Art History Today

“A Second Nature in the World” Martin Kemp on Leonardo in Birmingham.

A short report on Martin Kemp’s Leonardo lecture  which I attended yesterday. This is gleaned from my rapid scribbling during the course of the talk- any mistakes are the fault of yours truly.

Professor Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of Trinity College, Oxford University, showed a reproduction of Mona Lisa and a flying machine that had been constructed according to Leonardo’s ideas; he wanted to trace the link between the painting and the machine. Structuring Kemp’s talk was a tissue of illustrations, some of them drawings in the exhibition, some of them from other sources, and some animations which unfortunately ran but didn’t visually project. Kemp stressed how the Birmingham selection of drawings appeared to be diverse, but offered the view that they were all connected; the whole of his lecture pursued the idea of interconnectedness throughout Leonardo who could be seen as a God-like artist re-making nature in the context of diversity.

Kemp stressed the importance of the microcosm and the body as an analogue to the world. Kemp illustrated this with Leonardo’s map-making, such as the sheet of the Pontine Marshes and drawings of the Arno which had correlations with Leonardo’s mapping of the human body; the geophysical representation of waterways was analogised in Leonardo’s drawings of the systems of the body. He spoke of the way Leonardo used bifurcation, and the “mathematics of fluid flow” in a practical way: just as water systems need free flow, so too did the vascular system which was liable to become silted up with age. Kemp emphasised the predictive nature of Leonardo’s thinking with a wry observation on the effects of age on the workings of the body, which Leonardo had deduced from the observation of nature just as much as the human body. Kemp considered Leonardo’s anatomy philosophical, not aimed at doctors.

Kemp showed some of Leonardo’s Deluge illustrations to reinforce his points about Leonardo as a “water-engineer”, but he added the dimension of poetry: the concentric rings in the tumultuous drawings reflected Leonardo’s knowledge of Dante’s circles of Hell. Here, I couldn’t help thinking of Michelangelo’s supposed remark that Leonardo should be consulted on Dante, not just a throw away comment after all. Kemp talked about Leonardo’s interest in valves, and informed us how he had worked with scientists, one a heart surgeon, in order to design models of the valve. Such model visualisations and re-inventions proved that Leonardo always had a strong sense of the solution, though sometimes he got things wrong. Kemp showed drawings of Leda, suggesting that the fluidity in her hair betrayed Leonardo’s interest in motion- he mentioned vortex motion and the helix. At this point Kemp made the interesting observation that Leonardo was mindful of the rear of his drawings; he works out the back as well as the front, which must be unique in renaissance art. We were also shown a sheet with a human body shown next to staircases shown in transparency, which Kemp used to underline the fact that everything is connected in Leonardo.

Moving towards the Mona Lisa, Kemp brought in observations by the 19^th century aesthetic writer Walter Pater, who Kemp thought very perceptive in his description of the Mona Lisa. Pater said that the Mona Lisa “has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave.” This wasn’t just poetic effusion but a shrewd grasp of Leonardo’s interest in time. In one of his notebooks Leonardo mentioned Helen of Troy contemplating her face in the mirror; once abducted, and then raped by time. This line of thought led to poetry in science and the renaissance concept of fantasia in relation to science. Portraiture was concerned with optics and the act of seeing, which Kemp demonstrated by showing some of Leonardo’s drawings of optics and the use of light in the Cecilia Gallerani (Lady with an Ermine) portrait. He also mentioned visual description and mathematical ratio in relation to the Last Supper.

After this, drawings of engines of war were shown such as the fiendish chariots with flails, as well as the crossbow. Kemp talked of mechanical analysis and “continuous quantity.” Mechanical analysis led on to Leonardo’s knowledge of comparative anatomy, particularly the operation of the human hand, whose applicability to painting was shown with reference to the flexor tendons and the pointing hand in the Virgin of the Rocks. Following on from this consideration of mechanics, we were shown a drawing of a bird’s wing, which was obviously leading us to the flying machine. Kemp and others had designed a flying machine for the Leonardo exhibition at the V&A in 2003. He talked of how a company that restored ancient planes, Sky Sport- not the TV- had expressed interests in Leonardo’s designs. Kemp had even gone to the South Downs to test a flying machine piloted by a hang-gliding expert; the machine had had to be adjusted to stop the hang-glider being swept into the English Channel!

Prof Kemp concluded with some remarks on how nature taught the design principles which Leonardo had the insight, imagination and skill to manipulate. Kemp generously allowed questions which touched on such topics as the globe in the Salvator Mundi; Leonardo’s knowledge of algebra, but his distrust of it as it was too symbolic and unreal; and Leonardo’s use of fantasia in his model of the brain.

Congratulations to Professor Kemp on such a stimulating lecture. I came away with my head ringing with ideas and very respectful of an art historian who is able to integrate both science and art together in such a seamless way. Such a rollercoaster ride of ideas imparted with wit and erudition. And only £6! I hope BMAG paid Kemp more than the London National Gallery for his expertise and time!

Pordenone’s Provincialism.

“But there were Venetian towns without the traditions of even of the Schools of Vincenza and Brescia, where, if you wanted to learn painting, you had to apprentice yourself to somebody who had been taught by somebody who been a pupil of one of Giovanni Bellini’s pupils. This was particularly true of the towns where in that long stretch between the Julian Alps and the sea, known as Friuli. Friuli produced one painter of remarkable talents and great force, Pordenone, but neither his talents nor his force, nor even later study in Venice, could erase from his works that stamp of provincialism which he inherited from his first provincial master.”

Bernard Berenson.

Map of Northern Italy.

I’ve been pondering what Berenson meant by Pordenone’s provincialism. This word is one of several that Berenson produces when he wants to nail a painter, or a whole school of painting, to the cross on his art history Golgotha. Berenson dismissed the whole of the Milanese school with the epithet “pretty, ”and “provincialism”, coincidentally another P word, seems to be equally worthy of condemnation in his eyes. To understand Berenson’s meaning of the word, we have to appreciate how much schools of painting lying inland from Venice were seen by Berenson and his ilk as weak echoes of the ateliers of that great centre. This view was not only held by Berenson, but his contemporary, Giovanni Morelli, who spoke of local schools in terms of climate, culture and the ethnographic:

View of Bergamo

“By the Venetian school, however, I do not mean that of Venice alone. Properly speaking, this should be so, but in these days it is usual to include in this category all the schools of painting included in the territory once belonging to the Republic in North Italy, which felt the influence of the capital in a greater or lesser degree without losing their distinctive and local characteristics. This individuality of each school- the direct outcome of diversity of race, natural scenery, soil, climate etc, more strongly developed in some districts, less strongly in others- cannot, of course, be adequately studied in picture galleries, the contents of which are for the most part eclectic in character. It must be studied in the district where it originated, in the history of which it forms so integral a part.”

Morellii.

Berenson places the same emphasis on the soil as Morelli, though he is loath to use the word “Venetian” to cover all of Northern Italian painting; hence his construction of a model in which towns like Bergamo and Brescia are artistic backwaters compared to  the “metropolis” of Venice. However, Berenson’s view of provincialism proves to be highly selective: towns like Verona are to be distinguished from other schools like Brescia and Vincenza, whose painters are wanting in taste, chiefly because their schools grew away from Venice and Verona, the latter redeemed by Mantegna’s influence. Painters that hail from towns like Brescia and Cremona are likened by Berenson to “Eclectics” – an idea also used by Morelli- of a later day, by which he means the Carracci who moved operations from Bologna to Rome in the seventeenth-century, thus ushering in the mainstream academicism of the 17^th century.

Giovanni di Antonio de Sacchis (Il Pordenone), Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, c. 1525, Parish church, Susegana (Treviso), oil on canvas.

Giovanni Antonio Pordenone who came from Friuli – see top right of map- shows every sign of “metropolitan” training, as can be seen in this fascinating altarpiece executed in 1525, still in situ in the Susegano, Treviso. There are the obligatory Bellinesque figures, as with his St Peter, and the musical angel; maybe a nod to Giorgione in the head of St Catherine, just a little too stylized that it stands out against the stark realism of his Baptist and the aforementioned St Peter. His Madonna is a nice combination of realism and the lurking beauty of Giorgione. Perhaps this offers a clue to the idea of provincial style in Pordenone. The painter strives to maintain a sense of the commonplace by inserting figures that are aggressively naturalised, despite having been exposed to the training of the Venetian workshops. Pordenone’s wonderful St Peter is derived from Bellini, but has the realism of the live model to me, someone known to the artist, not a pensive philosopher based on imagination and the canons of classical taste, as in Bellini’s insulated sacred conversations.

Giovanni di Antonio de Sacchis, (Il Pordenone), Pilate Judges Christ, 1520, Cremona Cathedral, fresco.

A defining feature of “provincialism” for Berenson was the exaggeration of colour which isn’t so evident in this altarpiece. However, if we step back a few years, we can see idiosyncratic colours in Pordenone’s frescoes for Cremona Cathedral (1521-22), a passionless colour that was shared by other painters who worked on this commission, including the Brescians Romanino, Bembo and Melone. Perhaps Berenson might have added “wilful eccentricity” to his list of provincial attributes, as in this fresco of Pilate Before Christ, Il Pordenone goes out of his way to break all the rules of composition.

Detail.

Pordenone's horse seems to leap out of the wall at us, brutish torturers grimace comically, expressive faces lurk in the gloom, whilist Pilate washes his hands, unperturbed by the tumult raging around all him. As for Christ, instead of showing his calm grandeur, he seems wretched and abject, his knees buckling under him, much like the composition itself.

Girolamo Romanino, Christ before Pilate and the Flagellation, 1519, Cremona Cathedral, fresco.

A comparison between Pordonone and Romanino’s versions of the same subject demonstrate competing provincial styles. Romanino’s has a clear composition, with some wonderful vignettes of street life, completely at odds with the compositional whirlwind of Pordonone.

Detail.

Despite the tyranny of the pervasive colour, which has probably faded over time, Romanino seems to be able to assimilate the drama of Venetian art, its historiated quality, into his own frescoes, with largely successful results.

Giovanni di Antonio de Sacchis, (Il Pordenone), Golgotha, 1521, Cremona Cathedral, fresco.

Absolutely nothing prepares us though for Pordenone’s Golgotha, which blows all definitions of “provincialism” out of the water. Here we have painting that goes beyond eclecticism, oversteps mannerism, rushing headlong into the frankly outrageous. It’s as if Pordonone wanted to stun the congregation into stupefaction with his overpowering style.

View of the nave and the inner façade of Cremona Cathedral, frescoes by Il Pordonone.

And what do we make of the fact that Romanino was discharged from the commission so that Pordonone could take over in 1521? This overblown style seems to have found favour with a provincial audience. According to S.J. Freedberg, the theatrical style of this crucifixion was conceived with the aim of communicating with “popular and provincial audiences” that Pordenone’s own origins had equipped him to understand. Much more could be said of the theatrical illusions of these pictures responding to popular and provincial sentiment. Berenson is silent on this matter.

Giovanni di Antonio de Sacchis (Il Pordenone), St Lorenzo Giustiniani and Other Saints, 1532, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, oil on canvas, 420 x 220 cm.

Later in his career Pordonone would take his “provincialism” back to the “metropolis” of Venice, duelling unsuccessfully with Titian for commissions. We’ll end with a Venetian altarpiece, created for the Madonna dell’ Orto, now in the Accademia, the Blessed Lorenzo Giustiniani and Saints (1532). This work betrays the influence of Michelangelo in its rhetorical orotundity and monumental forms; the athletic St John seems to meld Michelangelo’s muscular figures with the Belvedere Torso, which incidentally can be seen on a ledge in the earlier altarpiece in Susegano. Painted for the Canons of St Giorgio in Algae, known as the “turchini”on account of their deep blue habit, the Blessed Lorenzo illustrates the blending of Roman grandeur, Venetian colour and the provincial residue that Berenson so loathed. Personally, I think this is what gives the altarpiece its individual character. The kneeling St Francis seems orientated towards the popolani, the people; his dirty feet pointing outward to the viewer seems to look forward to the direct realism of Caravaggio's paintings, which communicate piety at street level- back to the dirt and soil of the people. Though Berenson would not agree, I think here Pordonone successfully absorbs his provincial art within the styles of Venetian, and even central Italian art.

Sources.

Bernard Berenson, Italian Painters of the Renaissance: Venetian and North Italian Schools,. Phaidon, 1968, first pub. 1952.

S.J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy 1500-1600, (New Haven and London, Yale University Press), 1993.

Giovanni Morelli, Italian Painters: The Galleries of Munich and Dresden, (1907, orig. 1893).

Giovanna Nepi Sciré and Francesco Valcanover, Accademia Galleries of Venice, (1985).

The Weird and Wonderful World of Cosimo Tura

Last week I was teaching a class on Northern Italian renaissance art, part of a course based on 19^th century art history and the beginnings of connoisseurship of Italian art- Berenson et al. Instead of concentrating on well-known artists like Titian and Giorgione, I decided to take a walk on the wild side looking at lesser-known schools of art like Ferrara, Padua and Brescia. The School of Ferrara was always considered problematic in the eyes of those pioneers who mapped renaissance art geographically in the nineteenth-century. In the words of Crowe and Cavalcaselle:

“The Ferrarese are very like the Veronese in some respects; they are not first-rates, and their painting has a strong northern stamp; but they are more independent in their ruggedness and more powerful in the expression of passion. They adopt alternately the African types of Francesca and the grimacing ones of Mantegna, but they add to these something of the sadness and dryness of the Flemings. In Galasso these characteristics are combined with the comparative helplessness of the antiquated Christian time. Cossa and Tura, though but little younger, are abler and more spirited in this path, altering the technical treatment of detail and distance after the transalpine fashion; it is not improbable that they were struck by the originality of van der Weyden, whose visit to Ferrara in the middle of the century is now placed beyond a doubt. With Stefano and Ercole Roberti Grandi, we come upon Paduan features in their strength and bitterness; Costa and Ercole di Giuilo Grandi introduce a younger and fresher blood by imitating the Peruginesque. From first to last the Ferrarese are colourists.”

Cosimo Tura, A Muse (Calliope?), London, National Gallery, 1455-60.

If any painter deserves to be called “independent,” not to say curious, bizarre, wild, or eccentric it’s Cosmé , (sometimes called Cosimo) Tura from Ferrara. Tura was the fountain head of the Ferrarese school from which gushed such singular strangeness in art. There’s no need for connoisseurship with Tura; his art is instantly recognizable, and completely unforgettable. It’s a repertoire of grimaces, contorted bodies, jarring colours and gnarled hands, with landscapes that that other renaissance oddball, Piero do Cosimo, would have admired. I love it, but Berenson (probably under the influence of Wagner) saw Tura’s world as hard and unyielding as an anvil, likening his perception to the hammer that hit it with ferocity. I have to confess that there is something metallic about Tura, though I find that quite compelling rather than repellent. It’s impossible to say where Tura’s style originates, but you could see his art as a bouillabaisse of Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, Donatello and Rogier van der Weyden- the last actually visited Ferrara in the mid fifteenth-century where he painted pictures for Lionel d’Este. Berenson disdainfully dismisses Tura as an exponent of the “grotesque”, locked into a narrow, decorative formula, and lacking any interest in intellectual development. Well, Tura is decorative, but his ornament is witty, and later scholars like Stephen Campbell have detected erudition there. For example, what hidden meaning could lie in the sea shells and dolphin heads that adorn the throne of an allegorical muse in our National Gallery?

Cosimo Tura, The Annunciation, Museo del Duomo, Ferrara, c. 1469.

A painting of Tura’s that is fast becoming a renaissance favourite of mine is his Annunciation from about 1469. It’s an odd Annunciation; not like the versions that show the Angel and Virgil in profile; not like the so-called “frame annunciations” where there’s a real distance, or a sense of the physical distance that the messenger has to cross; not those that engage the viewer like Antonello’s. No, Tura’s Madonna and angel seem immersed in their own worlds, each contained within their own thoughts. And the backdrop! There is an inhospitable landscape composed of rocky bluffs, bleak terrain, peopled with some strange looking travellers; these are probably fishermen and shepherds though their relevance to the Annunciation- if any- remains unknown. This landscape doesn’t entirely convince; it has the look of a backdrop rather than the real world outside the basilica or palace the main figures inhabit.

Detail showing pagan deities: Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and an unidentified figure.

Quite the most bizarre element in this fascinating work is the gyrating figures ensconced in golden panels and painted in grisaille. They have the look of satyrs or demons, as they twist and turn while hoisting their garments over their head in pagan abandon. You’ll have to wait until Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling until you see such inventive niche figures again. Actually, from reading Stephen Campbell’s excellent analysis, I’ve discovered that they are archaic representations of the classical gods and goddesses: Diana, Apollo, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars. Only on closer inspection do you discern their attributes. According to Campbell they may have astrological meaning, though this is too deep to go into here. Tura has cleverly set these pagan deities on black discs within their yellow cubicles, but they threaten to dance out into the Virgin’s space. And as Campbell astutely notes, the Venus (top left in detail) displays the figura serpentinata, thirty years before Leonardo invented it!

A black squirrel

Then there’s the rod that bisects the pillar at the centre; this holds a bird (on the viewer’s L) and another animal (on the viewer’s R). Crowe and Cavacaselle state confidently that it’s a cat, which leads me to conclude they don’t know much about animals. It is, in fact, a black squirrel tethered to a column by a red cord. I did have my doubts because squirrels don’t figure in annunciations, but take my word for it- it’s a squirrel. According to Campbell, and I can’t tell if this is a serious suggestion, the squirrel could alludes to Tura’s squirrel hair brush. I’d like to believe that. Tura is the kind of artist to put in a visual joke, but there’s no proof of that. In best Sherlockian fashion, if we turn our magnifying glass on the bird, this could be a vital clue.

Tichodroma muraria or “wall-creeper”

The sources state that the bird resembles the Tichodroma muraria, or “wall creeper,” a bird believed to frequent graveyards and nest in skulls. The Ticholroma muraria might therefore refer to the ruinous effects of time, and the squirrel might have a similar meaning. Checking Wikipedia’s entry on the Ticholroma muraria, I find no references to cemeteries or skulls, just buildings and quarries. The bird is thought to re-appear in another one of Tura’s paintings: a splendidly twisted and knotted St Jerome, also in the National Gallery. Here, the Tichodroma muraria can be found perched on a branch of a tree above Jerome’s lion. According to the NG’s website, the wall-creeper (and an owl) might symbolise evil. I haven’t read Campbell’s description of the St Jerome yet.

Cosimo Tura, St Jerome, London, National Gallery, 1474.

In Ferrara, Tura’s presence is well represented by frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia. This pleasure palace belonged to the d'Este family and is located just outside the medieval town walls.

View of the Salone dei Mesi, Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara,  frescoes by Cosimo Tura and Francesco del Cossa, 1476-84.

Cosimo, along with Francesco del Cossa, helped produce an intricately conceived allegorical series about the months of the year and zodiac symbols, which seems to have been a learned interest in Ferrarese circles. The series contains contemporary portraits of musicians, labourers, and carnival floats drawn by more exotic animals; in the case of Mercury, griffons; in the case of Ceres, apes.

Cosimo Tura, Detail from Madonna of the Zodiac, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, 1459-63.

Tura was an important influence on the other two major painters of the 15th-century Ferrarese School – Francesco da Cossa and Ercole Roberti, who is equally bizarre. The latter replaced him as court painter in 1486 and Tura died poor. Berenson’s summing up of Tura is particularly damning: “He ranks, consequently, not with his Florentine peers, but with another product of the Paduan school Carlo Crivelli. The one exaggerates definition as the other exaggerates precision, and like all born artists who lack adequate intellectual purpose, both ended up in the grotesque.” Unfortunately Berenson’s attempts to exclude painters from consideration because they were not Florentine was effective until very recently when more material appeared on Tura, notably Campbell’s detailed study of 1997. In any case I couldn’t disagree with Berenson more; one man’s grotesque is another man’s delight. I never tire of looking at Tura’s art, especially what Campbell calls his “marginalia,” all the strange details lurking on the periphery of the paintings; like his squirrel, and birds similar to this one hidden in the detail of the Madonna of the Zodiac of 1459-63. On closer inspection this “marginalia” proves to be central to an understanding of the Ferrarese master’s art. If these creatures represent evil, the devil is indeed in the detail of Tura’s art.

 

Sources

Bernard Berenson, Italian Painters of the Renaissance: Venetian and North Italian Schools,. Phaidon, 1968, first pub. 1952.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Northern Italy (in three volumes), ed. Tancred Borenius, John Murray, 1912.

Stephen John Campbell, Cosmè Tura of Ferrara: Style, Politics, and the Renaissance City, 1450-1495, Yale, 1997.

A Debate in Parliament

As I’m pressed for time I’m just going to post verbatim a report I’ve received from the Camerons about the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris. It is important new evidence, and comes from no other source than Hansard, the record of Parliamentary proceedings. I agree with GC; the timing is weird given that I’ve just posted about connoisseurship, Eastlake and the painting itself. Are the gods looking down on this blog!

 

An example of Hansard from the 19th century.

Verbatim from Graeme and Norman Cameron.

“Important New Research Evidence of Lord Malmesbury's "The Judgement of Paris" involving 'Sir Charles Eastlake' and the painting's 'Louvre Paris Exhibition', and also 'Connoisseurship Matters' in The House of Lords Hansard, of July 1869.

In a fascinating twist of providence, a valuable historical account has now been discovered by art researchers Graeme and Norman Cameron, with direct links to the same Three Topics covered in "Art History Today's" recent Posts. In an amazing coincidence, further significant new evidence as to the distinguished status of Lord Malmesbuy's painting comes from no less than the House of Lords, London Debate Report, in the Hansard of 26th. July 1869..

It concerns the National Gallery London's picture purchases, particularly of a Rembrandt, in the course of which, Lord Malmesbury contributes observations to the Debate. In a lengthy response he refers to a Letter of Attestation he has from the Late Sir Charles Eastlake; ( this Letter was earlier cited in these Posts, but its contents were unknown ). However, Eastlake's letter said, "It was one of the finest Giorgione's he had ever seen". This unequivocal statement from the still revered former the inaugural Director of the National Gallery, London, Artist & Connoisseur, when added to those of Prof. Gustave Waagen, Dr. J D Passavant, and Sir Martin Conway, shows just how acclaimed this painting was in the 19thC.

More importantly, Lord Malmesbury's speech reveals that Eastlake's regard for the painting was such that he arranged for "The Judgement of Paris" to be exhibited at the Louvre in Paris the late 1860's. Interestingly whilst there, a Louvre official expressed "it was not by "Giorgione" but another "Venetian Master", (Titian?)

This adds a most significant previously uncited "foreign" Exhibition credential to this painting's already extensive United Kingdom exhibition record and shows just how acclaimed this masterpiece was by both doyen Connoisseurs and the general public, as confirmed at both Manchester & Leeds Art Treasures Exhibitions and those at the RA's "Burlington House", etc..

Lord Malmesbury's speech also gives fascinating insights into his family's ownership and custodianship of the painting, especially his generous allowing weekly private viewing to art loving admirers at his Stafford Place residence, and gives other rare insights on 19thC collecting and altruism, which are equally relevant even today.”

The relevant section of the debate is below, the reference to the Judgement, its exhibition in Paris, and the Louvre curator’s non-Giorgione attribution  comes right at the end. Here’s a link to the whole of the Lord's debate of 1869, on Hansard’s web site. Now why can’t David Cameron- who studied art history at Eton- start a debate on the merits of connoisseurship and attribution in the Commons!

The Upper Chamber, the House of Lords.

HL Deb 26 July 1869 vol 198 cc651-65 651

Relevant section

The Earl of Malmesbury said, they must all feel obliged to the noble Lord (Lord Overstone) for his explanation, which showed that the Trustees displayed their judgment without fear or favour in choosing pictures for the National Gallery. If, indeed, there were any part of the noble Lord's speech with which he felt inclined to find fault, it was that in which he appeared to be more than displeased at these Questions having been put. The noble Lord must be aware that Questions of this kind, when asked in either House, were not only perfectly fair in a Parliamentary point of view, but were likewise a proof of the great interest felt by the public in the success of the National Gallery. He was sure that the noble Lord himself did not desire that the people of this country should wander in stupid silence through the rooms in which these pictures were hung, and no one with such a liberal mind as his could find fault with the remarks and criticisms, however extraordinary, which those who inspected the treasures of art preserved in the Gallery might make. These were after all, nothing more nor less than expressions of opinion. The noble lord had styled the Questions put to him this evening as ungenerous Questions; but for his own part he (the Earl of Malmesbury) thought they were evidences of the pride and interest which all persons in this country, whatever their rank might be, took in the art treasures which were to be found in our National Gallery. He maintained that it was entirely a matter of opinion as to whether a picture were genuine or not, and more especially must this be the case with regard to pictures painted by the Old Masters. When it was considered that upwards of three centuries had elapsed since the Venetians put their pencils to the canvass, it was obviously impossible to have what in a court of justice would be called complete and positive evidence that such and such a picture was painted by such and such a man who lived in the 16th century; all we could do was to trace the pedigrees and successive owners of these pictures, and to draw an inference from the facts as to whether they were genuine or not. 663 Most of the paintings in the National Gallery had, he believed, passed through that ordeal, and might be regarded with pride and confidence as genuine works of the Masters to whom they were ascribed. If it had not been for the Questions put this evening, the public would not have had the advantage of being acquainted with the complete pedigrees of the pictures to which the noble Lord had referred. Considering the great difficulty of identifying ancient pictures, he could not but admire the characteristic sagacity of a certain class of collectors—he meant those men who, having in the course of a life of practical business accumulated large fortunes, and having great taste and a desire to form galleries of pictures, almost universally discarded the Old School and laid out their money in purchasing modern pictures, the genuineness of which could be ascertained far more readily than the authenticity of works alleged to be by the Old Masters. This circumstance showed that the public were excusable if they were suspicious and timid with respect to purchasing pictures of the Old Masters; and the noble Lord and his Colleagues—for whose exertions he felt assured the country was deeply grateful —must occasionally expect Questions similar to those which had been asked this evening. The noble Lord had quoted various authorities; but it would not be difficult to show that those authorities did not agree among themselves. He himself possessed a picture which for the last 100 years had been deemed to be an undoubted Giorgione. Some lovers of art used to come to look at it two or three times a week, and he had a letter from the late Sir Charles Eastlake, in which he stated it was one of the finest Giorgiones he had ever seen. Yet when he sent that picture to the Exhibition at Paris, a gentleman employed at the Louvre pronounced it to be the work, not of Giorgione, but of another Venetian master. Indeed, he believed there was only one way of discovering the real authors of these ancient pictures —namely, by calling in the aid of spiritualism, and bringing ourselves into correspondence with Mr. Home, who should be requested to interrogate Giorgione, Titian, and other great artists on the subject. Until their Lordships believed in spiritualism, however, they must rely upon opinions such as had been adduced 664 this evening by the noble Lord (Lord Overstone.)

Book Review.Susanna Avery-Quash and Julie Sheldon, Art for the Nation: The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World, National Gallery Press, Yale, 2011.

I bought this book at last year’s exhibition on Eastlake, but haven’t had the time to read and review it until this year.

 

There are many things that this book does well, but it succeeds above all in giving Lady Eastlake (Elizabeth Rigby) her rightful place at the centre of the whirl of Victorian art and institutional politics, something that previous accounts of the Eastlakes have failed to do. Not only was Rigby a formidable writer, translating such early surveys of Italian art as Kugler’s Handbook on Painting and famously criticising Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, but she drew, and contributed much to the study of art history through her many translations, essays and work for her husband.

Born into a family of middle-class professionals, the daughter of a doctor, Elizabeth took drawing lessons from Cotman, visited Germany and developed an intellectual personality which emerged in her writings for the conservative journal, The Quarterly Review as well as her translations and reflections as a lady traveller in Europe. In 1849 Rigby married the diffident painter and rising star of the London art administration community, Charles Locke Eastlake. Though they were a well-matched couple, there was a hint of pragmatism about the union; she saw it as a form of “rationalised happiness.” Not much is known about the personal side of the Eastlake’s marriage, so it is impossible to know exactly what she could have meant. The authors are probably correct in assuming that Lady Eastlake destroyed this personal material in order to preserve certain aspects of the marriage.

John Partridge, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake,1825, National Portrait Gallery, pencil, 24.1 x18.4 cm.

In the opening section of the book, Charles Lock Eastlake is sketched quickly. Born in Plymouth, destined for the legal profession, but saved from that fate by becoming a pupil to that most eccentric of English painters- Benjamin Robert Haydon. We further learn that the young Eastlake studied anatomy, read Goethe, cultivated a quietly ambitious philosophy, aided by a regime of diligence and perseverance. One of the most intriguing insights is made about how the retiring Eastlake would never affirm himself, but disclosed his character through others. As the authors note, when he describes his friend Sir Robert Peel, he is talking about himself:

“He probably, in early life, began with accurate habits, which make…an attention to details always easy, and which are the best foundation for enlarged experience. A slip-slod workman is good for neither; he can neither be a plodder nor a philosopher. Without attention to the business of the moment there can be no accuracy, without accuracy and industry (the evidence of zeal) there can be no extensive knowledge of facts and details, which are the pabulum of judgement, and the only true groundwork of theory.”

Sir Thomas Lawrence. Maria Graham, Lady Calcott, 1819.

And it is fascinating to learn that Eastlake was not the only individual to indulge in this veiled -disclosure. The Giotto scholar and subject of one of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s paintings, Maria Graham, wrote a life of Poussin whose (supposedly) philosophical qualities and working habits matched Eastlake’s, according to the authors. Maria Graham was the first in a series of lady connoisseurs who gravitated to men like Eastlake, and it would be an interesting exercise to study how connoisseurship worked within 19^th century marriages, or female society. Though connoisseurship is often seen as a predominantly male preserve, instances of famous couples who were leading connoisseurs could be found in the Victorian and later periods. What one would have given to be a fly on the wall at the meeting between Bernard and Mary Berenson and the ailing Lady Eastlake later in the century?

John Prescott Knight, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, Royal Academy, London, 1857.

Though this book’s purpose is not to discuss connoisseurship per se, it could hardly ignore it completely given Eastlake’s legendary powers of visual analysis and picture expertize. In a chapter on Eastlake as Director of the National Gallery, a model of Eastlake’s working methods is set out, - and it makes for compelling reading. The first stage of what Avery-Quash and Sheldon call Eastlake’s “three protocols of connoisseurship” consists of first-hand and proto-scientific analysis of works of art; a subdivision of this involved taking exact measurements and accurate transcriptions of any inscriptions, dates, signatures, monograms and ciphers. Though Eastlake spent a lot of time in the archives studying signatures, he was the inferior of Otto Mündler, the NG’s travelling agent who was more skilled at the “morphology of artist’s signatures.” Other sub-sections of this first protocol consisted of technical examination involving the use of chemists, which would eventually lead to the establishment of the scientific department of the National Gallery. This is hardly surprising as Eastlake was keenly interested in the materials and supports of artists; he published Materials for a History of Oil Painting in 1847. Finally, staying within the first category, to a limited extent, Eastlake noted “significant forms” in the manner of Morelli, physiognomic details. It is clear that Eastlake was not really sold on the Morellian method, though he did give examples like the “locking inwards of legs” in the paintings of Luca Signorelli.

The second protocol consisted of comparative analyses of a broad range of artworks in Eastlake’s meticulously kept notebooks. Here, Eastlake differed greatly from the likes of Morelli and Berenson who disdained this note-taking activity preferring to use their eyes; but Eastlake was an archivist through and through, and more significantly an administrator who knew the necessity of noting down details. It was noted by one of his contemporaries that Sir Charles wrote brilliant minutes! Where Eastlake gelled with Berenson was in his use of photographic reproductions to aid comparative study of pictures. Interestingly, Lady Eastlake shared the same emphasis as her husband on photography; she even wrote on it and saw its potential for connoisseurship.

At the risk of using a phrase sounding like some dreadful thriller novel, the final protocol made scrupulous use of archival and secondary source material: examination of inscriptions, sometimes in archives abroad. This was supported by what the authors call the “formation of a pioneering private library,” the result of frequenting book shops on the continent. This would eventually form the core of the NG’s own library. For Eastlake, a picture had to be “eligible”, for acquisition by the National Gallery. He would award a positive or negative attribution after weighing up all the facts and possibilities, even re-visiting the picture in the final stages of the process. Above all, he was anxious, to quote his wife, of not “morally or connoisseurially” disappointing in his choices. What Eastlake would have made of today’s market-driven, internet-promoting scramble for attributions and re-discoveries, is anybody’s guess.

John Singer Sergeant,”Vernon Lee”, aka Violet Paget, Tate Gallery, London, 1881.

In the years after her husband died, in 1865, Lady Eastlake continued to write, intent on prolonging Sir Charles’s ideas on art history and connoisseurship. Her later writings coincided with the appearance of the Aesthetic Movement, most famously Walter Pater who poeticised renaissance art and inspired the jeunesse d’oree of the Florentine circle of Berenson, including writers such as Vernon Lee, the pen name of Violet Paget. In 1895 Lee published a dreamy, meandering book inspired by Pater called Renaissance Fancies in which she declared that the business of sorting out originals from copies, and masters from pupils, made us alive to the delight such works could bestow. In this, Vernon Lee made the case for connoisseurship to enhance not only the viewer’s enjoyment of art, but affirm life’s positives. This clearly had the stamp of Berenson who used phrases such as “life-affirming” when discussing attributions and connoisseurship generally, an attitude generated by his study of philosophy and aesthetics at Harvard, later to be supplanted by expertizing and picture valuing. It’s difficult to know exactly what Lady Eastlake made of this “aesthetics of connoisseurship,”, though the authors state that she would have been impervious to this new mode of writing about art. At the same time Avery-Quash and Sheldon concede that Lady E’s comments on Pater, Lee and John Addington Symonds passed unrecorded. Would her meeting with the Berensons have revealed common ground, or would they have remained diametrically opposed about connoisseurship? Her remarks about Crowe and Cavalcaselle, and by extension Morelli, inhabiting “the land of the perpetual perhaps”, suggest that Lady Eastlake lost patience with the new blend of subjective connoisseurship presented in a bouquet of aesthetics and poetic effusion. To be fair to Cavalcaselle though, it was Crowe who went in for the purple passage while the Italian sought facts about the art, something that Lady Eastlake must surely have known. Berenson certainly did.

David Octavius Hill, and Robert Adamson, Elizabeth Eastlake, 1843-8, calotype, National Portrait, Gallery, London,

Another of Lady Eastlake’s stratagems was to try to get Charles Lock Eastlake (the nephew) into the directorship of the NG, in order that he too as another “keeper of the flame” could preserve his uncle’s memory in the new, modernised institution that the ex-Director had created. Despite the fact that he could never live up to his uncle’s reputation and had therefore no chance of getting the job, it is heart-breaking to read this tale of an earnest, capable man enduring his defeat stoically in his retirement amongst his modest pictures and prints,- there’s nothing more sadder than ambition and talent unrewarded. Yet how could the nephew, or how could any of them hope to aspire to the heights of achievement that Eastlake reached? His triumphs are simply staggering. During his three years as Director, Eastlake acquired something in the region of 171 pictures for the gallery; he had transformed a ramshackle operation into a sleek, modern machine that ran smoothly; and he had set down rigorous standards for the studying, cataloguing and presentation of paintings that the museum observes today. Every director that followed him is considerably in his debt.

A rewarding read throwing light on some of the darker corners of Eastlake scholarship. Recommended for those interested in the National Gallery and the culture of connoisseurship surrounding it.