Drama? Theatricality? In Baroque Painting?

 

The word 'drama' is often used in the description or explication of Baroque paintings as though it neatly summarised the essential difference between them and those of other schools. There is of course no doubt that Baroque art, and painting in particular, was dramatic, or rather, that it expressed itself in dramatic ways. Drama however, was not lacking in the periods which preceded the Baroque but what Baroque artists did was to 'activate' that drama.

When we talk of drama perhaps what we more precisely mean is 'dramatic events'; the paintings of the Renaissance are full of dramatic events as are those of the intermediate period, that of Mannerism. How could they not be? Given that a very large part of the work produced by artists in western Europe was dictated by their patrons, principally the Catholic church, and that many of the events in both the Old and New Testaments involved drama of some sort, often homicidal, it might be said that drama, or the depiction of drama and dramatic events, was broadly a common thread linking the main subject matter of all three periods so far referred to.

If that is the case, why then is the Baroque singled out as peculiarly dramatic? Let's have a look at some examples and see if we can answer that question. In Christian art, especially in Italy - and especially in Florence - the life of Saint John the Baptist is an ubiquitous subject and, perhaps most particularly, after representations of his baptism of Christ, his death, that is, his beheading. In a beautiful small cloister in Florence, the Chiostro dello Scalzo, is a wonderful fresco cycle representing the crucial events in the life of the Baptist; nearly all of these large images were painted - in monochrome, between 1509 and 1526 - by the Renaissance master Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530). 

In this splendid series there is, naturally, the scene of the decapitation of Saint John; if one were looking for a dramatic event then clearly that fits the bill. This image contains all the necessary ingredients for the staging of such a horrific episode, 'dramatic' being perhaps a slight understatement. On the left side we have two women, one of whom may be the indirect cause of this execution, that is Salome, and the other, a lady-in-waiting; or they might simply be servants of some kind, sent by Herod to collect the 'evidence' of the death of this troublesome prophet. On the right, a figure who seems to be a person in charge, and in the background porch, various onlookers; but in the centre we have the two persons immediately concerned with this tragedy: the hapless saint and his executioner.

The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, 1509-1526, fresco by Andrea del Sarto (1486 - 1530)

The Chiostro dello Scalzo, Florence.

Drama is built-in to this event; the execution of any individual is, by its nature, dramatic but this particular execution is even more so as it is, in effect, a murder. John the Baptist was beheaded and what we are witnessing in Andrea del Sarto's painting is the moment immediately after the powerful executioner has swung his sword, the moment when he hands the decapitated head to the women waiting on the left. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the dramatic centre of attention is in fact the powerful figure of the executioner, most unusually with his back to us, the implied (supernumerary) spectators. The now-perishing body of the saint, still resting against the executioner's block, is spurting blood from the neck, a fact adding to the realism of the drama.

So, if the idea itself of decapitation is not dramatic enough then the 'realism' of this depiction - especially the gesture of the executioner as he hands over the head, and the gushing blood - definitely contributes to making it so. Thus it would seem that 'drama' is not a prerogative of the Baroque as it is obvious, here and in numerous other pictures from the Renaissance, that it too could treat drama. Another supposed characteristic of the Baroque was its 'theatricality'; a more theatrical staging of such a scene as Del Sarto has made here is hard to imagine. Figurative art, especially if dealing with a narrative (story telling), is of necessity theatrical. If by 'theatrical', in relation to the Baroque, what is meant is exaggerated gestures, exaggerated facial expressions as one often does see in theatrical performances, then yes, that is a reasonable observation; although, given that we are frequently observing dramatic events in Baroque pictures, then surely it follows that, at least sometimes, extreme gestures and facial expressions will be appropriate, will be dramatic - and possibly seeming 'theatrical' to the detached 21st century admirer of pictures.

But I believe there is a distinct difference between the drama in a Renaissance painting and that in a Baroque one: movement. In the fresco discussed above, in the Chiostro dello Scalzo, the image is fundamentally static; to use a modern expression, it is a 'still shot' from a movie; the action, complete and dramatic as it is, remains frozen, as though captured in a photograph. Baroque painting attempts, within the obvious limitations of a painted image, to convey the idea of movement. Naturally, there is no actual movement as we are dealing with a painted image on a canvas or wall; but the suggestion of sequential transition from one moment in time to another is I believe a defining characteristic of many Baroque paintings.

In place of the inherent stillness of the typical Renaissance pyramidal pictorial structure, many Baroque pictures make use of the diagonal, an inherently 'mobile' device as it encourages the eye to move from one position to another, normally upwards, across the image; and this upward direction is also unusual in Renaissance work as the general direction of observation was from the front plane into the depth of the (perspective) illusion. Caravaggio re-introduced to Rome, in his early pictures, the classical view, that of an image that could be 'read' from left to right, at the same time bringing the action of half-length figures right up to the picture plane itself while neutralising the depth behind the action in an amorphous void of black or near-black. And, like his namesake Michelangelo (Buonarroti), Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) normally dispensed with the background setting: no perspective meant no looking into depth, instead encouraging a reading across the image. He thus changed the viewer from being an observer of others - very often seen as complete figures - acting in a narrative, to being not quite a participant in the action but now a close proximity spectator of it: no longer truly an 'observer' as with much Renaissance work, but rather a passer-by, or bystander, witnessing the action at full size, so to speak. His half-figures, close up to the picture plane and virtually life-size, make the viewer a de facto witness, no longer a distant, detached observer.

Judith Beheading Holofernes, c.1599, oil on canvas by Caravaggio. 

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini, Rome.

(Owing to the lighting in the gallery, the photo was taken from an angle resulting in the present distortion)

In the painting above, the drama takes place in a minimally described space, reading from left to right, with the large fore-shortened body of Holofernes suggesting what depth there might be with his green blanket and the heavy red drape hanging in the shallow distance. The three figures are in fact placed very close to the picture-plane, that is, to us! So much so that the dying man's left hand is almost in our space: it has almost left the fictive space of the illusion and 'penetrated' the actual space in front of the canvas! Compared with our relationship to the Andrea del Sarto Decapitation above, in this Caravaggio we are no longer simply watching, we are, willy-nilly, virtually participating witnesses in an expanded dramatic space. In addition, while reading from left to right we are simultaneously reading from 'below' to 'above': in other words, there is a diagonal compositional structure governing the 'movement' in this painting. Here the diagonal moves from the strong line of the sheet rising in the lower left, then continues through the sword and up into Judith's arms (her right arm leading to her determined face). This rising movement also takes us from the dying Holofernes, almost reaching into our space, slightly deeper into the fictive world, so that we can see more of Judith, standing further back and higher. Of course, it might be argued that the movement starts at the opposite end, that is, with the beautiful and arresting face of Judith and then continues downwards, through the same elements, to Holofernes and his tightly clenched bedding. Whichever direction one chooses, there is a direction and its a diagonal one.

We saw earlier that Caravaggio had re-introduced to Rome an ancient Roman way of composing images, that is in friezes which we read from left to right, and that the half-figure was another innovation of his, together with a diagonal structure, so the question arises as to where he might have got these ideas himself. The answer would seem to require us to shift our focus north from Rome to Lombardy where Caravaggio came from. This extreme northern region of Italy was linked, at least culturally, to the Veneto region and therefore to Venetian painting. At this point we must remind ourselves that pictures were commissioned and bought -  originals, duplicates and copies - from all over Italy and indeed Europe; and especially those of masters such as Titian and Veronese.

In the case of Veronese and other Venetians, it is clear that the diagonal was an established structural or compositional device. There seems to be some evidence that Caravaggio had visited Venice on his peregrinations towards Rome but, as just pointed out, Venetian paintings could be seen in many places other than in Venice itself.

The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, 1565-70 by Paolo Caliari called Veronese

Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia (Venice).

(Image: from the Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia website: Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 4.0 Internazionale)

The photo above is an example of Veronese using the diagonal as the principal structural device. Although the Renaissance triangle is still operative, the eye of the viewer is controlled, directed, by the diagonal rising in the lower right of the painting and ascending to the Madonna's face; the residual triangle may be continued then from the head of the Madonna down across her chest and along the shoulder of the 'instructing' angel in the lower left of the picture. Needless to say, this composition and many others have a more complex composition than just one or two lines but here the diagonal is a major structural element *. In fact, when we first look at this painting, the rather obvious diagonal movement is what initially strikes us; in addition, despite the horizontal stairs at the base, this diagonal - which passes through both the face of the Child and that of his mother - is reinforced by two of the major folds in the drapery wrapped around the corinthian columns behind and above the Madonna.

The Discovery of the Body of Saint Mark, 1562-66, oil on canvas by Jacopo Robusti called Tintoretto (1519-94). Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Another Venetian painter who made use of the diagonal is Tintoretto, as is clearly obvious in the image above. The almost too-strong diagonal beginning in the top right corner and its corresponding one at the lower right (forming the right wall of the arcade) pull our eyes forcefully into the fictive - but convincing - depth of this painting. The foreground figures however have virtually no relationship with the diagonals, spread out as they are more-or-less across the front plane of the image. In Caravaggio and much Baroque work by contrast, the figures themselves form the diagonal: it is not merely a geometrical structure, as above.

Here perhaps we should recognise again that many pictures, in many eras, including the Baroque and including some of those by Caravaggio himself, do not have a diagonal composition; many paintings have a central focus, a constant of Western painting from ancient Roman art onwards; in the wonderful MANN in Naples (the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli) there are many objects recovered from the unearthing of Pompeii and Herculaneum, including whole walls of frescos. Very interestingly, it is precisely in the marvellous architectural perspectives that we can see the importance of a central focus; in fact, in much Roman art, the importance of symmetry is plainly obvious, however, that said, in wall paintings of people in the countryside for example, the Roman painter still had some way to go in terms of composition: allowed the freedom from the constraints of painted architectural decoration, the Roman painter tended to place his or her figures somewhat haphazardly across the visual field of the composition.

An ancient wall fresco from Pompeii or Herculaneum in the collection of the MANN, Naples.

In the photo above, taken this year at the MANN, we see an example of such an architectural fresco (with my nephew beside it for scale). Close scrutiny reveals that every aspect of this painting is centralised, something we might expect in a Renaissance altarpiece made after the re-discovery of the principles of perspective drawing; 're-discovery' because, as is clear in this photo, the Romans were almost completely au fait with the required geometry. The fresco is damaged at the very top but, looking for example at the row of little figures painted on the projecting brackets or corbels (mensole) on either side of the (central) door, we see that their shadows, in  the space between the top corbels and the bottom ones, follow the logic of a central light source: on one side, falling from the left, on the other, falling from the right. Although not completely correct in terms of our later understanding of the rules of perspective illusion, we have to admit that, overall, it's pretty good! But back to Baroque painting.

In Naples, the popularity of the diagonal, and the profound influence of the ideas of Caravaggio, may be gauged by looking at two paintings, both of the same subject and both painted within a few years of each other: the Pietà, one by Andrea Vaccaro and one by Jusepe de Ribera.

The Pieta, 1640-50, oil on canvas by Andrea Vaccaro (1604-70)

Museum of the Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples

In the first, by Andrea Vaccaro, the diagonal again moves from the lower right up through the centre of the image towards the top left of the canvas. The theme, the Pietà, or the Mourning over the dead body of Christ, is a very common one in Christian art; here however, rather than have the mourning figures placed around the central horizontal corpse of Christ, His body is stretched out in a diagonal linking (almost) the top left corner with the lower right. Instead of all being brightly illuminated as it might be in a (Renaissance) Perugino for instance, only the body is strongly illuminated - along with the heads of the other main actors - out of the depthless void of the surrounding darkness of their misery: the psychological drama!

Pietà, 1637, oil on canvas by Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652)

Museum of the Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples

Ribera, although from Spain, was one of the most influential painters in Baroque Naples - at that time in fact under the dominion of Spain; he has Christ stretched across the lower third of his canvas, with the diagonal moving from the opposite direction, that is, from left to right. Again, the light, perhaps not so strong as in the Vaccaro, illuminates the corpse and the faces of the women mourners, as well as a small angel in the top left, whose little body forms a cruciform shape. The importance of the suffering of Mary, Christ's mother, is accented in this picture, with her face, highlighted, almost in the centre of the composition. Both of these painters and others in Naples at this time - incidentally, after the death of Caravaggio in 1610 - make use of the diagonal composition and importantly, of the strong contrast between large areas of darkness (scuro) and relatively smaller but concentrated areas of light (chiaro). 

To point up the profound difference the compositional angularity makes (the diagonal), let's finish by returning to Venice and a smallish Pietà painted by one of its masters, Giovanni Bellini. The typically Renaissance (and earlier) frontal view of Christ being nursed by his grieving mother and assisted by the distraught Saint John, with its verticality and comparatively bright and very detailed landscape background, contrasts markedly with the principal tenets of the later Caravaggism of the Baroque. The poses are different, the angles are different, the light is different, the drawing is different; but the half-figures are common to early Caravaggio and to subsequent Roman and Neapolitan Baroque.

Pietà, c.1460, tempera on panel by Giovanni Bellini (1435 - c.1516)

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Where does this leave us with our question concerning the origins of Caravaggio's 'revolution", or his ideas at least? From the little I have observed - and the even less that I know - it appears that, coming himself from Milan, that he must have, obviously had, taken certain cues from the art around him, most likely indicated by his first master Simone Peterzano. The dominant Venetian school with its various tendencies is possibly the most probable source of some of the typical elements which we associate with Caravaggio and caravaggism.

* The Veronese discussed here has in fact a rather complex surface structure: starting with the diagonal described above and the implied triangle and its base - the horizontal stairs - there are as well two or three other 'active' lines. The most obvious is the vertical of the two columns which, if continued downwards to meet the stairs, form a right-angle with them and therefore another triangle, completed with the dominant diagonal. But there is another 'minor' diagonal, formed this time from the shoulder of the large angel in the lower left corner which then passes through the Madonna's chest and face into the space between the small blue-winged angel and the larger blonde-haired one with his arms folded; at the same time intersecting the dominant diagonal, thus forming a Saint Andrew's Cross. This intersection creates an empty space on the right which has an arrow-head shape - or, yet another triangle - one which is a quite common by-product of the use of diagonals.

Veronese's Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine with the principal compositional lines drawn by the author, again using the image from the Venetian Accademia.

Note: Except where indicated, all photographs were taken by the author.

 

Napoli: the Certosa di San Martino

 My second visit to the extraordinary Certosa di San Martino, which looks down across the Bay of Naples, was made last month in the company of my now grown-up nephew. We had decided to meet in Sicily, at Catania, and to then see Napoli together; I was particularly keen for him to experience the Certosa and so we went there one fine morning and passed several hours happily taking-in the wealth of visual stimulation housed in this de facto museum.

The Certosa di San Martino, as intimated, occupies the top of a high hill and, at certain points provides the unsuspecting visitor with a spectacular vista, in particular from the ex-Prior’s apartments. A massive, not quite 360 degree-view of the Bay, the city, the waterfront and Vesuvius takes one’s breath away and provides a much needed break from the Certosa's extensive collection of Baroque architecture, painting and sculpture; all of which is the result of the renewal of different areas of this Carthusian monastery, initiated towards the end of the 16th century.

The spectacular view from the Prior's quarters in the Certosa di San Martino, Naples

Hoping not to exaggerate, I would say that probably the majority of the pictures is from the Baroque period even if the renovation of the structures began in the preceding Mannerist style and indeed continued into the subsequent Rococo period, with  beautiful paintings by Francesco De Mura for example. But the original stimulus for visiting this place was its renowned collection of Baroque paintings, a personal late appreciation of which has developed over recent years, and especially after visiting Sicily and Naples (not to mention Rome, the undisputed centre of the Baroque).

Taking only one section of one room in one part of this very large complex, what we are going to consider today is some fresco work (around 1624) on the vault of this room - the Sala Capitolare - and some oil pictures in the lunettes below. The frescos were painted by the Greek-Italian artist Belisario Corenzio (1558-1646), a student of Tintoretto and the master of Massimo Stanzione (another important Baroque painter, see Note 2). In the section visible in the photograph below there are four frescos, each representing or personifying a ‘virtue’: Prudence, Merit, Obedience and Honour. Leaving aside any discussion of these virtues as ethical or moral attributes, what appealed to me as a painter is the, I think, fairly obvious use of portraiture for the Merit and Honour images. Remembering that this is a Certosa, a kind of monastery, and at the time, the 16th and 17th centuries, full of monks of all ages, the ready supply of men willing to sit for a painting - or, at least a drawing - could hardly have been ignored.

Frescos of the Virtues by Belisario Corenzio; oil pictures of Founding Fathers in the lunettes by Paolo Finoglio. Sala Capitolare, Certosa di San Martino, Naples

Whereas the female figures in this group could have required models, which the painter might have found anywhere in the city, their somewhat more generic appearance, particularly of the figure of Obedience, suggests that, as in many religious paintings, certain faces were adapted from a repertoire of pre-existing sketches and drawings. This fact is interesting because the habit and necessity of working from drawings, especially for frescos, meant that certain ‘types’ evolved within a given artist’s oeuvre, particularly for ‘minor’ actors in large compositions; as remarked elsewhere, the existence of a true portrait in such images is immediately apparent as it differs noticeably from the more generic ‘types’ surrounding it. Here, the male faces on the other hand, especially as they represent members of the community’s order, would seem to be portraits, the more successful of the pair being that of Merit although, that said, both faces appear to be from the same model. Thus, as portrait studies, in fresco, in the Baroque period, they are a little unusual and, in this case, remarkably bright, straightforward and ‘modern’!

Now let's consider the lunette pictures (1624-25?) painted in oil on canvas below the frescos just described (a ‘lunette’ is a crescent moon-shape lying horizontally, often situated above doors and windows or filling-in that shape created, as here, by the architecture of the ceiling). These wonderful pictures were painted by Paolo Finoglio (?1590-1645) and exemplify the strong influence of Caravaggio (d. 1610) on many painters in both Naples and Rome, and elsewhere. The strong contrast of light and dark, or perhaps better, the powerful complimentary rapport between areas of strong light and deep vague and dark space, virtually throws the subject out of the fictive world of the painted image into our own physical one. This characteristic of much Baroque painting is most obvious in the left-hand lunette in our photo above, the one with the saint wearing the white habit of his order (this series is made up of images of founding fathers of religious orders), cradling and contemplating the book in his right hand (detail below).

A slightly fuzzy detail of the San Romualdo (?) oil on canvas lunette by Paolo Finoglio

Sala Capitolare, Certosa di San Martino, Naples

Unlike the female virtues in the frescos above whom we seem to be regarding from below 1, Finoglio’s saints are seen as though we were looking at them from directly in front. These views, that is, an illusionistic one from below, looking up (dal sotto-in-su in Italian) and one as if seen from directly in front (‘quadri riportati’ if on ceilings) are commonly seen in Baroque painting - and in other periods; however, during the Baroque, the view from below, painted as if real, became very common, both in churches and in wealthy private homes (palazzi). Even though here we must look up to see these oil paintings on the walls (above eye level), the images are, as said, painted as though we were in front of the subject.

Needless to say I suppose, the drawing of these figures is completely confident and masterful, the poses appropriate to the confined area of the canvases and the expressiveness vibrant if contemplative, as would seem suitable for a religious house. In the image of this father in white (possibly San Romualdo), the light coming from the left fully illuminates the saint, specifically his white habit (and his accompanying cherub), as it glances across the objects on the table slightly further back - that is to say, a typically Caravaggesque treatment of the elements in a composition. Superfluous detail, even that describing the environment in which the action occurs - the setting - is reduced to a minimum, if suggested at all 2.

A detail showing both Corenzio's fresco 'portrait' of Merit (Meritum) and below, in the lunette, Finoglio's supposed San Romauldo oil on canvas.

Incidentally, we might notice the tonal difference between the fresco parts of the image above and the parts painted in oil. One of the beauties of 'buon fresco', or 'affresco' as it is known in Italian, is its clean light and pale colour: by its nature it makes use of the wet plaster (hence: fresco or 'fresh') which is white, and the water pigments which are absorbed into that plaster therefore have a relatively pale complexion. Oil colours on the other hand have a much greater tonal range, moving from pure white to deep black. The image above shows this difference very well; not simply because Finoglio has deliberately used dark colours in his picture is it darker than the frescos above it: the coloured pigments mixed with oil simply do have more depth. The resulting contrast between the two mediums produces, to my mind, two independent yet (here) complementary mental 'spaces' so to speak; the frescos offer clear 'factual' information; the oils a more inward, mediative model; keeping in mind that these images were to be seen principally by members of a religious house: the Certosa itself. That is, they were not made for 21st century tourists!

1 Looking at the first photo and the female Virtues, we notice that the corbels and the other architecture which surrounds them (their thrones) are seen from below; note also the 'carved' grotesque faces on the undersides of those corbels. Close scrutiny of the male Virtues also reveals that we are looking at them from below: notice for instance that we can see the underside of the book held by Meritum.

2 Just to point-up the importance of and interest in the colour white on the part of painters working at the Certosa, here is another painting in which white is a dominant theme: it was painted by Massimo Stanzione around 1633-37, as mentioned, a student of Finoglio. Of course, white seems to have been the colour of the habit of the Certosini, that is the members of that community and so it is natural, in paintings retelling the crucial events in the Order's history, that white would appear quite often; but the interest for a painter, or a student of painting, is the way that artists handled the white in their pictures.

The Appearance of the Virgin and St. Peter to the Certosini of Grenoble by Massimo Stanzione; oil on canvas. A difficult picture to photograph thus the unfortunate angle. Note the brilliant dispositions and gradations of the whites in this large painting making them, as in the Finoglio discussed above, almost abstract studies of 'still-life' form.

Describe or Express?

 

 Sant'Andrea della Valle, Rome; a large Baroque basilica whose façade was designed by Carlo Rainaldi; it was completed in 1667. The building itself was designed by several architects including Carlo Maderno and Giacomo della Porta. The interior decoration was completed in 1650 with frescos by Giovanni Lanfranco, Domenichino and Mattia Preti among others. 

 What we are going to look at now is the slow but clear translation, in painting particularly, of an illustrative conception of representation into an expressive one. Beginning with some late medieval examples, we will move through the Renaissance to the period of the Baroque. First though, what do we mean by these terms 'illustrative' and 'expressive'? In an earlier article, Painting versus Illustration, I attempted to illucidate what I meant by this term 'illustrative' but, in short, it is a formal approach in Western art (painting especially) which is based primarily on the use of line which itself implies a heavy reliance on drawing independently of colour. Naturally, as it happens, many types of illustration do make use of colour of course but, in fine art painting, line is, so to say the guide, the controlling element and colour has more the role of decoration. Illustrative work in fine art painting is drawn pictures, which are then coloured, and which have as their scope the clear visual explication or narration of a story or event, or even of a concept. I hope it's obvious that here we are not concerned with prints and drawings per se but rather, in the main, with painted fine art pictures; that said, line is used in sculpture as well and we will see some examples in this essay.

Expressive work on the other hand, in the periods under discussion, while still being fully capable of telling a story - and required by patrons to do so - has as its principal 'art' focus the emotional import of the image and, in painting, this means the at least equally important function or role of colour: often applied 'expressively', that is, robustly and with some force (as opposed to 'colouring-in' a  drawing). The application itself of the colour is an expression of the painter's emotional involvement in the representation of the given subject (not necessarily in the subject per se however). This is not to say that line-dependent work is not expressive but, from a formal point of view, the expression is not in particular related to the colour nor its physical application.

The Annunciation, a large fresco, whose author unfortunately is unknown to me, in an area under the present cathedral of Siena in Italy.

This photo shows the remains of a wonderful medieval fresco, obviously extremely degraded, so much so that parts of the brick wall on which it sits are clearly visible. For our purposes though, it remains a good example of the importance of line - the original line drawing on the plaster - and the 'addition' of colour to complete the image. The colours are still beautiful despite their age and general condition but the narrative function of the image is not dependent on the colour. In some areas, for example the angel's left leg, the colour works to define the form of the thigh and to indicate the direction of the light; however, this is fundamentally a coloured-in drawing, especially if compared with pictures made in the Baroque period. In relation to the Donatello work below, we might notice here that the two figures, the angel and the Virgin Mary, are not so much in an environment, as they are rather placed on top of a symbolic suggestion  of one.

It is believed that certain of the large frescos illustrating the life of Saint Francis in the upper church of the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi were painted by an artist known as the 'Saint Cecilia Master'; this is because the style of those two or three frescos - somewhat different from those thought to be by Giotto - resembles his style quite closely. In the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is a very beautiful work illustrating the life of Saint Cecilia; at present, the real name of the painter of that work is unknown so he is referred to as the Saint Cecilia Master. And, as just said, the style of some of the Life of Saint Francis frescos - for example, the Cure of the Man from Lerida - is so similar to the style of the Uffizi work that they have been attributed to that same master.

Stories of the Life of Saint Cecilia (detail) by the Saint Cecilia Master, c. 1300.

 Tempera and gold leaf on wooden panels.  Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence.

In the detail of the multi-panelled work shown in the photo above we see different episodes of the life of the early Christian martyr Saint Cecilia who was born and died in Rome (d.230 AD). At the period in which these small pictures were painted, around 1300, artists were expected to represent the stories and legends of the Christian faith in an easily comprehensible and attractive way, partly because illiteracy was common and uneducated people relied, in part, on the clarity of such representations for their knowledge of the lives of Christ and the saints. The story in the top section of the photo apparently represents both Saint Cecilia and her spouse, a certain Valerian, agreeing to respect her virginity! In 1300 the faithful would already have known the story from listening to the teachings of their priests and, in all probability - although perhaps obscure to us - would have recognised the particular event as part of the life of Saint Cecilia. These exquisite little paintings fulfil the brief as it were, very well and relate the events clearly and colourfully; that said, and as beautiful as the colour is, these pictures are essentially linear in character and could in fact function  - certainly not as delightfully - without the colour. It might be observed incidentally that this master has made an attempt at 'correct' perspective in the drawing of the environments in which the events take place; as well, he has respected the relative sizes of the people vis-à-vis the buildings. This is a break from the norm of the time which very often had the human figures completely out of scale in relation to the buildings, that is, too large. 

The Crucifixion, 1255-60, by Nicola Pisano; marble

The Pulpit of the Baptistry of Pisa 

Piazza dei Miracoli, Pisa, Italy

I have included this extraordinary work by Nicola Pisano as it demonstrates several things. It predates the Saint Cecilia work by about 40 years; this is relevant because, in art historical terms, it is actually more advanced (1) than the Saint Cecilia work in three specific ways: first, it is clear that Nicola has looked very closely at classical Roman sculpture - an uncommon approach until much later - traits of which may be seen for instance in the figures of the two women on the extreme left, those supporting the fainting Madonna; secondly, and related very much to the first point, the crowding or massing of figures, possibly also derived from certain Roman works including sarcophagi, anticipates by about 240 years a very similar and characteristic development in Mannerist painting (see below). Thirdly, his debt to classical sculpture is manifest also in his rendering of the naked human figure, particularly, in this case, the physique of Christ; other panels on the same pulpit show this knowledge even more clearly. And, importantly, while the linear qualities of this image are relatively pronounced, so too is the expression of sentiment and emotion (pathos), even if some of the means are typical of the time (gestures and facial expressions). (2)

The next art history period we might consider is the Renaissance. By this time much had changed, both in art and in the general philosophical climate. With the renewed interest in and continual rediscovery of the 'classical' culture of the ancient Greco-Roman periods - in literature as well as in painting, sculpture and architecture - art moved away from the often simplistic story-telling of the medieval eras and became, gradually, more intellectual in tone and therefore more sophisticated in its representations. Although the fundamental dependence on line - or drawing - persisted, the manner of its use and the complexity of picture composition and content began to change. In early 15th century Florence, artists and theorists brought the pictorial rendering of space to a new level with their understanding and systemisation of linear perspective. In the little scene just referred to, painted by the Saint Cecilia Master, the artist has made a commendable attempt to represent the room in which the event occurs as a 'real' space, even if the effect is fanciful in various ways; roughly a century later, the associated problems valiantly but intuitively confronted by late-medieval artists have been overcome; artists, both painters and sculptors, now had a clear mathematical procedure with which to compose their images, and the coherent illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface became commonplace.

The Banquet of Herod, 1423-27 by Donatello; low- and high-relief bronze panel, 60 x 60 cm

Baptistry of Siena.

The photo above shows one of the many masterpieces of the great Renaissance sculptor Donatello (Donato di Nicolò di Betto Bardi, 1386?-1466); the panel is obviously not a painting but it demonstrates how the newly re-discovered knowledge of perspective was used not only in painting but in sculpture as well. Looking at this scene, we are very clear about the space in which the events occur and the thoroughly convincing way the different areas recede deeper into the image. In addition, the figures, whether in the foreground (where Herod is shown the decapitated head of John the Baptist) or in the different background spaces (musicians and, further back, where the Baptist's head is presented to Herod's wife), are of an entirely new 'realism' compared with the somewhat puppet-like ones of the Saint Cecilia Master. We know that Donatello studied (in Rome) ancient Roman sculpture, signs of which are visible not only in the figures - most obviously in those in the middle-ground - but patently in the architectural environment in which the story unfolds. We should also note the 'movement' of the foreground figures, varied and expressive of differing reactions and emotions, again quite at odds (in their 'realism') with the restrained if often elegant mode of the medieval period. Interestingly, a close look at this Banquet panel reveals, together with what has already been noticed, the critical use of line to define the perspective and the building materials of the various rooms that make up its environment (actually containing three separate scenes). And, like Nicola Pisano, Donatello anticipates some later developments.

The Senigallia Madonna, 1474, by Piero della Francesca, oil and tempera on panel, 61 x 53.5 cm

Galleria Nazionale delle Marche at Urbino

This painting is exhibited behind glass creating the unfortunate reflections visible in this photograph.

Piero della Francesca is what might be called an archetypal Renaissance painter since his work exemplifies many of the concerns of Renaissance artists and thinkers. He was a master of perspective, writing books on the subject as well as mathematical texts; his paintings demonstrate his profound knowledge of perspective, and classical Roman architecture; his immobile and quiet figures and his major paintings are hierarchical in structure and portray a mystical sensibility, one also seen in medieval art, but 'modernised' in keeping with the prevalent humanist outlook among intellectuals of the time; in other words, preserving certain aspects of earlier christological thought but much tempered by a re-acquaintance with classical art and literature, contrasting (or imposing) a physical, science-centred world with the previously deity- and dogma-centred one.

The painting above uses a composition in which the viewer is, so to speak 'confronted with' a formalised religious statement, normally symmetrically balanced around a central axis, with at least one of the principal actors - in this case the Christ-child - looking directly at us. Piero has here placed the iconic group of the Mother and Child squarely in the centre of the image, but also right up against the picture-plane, that is, as close to us as is possible. The two 'spirit' attendants, two angels, stand quietly but attentively 'on guard' as it were, one of them also focused deliberately on us. The scene however recedes by degrees into another room, on our left, which more-or-less dramatically increases the 'space' we are observing. The high realism of the physical environment in which this scene is placed - especially as the Madonna's proximity to us pushes it into our space in a way - makes this representation completely different from that of the Saint Cecilia Master, increasing the sense that the sacred events and personages are, in a certain way, more 'real', closer to us as human beings. Piero della Francesca though was a particularly 'restrained' master and, with the exception of his main battle-piece in the cycle of frescos at Arezzo (the Legend of the True Cross) - and even there -  would not normally be described as emotionally expressive even though his 'restraint' permits a strong appeal to the intellect.

These remarks apply largely to religious images of a certain type and the centrally-placed main actor is not an invention of the Renaissance, as can be seen in Byzantine and Gothic images of Christ Pantocrator; the difference lies in the 'humanity' of the divine beings and their proximity to us, their coming down to earth so to say, as opposed to their previous 'regal' distance. Another mark of this quasi-humanity is the size itself of the actors in religious art. Very often but not always, the main figures, be they Christ, the Madonna or saints, were shown as significantly larger than minor actors and especially so if there were any actual (human) person included in the image. This gradation continued into the Renaissance period but the relative sizes of, for instance Christ compared with a saint, began to be equalised. Given these considerations, Renaissance painters still relied upon line as a defining formal principle, that is, as an initial delineation of a figure's form and, with perspective, its position in the composition's space. Within this period however, in Italy, there were differences depending on whether or not the particular 'school' of painting was more or less influenced by Tuscan ideas (3); painters in Venice for instance tended over time to blur the edges of their figures, particularly as the paint itself became a more active element of the finished image (4).

A detail of The Battle of the Centaurs, 1491-92 by Michelangelo, marble

Casa Buonarotti, Florence

This unfinished marble relief was begun by Michelangelo when he was about 16 years old. What is interesting, amongst much else, is this very early indication of where he would go much later when he began work on the Last Judgement fresco (1535) in the Sistine Chapel: that is, in the highly expressive, nude figures crowded into a sometimes very shallow space. 

This process of increasing realism stimulated, strangely enough, a compositional revolution in the succeeding period, that known as Mannerism. This revolution began in Florence under the influence of the never-ending researches of Michelangelo (1475-1564): notable, in relation to the remarked high realism of Piero della Francesca's spaces, because of his (Michelangelo's) almost total lack of interest in perspective - and by implication, buildings of any sort - or landscape. Michelangelo's 'events', at least in painting, are almost always devoid of a setting, in the usual sense; his focus was always on the human body as the vehicle of his ideas, the body as a locus of the divine, a focus which by implication increased the importance of the spiritual by removing the earthly from the equation (buildings, rooms, landscape). These omissions and Michelangelo's piling-up of figures, particularly in the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, had earlier encouraged his admirers in Florence to do the same; in a way, this manner refocused the spiritual in religious pictures (by omitting an earthly context) even while the formal considerations - drawing, colour and especially the physically expressive human body - remained important. Still maintaining the dominance of Tuscan line, expressiveness appeared via the concentrated, even contorted, movement and crowding of human bodies - whether representing gods or men.

The Descent of Christ into Limbo (detail) by Agnolo Bronzino, 1552

Oil on panel, Museo dell'Opera di Santa Croce, Firenze.

The photo above shows a detail of a very large picture by the Florentine Mannerist painter known as Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano Torri, 1503-72), a disciple of Pontormo, another early Mannerist. The detail shows quite clearly the crowding of figures which almost completely fills the entire composition and, as such, makes this wonderful picture a typical Mannerist creation: beautiful drawing, absolute control of the rendering of the human body - even if somewhat stylised in Bronzino's work - and a wilful disregard for space as conceived of in the Renaissance proper. The sometimes unsubtle implied eroticism of much Mannerist painting (especially in Bronzino) tends to distract from, if not actually negate, the supposed religious or moral message! As in Michelangelo, Bronzino creates 'space' by the overlapping and, in this case, the 'interpenetration' of many figures; here as well, a fairly pronounced eroticism is at play, obvious in the so-to-say sensually luxuriating female figure in this detail, but expressed as well in some of the male figures, the one behind her for instance.

Implied or outright eroticism were common enough in the period which developed out of both the Renaissance and Mannerism and which is known as Baroque (Barocco in Italian). Even if this period had two branches, the classically-inspired and the, we might say, anti-classical, both have in common a quite robust sensuality, bordering from time-to-time on overt eroticism, and this eroticism could be expressed just as easily in sacred as in profane subjects; the same sacred subjects treated by many artists over previous centuries and not eroticised. It is possible to see the beginnings of this tendency again in the later work of Michelangelo, and here we might call to mind some of his Crucifixion drawings, made in Rome: the still-living Christ is, so to say, contorted into a kind of sensuous spasm, a spasm just as easily transferable to a figure on a bed! And if we go further back, to the Sistine Ceiling frescos, the image of Adam itself is one of languorous unabashed sensuality. In the 17th century Rome of the Barberini - Pope Urban VIII - the Borghese, the Del Monte and so on, sensuality as a 'lived experience' was the order of the day.

A major example of this sensual proclivity is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculptural group,  the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, 1647-52, by Bernini, marble (the two figures)

Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.

The sculpture, with its essential strong natural light and fictive bronze rays, portrays the moment when the Spanish saint Teresa of Avila (1515-82) is visited by an angel who, according to her own account, pierces her with a painful yet ecstatically pleasurable arrow. The ecstatic part is the element Bernini has sought and very successfully managed to convey, better photos showing clearly the beautiful saint's seemingly erotically-charged reaction to the presence and activity of the equally beautiful boy-angel! The whole drama takes place in a theatrical mis-en-scene composed of coloured marble columns and walls, with, on either side, 'stalls' containing the half-figures of members of the Cornaro family to whom the chapel belonged. Many of Bernini's religious figures are without doubt charged with a type of ecstatic sensuality and some, like his Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, and even the Angel of the Superscription, as well as his free-standing mythological sculptures, such as the Apollo and Daphne, are, like the Saint Teresa, more-or-less obviously erotic. And whereas eroticism is normally associated with some degree of undress, Bernini has here conveyed this sensation using one figure (Teresa) who is fully clothed and another (the angel) who is at least  modestly so; the eroticism stems from the facial expressions of both the angel and particularly the saint - Teresa's open mouth and closed eyes clearly at the height of stimulation - and also from her ecstatic pose with its fundamentally 'abstractly' convulsing clothing.

Although not regarded as a Baroque artist, Caravaggio may be seen as a forerunner of some of this latent (and often explicit) erotic propensity, again, to a marked degree in some of his religious or, at least, biblically-inspired pictures. The titular subject of some of these, his David with the Head of Goliath (in the Borghese collection, Rome) and his various Saint John the Baptists, without the biblical connotation of their titles and attributes, would simply be more-or-less erotic studies of boys! And it seems that some of his patrons, cardinals though they may have been, had, let's say, leanings towards homo-erotic subjects. Whether or not, Caravaggio - who is known to have had various girlfriends - or Bernini - who was married but had at least one mistress whose portrait he sculpted (Costanza Bonarelli, Bargello, Florence) - were responsible for the choice of subject depended on the circumstances of the moment. Both artists it would appear made works for themselves, off their own bats as it were, that is, independently of commissions and patronage. Other pieces, in fact most in the case of Bernini at least, were determined by those who commissioned them but who, at the same time, allowed a remarkable degree of creative freedom to these two masters - although on a couple of occasions initial works by Caravaggio were rejected (for instance, the first version of Saint Matthew and the Angel for the Roman church of San Luigi dei Francesi)!

But clearly, there was something in the air of Rome at that time, the early and middle part of the 1600s, which permitted if not actually encouraged the overt sensuality (not necessarily always erotic), not only in painting and sculpture, but also in architecture. Sensuality per se did not suddenly appear in Rome, or elsewhere, because it had existed, perhaps always, in various guises - particularly in literature - but, in the visual arts, in sublimated or disguised form. And naturally, we are here referring mainly to religious images, possibly the vast majority of the art produced in Italy at that time and in the preceding centuries; but even in profane subjects, especially mythological ones with some sexual content, given the dominant influence of the Church, the eroticism was by-and-large suggested rather than stated.

But the nominal religious, historical or mythological content of images was obvious even if sometimes one had to be 'in-the-know' to understand the recondite references; but at the same time, in Rome and Naples, sensuality was expressed in the drawing and the colour of paintings; or rather, the actual application of the paint. More and more, the paint was not only the colour added to a drawing to complete the effect, it became the vehicle of expression itself. Oddly, in some cases, because of the influence of Caravaggio's strong discrimination of light and dark, colours per se were few, as large areas of black or nearly-black often reduced the number of colours necessary to make a composition 'work'. This frequently resulted in only one major colour note (often red) with shades of white serving as the substantive foil to the infinite space of black (as often in Caravaggio). 

Saint Sebastian's Wounds Tended by Saint Irena (detail) c.1653 by  Luca Giordano (1634-1705)

Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Victoria.

This image of Saint Sebastian - twice the victim of an emperor's displeasure, here after the first attempt at execution, with Saint Irena removing the arrows from his body - is a case in point. The implied eroticism is not only in the 'display' pose of the young man's body, but also in the application of the paint; this is not the illustrative manner of a painter 'filling-in' his or her drawing - beautiful as it may be - but the moulding of the figure, almost as though the painter were a sculptor working the clay of a figure with his or her bare hands. The expressiveness is therefore three-fold: in the pose itself; in the drawing, here without the clear, clean outline of 'Tuscan' heritage; and in the moulding application of the paint. None of these three is exclusive to Baroque art, nor did they originate then, but they do seem to have come together in a particular co-incidence of time and place, and with a particular coherence, resulting in an expressiveness which became characteristic of that same time-and-place.

The Lamentation over the Body of Christ, by Andrea Vaccaro (1604-70)

Oil on canvas. Museo Diocesano Donnaregina, Napoli

Both Giordano and Vaccaro - respectively the authors of the two pictures above - were born in Napoli and were important masters of the Baroque in that city although Giordano also worked in Rome, Florence, Venice and Madrid. In this painting of the Lamentation by Vaccaro we have another example of an almost nude male body, in all probability the de facto subject of the painting, with the three (clothed) female figures helping to turn this study of the nude into a part of Christ's Passion. Like the Giordano Saint Sebastian, the figure of Christ is beautifully made but decidedly less, shall we say, sensuous. The contours of His body are soft, as are those of all the figures; this, as in the Giordano, has two causes: first, the figures are made to, as it were, emerge from the surrounding darkness - in Caravaggio's late manner - and secondly, the emotional sensuality of such pictures - independently of the subjects - required it. 

Saint Sebastian, after 1490 by Perugino

Oil on panel. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Above is a photo of another, earlier Saint Sebastian, a large panel by the Renaissance painter Pietro Vannucci (c.1450-1524) known as Perugino, after his birthplace Perugia. The differences between this painting and the two Baroque examples above are fairly stark: firstly, we have what has been referred to here as 'Tuscan' drawing, a clear, well-defined outline of the figure; secondly, a permeating daylight which illumines not only the hapless saint but also the extensive background countryside; thirdly, small but important elements - for the Renaissance artist - of perspective drawing which help to establish not only the setting but also levels of space within the image (as well as a contrast between the man-made and the natural). Although quite restrained in terms of its colour, there are no deep blacks nor any bright whites; the tonal range is more-or-less from the middle of the scale down to well before we get to black. The subtle sensuality of this Saint Sebastian is that of spiritual transport, hardly comparable to 17th century eroticism. Rather, Perugino has invested this beautiful picture in his typically mystical mood, guided by the Renaissance models of nature and classical sculpture. The deep shadows, the indecipherable space, the physical mystery of Baroque painting are not to be found here.

It seems that some Baroque painters might conceivably trace their artistic heritage, their artistic sensitivity, back to Venice rather than to Florence. Paintings in Renaissance Florence tended to be light in tone with, like the Perugino above, a strong linear guiding principle. As mentioned in other places, while Venice also had its masters who clearly 'controlled' their paintings with line, relatively early-on they gradually began to favour a more sensuous use of the paint and therefore of colour. Venetian colour and the freer, more spontaneous brushwork appear to have migrated south, to Rome and Naples - partly through the powerful influence of Titian who was widely collected; his bravura use of the brush and his colour, when combined with the aesthetics of Caravaggio, produced what might be regarded as the formal visual characteristics of much of - not all however - Baroque easel painting.

Lucretia (detail), c.1630-35 by Artemisia Gentileschi

Oil on canvas. Private collection.

To finish this discussion we might look at this detail from a painting by the Baroque master Artemisia Gentileschi (1593- post 1654). This wonderful painter, famous in her own lifetime in Florence, Naples,  Rome and Madrid, has chosen a story from ancient Rome concerning the married woman Lucretia who committed suicide rather than live in undeserved shame; it was a popular subject painted several times by Artemisia herself. What is of interest here however is her confidently powerful manipulation of the paintbrush; a close look at the way she has applied the shades of the golden yellow-ochre of the subject's dress is typical of the expressive manner of much Baroque painting; in this case, unhurried, precise and still full of the sensual expression of the physical world. In fact, Artemisia's work is far from any false prudishness and reflects as much as any other artist her participation, at least at the easel, in the sensuous world of the Baroque. In this detail however, the relative clarity of some of the edges of the clothing - compared to the two pictures by Giordano and Vaccaro above - may be indicative of Artemisia having been her father's pupil: he, Orazio Gentileschi, originally a Tuscan painter.

1 'More advanced' here refers to advanced in time, ahead of its time; it does not refer to the quality of the work in question. None of the general comments in this article is to be taken as an opinion about the relative quality or appeal of any of the works discussed. 

2 A very interesting question arises from one of the figures in this Crucifixion panel, the man immediately to our right of the Cross, the one holding his garment across his body while gesturing towards Christ; in the upper basilica of Saint Francis at Assisi Cimabue painted a well-known Crucifixion: in his painting there is a very similar man in the same position relative to the Cross, performing a very similar gesture and quite clearly holding his garment across his body! Nicola Pisano lived between 1210 circa and 1287 circa, his dates are not at all certain; Cimabue lived between circa 1240 and 1302. It seems that the elder of the two masters was Nicola and the date of the pulpit is put at between 1255 and 1260; Cimabue's fresco in Saint Francis is obviously before 1302 (when he died) so it would appear that Cimabue may have borrowed this gesturing figure, holding his cloak across his body, from Nicola's pulpit! This said, that same figure, or versions of him, appear in other contemporary pictures so who borrowed what from whom is an interesting question.

The detail of the gesturing man in Cimabue's Crucifixion fresco in the upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. In passing, the remaining 'true' colour of the original fresco is seen here in the lower legs of the figure behind our subject, to our left; Cimabue's use of the incorrect white pigment has resulted in a kind of extraordinary x-ray image, which is the overall effect of this very large fresco.

3 By the terms 'Tuscan ideas' and 'Tuscan line' or '-Drawing' I am referring in part to the concepts found in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, published in 1568. For Vasari, drawing was the basis of all three arts and line was the fundamental aspect or attribute of drawing; in essence, the outline - of figures, particularly the human body - was the element which defined the form. Tuscan painting, and in fact other north-Italian schools, relied on clearly-defined outlines, not only when planning a picture, the initial drawing on the panel, canvas or wall, but also in the final, painted version. As time passed, this dominance began to give way to much less-well-defined outlines and eventually, as in much Baroque painting, clear outlines per se virtually disappeared.

4 Venetian artists such as Giovanni Bellini (d. 1516) and Vittore Carpaccio (d. 1525/6) were obviously 'linear' painters in so far as their pictures are initially dependent on line, a dependence which co-exists with the colour in the finished pictures. These painters may be compared to their much less linear compatriots Titian and Tintoretto: a telling comparison may be made by putting side-by-side a typical Botticelli (Tuscan) and a late Titian (Venetian). Mention should also be made of the fact that Bernini, although born in Naples to a Neapolitan mother and a Florentine father, referred to himself as Florentine; his great patron, Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII, was also from a Florentine family.