Some observations on the Triangle in Renaissance Art

 

Triangles were very popular in renaissance art, not the geometric figures per se but as enclosing abstract structures around a human body, a kind of intellectual cake-making template into which a human figure could be accommodated. I would like to start with one which has been remarked previously and that is the half-awake guard on the lower left of Piero della Francesca's Resurrection fresco. This figure forms so clearly a triangle that he is somewhat of an oddity amongst his fellow soldiers; he is nicely contained within the triangular shape and is in addition, shown completely in profile. In comparison, his companions are in various positions, the two central ones especially reminiscent of those in other artists' versions of this subject; the one with his back to us almost fully stretched out, somewhat unconvincingly. As well as the form of our awakening soldier there is also the larger 'structural' triangle formed by the guards - as a base - with imaginary lines traceable on the left from our guard's back and up along Christ's right arm, and on the right from the shoulder of the reclining guard through his helmet and upwards along Christ's left arm to His face. This larger triangle, as in Masaccio's Trinity fresco, not only directs our attention upwards on the 'picture plane' to the focal point of the image, but also inwards from the plane closest to us to some point deeper within the fictive space. For our purposes here however, the awakening soldier may be taken as a clear example of this use of geometry in figurative painting, albeit in a more or less occult manner.

The Resurrection, 1458 (?) by Piero della Francesca (c1412-1492): 'buon fresco' and 'a secco', recently restored. Sansepolcro, Museo Civico (Photo: the author) 

A detail of the Resurrection, photo taken by the author during the restoration of the fresco

A detail of the previous image showing the pyramidal or triangular conformation of the waking guard

The next instance we shall look at is on one of the two so-called 'pulpits' made by Donatello (c1386-1466) and his assistants very late in his life; there is some question as to whether or not these panels were intended as the sides of pulpits but, in any case, that is how they are displayed today. The complex scene of the Lamentation over the Body of Christ has as its centre the profoundly expressive image of His mother contemplating the extraordinary figure of her dead son - again, completely profile. Mary's head is the apex of a triangle of which the horizontal corpse indicates a kind of mid line, with the ground and various feet below forming the base; Christ's pendulous legs form part of its right side.

The Lamentation, 1460s by Donatello, low relief bronze panel.

The church of San Lorenzo, Florence (Photo: the author)

Filippo Lippi (c1406-1469), a friar-painter like the next artist, is the author of the Barbadori Altarpiece. In this busy, crowded work with the standing Virgin Mary in the centre, Lippi has also made use of the triangle to focus our attention on her: the base is the floor of the room in which the scene is set and the right side of the triangle begins there at the shadowed hem of the kneeling saint's greenish cloak, moving up through his head directly to the Madonna's beautiful face; similarly, on the left side, starting at the hem of the red cloak of that saint, a line may be imagined passing through his head and finishing, as on the right, at the Virgin's face. This picture is a complicated exercise in the use of artificial perspective, with various other (partially hidden) lines also directing our attention towards the Madonna. In spite of the depth created by the illusionistic perspective structure, the 'vertical' triangle in the centre asserts the proximity of the three main figures to the physical picture plane, that is, to our space; another two or three paces and the Madonna could almost walk out of the image. This in turn, in a certain sense, obliquely hints at the flatness of the board on which the image is painted despite the apparent depth: an allusion about an illusion!

The Barbadori Altarpiece (detail), 1438 by Filippo Lippi, tempera on panel

The Louvre, Paris. 

(Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

One might ask, what is the attraction of this particular triangular form? I find that the 'human triangle' is a very stable unit; because of the 'folding' of the limbs involved in assuming the form, there is usually weight and mass as well as the stability. For me as a painter, it is a uniquely satisfying structure. In the large fresco of the Funeral of Saint Stephen, Lippi has again used the 'human triangle' format in the two female figures seated at either side of the front face of the saint's bier. In the detail below the backs and heads of the two figures in question, together with the heads behind them, form another much larger triangle which, following the lines of the raised platforms, lead directly to the Crucifix on the altar situated in the apse at the deepest point in the fictive space. In addition, an inverted triangle, often implied in this kind of use of a distant vanishing point, can be seen in tracing the two lines formed along the 'cushions' above the capitals at the tops of the white columns, also leading straight to the altar Crucifix. Interestingly, the two large triangles just described, both intersecting at the same point (the altar Crucifix) form a Saint James' Cross!

The Funeral of Saint Stephen (detail), 1460, by Filippo Lippi, fresco

Cathedral, Prato

(Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Our next example comes from another friar, a fellow Florentine working at much the same time as Filippo: he is known as Fra (friar) Angelico or Beato (blessed) Angelico (born Guido di Pietro: 1395-1455). He is the painter of the exquisite small frescos in the cells of his monastery of San Marco and the painting we will look at is to be seen there still today although it is not a fresco. It is, like Filippo's picture, a large altarpiece painted on wood; like Filippo, Fra Angelico has given us an exercise in perspective illusion (it should be remembered that the 'rules' of mathematical or artificial perspective had only recently been [re]discovered by this time). In this picture, the two main orthogonals, those in the carpet, form the left and right sides of a large triangle and direct our gaze in no uncertain terms to the head of the Madonna. These same lines pass through the heads of the kneeling saints - reinforced by the more central orthogonal lines in the dais - straight to the face of the Virgin who herself, with her spreading blue robe, forms yet another triangle. The general triangular structure is further supported by the ranks of saints on either side. The very deep space in which the event is set, despite being abruptly interrupted by a curtained screen behind the throne, is indicated by the wonderful background forest through whose trunks may be seen even more distant hills.

San Marco Altarpiece, 1438-1443 (?) by Fra Angelico, tempera on panel

San Marco, Florence 

(Photo credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Finally, two images chosen at random: the first to show, in perhaps one of the clearest examples, the use and power of the 'human triangle', Giovanni Bellini's sublime Madonna of the Meadows; and the second, a small panel by Duccio as an example of an alternative tradition. The Bellini is self-explanatory in that the triangle formed by the Mother and Child is obvious, strong and dynamic: while the figures themselves are static, their form, as a unit, contrasts markedly with both the space (horizontal) and the distance (profound) in the rest of the image. The mainly blue triangle of the Madonna form is however not a rigid geometric sign but constructs a quasi-mountain, so to say, and in that way succeeds in not being a too strong contrast. 

The Madonna of the Meadows, c1500, by Giovanni Bellini (?1430 - 1516), oil and egg on panel

National Gallery, London (Photo: the author)

The small panel by Duccio (c1260 - 1318), also in London but originally part of his very large Maestà in Siena, demonstrates satisfactorily I think an older or at least more usual type of composition: the frieze-like procession of figures across the bottom of an image even if, as in this example, there is a valiant attempt to create a space in which the figures can move. In this image nonetheless, there is no fundamental relationship between the action and the setting which functions more like a theatrical backdrop than a real environment. The same comment could indeed be made about the Bellini above except that other things come into play to make the Madonna, albeit very close to us, 'blend in' to the bucolic landscape which is not simply behind her, but, because of the manipulation of the light, 'envelops' her as well. The light in the Duccio panel is consistent on both buildings and figures - coming from the left - but is 'on' them and not 'throughout' them, if I may put it like that, as it is in the Bellini; Duccio's buildings are lit in such a way as to detach them from the foreground action (or vice-versa). The 'human triangle' serves different purposes (Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Lippi) and in the painting by Bellini it serves to provide a strong, stable, central form which commands but does not dominate its setting: unlike the Duccio, we read it directly, at a glance, and not like a story, from left to right.

Christ Healing the Blind Man (1308-1311) by Duccio di Buoninsegna, tempera on panel

National Gallery, London (Photo: the author)

In my last article, Massacio's 'Trinity' Fresco in Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, it was there observed how the use of the triangle, both on the two-dimensional flat surface (the picture plane) and as an indication of depth, was fundamental to the structure of that image. In this relation a question about the significance of the triangle might be raised. In the analysis of many renaissance paintings the presence of geometric figures has been noted, functioning as 'structural' scaffolding on the picture plane but often simultaneously, with perspective drawing, as indicators of depth - as is the case with the Masaccio Trinity image. This is mathematics and geometry but there is of course the theological meaning of the triangle, hardly more obvious than in the title of Masaccio's work, the Trinity! A triangle has three sides which create three points; 'three' and its multiples are significant numbers in Christian theology, beginning with the three persons of the Trinity itself. But Christ rose from the dead after three days, there were 12 apostles, a multiple of three, images of the Crucifixion often show three figures: Jesus on the Cross, His mother Mary and Saint John; and so on and so on. Renaissance paintings - in particular - made use of this basic, fundamental figure, both for its structural potential and its religious significance.

Note:

 Mention may be made here of the recently more explicit descriptions by art historians of the techniques used in paintings and especially of those used in frescos. It had been common to describe nearly all frescos, that is, pictures painted on walls in the 'buon fresco' technique, as simply that, "fresco"; however, due to the confirmation of recent restorations (including Piero della Francesca's Resurrection), it is now certain that even medieval artists used the 'a secco' technique much more commonly than might have been thought previously; 'a secco' refers to the application of colours mixed with various binders (but not plaster), including oil (especially for lead white), to the almost completed but dried 'fresco' painting; hence the Italian expression "a secco" meaning basically 'once dried' or 'when dry'. This was done in part because certain colours cannot be safely applied to the wet plaster critical to the 'buon fresco' technique; such colours were liable to drastic change, even to the extent of a 'white' becoming a 'black'! Probably one of the most famous examples of the alteration of a pigment in fresco painting is the famous - but nevertheless beautiful - Crucifixion fresco by Cimabue in the church of St Francis at Assisi.

As far as panel paintings are concerned (that is pictures painted on wooden panels, very often altarpieces), the usual description for pictures painted before the common adoption of oil paint (and canvas) was "tempera"; this term indicated pigments which had been combined with a range of binders, normally egg but possibly glue or oil. These days, indications of the techniques used to produce panel paintings are also more explicit, showing that very often a mixture of techniques was not uncommon.

See Simona Rinaldi's Storia Tecnica dell'Arte: Materiali e metodi della pittura e della scultura (secc. V-XIX), Carocci editore, 2014, p 16.

Masaccio's 'Trinity' fresco in Santa Maria Novella, in Florence

 

Much has been written about Masaccio (born Tommaso di ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai:1401-1428) and his importance in the early Renaissance period and, especially, about his frescos in the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of the Carmine, in Florence; the other work most usually discussed is his monumental fresco (667 x 317cm) called The Trinity (la Trinità) in the also monumental late-gothic Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, situated directly opposite the splendid modernist central station of Florence (designed by Gruppo Toscano, 1932-34).

The Trinity (1425-27) by Masaccio, fresco

Santa Maria Novella, Florence (Photo: the author)

This exceptional work, now again in its original position on the wall of the left nave of the enormous church, had at one time been placed on the inside wall of the façade 1; these peregrinations resulting in the temporary loss of the image of the skeleton in the lower part of the fresco. I mention this peripatetic history not only as a curiosity but also because the Trinity was - and is - in an implied dialogue with another important work, this time a very large painted wooden crucifix attributed to Giotto; this crucifix, now suspended above the central nave, about half-way along, was apparently initially mounted above the main altar. 

Crucifix (1288-89?) by Giotto, tempera on wood

Santa Maria Novella (Photo: the author)

 Masaccio's work is notable as one of the earliest, and most dramatic, expressions of the lately discovered mathematical perspective; the whole architectural structure of this picture is based on mathematical, 'scientific' perspective drawing, at once a revolution and the culmination of late-medieval slow advances in this direction. Brunelleschi (practically) - and later (theoretically), Leon Battista Alberti and Piero della Francesca - had devised a way of representing, on a two- dimensional surface, the built environment, and man in a proportional relationship with it, rationally coherent and convincingly 'realistic'. The Trinity fresco, with its vanishing point situated just below the platform on which stand the figures of Mary and Saint John, demonstrates clearly the power of this revolutionary system to imitate 'real' space and to situate human figures within that space in a completely rational way. It is perhaps difficult to comprehend the impact this fresco must originally have had on Masaccio's contemporaries for, not only has the passing of time had its effects on the condition of the fresco, but we are today so completely habituated to the concept of convincing perspective representation that it is of course, nothing new. But in 1427 it must have seemed as though, if not an entirely new world, then at least, finally, a fully coherent one had arrived; no longer were images of buildings, whether interiors or exteriors, functioning as quasi-symbols of themselves, but instead were painted (or sculpted by Donatello) in such a way as to 'convince' the viewer that he or she was looking into a 'real' space - as if, according to Alberti, through a window. Even then and later, it was remarked how the painting appeared to open a hole in the wall: " ... che pare che sia bucato quel muro." (Vasari, Le Vite, etc. 1568)

Christ before Pilate by Donatello (1386 -1466), south Pulpit (1464-66), bronze

the Church of San Lorenzo, Florence (Photo: the author)

Donatello's last works, the two 'pulpits' were left unfinished at his death; note here also, the low viewpoint (some distortion due to photograph).

In the Trinity, the enormous classical barrel vault, the receding Ionic columns, the massive arches, the arms of the Cross, the platform on which God the Father stands and the two figures of Mary and John, all are portrayed from below, as we would see them from our position, standing on the floor of the church. But, while adhering carefully in the architecture to the precise rules of the new perspective, Masaccio ignored them when he came to paint both God the Father and His Son on the Cross: neither of these figures is rendered as if seen from below, but rather as though seen from directly in front! This means that in the painted 'reality' of the environment in which the actors perform, the most holy of them, that is, the First and Second persons of the Trinity, confront us face-to-face, emphatically, hierarchically yes, but directly and so to speak, head-on (in this sense, they could be described as a reversion to hieratic Byzantine frontality: see the Monreale photo below). Outside the holy space of the gigantic chapel or 'tabernacle', the two donors are also shown as though we were looking at them straight-on, but they are much closer to our eye level in any case. In effect, we have three points of view - perhaps intentionally, given the subject -: looking up at the fictive triumphal arch, looking down at the tomb with its skeleton 2, and looking directly ahead at God and His crucified Son. Incidentally, the Third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is represented as a white dove placed inconspicuously between the other two.

In another later masterpiece of the fifteenth century, the Resurrection by Piero della Francesca (c1412 - 1492), there is a similar use of and, we might almost say, disregard for perspective: while the sleeping guards are seen more or less from straight on, the risen Christ, logically therefore higher, is seen as if we were looking directly at him. Both Piero's fresco and Masaccio's are situated above average standing eye-level and so looking up is physically necessary to take in the whole work; and both painters have made use of this real fact to supply at least two almost contrasting elements to their paintings - a heightened 'drama' in the fictive space and, the height notwithstanding, an implied direct contact with the 'higher' divinity - while at the same time convincing us that what we are looking at is (a representation of) a 'reality' 3.   

The Resurrection (after recent cleaning) by Piero della Francesca, (c1458?), fresco

Museo Civico, Sansepolcro, Italy (Photo: Dr Maria Stratford)

But to return to the question about Masaccio's image being in dialogue with Giotto's: what I am referring to is of course the figure of the crucified Christ in both works. Giotto's, thought to be an early work painted roughly 120 years before the Trinity, extremely beautiful as it is, is nevertheless a product of its time, with certain conventions such as the odd zig-zag of the body (which, in this case is seen from the right on a cross seen from in front); at the end of the right arm of the cross is the traditional portrait of Mary (Mater Dolorosa) and at the end of the left that of the young Saint John. Somethings to my mind not quite so traditional are details of the body of Christ: Giotto seems to have attempted, despite the somewhat conventional pose, a more realistic rendering of the upper torso at least. 

Masaccio, on the other hand, has dramatically brought his Christ up-to-date: a much more carefully drawn, realistic body, especially the torso, the arms and the attachment of them to the torso; the hips and groin and the lower legs are all 'realistic'. Here too are the figures of Mary and John, not the half-figures as in the Giotto but full figures: John clearly contemplating what he has witnessed; but Christ's mother very unusually is looking at us and, with a gesture indicating her dead Son, seems to be inviting us, somewhat disdainfully it would seem, to also contemplate what has been done. The implied surface triangle (that is, on the picture plane itself) of all the figures, beginning with the donors and moving up to Mary and John, and then to Christ and His Father, functions doubly - like other elements in this work - since that same triangle can be read as moving from the external world of the donors (and ourselves) into the 'sacred' world of the painted chapel, meeting first the mourners and then deeper still, the holiest figures.

Also remarkable is a couple of things to do with the drawing of these figures. At the time and for centuries beforehand, it was customary for there to be a sort of hierarchy of divinity in religious images, with God and Jesus represented as the largest figures in a given scene, followed by Mary and the angels, then the saints, and finally, smallest of all, ordinary humans (including popes and bishops, etc.) 4. Masaccio has completely overturned this convention and all the figures in his Trinity are the same size, even the donors. All the holy personages are rendered as human beings and their changed status, that is, the fact that they not only look like human beings but are the same size as the humans represented, would seem to indicate the influence of Humanism in the approach Masaccio has here taken. We have only to look at an image of Christ Pantocrator, such as at Monreale in Sicily, to appreciate the vast difference in the new status of such figures. Concordant with this is the way Mary has been shown: not as a more or less beautiful youngish woman but rather as a middle-aged mother although, as observed, not the traditional 'Mater Dolorosa' but as a self-composed 'divine' personage, present but at the same time, oddly somewhat abstracted from the emotion of the event.

The Trinity, detail showing three of the principal figures: note Mary's direct engagement

with the viewer and the her knowing gaze. 

Christ Pantocrator (after 1183?), anonymous artist(s) possibly Greek, mosaic

the Cathedral of Monreale, near Palermo, Sicily (Photo: the author)

Notice the great difference in scale between the Christ and the next level(s) below Him which includes Mary (seated however), Saints Peter and, not visible in this photo, Paul, as well as angels and prophets.

Mention might also be made here of the very deliberate but restricted colour scheme of the entire fresco. In essence two colours dominate, red and blue; starting with the figure of God the Father, we notice that he is clothed in red and blue garments: his red tunic, on our left, his blue cloak on our right. Moving 'down' the image, the red tunic is contrasted with Mary's blue garment which in turn is contrasted with the red of the male donor's heavy clothing and headdress (Berto di Bartolomeo del Banderaio ?). Again moving down the painting, the blue cloak of God is contrasted with the red of Saint John's cloak and that in turn with the blue of the female donor (Berto's wife Sandra?). Shades of red and pink make-up some of the architectural elements as they do, together with blue, the squares in the ceiling of the barrel vault. It must be remembered that this fresco is now almost 600 years old, has undergone several transpositions not to mention restorations: it is therefore very difficult, notwithstanding the generally good condition, to accurately judge the colours and to assess their original significance and impact.

Much discussion and disagreement has occurred in relation to the symbolism contained in this image. The recurrence of 'threes' in a painting entitled The Trinity may or may not be pertinent - even the colour scheme just outlined is based on the number three! The image of the crucified Jesus, the suggestion of the eternal and the presence of a tomb and a skeleton all facing a door which leads directly to a cemetery is most likely not coincidental. It has been noted that there are no indications whatever of the names or family of the donors, no heraldic shields, no dedicatory inscriptions; the names suggested for the couple are at this point purely conjectural. One wonders whether or not the colour scheme may give a clue however!

* Some of the points raised in this article were suggested or reinforced by a recent re-reading of John White's The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space, first published in 1957 by Faber and Faber; and to a lesser extent by a contemporaneous re-reading of Luciano Bellosi's La Pecora di Giotto, Abscondita edition, 2015 but first published by Einaudi in 1985.

1 The fresco has suffered, like many over the centuries, from various vicissitudes: it seems that Giorgio Vasari is responsible for its preservation when, having been asked to modernise the area, and appreciating the fresco's immense artistic value, he 'hid' it under a new work while leaving clear indications of its presence. In the 19th century, the Masaccio was rediscovered and moved to the inside wall of the façade of the church; in 1952, it was decided to replace the fresco into its original position, a position which probably not casually faces a side door leading to the basilica's cemetery. The work has been restored on several occasions, most recently in 2001.

2 The beautifully drawn skeleton comes with a warning written on the image: 

"Io fu' già quel che voi sete e quel ch'i' son voi anco sarete", that is: 

"I was once what you are and that which I am you will also be".

3 A perplexing and fascinating psychological situation to which I have referred in other articles: that of knowing that one is looking at a painted image on a flat surface while happily allowing oneself to be 'enticed' into the fictive world of that image (and not only of figurative works).

4 See for example the apse mosaic by Jacopo Torriti in the church of San Giovanni in Laterano (Roma) in which the very newly-minted Saint Francis is included but on a much-reduced scale compared with the other holy figures around him (St Peter to the left, Mary to the right); in addition, note that the Pope Nicholas figure beside Francis is even smaller - and made to kneel!

***

Brunelleschi (Filippo di ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lappi) 1377 - 1446, sculptor and architect, most notably of the massive dome of Florence cathedral (the Duomo)

Leon Battista Alberti 1404 - 1472, architect, author and theoretician; author of Della Pittura explaining the principles behind mathematical perspective

Piero della Francesca c1412 - 1492, painter and theoretician: author of two books dealing with perspective: De prospectiva pingendi and Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus

 

What's in a Name?

What's in a name? Well, I think quite a lot; it's not something I can explain, it's merely an amorphous perception that most people seem to 'belong' to their name, if I can put it like that. Occasionally one meets a person whose name doesn't seem to 'fit', a Janet or a David for instance, who doesn't 'seem' like a Janet or a David; I can't explain this situation except to say that, on those occasions, I might have expected quite another name! This probably has as much to do with the way we 'read' people as with anything else; that is, it may not be the particular person who seems at odds with his or her name, but rather the way we interpret other individuals simply on the basis of the way they look, before knowing their name. On the other hand, when occasionally people change their given name, friends and family often react as though they have actually lost someone and are suddenly confronted with an identity they find quite perplexing: that is, what was known is apparently no longer current or valid, and what is new is incomprehensible; the name-changing person is as though suddenly no longer - at least as previously understood - and what is there now is equally suddenly present! Our more or less unconscious psychological identification of an individual personality with his or her name (or with our own for that matter) would seem to be a powerful, and usually necessary, constant in relationships. 

Be that as it may, this short article concerns names and specifically, the names of artists. The general public is familiar with quite a few famous names, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo. Most Westerners will have at least heard of several other artists even if they can't immediately identify any specific work by those people, which is not to imply that they could do otherwise even with the more famous ones. The situation is not helped as far as contemporary names are concerned, as many artists tend to enjoy a certain fashion and are then gradually replaced as they go out of fashion and others come in *. An example of this is the Dutch modernist painter, Piet Mondrian: Mondrian died in 1944 but by the mid-fifties, his was a house-hold name, especially in the USA. Quite apart from his paintings - which were probably unknown to the general public, although much appreciated by other artists and designers - his influence spread to architecture, industrial design, the decorative arts, and even to clothing fashion itself. Quite probably, many more people 'knew' his influence than knew his name. What they certainly would not have known was that Mondrian had changed his name during his first residence in Paris (1911 - 14): originally spelt in the native Dutch manner, Mondriaan - with two letters 'a' - he altered it to its, since then, current spelling with only one 'a'. Eventually, his most typical works were no longer signed with his name as such, but rather with his initials: PM. Mondrian's birth name was Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (b.1872).

One of the most famous of artists' names is certainly that of Leonardo da Vinci; the small Italian word 'da' in this context means 'from'; so this is Leonardo (sometimes spelt Lionardo) 'from' the town of Vinci in Tuscany. Vinci has a small museum devoted to the mechanical contrivances of its most famous son, as well as an excellent (at least, last time I was there) steak restaurant! Like many medieval Italian towns, it is on a hilltop and therefore has wonderful views. Leonardo however spent relatively little time there as he was sent to study in Florence, a typical circumstance at that time, rather like the way Paris became a mecca for artists, including Mondrian, in the early part of the 20th century.

The extraordinary Dutch painter Rembrandt, although known the world over as simply 'Rembrandt', was actually named Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606 - 1669); in a case similar to that of Leonardo, the word 'van' in Dutch means 'from' and although he came from Leyden (or Leiden), that town is situated near the so-called Old Rhine, referring to the Rhine (Rijn) River. Picasso similarly, is known simply by that name but his birth name was considerably longer: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso! Initially he signed his works P. Ruiz (his father's surname) or P. Ruiz Picasso, eventually deciding on the surname alone of his mother, 'Picasso'. Most art-loving people also know that Van Gogh's first name was Vincent, partly because he often signed his works that way, as simply 'Vincent'; his full name was Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853 - 1890).

In the same way that numerous writers - amongst whom, many women, especially in the past - had a 'nom de plume', that is, a 'pen name', so too and for various reasons, many artists either adopted a professional name or were given one. The following is a list of some important figures, mainly artists, from the history of Italian painting, sculpture, architecture and literature.

Bonanno Pisano (active: 1170's and '80s) enchanting sculptor, from Pisa, but also at Monreale in Sicily

Nicola Pisano (c1220/25 - c1284) also Niccolò Pisano, Nicola di Apulia, Nicola Pisanus, sculptor

Giovanni Pisano (c1250 - 1315) son of Nicola and, like him, a great late-Gothic/early-Renaissance sculptor         

Cimabue (c1240 - 1302) Cenni di Pepo or Cenni di Pepi, supposed master of Giotto. 

Duccio (1250/55 - 1318/19) Duccio di Buoninsegna, like Cimabue, a sublime late-Gothic painter

Giotto (c1267 - 1337) Giotto di Bondone who began the Humanist revolution in Tuscan painting, making a clear break with Byzantine and Gothic conventions         

         

Buffalmacco (c1290 - 1340) Buonamico di Martino, author of some of the great frescos in the Camposanto at Pisa                                                            

Maso di Banco (active: c1320 - 1350), a student of Giotto and author of the 'modern' St Sylvester fresco in  the church of Santa Croce in Florence                                                            

Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446) Filippo di ser Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi, architect of the dome of Florence cathedral, together with other important buildings, and co-reviver of mathematical perspective  

Ghiberti (1378 - 1455) Lorenzo Ghiberti or di Bartolo, creator of the so-called 'Gates of Paradise' on the Baptistry in Florence and author of I Commentarii, c.1450                                        

Donatello (1386 - 1466) Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, brilliant almost-modern sculptor

Masaccio (1401 - 1428) Tommaso di ser Giovanni di Simone who took Giotto's developments to the level of the Renaissance proper (the Brancacci Chapel and The Trinity frescos) 

Piero della Francesca (1412 - 1492) occasionally Piero dei Franceschi, exquisite 'silent' painter, and theoretician of mathematical perspective                                                                   

Luciano Laurana (1420 - 1479) Lutiano Dellaurana, in Croatian: Lucijan Vranjanin, famous as the architect of the ducal palace at Urbino, claimed as Italian because, at the time, his birthplace (Vrana in Dalmatia) was part of the Republic of Venice; nowadays part of Croatia                                                

Giovanni Bellini (1430 - 1516) great Venetian painter, son of Jacopo and brother of Gentile, both painters, brother-in-law to Andrea Mantegna                                                             

Mantegna (1430/31 - 1506) Andrea Mantegna, a northern Italian painter, student of classical antiquity and the newly (re-)discovered mathematical perspective (along with Alberti, Brunelleschi and Piero della Francesca)                                               

Cosmè Tura (?1433 - 1495) Cosimo del Tura, born at Ferrara, a leader of the Ferrarese Renaissance

Verrocchio (c1435 - 1488) Andrea del Verrocchio born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, painter and sculptor, master of Leonardo da Vinci and author of the astounding Doubting Thomas, originally on Orsanmichele in Florence                                             

Bramante (c1444 - 1514) Bramante Lazzari born Donato d'Augnolo or Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio, Renaissance architect born near Urbino but famous also in Milan and Rome (St Peter's amongst others) 

Leonardo or Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, universal genius famous for many things, in various fields, particularly painting and engineering                                                

Carpaccio (?1465 - 1525/26) Vittore or Vittorio Carpaccio, originally Scarpazza, a wonderful Venetian master painter                                               

Michelangelo (1475 - 1564) Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni  (also Michelagnolo Buonarroto or Buonarruoti, by Vasari), Renaissance universal genius: sculptor, painter, architect, poet, engineer, etc.                                                          

Titian (Tiziano in Italian) (c1488/90 - 1576) Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio, sometimes referred to as Tiziano da Cadore (his birthplace), master Venetian painter                                                                   

Vasari (1511 - 1574) Giorgio Vasari, born in Arezzo, architect (the Uffizi Galleries), painter and, most famously, writer: author of the indispensable Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, etc., two editions, 1550 and 1568                                 

Moroni (1520/24 - 1579) Giovanni Battista Moroni, also Giambattista Moroni, wonderful northern Italian portraitist                                              

Caravaggio (1571 - 1610) Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (the town where his father worked, east of Milan in Lombardia), born in Milan, master realist in strong chiaroscuro                                            

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 -c1653) or Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi, a wonderful Baroque painter                                                                    

Bernini (1598 - 1680) Gian Lorenzi Bernini, great master of the Roman Barocco (Baroque)  

Borromini (1599 - 1667) Francesco Borromini born Francesco Castelli, together with Bernini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the creators of Roman Baroque  

Giovanna Garzoni (1600 -1670) a wonderful artist with her exquisite still-life and botanical paintings 

                      

Giovanni Battista Vaccarini (1702 - 1768) born in Palermo, Sicily, but famous for being the architect of Catania's rebirth as a Baroque city following the earthquake of 1693; and speaking of Catania, Emilio Greco (1913 - 1995), a great Modernist sculptor and painter born in Catania  

                                                  

The cathedral of Catania (Cattedrale di Sant'Agata) Sicily, and, to the left, the Chiesa della Badia di Sant'Agata restored by Giovan Battista Vaccarini

Photo: the author

Of course, this list could go on indefinitely, especially as it is restricted to Italians and then only a small selection - and (apart from three Dutchmen, one Spaniard and one Mexican) we haven't even begun the artists, etc. of other countries. As can be seen, the dates of some of the most important overlap each other, a circumstance which helped to contribute to the extraordinary development, at various times, of the arts in Italy. The names of the artists in the list, some very well known, interested me simply because, like everyone else, I knew these people by their popular, often short-hand names; when researching them however, I became aware of their 'real' names which frequently, like those of Brunelleschi or Verrocchio, are quite lengthy; however, in this contest, obviously, Picasso takes the cake!

Virgin and Child Enthroned, detail, by Cosmè Tura, mid-1470s, National Gallery, London

Photo: the author

* This situation is nothing new (like a lot of things) when we recall some lines from Dante where he speaks about Cimabue as once being the leading painter, whereas, at the time in which La Divina Commedia was set, the year 1300, Giotto had become the most famous: 

"Credette Cimabue nella pintura

tener lo campo, e ora ha Giotto il grido,

sì che la fama di colui è scura: ..."

The Divine Comedy, Purgatory, XI, 94-96

La Divina Commedia, by Dante Alighieri, Testo critico della Società Dantesca Italiana, ed Hoepli, 1991

Buffalmacco at Pisa

This article begins with a confession, a confession of a lacuna so wide and so peculiar that, like most confessions I suppose, it is embarrassing even to think about, let alone to make: it is my virtually complete ignorance of the personality and work of Buonamico Buffalmacco (born Buonamico di Martino: 1262? - post 1341)! Not that one knows everything - far from it - but sometimes, the gaps are surprising; I 'discovered' Buffalmacco in reading an essay by the Italian art historian Donata Levi in a compendium of articles dedicated to the 19th century Italian art historian, Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1819-1897) 1. The article deals with the precocious use of photographs by the two art historians and connoisseurs, Cavalcaselle and his English friend and co-author, Joseph Archer Crowe (1825-1896) 2.

The better part of Levi's piece deals with the archive of photos and drawings (kept in Venice and London) made and used by Cavalcaselle in his research into and documentation of the frescos in the Camposanto at Pisa. The Camposanto is the name given to a specific part of that monumental complex which includes the cathedral, its baptistry, the famous Leaning Tower and a cemetery. This last is a four-sided Gothic structure (foundation 1277) built around an area known as the Campo Santo (Holy Field); its cloister was frescoed by a number of artists from the 14th century through to the mid-15th (the work of Benozzo Gozzoli), this latest part now unfortunately almost completely lost.

Recently, a major restoration campaign was undertaken on the remaining large frescos, much damaged over the centuries - including by a bomb during the second World War - and apparently restored on various earlier occasions, including once under the supervision of Cavalcaselle himself 3. The sections of the mural decoration attributed to Buffalmacco are entitled the Last Judgement, Hell, the Triumph of Death and the Thebaid (an image of an 'alternative' life-style, one lived by hermit monks and church fathers [desert fathers] in the quasi-legendary Theban desert of Egypt).

The Thebaid, 1336 -1341 by Buonamico Buffalmacco, 6 x 15.6 m, fresco

Camposanto, Pisa

File: photo by Federigo Federighi through Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Buffalmacco, mentioned by both Vasari and Ghiberti 4, has now been almost unanimously accepted as the author of the above-named scenes after their having been given by various historians to other artists, especially to Francesco Traini. In a certain sense, the true author or painter of a given work, in my opinion, is not as important however, as the work itself - particularly when we are standing right in front of the work in question. In fact, there are many 'anonymous' works which we are quite happy to admire and even to declare as masterpieces 5, even though so far, we do not know who the author was. But we do have his or her work and that work of art is part of our culture, is an exemplar of the thought and point of view of a particular era ('point-of-view' understood as well in its literal sense of the way a person actually sees the world, and chooses to represent it), given which the name of the artist - important as that may be from an art-historical position - is, so to speak, part of the 'marginalia' of the work in question.

What I discovered in following-up on Donata Levi's essay was a supremely powerful and skilful artist. After growing up and working in Florence, he eventually received the commission to decorate the walls of a section of the Camposanto with a series of very large frescos illustrating, for the benefit of the Pisans, the Last Judgement (il Giudizio Universale), with Hell (l'Inferno) beside it, the Triumph of Death (Trionfo della Morte) - a stern warning to people to be aware of the inevitability of death - and the Thebaid (Tebaide) - an alternative to the perhaps morally dangerous urban way of life. In the various restorations to which these frescos have been subjected, the 'sinopie' - the original drawings made in a water colour-like paint called 'sinopia' on the first layer of plaster - have been found and in their turn restored and preserved. And it was images of these 'sinopie' which first alerted me to the power of Buffalmacco: wonderful, synthetical and confident drawings. To me they seem to have something more individual, something more specific in their characterisations of people and especially of faces; more so than perhaps Giotto, of whom Buffalmacco was initially a follower, but who later - and this has been posited as a reason for his departure from Florence - in a certain way, rejected various tenets of Giotto's work and finished, if Pisa is any indication, with a more fluid - perhaps older - representation of space while including, as suggested, a more individualised representation of various actors in his stories.

Perhaps the most famous of these is his Triumph of Death and especially its lower left corner, in which a party of nobles while out hunting on horse-back, is suddenly confronted with a scene of Death in the form of three coffins containing bodies in different stages of the cycle of decay: one newly dead, another putrefying and the last, already a skeleton. The shock and wonder of these beautifully-dressed figures is so well represented but, at the same time, is contrasted with that scene in front of them, and the one above of the quiet, contemplative rural life of the monks who have warned them to always be prepared for death. The lesson is an appropriate one for a place such as a cemetery which the Camposanto was. Buffalmacco's scene of the Last Judgement and the possible result of that judgement, Hell, joined to it horizontally - unlike many such representations, including that by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, normally arranged vertically - are equally extraordinary paintings, his torments in Hell seemingly based on those in Dante's Divine Comedy. All three scenes as well as the Thebaid are full of marvellous observation but, as has happened before, the 'sinopie' offer another level on which to appreciate the skill and intense 'looking' of this master.

A detail of the 'sinopie' found underneath the Thebaid of Buffalmacco

Camposanto, Pisa

File: photo by Sailko through Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

In the image above, the central figure of the young man leaning to his right is a wonderful example of highly skilled drawing; so too that of his companion's donkey, with the indication of a descending space formed by the downward curve of the backward-leaning friar and the difference in height between the donkey's rump and the position of the younger man. On the extreme right of this photo is the excellent head of an older man; the foreground figure of a crouching monk, caught in the action of fishing, is a succinct and clear description reminiscent, for me, of similar qualities in Giotto; but the younger man first-mentioned is typical of what I see as Buffalmacco's independent intensity.

As suggested in some of my other articles, one of the great benefits of being able to see, to experience, these frescos 'in situ' is precisely that, that they are in their original situation, in the place for which - and in which - they were made. That is to say, they are not, so to speak, disembodied, disorientated, at least partially silenced, in some museum or art gallery, perhaps somewhere on the other side of the world, not even in Europe. André Malraux has much to say concerning this idea in the opening pages of his The Voices of Silence 6, to which I will refer in future essays. Like the much later frescos in some of the rooms of the Pitti Palace in Florence, these works are conditioned in the first place, by their presupposed audience, but also by the situation, size and structure of the Gothic cloister itself, by the very physical structure of the place. All of these elements, not to mention the a priori beliefs of the audience, are in effect completely absent - we could say, completely denied - in the museum space and particularly so if the museum or art gallery is a modern one. As good  - and as necessary - as museums may be, there is unquestionably no comparison between seeing a work there and experiencing it in its intended original environment; I use the word 'experiencing' deliberately as, for me, the appreciation of an art work is not alone the actual 'seeing', it is also the cognition and experience of its 'home', as it were, its 'state of origin'. 

1 Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle 1819 - 2019; Una visione europea della storia dell'arte, a cura di Valerio Terraroli, ZeL Edizioni, 2019. Donata Levi's article is called Come un moderno Photoshop: fotografie manipolate tra le carte di Cavalcaselle e Crowe [Like a modern Photoshop: manipulated photographs among the papers of Cavalcaselle and Crowe] pp 41 - 57.

2 A New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth century, 1864, by J.A. Crowe and J.B. Cavalcaselle.

3 Levi, op cit: p 49: the Death and funeral of Saint Ranieri (from the series of frescos, also in the Camposanto, dealing with the life of that saint, painted between 1377 and 1385 by Andrea di Bonaiuto and Antonio di Francesco, known as il Veneziano) was restored between 1885 and 1886 by Domenico Fiscali "sotto la sorveglianza di Cavalcaselle." ["under the supervision of Cavalcaselle"].

4 Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, by Giorgio Vasari, Giuntina edition, 1568;

   I commentarii by Lorenzo Ghiberti, manuscript datable to the mid-15th century.

5 If I may be allowed a brief excursus I would like to add a few remarks concerning the term 'masterpiece': it seems that initially this term referred to a kind of graduation exercise, one required by the apprentice artist at the conclusion of his (or her) apprenticeship and which, if successful, enabled the artist to set up shop as an independent 'master' as recognised by the appropriate guild. Some time later, at least in Italy, a similar notion implied that a commissioned work was completed entirely - or almost so - by the 'master' of the shop and not by the assistants or apprentices (masterpiece in Italian is 'capolavoro', that is, a work by the boss [capo]!); many contracts from the period specified that circumstance as a principal condition. Later still, especially in modern times, it has come to signify a supreme example of the work of a given artist or school or style. In contemporary popular use, it is now through abuse, like so many epithets (for instance, 'icon', 'legend' and 'hero'), almost meaningless!

6 The Voices of Silence by André Malraux, published by Paladin in 1974 (original copyright 1953); an excellent book written, obviously, prior to contemporary restorations and scholarship but, because of its philosophical bent, is still an immensely important work. His observations concerning the effect of photography on both the diffusion and comprehension of artworks are as significant as they ever were.

Concept and Sign: some non-exhaustive observations vis-à-vis Chinese painting

The recent reading of a book on the history of China 1 prompted me to read or re-read a couple of books I happen to have on Chinese art and specifically, on Chinese painting 2. From these latter I gather that, for a very long time, the approach to painting in China was of a deliberately, so to speak, spiritual leaning; that is to say, whereas in the West the approach had been largely (although not exclusively) based on the more or less close imitation of the appearance of nature (also for spiritual ends), including and especially human beings, the Chinese painter-poet (often but not always associated with the court) eventually aimed more at an interpretation and representation of nature (landscape in particular) through a kind 'spiritual' symbiosis. It seems that Chinese painting is not imitative in the way that Western art is, even if, when appropriate, Chinese painters (like Egyptian ones) were fully capable of drawing 'realistically' all sorts of things, especially animals; it also appears however, that they were not particularly interested in human beings per se, except perhaps to contrast their often diminutive size (in pictures) with the massiveness of the Chinese landscape. One exception to this general trend seems to be portraits of Emperors and certain other officials, some of which strike me as virtually modern in their refinement of skill and economy of means (at least in the faces).

However, the point of this discussion is not to describe Chinese painting, nor is it to make a detailed comparison with Western painting but rather, to make some observations concerning ideas (concepts) and their visual realisation as paintings, as pictures. As others have noted, art works generally and perhaps pictures especially, can be described as 'signs'; frequently, these signs are seen as metaphors and analogues of various sociological (as they pertain to a society) or personal states (as they pertain to the particular artist). What interests me is how the artwork, and the attitude which produced it, reflects the way an artist - and often therefore a culture - conceives of the visible world.

Western art has passed through many periods and many manifestations, the majority of which have been closely or distantly related to what the artist could see in the natural world around him- or herself. Some periods were more attached to the physical reality while others were less so, leading in some cases to a highly symbolic expression which, while it contained clear references to that physical reality, treated it however as a source of symbols of the non-material, spiritual or occult worlds; real objects were there, in the image, but their combination, their grouping, their apparently heterogeneous nature rendered the image fundamentally incomprehensible from a naturalistic (art) point of view. Of course, even in those periods in Western art where the content of the pictures was completely comprehensible and clearly dependent on a close imitation of nature, those pictures could also operate on a symbolic level, especially in religious art; although the individual 'objects' in a Renaissance painting could be enumerated and described in mundane terms, the particular combination of those specific objects, together with the overt theme or subject of the image, might still have been symbolic (that is, of religious 'truths'). And, as we know, all kinds of seemingly 'realistic' images can be highly symbolic for those able to decipher the more arcane references.

In the 20th century however, for many reasons and developing out of various 19th century spiritual movements, Western art did become more interested in overt self-expression of the individual artist, a self-expression very often incomprehensible to anyone else, with the possible exception of poets and some other artists. Much Western art is however, dependent solely on itself, by which I mean that it is, in terms of the image in and of itself, a closed world, normally not requiring words as an adjunct or complement to its meaning. At this point, some readers of my articles may protest that I have in fact written already about the relationship between images and words, but allow me to explain further! As casually hinted at above, Chinese artists were very often actively poets as well as painters and, even more, were calligraphers to boot! Traditional (a word I use with caution) Chinese paintings are almost never without a short poem, often composed by the painter him- or herself, and equally important, written or - better - painted with a calligraphy whose expertise and beauty were as significant to the Chinese critic as the painted image was; indeed, the relationship between calligraphy and painting is akin to that between father and son, in so far as ink painting is believed to have evolved out of calligraphy. Calligraphy was important in Western art as well, in illuminated manuscripts and so on, and while the calligraphy was - and still is - highly prized, there was not the same intimate interdependent relationship between the illustrations and the text as there appears to be in Chinese art.

But, more to the point, it is the concept of 'reality' and its realisation as an image - together with its poetry in the Chinese case - that interests me. Speaking very broadly and with many exceptions, it can be said that the Western artist looked (or looks) at the real physical world and attempted to imitate what it looked like to him or her, obviously depending on many social and cultural factors; for many periods in Western art, the more closely an artist could copy what he or she could see - the facts of the matter (no pun intended) - the better! Naturally, individual temperament produced different results; even two artists living at the same time and in the same city (Florence), Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, while avowedly aiming at the imitation of nature, for instance in their studies of human anatomy, produced unmistakably different works: Leonardos are not mistaken for Michelangelos and vice versa! Nevertheless, what does this tell us about the Western artist's concept of physical reality; and if that concept is the more proximate to the appearance of reality itself, what does the Chinese artist's picture (objectively less proximate) tell us about his or her concept?

One answer which comes to mind is that the concept of 'reality' is not the point for the Chinese painter, but rather, it is his or her concept of art which is important. The Chinese painter, very often a refined 'gentleman' or 'lady' scholar-artist, was imbued with certain Confucian ideals, sometimes mixed with Buddhist or Taoist teachings, of correct behaviour, of the correct way to do things; for example, at certain times, it was regarded as bad taste to 'show-off' your skills, so that paintings often had a kind of unschooled look about them, this quality itself then becoming a sign of a good painting! However, the critical thing was what might be called the self-expressive element, an element visually manifested through a kind of transcendental identification with the overt subject of the artwork (landscape), and then that itself being augmented with the expressively painted calligraphy of the accompanying poem. A similar attention to a sort of unskilled or untutored aesthetic did not come into Western painting until the mid-19th century (Le Douanier Rousseau for instance) followed by, in the early 20th century, a positive rejection of overt skill (in the Academic sense) in movements such as Expressionism.

One particularly interesting type or format of Chinese painting is the so-called 'hand scroll'; what is interesting is the format itself, a rolled-up paper scroll containing a sort of continuous narrative painting. These scrolls were apparently read as a continuous unfolding, that is, the scroll was never fully opened, only that part being visible which was open between the left and right hands at any given moment. The format meant that the scroll's painting could only be viewed horizontally and was not able to be taken-in at a single glance - such as is the case, in a very general way, with pictures which are hung vertically; naturally, this is a simplification because most vertically hung paintings, whether Western or Chinese, are too complex to be comprehended in only a glance. But the aspect of the hand-scroll which is intriguing is that its way of being 'read' resembles the way we might see a landscape as we look at it from the window of a moving train: it is a sequence, a continuous sequence, of intimately connected images; in other words, the hand-scroll contains, even in its physical form, the notion of time. Our visual life is not perceived as a series of staccato images or discrete visual perceptions: rather, these are understood as moving seamlessly and, normally, logically, from one to the next, that is, a continuous and continuing 'film' of perception, of visual perceptions of the world around us. The hand-scroll format therefore implies a conception of the world which includes the passing of time; the movement so to speak, of time is the concept and the hand-scroll - and its painted narrative - is the sign. 

Although in Western art a similar or related concept might be implied in the form of the frieze, the very nature itself of the frieze format - its static quality - contradicts the 'motion' of time, not to mention that a frieze, like vertically hung pictures, can in a general sense be taken-in, as it were, at a glance; each part of a frieze, for example Egyptian tomb frieze paintings, is like a separate 'event' and, even though the events can be read as a sequence, that static quality is obviously at odds with the hand-scroll way of 'reading'. This Western conception (in fact, not restricted to Western art at all) of the relatedness of events in time does not however include the 'format' of time, that is, its continuous motion; the sign is not related to the nature of the concept. The originally Western form which most closely approximates the hand-scroll is the motion picture (note the name!).

From what has been said already, it is probably clear that, in relation to Chinese painting, we are discussing principally representations of the landscape; although representations of landscape have existed in Western art at least since Roman times, and although it appears in paintings from the Renaissance onwards, it was not treated in its own right (that is, independently of a formal subject, such as a religious one) by most Western artists until relatively recently. I would say though, that the 'transcendental' aspect or quality of the landscape was noticed at least from the Renaissance onwards 3, even if it was not dealt with per se until Corot, Turner and others (the German Romantics) got to work. However, until then, the Western artist's approach to landscape paintings was more or less the same - or, at least similar to - his or her approach to the human body for example: to imitate, or copy, more or less closely what he or she could see; the physical reality was the impetus. In Chinese painting of landscape, the artist's internal or spiritual condition was the impetus and the painted imagined landscape was the manifestation 4. 

This last point is important as, generally, from roughly the mid-18th century until the late-19th, Western painters stood in front of their landscape subject and drew or painted what they could see, they did not imagine it; interestingly, prior to that period, Western artists did in fact imagine their landscape backgrounds, but normally with a quite different attitude to that of their Chinese brothers and sisters: that is, still imitative and not explicitly expressive of personal internal states. As mentioned, from the beginning of the 20th century however, even Western artists began to mix direct observation with 'poetic' interpretation, as well as expression of their individual spiritual or psychological states. How far though this suffusing of a personal expression into a figurative image can be read as sign reflecting concept is unclear; is the concept to do with comprehension and reflection of the physical data in front of the artist, or is it to do with the psychological states within the artist? This remains a conundrum as the discernment of one element from the other is a bit like separating the ingredients of a cake mixture once they are already in the mixing bowl! As far as I can see, the problem is simpler when considering traditional Chinese landscape painting, because the imitation of nature per se was not the objective.

1 The Shortest History of China by Linda Jaivin, published by Black Inc, 2021

2 Chinese Paintings of the Ming and Qing Dynasties 14th - 20th century, written by Edmund Capon and Mae Anna Pang, a catalogue for a touring exhibition held between April 1, 1981 and mid-January, 1982 in various States of Australia. Copyright: International Cultural Corporation of Australia Limited; and

  Chinese Painting by Mario Bussagli (translated by Henry Vidon), published in English by The Hamlyn Publishing Group, 1969

3 Here I might refer to the backgrounds of some pictures by Perugino (for example) which had stuck me as being 'transcendental', to such an extent in fact that, speaking personally, I should have been perfectly happy with the landscape part alone, that is, without the religious references (saints, Virgin Marys, etc.)! Perugino's ability to capture a sort of 'sublime' quality, aided perhaps by his preference for clear sunsets, is remarkable but I think, not much acknowledged today.

4 To illustrate the point a little, a comparison between a late Turner and Ingres' Odalisque is instructive! As suggested, the situation in Western art changed in the late-19th and early-20th century under the influence of the earlier acceptance in the first place of landscape as an independent subject in its own right; but also under the influence of various (often protestant) religious movements, even affecting people such as Mondrian, whose 'spiritual' Dutch landscapes are a case in point. During this early part of the 20th century, 'self-expression' gained ground as a valid 'subject' for modernist artists, freed at last - for the preceding 150 years or so - from the dictates of formal Academic painting. 'Self-expression' covers a wide gamut of conditions, ranging from a metaphysical response to the landscape (which may include a religious response), through to a personal emotional release, or a psycho-physical catharsis on canvas (Pollock), with perhaps landscape as the pictorial vehicle (that is, the putative motif). 

* I should point out that I am in no way any kind of aficionado of Chinese painting although I did take-up Japanese sumi-e (black ink painting) when at art school, a style derived from Chinese models I believe.

Picture perfect!

The psychologically (and art-historically) interesting phenomenon of the interchange, the reciprocally-defining relationship, between visual art (including photography and film) and reality can be exemplified in such phrases as: 'picture perfect', 'it looks just like a postcard', 'as pretty as a picture', and the related 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Such relationships and statements go as far back as the writings of the Roman historian Pliny the Elder. And a, so to say, verso of this coin is our propensity to identify the personages in figurative art as though they were real people: when looking at or talking about, for example, Christian religious art, we happily refer to the representations of Biblical figures as 'he', or 'she', or by their proper names, as in Jesus, Mary or John the Baptist; as for instance, when describing an image of the Baptism of Jesus: 'Jesus is looking down while John the Baptist, standing to His left, is pouring the water over His head'.

This circumstance suggests that images have become so much a part of our consciousness that we no longer feel the need to give the primacy to our own observations, to physical reality, at least in everyday life, but are happy to describe that reality itself in terms of its representations in visual art: that is, so to speak, to see reality through pictures - or, as though it were a picture! Ancient historians, like Pliny, told stories of how the fruit depicted in certain pictures was so real-looking that (real) birds would come and attempt to eat it; this is not too far removed from modern people coming across a beautiful view while on a drive in the countryside, and describing it (the real view) as "pretty as a picture", or "just like a painting"; presumably, a non-specific picture of an unspecified view, but one rendered so well and so convincingly - and so memorably - that it may be used as a yardstick for the beauty of actual country views!

Why would adult people make such an analogy, that is, of life itself to visual representations of life? The reverse is not nearly so puzzling, that when admiring works of figurative art, people might comment that the image is "just like the real thing", or "it looks just like him, her, it, etc." After all, physical reality existed first, before art existed, and an artist's ability to imitate reality is worthy of comment, one way or another. However, although 'reality' has existed, let's say, for ever, we have not! Is it possible that it is through images that we actually begin to perceive the reality around us; that we (now) grow up so surrounded with images of one sort or another, that our initial confrontation with certain aspects of reality can only be 'interpreted' by way of pre-existing visual images? 

And I suppose that, stranger than all this, is the fact that we humans even want to represent our world - to ourselves - and, in addition, that we have the ability to do it, convincingly, on a flat surface! This raises the question incidentally, of whether or not all people have this urge or whether, as previously, it is restricted to a certain class of individuals within society: the artists. I would have thought this to be the case, seeing that even today, most people, that is other than artists, do not produce man-made images; and here I stress 'man-made' as, since the advent of the mobile phone (or rather, a camera which comes with a phone) many, many people are now photographically recording every aspect of daily life. But in essence, this is really just an updated version of what has occurred for thousands of years; except that now, even the most trivial (not to say private) aspect of reality apparently requires the validation of an image! Related to this is the long-standing custom (a tautology?) of placing photographs of loved ones around our homes, as well as having one or two at work. Having images nearby of those emotionally close to us also goes back to antiquity, although nowadays it is a lot more democratic, given that, until relatively recently, only the wealthy could afford to commission a portrait from an artist.

Another interesting aspect of images is that frequently, both in times gone by and now, whether painted or sculpted, they are accompanied by words. I am not referring to illustrations of text, to pictures which accompany written narrative, but to 'independent' images which happen to have some kind of text attached to them. Often these words are explanatory and tell us exactly who or what the image represents; sometimes they are in the form of a eulogy which may or may not contain the name of the person being referred to; similarly, images may be accompanied by poetry (as in Chinese and Japanese painting), thereby adding words as art - a verbal art form - to a visual one. However, literary and verbal histories, and their associated images, have been with us for so long that, very often, there is no need for words to accompany an image: since the image and its content are so familiar to us, the image alone is enough, enough to bring into our minds the event depicted. Images of the Buddha for instance, are so familiar that, when we see such an image, be it Indian, Chinese or Thai, we instantly 'recognise' who the image is supposed to represent - even though there are marked differences between one representation and style and another. In an exquisite late-medieval Sienese altarpiece by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, although the theme of the painting is one of the best-known in Christian art - the Annunciation - the artists have actually placed the words of the Angel's greeting as coming out of his mouth and travelling in the direction of the Blessed Virgin! To state the obvious, it's a case of stating the obvious! 1

Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, The Annunciation (detail), 1333, tempera and gold leaf on wood

The Uffizi, Florence (Photo: the author)

Note the Latin words, rendered in raised stucco, issuing from Gabriel's mouth: 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.' (the name 'Mary' is not included)

In this case, the 'event' was so well and widely known at the time (1333) that one wonders why on earth the two painters felt it necessary to add the equally well-known words of greeting; after all, those same words were even to be turned into a prayer, the 'Hail Mary' 2. 

One explanation may be that the inclusion of the words in the image itself reflects a medieval illuminated manuscript tradition, a tradition which insinuated itself into contemporary fresco and panel painting. In fact, the inclusion of phrases 'spoken' by participants in a painted narrative scene, whether within the scene or placed below it, goes back many hundreds of years. In the marvellous Roman church of San Clemente, on the walls of its second level, the paleo-Christian level (below the current street level there are several accessible earlier strata), there is a medieval fresco (c.1080s) illustrating the removal of a stone column being directed by a certain Sisinnius who addresses by name the servants  doing the heavy lifting: he urges them quite crudely (with words written on the image) - in what is regarded as one of the very earliest written records of the nascent Italian language - to get a move on!

More contemporary examples today would be the written words inserted into early silent movies, both as explanations of the plot and as limited dialogue; the indications of sounds (Bang, Crash, etc.), and the verbal exchanges between characters, in comic books; and the sub-titles which appear on the screen when watching foreign-language films.

I digress! The main question concerns why we relate - virtually as a condition of the reality of our perception - our natural, normal experiences to pre-existing experiences of man-made visual representation; and, in particular, to two-dimensional representations. Studies of earlier societies in different parts of the world have suggested that it is not only modern (European) peoples who do this; it seems that 'real' experiences of all kinds of phenomena are, or have been, interpreted by the peoples concerned through the use of, or through reference to, their art forms. Until the modern concept of scientific enquiry was developed, western societies also interpreted their 'real' worlds in the light of their religious beliefs, and by extension, through the visual arts associated with those beliefs. I have no idea what percentage of modern people still interpret natural phenomena in that way but it remains true that contemporary people do refer to works of art as, so to speak, validations of their visual experiences - quite independently of any religious association I mean. The expression mentioned in the first paragraph, 'A picture is worth a thousand words', is related to this general idea, in the sense that a picture is said to express reality better, or more succinctly, than verbal description can. A seemingly odd  contradiction of this is the 'industry' of art explication, a verbal 'translation' of the visual back into the intellectual (one hopes!) - as it were, from whence it came! If it is true that 'a picture is worth a thousand words', the frequently confusing, not to say inept, verbiage which accompanies art works in exhibitions would seem to be therefore redundant! I don't however actually believe this, as intelligent observations about works of art (figurative and non-figurative alike) can obviously aid one's understanding; the objection arises of course, when verbiage becomes a 'career choice', aimed more at the writer's future than at enlightening the hapless observer!

It goes without saying that this very blog is an example of this link between the visual (arts) and the verbal; however, I hope that with most of the articles I write, the result is one of further clarity and not one of obfuscation! While to the layman a figurative image, a realistic representation, may seem self-explanatory - and often they are - many are not and require some sort of verbal aid to the comprehension of their more recondite aspects; often though, the generalised 'setting of the scene', the placement of a given work in its historical and social ambience, is all that words need to do.

W. C. Piguenit (1836-1914), A Winter Evening, Lane Cove (Sydney, Australia), 1888, 

oil on canvas. National Gallery of Victoria (Photo: the author)

I have included the photo above as an example - a particularly beautiful one - of the kind of landscape painting through which I imagine some people might interpret a similar scene in real life. It is an extremely skilful instance of the representation of a real place in particular atmospheric and light conditions; it 'captures' those conditions, which are incidentally, what gives the ordinary scene its 'poetic' qualities: so remarkably well that, to my mind, it is no surprise that, in the first place, some people might describe a similar real scene in terms of such a painting; and secondly, that the painting is judged as successful owing to its similarity to real life experience - its verisimilitude. When I said just now that certain natural elements give the painting its 'poetic' quality, this is of course 'after the fact': what really gave the painting its poetic qualities was the artist! The artist, apparently moved by what was in front of him, thought to 'capture' the scene and its mood in a picture; it was he nevertheless who made the decisions, both formal and poetical, about what should go where, the colours to use, and so on. But he by this time (1888) already had a visual 'library' so to speak, a mental store-house of pre-existing visual references and stimuli, which may or may not have contributed to the choices he made when making his painting. Now again we have the reciprocity mentioned at the beginning: something - art or nature - feeds the artist's imagination and the result of that - a painting, a drawing, etc. - stimulates in others, through the medium of the poetry of that imagination, a certain appreciation of real life experiences.

'Poetry' as used here is a vague term, no longer in vogue I think 3, previously utilised as a kind of 'catch-all' expression to refer to an otherwise indefinable sensation experienced when looking at certain images. I like the word because of that very vagueness, due in part to the fact that, in many cases, it is impossible to define in words what we seem to see in some pictures (and sculptures, etc.): the 'quality' which makes them more than simply an illustration of some aspect of reality, the quality which makes the experience of looking at them one which is not otherwise accessible, that is, than through the contemplation of visual images. Perhaps it is that very 'poetry' which people experience in real life, an indefinable experience which is sometimes best described with reference to another, similarly indefinable one, the one had when looking at pictures. 4 

1 This same phenomenon can also be seen in Annunciations by two of the most important (later) 'northern' artists: in the Ghent Altarpiece (on the exterior of the wings), completed 1432, by Hubert and Jan van Eyck; and in the St. Columba Altarpiece of c.1455 (Munich) by Rogier van der Weyden.

2 It seems to be unclear exactly when the Hail Mary became an official prayer in the western Catholic church; some sources say that it was in the 13th century, therefore already extant when Simone and Lippo were alive. In any case, the greeting itself - minus the word 'Mary' -  comes directly from the Bible (Luke:1, 28) and was obviously known to every Catholic.

3 This is possibly because of its 'romantic' overtones, associated in their turn with a sort of contrived view of the world, one which, at least initially, exalted the power of God as (subjectively) perceived through majestic natural phenomena. W. C. Piguenit's pictures fall very definitely into that (romantic) category although, it could equally be argued that the image above is in fact a description of a real life circumstance. I have myself seen such real scenes and, apart from the indefinable (and undeniable) 'poetry' of this image, it is otherwise a transcription of reality, of nature. One sometimes wonders whether such romantic attitudes in art, which included beauty, would not be today preferable to quite a lot of what is offered in their place!

4 It might be remarked by the way, that this type of experience is not restricted simply to 'pleasant' images; all kinds of subject matter in art can provoke the kinds of emotion, whether poetical or not, being discussed here. Interestingly, images (of horror), even if not experienced in the real life of the viewer, can be so powerful as to, so to speak, conceptually 'substitute' for the real thing. However, to my knowledge, people do not usually claim that an actual scene of horror is 'just like a painting'!