Alberti’s Window

There has been some controversy and debate regarding a small wooden crucifix that has been attributed to Michelangelo. This crucifix made its public debut at the end of last year, and was recently bought by the Italian state for $4.2 million.

Like some experts mentioned in this recent article, I’m skeptical that this is an actual work by Michelangelo. Vasari’s biography doesn’t mention anything about the artist making small wooden statues.

I’d be interested in learning more about the people who advised the Italian government to buy this piece. If this statue isn’t by Michelangelo, the Italian state has spent an unnecessary amount of money for this small, but pretty, statue.

When I was in college, one of my professors explained her theory that art is cyclical in nature. Over the centuries, there are certain themes and styles in art that keep emerging and fading in popularity. I have often thought about this theory in regards to the Classical and Baroque styles. Although this theory can apply to different types of art, I am in the mood for looking at sculpture, so I’ll only mostly use sculptural examples.

In early Greece, the serene, harmonious Classical style pervaded the artistic scene:

Polykleitos, “Spear-bearer” (Doryphoros), original dated c. 450-440 BC.

However, a short time later, the calm Classical style was disrupted by a taste for more dramatic, diagonal compositions in the Hellenistic period. In addition, relief sculptures were carved more deeply (some sculptures were practically in-the-round, almost jumping off of the relief wall) so that intense shadows could be cast:

Athena Battling Alkyoneos, Detail of the Gigantomachy Freize from the Altar of Zeus (Pergamon, Turkey, c. 175 BC).

The cycle between serenity and drama began again centuries later, when the Classical style became revived during the Renaissance:

Michelangelo, David, 1501-04

And only a century later, the Baroque period began as the artistic scene once again favored diagonal, dramatic compositions and subject matter:

Bernini, David, 1623

With the discovery of Pompeii in 1748, the interest in Classicism began the cycle all over again. This interest brought about the Neoclassical movement:

Antonio Canova, Pauline Borghese as Venus, 1808

The Romantic movement began about the same time and can be interpreted as a continuation of this cycle. In a way, the Romantics reacted against Neoclassicism by favoring drama and emotion over the serenity. This painting by Géricault focuses on dramatic subject matter by depicting a real-life event of shipwrecked passengers that were on the boat “Medusa.” A shortage of lifeboats caused 150 passengers to build a raft, and survivors resorted to cannibalism in order to stay alive on the open sea. (You can read more of the story here.) Can you see how this subject matter is dramatic? To heighten the drama, Gericault depicted an emotional moment when the survivors spot their rescue ship in the distance. Géricault even follows the same dramatic diagonal compositions that were favored in earlier dramatic styles:

Géricault, Raft of the “Medusa”, 1818-19

Since the Neoclassical/Romantic periods, the artistic continuum really hasn’t seen another revival of the serene/dramatic styles. There have been some slight interest in traditional subject matter, such as the Regionalism movement (think of American Gothic). I guess Regionalism could be considered a continuation of serenity and tradition, if one is willing to categorize abstractionism (the style the Regionalists rejected) as dramatic. Hmm.

I’m curious to see if art will ever return back to this cycle. Since the 19th and 20th centuries, art has just exploded into different types of media and styles. Have we left traditional cycles altogether? It is interesting to think about what art will be like in a hundred years or so.

What do you think about the future of art? Have you observed any other types of artistic cycles besides this one?

Since Leonardo da Vinci was a perfectionist, he manages to complete only a few paintings during his career. In contrast, there are many drawings and sketches from Leonardo’s notebook that exist today. These sketches and studies of human anatomy are proof that the artist was a “Renaissance man” – not only was he interested in the arts, but he was also studied anatomy and physiognomy (among other scientific things). In truth, Leonardo felt that the scientific study of anatomy and nature was related to art. Leonardo held the “conviction that the artist must understand the deepest causes of motion and emotion if he is to create figures that can function adequately as imitations of nature.”¹

Drawings such as The Fetus and Lining of the Uterus (c. 1511-1513, shown above) are important today because they established a precendent for scientific illustration, particularly with Leonardo’s use of cutaway views.

However, the thing I find fascinating about Leonardo’s notebook is actually not the sketches themselves, but the combination of his sketches and writing. Da Vinci usually made backwards annotations in his notebook. Art historian Michael Ann Holly suggested that Leonardo’s writing allows for an interesting interplay between the words and the text. Since the Western eye moves from left to right (particularly while reading, but Holly also suggests that this can happen while looking at images), then the eye will move back across the notebook page (from right to left) when proceeding from the image to Leonardo’s handwriting. Therefore, Holly suggests that the eye to moves back and forth across the page because “Leonardo’s words and images scroll together in a vortex of unfolding mobility.”² She also finds that since Leonardo is writing backwards, there is no competition between words and images. Words “unwrap unto pictures, only to be metamorphosed back again at the other end of the line.”³

I think this is such an interesting interpretation of Leonardo’s backwards writing. As far as I know, this is the only article that offers an art historical interpretation of these strange annotations. Does anyone know of any other articles?

What do you think of Leonardo’s sketches and backwards writing? Do you like Holly’s interpretation?

1 Martin Kemp. “Leonardo da Vinci.” In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T050401, accessed February 28, 2009).

2 Michael Ann Holly, “Writing Leonardo Backwards,” New Literary History 23, no. 1 (Winter, 1992): 175. It should be noted that this article actually is not about Leonardo; Holly uses Leonardo as an allegory for discussing historical consciousness in the late 20th century.

3 Ibid.

If you were/are an artist, what would induce you to destroy some of your completed art?

A change in taste?
Embarrassment?
Anger?

I am continually surprised and saddened when I think of the Early Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli and his decision to burn some of his paintings.

Sandro Botticelli is arguably the most famous painter of the Early Renaissance. Today, he is probably best known for his mythological paintings The Birth of Venus (c. 1485, shown to the right) and Primavera (c. 1478). These paintings were influenced by International Style, as shown by the ornamental patterns (e.g. Flora’s dress on the right) and unrealistic stylization (e.g. the flat sea waves). Both paintings were completed during the beginning of Botticelli’s career, when he was highly successful and enjoyed the patronage of important families such as the Medici and Vespucci.

However, it appears that Botticelli’s career took an interesting turn with the rise of Girolamo Savonarola, an Italian friar and preacher. Savonarola’s fundamentalist ideas regarding politics and religious art had considerable influence on Florence. In fact, many people in Florence considered Savonarola to be a prophet and type of savior for the city.¹ In regards to art, Savonarola condemned the worldly character of religious paintings and criticized artists for using identifiable people as models for holy figures. Savonarola “complained that the images in the churches of the Virgin, St Elizabeth and the Magdalene were painted like nymphs in the likenesses of the young women of Florence, thundering: ‘You have made the Virgin appear dressed as a whore’. In his sermons he upbraided the young women of Florence for wearing such dress and castigated painters for representing them in sacred guise, urging everyone to burn their copies of the Decameron and all lascivious images.”² There is no doubt that Botticelli’s mythological paintings would have been viewed as “lascivious” by Savonarola, particularly The Birth of Venus, which was the first painting of a Classical female nude since antiquity.

Savonarola convinced many people to burn their worldly items. He is particularly associated with two public burnings took place on 7 February 1497 and and 27 February 1498. These fires are known as the bruciamenti delle vanità (bonfires of the vanities). At these public bonfires, cosmetics, false hair, playing cards, profane books and paintings were destroyed. It’s shocking to think of what precious works of art were destroyed at this time – especially works by the talented Botticelli. According to the biographer Vasari, Botticelli was affected by the teachings of Savonarola and reportedly threw some of his own paintings on pagan themes into the flames. How tragic! I have often wondered what those paintings were like and what type of contribution they might have made to the field of art history.

Of course, Savonarola did not condemn all types of art. He felt that art could be utilized as a type of moral instruction and encouraged his illiterate followers to ponder the life of Christ by looking at paintings (no doubt, paintings which met his level of standard). At this same time, and probably not coincidentally, Botticelli’s artistic style began to change. He began to reject the courtly, ornamental style of his earlier paintings and turned to a more somber, simplistic style which mimicked the sentiment and style of earlier religious paintings. One such somber painting is Botticelli’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ with St. Jerome, St. Paul and St. Peter (c. 1490). Not only is the extense grief and mourning observed in the faces of the figures, but the sweeping lines of the dead corpse and kneeling figures suggest to me an added level of heaviness, weight, and grief.³ I cannot help but conclude that this shift in style was influenced by Savonarola’s apocalyptic preaching.⁴

Unfortunately, Botticelli’s career faltered near the end of his life, which is especially disappointing since the artist was originally one of the influential painters in developing the new Renaissance style. I find the demise of Botticelli’s career partially linked to Savonarola and the artist’s subsequent change in style.

I wonder if Botticelli held any regrets about burning his paintings or his change in artistic taste. Savonarola’s followers were often referred to as piagnoni (“snivellers” or “weepers”) because “they were given to loud and weepy repentence for their sins.”⁵ It is known that Botticelli’s brother was a piagnone and there is other evidence that Botticelli was also associated with this mournful group.⁶ If I were Botticelli and had burned some of my beautiful art, it seems like I’d have an additional reason to weep.

₁“Savonarola, Girolamo.” In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T076215 (accessed February 5, 2009).

₂ Charles Dempsey. “Botticelli, Sandro.” In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T010385 (accessed February 5, 2009).

₃ For more analysis of this painting and Savonarola’s influence on Botticelli, see Barbara Deimling, Botticelli, (New York: Taschen, 2000), 69-72. These pages can also be read online here.

₄ Not all historians agree on Savonarola’s influence on Botticelli. For some discussion on the art historical debate between Savonarola’s influence on Botticelli, see Ingrid Drake Rowland, From Heaten to Arcadia: The Sacred and the Profane in the Renaissance, (New York: New York Review of Books, 2005), 80-81.

₅ Ibid, 80.

₆ Vasari records that Botticelli was “extremely partisan to [Savonarola’s] sect.” See Dempsey, “Botticelli, Sandro.”