip Sohm, The Artist Grows Old: The Aging of Art and Artists in Italy 1500-1800, (New Haven, 2007).