Art History Today

New Authenticity Book

A colleague alerts me to a new publication edited by the Academic Director of  Sotheby’s. It’s called Art and Authenticity, from Ashgate Press. In a climate in which connoisseurship is a dirty word, the editors of the book still see the validity of the practice, though they are wary of placing too much trust in scientific testing.

“Historically, the idea of scientific verification has arisen as a reaction against the perceived excesses of the connoisseurial tradition, a tradition which has fallen from favour over the last 50 years. The idea of individual 'expert knowledge' rests uneasily in the current climate. However, recent attempts by experts to develop definitive scientific methods for authenticating artworks are also proving to be problematic. Connoisseurship, it will be argued, still has its role to play within these debates. “

Hopefully, I should be able to check this out sometime- as it sounds timely.

 

 

An Exhibition Criticising Government Policy…..

Found this interview with Roy Strong, the former Director of the V & A in the Telegraph. Sir Roy is reported as saying:

“Nobody dares put on an exhibition that actually criticises government or public policy … The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has a very strong hold over them. They're obsessed by political correctness. “

Interesting to speculate what such an exhibition might look like.

The V & A say:

"We have to prove excellence. We're all chasing audiences and sponsors … I don't think anyone's going to get audiences or sponsors by doing an exhibition criticising government policy ... We would like to do more exhibitions about design and society."

Which is presumably where the David Bowie show comes in. Nothing wrong with DB- grew up listening to his music.

On the role of Directors, Strong says:

“I always saw the role of director as primarily to lift people to paradise and to give them information and delight – and then, at another moment, claw them, so they were absolutely shocked and they were made to think about what was going on around them."

Agree with a lot of what he says…and like your blazer and hat, Roy.

Also, see Guardian here.

They Just Keep Coming…..Another “Titian”

that’s the way of it- you wait for one Titian to come along, then two or three come along at once. I’ can’t help agreeing with BG on Art History News that this might be the next Titian upgrade.

I will grant you that the woman on the left looks like a Titian figure, and maybe even the man next to her- but the rest of it looks like a cut n’ paste job. Reminiscent of Venetian concert parties. The NG have labelled it a “Concert”, but it could be a blending of an allegory of Love- especially the two figures on the left. and a musical picture. I’m thinking of ensemble groups by Venetian artists like Paris Bordone’s but his are superior in quality to this.

Comparing the woman on the NG site with other ones by Bordone I’m struck by how the drawing of the eyebrow matches the one, shape of the ear too, well the physiognomy generally- and I don’t apologise for this traditional type of connoisseurship. Try the woman in Bordone’s “Two Lovers” (Brera, Milan, c. 1525). “The Genius of Venice” (RA, 1983). As Bordone trained with Titian, he could well be the “imitator”, although I don’t think he would paint such a sub-standard picture. At the same time the woman in the Brera painting could be an echo of Titian, which would suit those who would want to see it as one of his creations.

Possibly a member of Titian’s workshop, or more likely a minor Venetian painter familiar with the conventions of Venetian painting working later in the century- they’re dating it 1580- but clueless how to weave them all together into a coherent composition. 

Points of interest, but not a great painting. As with Microsoft, an upgrade too far, if it happens. Leave it at that…..

That Lorenzetti Panel.

I’m currently teaching a course on early renaissance art, so the story about this rare Sienese panel grabbed my attention.

Is a museum in this country going to acquire this panel by Pietro Lorenzetti, painted 700 years ago?

Ideally it should be acquired by the National Gallery where they could display it in the Sainsbury wing next to their Duccio panels. A perfect fit as the figure of Christ in this panel owes much to the leading Sienese master, especially in the treatment of the drapery. See the Duccio here.

5 million is the asking price according to the government’s website where I got the photo….

“This is an exceptionally rare and interesting early work by Pietro Lorenzetti, redolent of his celebrated frescoes at Assisi. It has only recently come to light and offers many
avenues for further study and research.”

Hear Hear, but nobody's going to study it , or just enjoy it, if the worst happens and it is snapped up by, say, the Getty who must be in the running if the picture isn’t saved before the ban expires.

Of course I don’t know what the focus of the NG’s acquisition strategy is, but surely it’s better to spend money on this than some novelty buy?

 

New Acquisition at the Met

I hear from Didier Rykner, and La Tribune de l'Art about a great acquisition at the Met. They've just bought a Madonna, Child and St John by the late Florentine artist- Santi di Tito.

Santi wearying of the obsessive stylization of Bronzino and co, turned back towards the light of Raphael, Andrea dal Sarto and Fra Bartolommeo for guidance. I was going to end my Florentine course with Bronzino, but I might try to fit in Santi and some of these late 16th century academic painters, maybe even Baroccio.This painting dating from the 1570s epitomises what Sydney Freedberg said of this painter's work in this decade.

"Maniera conventions now hardly apply, but conventions of a more classicizing kind do, academically rephrased from Sarto's and even Bartolommeo's models of the High Renaissance."

Sydney Freedberg, Painting in Italy 1500-1600, 1971, (624).

Kudos to the Met for buying this.

 

 

A Question of Attribution.

Michael Savage mentions on his splendid new blog- Grumpy Art Historian that word has reached him that the Director of the NG, Nicholas Penny, doesn't like the word "attribution." So, as well as not being able to use the c word- conoissuership obviously- we can't use the a word.

I don't know the context for Penny's misgivings, but he isn't the first to think about the word itself. When I was reading a lot of Berenson last year, I came across this quote and jotted it down.

"I have had it for some time on my mind to write down, for once, what is implied in the verb, “I attribute,” “he attributes.” I have neither the leisure nor the patience to spin it out into the minutest threads. That kind of systematic treatise must be left to the Benedictine industry, who flatters themselves that because they are exhaustive they are also scientific. My aim is a humbler one. It is to tell younger men what an old explorer like myself has to do when he starts out to find the author of a work of art.” 1924, From “Nine Pictures in Search of a Method.”

And surely that is what attribution is all about isn't it....? Identifying who painted what.

As for that new "Titian" I haven't seen it in the flesh so to speak, but that seems like an attribution too far. The face doesn't seem very well modelled, just for starters. I just don't buy it as a Titian, which is based upon me looking at lots of Titian in galleries, teaching him and poring over catalogues of Titian exhibitions. Still, we'll wait and see how this atrribution, or whatever Penny wants to call it, fares in the months ahead.

 

More on Florence....and a new blog

More from my Florentine course here.

And Michael has taken the plunge and started a new blog- with the focus on connoisseurship, especially Raphael.

History of Painting in Florence.

I've started putting up posts on a site I've created, to support a course I'm teaching on painting in Florence.

More will be going up eventually.

Above,Cimabue, Crucifix, 1287-88, Panel, 448 x 390 cm, Museo dell'Opera di Santa Croce, Florence.

Happy New Year!

Hello one and all.

We start the new year with another entry from the Poussin Connoisseurship Project- the Flight into Egypt in Massachusetts.Read the entry here. 

Apologies for the falling off of posts. I've been a bit lazy with the blog of late, and I can't promise a lot of entries in the near future as I've got lots of teraching, a writing job- and various other projects in hand.

What I will do is put "ready mades" from a course on Florentine art I'm about to teach. I've created a blog for it- so I'll be putting images up their and posting stuff based on my lectures.

Meanwhile, my best wishes for 2013.