Art 'speaking'.

 

For some of us, artists in particular I imagine, art works take-on or have, as it were, an animated personality: that is to say, they become almost like a kind of living being. It is a commonplace that certain artists - not all - regard their artistic products as though they were their children. This idea of the particular personality of art works was reinforced for me on becoming aware of a common Latin phrase used by medieval and later artists when signing their work: so-and-so "me fecit": 'so-and-so made me'. In this manner, it is the artwork itself which is speaking to us - and continues to speak over the centuries! It is also the joining of the verbal onto the visual; the image exists, conveying the content it is supposed to represent - a visual content, whether painted or sculpted - and then, as if to give it the 'breath of life', the artist claims it by having the work itself state the artist's authorship. Very often, these few words, and others similar, are hidden, inconspicuous; they are certainly not meant to  distract from the principal significance carried by the image.

Pietro Lorenzetti (c.1280-1348), Polittico della Pieve, 

tempera and gold leaf on wood, 1320 -1324 circa

The church of Santa Maria della Pieve, Arezzo (Photo: the author)

Pietro has signed this great work in two places, both in Latin: one in a more formal and obvious manner, under the main central panel; the other, this one invisible from any distance, on the sword blade held by Saint Reparata in a minor panel (top register, extreme left): Petrus me fecit.

In relation to medieval or Renaissance art particularly, as well as more generally, it has been my experience that, wherever they might be, certain images seem to 'communicate', as it were personally, as one walks by or, more likely, as one stands to admire them. It is as though a figure or personage, possibly one out of many, had expressly decided to address a particular viewer! Obviously, the figure does not actually speak; the sensation one has is of a feeling that that figure possibly has some kind of personal significance; a riddle of course, especially so as this normally happens only with an individual figure - and which is more likely to occur when one is alone in front of the particular work. Needless to say, this effect was, at least in part, a desired one: that the holy figures (if the work be a religious one) should 'touch' us, as though personally; but the same thing can happen with secular images too1. At other times however, it would seem to be the artist him- or herself who 'communicates' in this mute fashion, again a kind of riddle. In this case, perhaps it is the utterly convincing nature of the image - the formal and textual coherence - which 'carries' so much of the 'anima' of its creator that it manages to 'speak' - so to speak! 

Giottino, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, (detail) 1360-65, tempera on wood

The Uffizi, Florence (Photo: the author)

Here is an example of a painting, or rather, a figure which communicated with me in the special way I am describing. I like very much the whole image but was especially taken by this extraordinarily melancholy Mary Magdalene: seated somewhat apart, her right knee, shoulder and arm blocking her view of the horrific tragedy beside her. This profoundly lonely figure appealed to me.

The artist is however really speaking to us in the sense that art is a language and, as such, it is probably no surprise that we sometimes have the sensation that we are being personally addressed. In making art objects, artists are 'speaking' to the future viewers of that object through the vocabulary, grammar and syntax of the particular 'art language' they happen to be using. In certain respects, this effect may be taken as a sign of the artwork's - that is, the artist's - success; a given function of art is to communicate and so it follows that in communicating, it fulfils this basic function (what exactly is being communicated is, naturally, another topic). This is a generally recognized function of art but what I am referring to is, as said, a personal or individual contact established by the artwork with particular viewers and not perhaps with whomsoever happens to pass by. The question arises as to whether it is in fact the artwork that is doing the communicating, or whether it is the viewer reading something into the experience of studying the artwork; that is, is the viewer 'projecting' some special quality onto or into the specific art object, is it the viewer who is 'animating' the object beyond any objective criteria? Or, is this especial 'communication' perhaps really the result of understanding the 'language', of being schooled or instructed in not only the language itself, but in its interpretation?

A detail of the so-called Gates of Paradise made by Lorenzo Ghiberti,  1425-52, gilded bronze. Originals (replaced by copies at the Baptistry itself) now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence (Photo: the author)

Here is an example of another way in which artists signed their work, in this case, a self-portrait, of Ghiberti, on the left, and his son, Vittorio, on the right. Ghiberti also signed this masterpiece with his name, on the bar just to the left in this image (not visible). It is an example of the artist regarding us while we regard his work, a mutual exchange of studied interaction.

In this relation, I have recently been fortunate enough to have been reading two particularly interesting texts 2 and unfortunate enough to have been subjected to another (thankfully short) which, in terms of 'art literacy', could be termed the polar opposite of the other two! Given the very low level of appreciation - not to say knowledge - and the general confusion of the latter piece (whose details I don't wish to publicise), it could be taken as an example of why it is that so often, the untutored mind misses the point, that is, people like this often miss altogether or don't understand what is being communicated by a given artwork. On numerous occasions, the sight of crowds of people filing past some of the most important, not to say sublime, works of art, in major art galleries, has saddened me, knowing that with even a small amount of interpretive knowledge or learning, some more at least of these people would get so much more out of their experience.

A related obstacle, ironically, is, as the proverb goes, 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'; by this I mean that often it seems that the reaction to certain works of art is conditioned by the fame of the artwork. People will bill and coo in front of, for instance, a Raphael or a Michelangelo or a Picasso because they know it was made by that artist, but will be absolutely cold before the (possibly very good) work of someone they've never heard of. This suggests that what they are doing before the Raphael etcetera is exactly what they've been conditioned to do (and what they think they should do); when however, they are confronted with a work for which they have no yardstick (no fame, no verbal commonplaces), they are unable to form an independent judgement or opinion and remain silent - or worse, criticise the hapless work from the shallowness of their unschooled appreciation. 3

For me at any rate, whether this communication is a 'real' phenomenon or simply my mind fancifully projecting into the object is not of the greatest importance; what is important is that this effect continue to occur, to take me into a condition one might say of privilege, of individual dialogue with another person's thought and 'anima'.

1 My own experience is that, normally, the effect I am writing about occurs in relation to figurative works and, more exactly, works in which there is the representation of human figures, of people; the effect is not so strong nor so common with landscapes or still-life for instance, or with over-sized work, and perhaps even less so with regard to abstract pieces (no criticism implied). The phenomenon is completely absent when viewing 'installations', performance 'art', conceptual art and so forth (criticism implied)! 

2 The two particularly interesting texts referred to are: Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, Oxford, originally 1971, and Lorenzo Ghiberti,  I Commentarii, Giunti, 1998 (Introduzione e cura di Lorenzo Bartoli).

3 This condition, that is, of some people's appreciation of art being in some way conditioned by their expectations as opposed to being a reaction to the art per se, has been remarked on for some time. While preparing this article, I came across a reference to Francisco de Hollanda's (1517-85) Roman Dialogues (c. 1550 manuscript only) in which he imagines or recounts a conversation between Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo in which she asks him his opinion of Flemish painting; Michelangelo replies, "Flemish painting pleases the pious better than any Italian style ... This is not due to vigour or merit in the painting but is entirely the fruit of pious sensibility". Although he goes on to a more detailed formal criticism of Flemish painting, Michelangelo here makes an observation concerning the fact that some people's preferences are based not on an appreciation of any given painting on its own terms, but rather on the power of the (in this case) religious sentiment it carries; the formal success or otherwise of the artwork in question, for viewers like these, is almost irrelevant and probably not understood. Reference and quotation found in The Critical Writings of Adrian Stokes,  Lawrence Gowing (Ed.), 1978, Vol III: 'Michelangelo', footnote #35 (p348).

Three Painted Portraits

 

This article is about portraits. I would like us to look at three painted portraits and see how they might be similar to each other and how they are different. The first is an image from Fayum, in Egypt, and dates to the early 1st century AD, a period in which Egypt was under the control of the Romans. This type of portrait was made and used a bit like we today might have a photo taken of a family member and which on his or her death, at least in some cultures, is attached to their tombstone. It is believed that most Fayum portraits were painted while the sitter was still alive - something I would say was pretty obvious - and then, on their death, were placed in the position of the face in an Egyptian-style mummy and held in place by the mummy wrappings; in this way, Greco-Roman realism was superimposed onto traditional Egyptian burial practices.

 

A typical Fayum portrait, artist and sitter unknown. 1st century AD. Encaustic on wooden panel. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. (Image: Public Domain through Wikipedia)

Note that the top corners and the lower edge are left as exposed wood because it was anticipated that they would be covered by the mummy wrappings. *

What I would like us to examine however is the style of the portrait. The sitter is a youngish man, perhaps close to 30 years old, apparently of high rank judging from what we see of his clothing (especially his angusticlavius condition: wearing a narrow stripe of purple on the tunic, signifying a plebeian tribune). Being dressed in the Roman manner, this alone would set him apart from a typical Egyptian image; but there are other notable cultural differences. Egyptian burial masks are, first, just that, they are stylized masks of the deceased, not portraits as we - or the Romans - understand the term; secondly, they are, without fail, frontal: the Fayum portrait on the other hand, is nearly always a three-quarter view; that is, the sitter, as in the image above, often (not always) is seen by the painter slightly more from either the right or the left, usually not full-face, usually not frontally. The shoulders and chest of the man above indicate this positioning as does his face: although he is looking directly at us, we can in fact see more of his left cheek, ear, nose and neck, suggesting that, while his body is directed more towards his right - creating thereby an abstract diagonal (and therefore depth) into the very shallow illusionistic space of the image - his head is turned towards his left to look at the painter. The importance of this is that it has nothing to do with the indigenous art of the place where at least a good number of such portraits has been found, that is, in Fayum, in Egypt. Having said that however, one of the most important aspects of this portrait type is that it became the, we might say, standard portrait pose in western painting, particularly for a head-and-shoulders image.

Formally, the portrait above is strikingly life-like; it is obviously a representation of a real person (and not a stylised one). The light falls from the right side creating shadows on the left, especially along the longish nose and on the forehead. The shadows and light work together to mould the cheeks, the area around the mouth and the chin; they cause the face to appear in front of the neck. The top lip is in shadow and the slightly protruding lower lip is catching the light. The eyes are large and that general area indicates a somewhat pensive personality, although this often occurs when people sit for portraits: they sooner or later enter into a private world, especially if they are asked by the painter not to talk. All of these effects of the light together with the pose itself became absolutely standard elements in western representational art for the next two thousand years, in fact, for figurative artists, to this very day. Finally, we may notice as well that the colouring is naturalistic, something which varies, as is to be expected, from sitter to sitter and from painter to painter.

Perugino (c.1448-1523), Portrait of Francesco delle Opere, c.1494

Oil on wood. Uffizi, Florence. (Photo: the author)

I have chosen the next example (above), painted some 1400-odd years later than the Fayum portrait we have just discussed because, while it is a descendent of that Fayum style, it displays some marked differences as well. To begin with, we know who both the sitter was and who the painter was; this is not the work of an anonymous (at least to us) artisan, but rather the proud work of a recognized and influential Renaissance painter (it is signed and dated on the back). The perhaps most obvious formal difference between the Fayum and this portrait is that the sitter is placed before a kind of limitless but realistic space; in the Roman portrait, there is only the merest hint of any space except that concerned with the features of the face. Here, the landscape background is a typical Perugino one, disappearing as it does into a limitless, expansive blue twilight; there is the suggestion of closer landscape features but more or less only as silhouettes against the cool ethereal blues. This cool blue of course serves to contrast with the warm flesh-tones in the face - not dissimilar in fact from those in the Fayum picture - and with the strong red shirt which forms an obvious vertical counterpoint to the calm horizontality of the distant background. Partly as a result of this, the head and face appear very near the front edge of this image, accentuated itself by the sitter's hands resting, supposedly, on that same edge. Fayum portraits sometimes show the sitter's hands as well and there are examples occasionally in fresco portraits of the same period at Pompeii. Like the Fayum portrait, Perugino's sitter is turned at a slight angle to the picture plane although his shoulders and chest fill-up most of the lower half of the image.

In essence, the face of Perugino's sitter is also shown in a quasi-three-quarter view, in fact, like the Fayum example, from the right; on this occasion, he is lit from the left and much more subtly: apart from the strong shadow along the sitter's left forehead and cheek, the light is diffuse, undramatic but very very 'descriptive'. We can see clearly the undulations, the 'topography' of Francesco's middle-aged face, we can see the stubble of his beard and almost count the hairs on his head as they stream out from under his cap. There is a suggestion as well of a possible illness which may have caused the unusual lifting of his top lip, on his right side. Earlier, reference was made to photographic images and to continue with that analogy, we could say that the Fayum picture is like an early Polaroid print compared to Perugino's digital one! In addition, although we know almost nothing of our Fayum sitter's life (except that he was sufficiently well-to-do and, at one time at least, in Egypt) we do know something about Francesco delle Opere - from the painting (that is, apart from external documents): in his right hand he holds a piece of paper with the words Timete Deum on it; those words are associated with the radical Dominican preacher Savonarola (1452-98), active and successful in Florence until his ultimate execution. Displaying so obviously a possible adherence to the doctrines of the firebrand preacher identifies our sitter with his religious and political ideas - both dangerous.

A brief remark at this point concerning the mediums used in the two portraits discussed so far. The first was painted in encaustic, which means the pigments were mixed with wax which was applied while hot or cold (in an emulsion) to the wooden panel; as can be seen, under the right conditions, an extremely durable technique. The second painting was done in oils - again on wood - a technique far more familiar today, even to non-specialists. It has also been an extremely successful technique although it is susceptible to many dangers. Its advantages are that it is relatively flexible when it dries, and is capable of a huge variety of effects, more so than encaustic or fresco painting. Perugino was a master of the suffused light of twilight, making full use of the translucence possible with oil paint. It is somewhat fashionable these days to denigrate Perugino but I think portraits like this one of Francesco delle Opere demonstrate, amongst other things, his perspicacious psychological subtlety.

The third portrait we might look at is one made by the British artist Graham Sutherland between 1962 and 1964 of his friend, the great English art historian, Kenneth Clark, (Baron Clark). This work, painted in oil on canvas and typical of the style of Graham Sutherland, is interesting in several ways, not least because it revives the fifteenth-century Italian profile portrait which itself was a revival of those found on classical Roman coins.

Leon Battista Alberti, Self Portrait, c.1435, bronze

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (Photo: the author)

Alberti's self portrait is one of the earliest of a style, which became popular in Italy at the time, of so-called 'profile portraits', based more or less closely on classical Roman coins which featured a profile of an emperor. Alberti's is not strictly a medal as it doesn't have a reverse side, nevertheless, subsequent exemplars did have, one of the most famous being that of Sigismondo Malatesta by Matteo de' Pasti (dated 1450 but struck in 1453).

Graham Sutherland (1903-80), Portrait of Kenneth Clark, Baron Clark (1903-83),

1962-64, oil on canvas. The National Portrait Gallery, London (Photo: the author)

The portrait of Clark takes up this ancient type of exact profile rendering as seen in the Alberti bronze. Here of course, it is a painting and as such, may be compared, so to say, as apples with apples, with both the Fayum and the Perugino pictures. The obvious difference with the Clark is that the sitter is shown in profile, and not in the three-quarter view we see in the other two instances; it is similar though in one respect at least to the Fayum portrait in that the 'background' is really hardly more than a flat colour: there is no attempt to suggest realistic depth behind the sitter and, as we have seen, this is true of the Fayum as well. But there is depth and this is where Sutherland has shown his mastery as a painter: apart from the naturalistic reddish tones in the face, both the colours and the shadows work to 'explain' the topography of Kenneth Clark's head as an almost sculpted mass in space. The light falls from above and from the front, so there is no definite 'dark side' or 'light side'; we can see shadows under Clark's eye-brow, his nose, his lower lip, his chin, and under his very explicit ear. There are clear shadows in his collar but also a light at the top edge of the button side; the light falls on his forehead, the top of his hair, the top of his ear, the bridge of his nose, the area above the top lip, the top of his chin. Within these more obvious observations, Sutherland has modulated his numerous colours and tones to 'sculpt' the topography of his sitter, from his right shoulder, across the hills and dales of the face to the distal collar; if we look at the ear and then the shadow in the space below the eye-brow beside the top of the nose, we realise what a distance has been travelled and therefore, what depth there really is in this apparently, at first, quite simple view. The overall greenish colour of both the cardigan and the background contrast strongly with the overall warm tones in the face, although, there too, there is a most subtle and elegant exchange between the warms and the cools.

Graham Sutherland was a lover of line and of the painted line in particular, as we can appreciate in the many 'linear' creases and wrinkles in Kenneth Clark's face: the clear age-related lines around the eyes and forehead, the line of the front of the cheek and that of the thin mouth. But perhaps the most marked is the one, again age-related, traversing the neck, almost as if cut with a knife! Sutherland's picture is a twentieth-century painting which brings into play a fifteenth-century mode (the strict profile) and, in that interplay of pinks and cool greens, also the faces in late-Gothic Italian frescos.

Much more could be said about portraiture of course, and where to stop would be the question, not to say the problem. Naturally, artists used models for their non-portrait faces and figures as well but that is yet another area of exploration.

* Although many 'Fayum" portraits were done in encaustic paint, there were quite a number done as well in tempera; both techniques are still used today, although oil and acrylic paints are by far much more popular now. The name 'Fayum' is that of a place in middle-Egypt where there was a large population of Greeks, or people who regarded themselves, or were regarded by the authorities, as in some way mainly Greek; however, such portraits have now been found in many other places in Egypt, and elsewhere in north Africa. It would seem that those who had such portraits made (in Egypt) belonged to the upper strata of Egyptian society and thought of themselves as in some way Roman while nevertheless still maintaining their 'Greek-ness' and sometimes also, their 'Egyptian-ness'! These portraits are especially significant in art history terms because they give us almost the only substantial idea of what ancient Greek panel painting (that is, portable pictures on wood) actually looked like, and of the extraordinarily high standard it had reached. The Greek connection, as far as these portraits are concerned, is highlighted by the occasional Greek inscription on either the painted surface itself, or on the mummy wrappings. Naturally, Roman officials stationed in Egypt on behalf of the Empire may also have had themselves portrayed in this same manner and therefore, not all of the images so far discovered need necessarily be of native-born Egyptians, whether 'Greek' or otherwise.

Pietro Lorenzetti - a rebirth

 Today I am writing about a subject with which I have been fortunate enough to have an intimate connection: the restoration of the polyptych1 painted between 1320 and 1324 by Pietro Lorenzetti for the church of Santa Maria della Pieve (also known as the Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta) in Arezzo. The Lorenzetti brothers, Pietro (c.1280-85 to c.1348?) and the younger Ambrogio, were from Siena and because of his rightly famous frescos there, the Allegories of Good and Bad Government, Ambrogio is perhaps the better-known of the two. However, Pietro painted (1310-20) some of the frescos in the lower Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, a most important group in that complex art-historical environment. As far as our polyptych is concerned, the contract for the commission of the altarpiece in Santa Maria in Arezzo was signed in April 1320.

Madonna and Child with Saints, 1320-24, by Pietro Lorenzetti, tempera and gold leaf on wooden panels, 315.5 x 293.6 cm. The church of Santa Maria della Pieve (Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta), Arezzo. Note that almost the entire original frame, with its lateral pillars and predella base, is missing. Image courtesy of R.I.C.E.R.C.A., Arezzo.

I had come to know this exquisitely refined and subtle painting by making sure I visited it every time I found myself in Arezzo. My principal reason for making the short journey from Florence to this wonderful Tuscan city was in fact to see the fresco masterpiece in the ancient basilica of San Francesco, the Legend of the True Cross (1452-55?) painted by Piero della Francesca. And speaking of Piero, in the hill-top cathedral is another of his frescos, the powerful (like all his women) Magdalen (1462-64?) which just happens to be on the wall beside the large and impressive funerary monument of the Bishop of Arezzo, Guido Tarlati (of 1330; also restored by R.I.C.E.R.C.A. in 2017 with funds again raised by them) - the very man who commissioned the Pieve altarpiece from Pietro Lorenzetti. I would usually then visit the small church of San Domenico to see Cimabue's large painted crucifix, another elegantly powerful work. After that, on to the Pieve di Santa Maria, which, like San Domenico, I would normally have to myself: there to 'commune' with the respectfully taciturn elegance of Pietro Lorenzetti's great altarpiece. On a visit three years ago however, in 2017, Pietro's master-work was gone! I subsequently discovered that it had been removed into the hands of the restorers at R.I.C.E.R.C.A. - Paola Baldetti, Marzia Benini and Isabella Droandi - three experts in their field, and dedicated, even without sufficient funds, to the restoration of this most special late-medieval masterpiece. R.I.C.E.R.C.A., right from the outset and together with two non-profit groups, Art Angels Arezzo and Friends of Florence (especially concerning donations from the USA), has managed to gather the funds necessary for this unique endeavour. The restoration of this beautiful polyptych, carried out by R.I.C.E.R.C.A. in Arezzo, has therefore been paid for thanks in great part to the generosity of both Italian and international donors.

                                   

A close-up of the small roundel in the second tier on the extreme right-hand side showing the difference between the 'before' condition, on the left, and the 'after' condition, on the right. Note that special attention has been paid to the restoration of the gold background thereby restoring its 'transcendental' function. Image courtesy of R.I.C.E.R.C.A., Arezzo.

This extremely demanding work has taken about four years to (almost) complete and involved the disassembling of the 700 year-old wooden structure, the scientific analysis of its integrity, as well as the exhaustive cleaning and repair of the paint film. Some work remains to be done, notably on an indicative frame - parts of the original (which would have brought the overall dimensions to 350 x 350 cm) having been lost over the intervening centuries - and its stabilisation, with a steel sub-structure, for the return to its 'home', the Pieve. Given the large number of medieval works on wood which are now to be found in museums all over the world, it is a not-insignificant fact that Pietro's altarpiece, painted expressly for Santa Maria della Pieve, has been there, except for one or two brief periods, ever since its original installation. Hopefully, and with a little further financial support, it will soon be back!

One of the restorers using a microscope and very fine tools during the restoration of the right-hand panel, with St John the Evangelist holding a red book, of the Lorenzetti Polyptych. Image courtesy of R.I.C.E.R.C.A., Arezzo.

The altarpiece, also commented on by Vasari2, is typical insofar as its layout and iconography are more or less those which may be found in similar works of the period. It shows the Madonna gazing at her new son, the Christ Child, who in turn gazes back at her while holding with his left hand a part of her veil. On either side of these central figures are representations of four important saints, amongst whom St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. Above these are portrayed eight other saints with, in the centre, an Annunciation; above them four more saints and, at the very top, the Virgin in Glory. Various earlier restorations, not to say wilful damage (attempted arson, graffiti, etc.) have contributed to sometimes traumatic changes in the paint surface, especially the once common use of soda (a harsh abrasive) and the application of deliberately darkening varnishes. It was discovered during the extremely demanding restoration that all the incised work in the golden haloes, etcetera, was done by hand, that is, not with the use of labour-saving wheeled tools. For me at least, one of the important and interesting things about this work is that it was signed, twice, by its author Pietro, and that nearly all the saints still have their names written under them. The first 'signature', situated under the Madonna, reads: PETRUS LAURENTII HANC PINXIT DEXTRA SENENSIS (Pietro Lorenzetti of Siena painted this with his right hand3); the second, on the sword of Santa Reparata (in the first cuspid on the left) reads: PETRUS ME FECIT (Pietro made me)4.

Initially, the unveiling of the restored polyptych was to occur this year on the 700th anniversary of the date of the commission contract, April 17, 1320; unfortunately, COVID-19 caused this to be postponed but, all things being equal, it should now take place on November 8 (a recent resurgence of COVID in Italy however may cause this too to be postponed!). 

Here is the link to the GoFundMe page set-up by the non-profit organisation Art Angels Arezzo which is raising funds for the completion of the restoration: https://gf.me/u/y4t4sc  In this regard, it is interesting that the altarpiece was originally paid for, some 700 years ago, with donations from the public, and here, once again, it needs our support for its 'rebirth'. Even small amounts help and I think this is one very good way to say 'thank you' to Italy for the innumerable works of art it has given to all of us.

1 A 'polyptych' (πολλοι + πτυχη = many folds) is a multi-panelled painting, very typical of religious art in the late-medieval period, but also later; polyptychs were very often quite large and therefore costly and so were most frequently to be found in churches, normally standing on an altar (hence the alternative generic but not exclusive name 'altarpiece'). Sometimes, as in the present case, there were multiple images on one side only, but, in other cases, such as Duccio's  Maestà (in Siena) for instance, they could have images on both the front and the back. Unfortunately, over their centuries' long life, many have been cut down in size, and often somewhat mutilated by 'restorers' (the Arezzo example earlier suffering both fates), and many have been dismembered, with different elements ending up in different parts of the world (Piero della Francesca's Sant'Agostino Altarpiece is an example, with panels in Milan, London, Lisbon, New York and Washington DC). As the Greek words - from which derives the modern word - imply, many polyptychs were constructed so that they could be closed and then opened on special occasions (with pictures on the outside of the doors as well; see the Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck). The Lorenzetti example here has images on one side only and no 'doors'.

2 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, published by Edizioni dell'Orso, 2017, Volume 1, edited by Enrico Mattioda and based on the 1568 so-called Giuntina edition of the Lives. Page 283, in the Vita di Pietro Laurati (the Life of Pietro Laurati), Pietro Lorenzetti is mistakenly called by Vasari 'Laurati' and not linked to his brother Ambrogio, about whom he separately writes, correctly identifying him as 'Ambruogio Lorenzetti, pittor Sanese' (page312).

3 The last phrase of Pietro's 'signature', "with his right hand", has caused some perplexity as it is a very unusual statement, whereas his second 'signature', the one on the sword, is much more typical (interesting in itself however, as it is the artwork which is 'speaking': "Pietro made me"! The artist's reference to his right hand could possibly have something to do with the general disapproval of anything to do with the left hand, regarded superstitiously as not acceptable to God.

4 This information and other details were supplied to me by one of the team at R.I.C.E.R.C.A. and are taken from the Technical Summary entitled: Pietro Lorenzetti (1280 circa - 1348) Arezzo, Pieve di Santa Maria. There is some doubt concerning the dates of birth and death of Pietro but it is thought he may have perished with his brother during the plague.

Pontormo's Visitation - with a German accent?

Following an electronic discussion with a friend in Italy - who lives incidentally at Empoli, through which passes the river Orme, whence the name of the Mannerist painter Pontormo - and the subsequent watching of some videos about the Visitation by Pontormo, and especially in one of those, the excellent lecture given by Bruce Edelstein at the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò in New York, I decided to write down a few thoughts concerning that picture.

The Visitation, oil on panel, 1528-30 by Pontormo (born Jacopo Carucci, 1494-1556)

San Michele Arcangelo, Carmignano

Image: Public Domain at Wikipedia and courtesy of the Parish of San Michele Arcangelo, Carmignano.

My friend had sent me a photo of a detail from Pontormo's painting, which is to be found in the small town of Carmignano, a detail of two small figures in the distant background; our discussion originated there, concerning what exactly the figures were doing. There followed from my friend a couple of links to other discussions about this same work, including its recent (2014) restoration. On watching these videos, one of which was the aforementioned lecture given in 2018 by Bruce Edelstein, I was prompted to do some research of my own.

The direct stimulus for the research was the reference to the influence of the prints of Albrecht Dürer on Florentine artists generally and on Pontormo in particular, at the beginning of the 16th century. These prints found their way into many areas of Europe and especially into Italy and Florence, in large part due to the entrepreneurial skills of Dürer himself. This reference in relation to Pontormo was not new as art historians have for many years - in fact, going back as far as the 1568 edition of Vasari's Lives - remarked on the clear influence of those prints; not only Bruce Edelstein but, amongst others, Carlo Falciani for example and Attilio Brilli1, have made the connection between the Visitation and one Dürer print in particular, the Four Witches of 1497. 

The Four Witches, engraving, 1497 by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

Felton Bequest, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Image: courtesy of the National Gallery of Victoria

As we can see from the image above, there are four nude women standing together in a circle, two more or less with their backs to us, and two facing outwards, although only one is entirely visible, the other being substantially hidden by two of her companions. First we might note that none is clothed (hence nude!), a not unimportant detail when comparing this image with the Visitation; secondly, that none is apparently pregnant, a salient point regarding the raison d'être behind the subject of the Pontormo picture2. What seem to have interested historians about this image are the generous proportions of the woman in the centre with her back fully to us, this element being often cited as the source for the so-called rhomboid-shapes3 of the women in Pontormo's painting. In my opinion, ignoring the Biblical fact that the two women were pregnant at the time of the visit (hence the 'rhomboid' shapes), the presence of that partially-hidden woman who is - almost - looking out at the viewer, and the compositional idea of four women together, would have been enough to have stimulated Pontormo. What I would like to draw attention to is another quite different print by Dürer but one with exactly the same subject as Pontormo's picture, that is, the visit of the Virgin Mary to Saint Elizabeth, both at that time pregnant.

     

                                                                                              

The Visitation, woodcut, 1503-04 by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

Felton Bequest, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Image: courtesy of the National Gallery of Victoria

In this print there is a number of happy coincidences with Pontormo's Visitation. Beginning at the left side we see a large building with an arched gateway or door and, running along the base of the outside wall, a kind of seat or bench. In Pontormo's picture, albeit somewhat in the background (on the left) is a similar building with a similar bench on which are sitting the two small figures mentioned above. The building incidentally, is drawn in sharply receding perspective - as is that on the left of the Dürer. The next feature which I think points to this print as a possible 'influence' on Pontormo is the two figures of Mary and Saint Elizabeth in the centre of the image; here we see the two women greeting one another, this time with Mary on the right. Both are somewhat largish in the belly region, they are looking directly at each other, and interestingly, touching each other on the shoulder (an obvious gesture in the painting), or, at least, Mary definitely has her left hand on Elizabeth's right shoulder and appears to have her other hand on the older woman's left shoulder. Elizabeth's hands seem to be obscured by Mary's arms but she is apparently clasping her under her raised arms. The four Witches on the other hand are not making visible contact with one another!

In Dürer's Visitation the position of the two principal actors is reversed and there are no attendant ladies in that central group, as in Pontormo's picture but, in my opinion, the similarities here are much closer than those said to pertain in the Four Witches print. In Dürer's Visitation, Elizabeth is seen from the back, a quasi-three-quarter view, a similar view to that of Mary in Pontormo's painting. As far as the two Elizabeths are concerned, there is an interesting coincidence in the very obvious sharp angle formed in the painting by her backward left leg and the way it pulls her yellow garment: in the print, an analogous angle is created by Elizabeth's folded-back outer garment.

There are numerous differences between the two works as well, the most obvious being the number of principal actors (two in the print, four in the painting); the 'Mannerist' composition of the painting (that is, that the figures occupy nearly all the image surface); the stark difference in scale between the figures and the background in the painting, whereas the composition and relative scale of figures and background are 'normal' (pre-Mannerist) in the print; the print version has the meeting set in the countryside, while Pontormo's encounter would seem to be in an urban environment; and so on - not to mention the obvious, that the Dürer is monochrome while the Pontormo is coloured! 

In general terms then, how can we describe the undoubted influence of the German master's printed oeuvre on a Florentine Mannerist painter such as Jacopo Pontormo? Although Dürer was also a painter and an art theorist, he is known now, and was then, principally for his graphic output, in his case enough on its own to qualify him as one of the great artists of the time. Many of his prints were in fact produced with the aim of their forming part of a book (usually a printed book, occasionally a manuscript book), whether, as initially, published by others or, later, published by himself. As indicated, Dürer was entrepreneurial in his outlook and deliberately worked at the diffusion of his printed works, and in this he was particularly successful in Florence at the end of the 1400s and the beginning of the 1500s.

On an earlier occasion, when Pontormo was at the Certosa (a Carthusian monastery) at Galluzzo, just outside Florence, to which he had retired due to an outbreak of the plague in that city, when he came to decorate the cloister there with a fresco cycle based on the Passion of Christ, he resorted to using some of the German master's images as more or less direct sources for his own compositions. The frescos at the Certosa, although restored, have clearly suffered a great deal in the intervening centuries; this is most especially evident in the colours and this is significant because they are paintings (which generally implies colour) and not monochrome, such as many prints happen to be4. A deteriorated painting, that is, one where the visual integrity of the colour has been severely compromised (as is the case at Galluzzo), has rather the look coincidentally of a lightly-tinted print as opposed to a lately-completed painting. 

The images of the Passion painted by Pontormo at the Certosa are crowded with figures (as are Dürer's scenes of the same subject), many of which are soldiers dressed in the contemporary German manner (as is also the case in Dürer's prints)5. While Pontormo's composition (the basic 'V' shape as a structural scaffolding) and even some of its content, such as the German-style of the soldiers, can be traced to Dürer's series of prints dealing with the same subject, in his (Pontormo's) painting of Christ before Pilate, the management of the clothing for instance, would seem to be much more 'Tuscan' than the somewhat Gothic quality in the prints. In that same scene - whose setting is quite different from, for instance a Dürer print of 1509 from the Little Passion series, showing Christ before Herod - there is in the top of the background, the figure of a youth apparently descending a central staircase, and carrying the basin of water in which Pilate will later wash his hands of the responsibility for Christ's death. The inclusion of this figure and the staircase (not to mention the colour) is an example of Pontormo's independence of his source material, and I mention it only to point out that he was not entirely reliant on prints from across the Alps.

The aspect of the handling of garments is an important one I think as, again, it demonstrates that while Pontormo was happy to borrow certain elements of the German master's work, he was in other respects too advanced - in a Tuscan 'disegno' way - to adopt it uncritically. This is true as well, and particularly, in his Visitation, where the painting of the clothing of the principal characters is wholly his own, or, perhaps better, Florentine; moreover, as others have noted, it reflects his treatment of the clothes in the sublime fresco of the Annunciation and in the panel of the Deposition in the Capponi Chapel of Santa Felicita. On the other hand, Dürer's treatment of cloth in his prints is always medieval or Gothic, with its characteristic small twists in the ends and folds of drapery; this quality, which might otherwise be ascribed to wood carving and to other reminiscences of medieval illustration, obviously did not attract the draughtsman in Pontormo.

Actually, there are many differences between the work of Pontormo and Dürer. Although the latter was also a painter, and both were consummate drawers, there is a world - the antique world - separating them. Pontormo's work is post-Renaissance, having already mastered all the developments of the previous century, and having already moved in a new, revolutionary direction. His drawing by this stage, like his colour, is derived from Michelangelo and his composition is the antithesis of Renaissance equilibrium. He, like Michelangelo, particularly in the Capponi Chapel and in the Visitation, has almost completely done away with 'setting', the figures are massive, the colours sublime. 

Dürer's printed work to a large extent, although revealing his mastery of some Italian developments, such as perspective, still contains elements which are quasi-Medieval, for instance as mentioned, in the way he handles drapery and clothes. But one feature which explicitly differentiates the two masters is Dürer's inclusion of beautiful anecdotal details, of which there are many in his prints. His Visitation is a case in point: the meeting is set in a landscape complete with rocks, mountains, trees of various kinds, clouds in the sky, a distant town or castle, not to mention a pet dog! Elizabeth  even has the house-hold keys and a purse (?) hanging from her side. The figures are shown in the conventional physical relation to their surroundings, to the space they occupy; Dürer's religious figures and environments are therefore identifiable by the 'man in the street'. 

Much of Pontormo's work is staged on another plane, a plane which requires no stage! His scenes, those without a clear setting anyway, happen on the wall or panel in such a way that they 'occur' in the viewer's mind. His Visitation is, to all intents and purposes, totally devoid of ordinary mundane anecdote, except for the two men seated on the bench in the distant left; so curious is this detail that one is inclined to think there must be a pertinent significance to their presence, as yet not decoded. Of course, their inclusion could simply be anecdotal in fact, like the ass's head protruding around the corner of that left-hand building: a kind of comic philosophical comment on the incomprehension of so much that happens in the world. Not all Dürer's prints were of religious subjects and his less didactic but more mysterious engravings and woodcuts are full of wonderful invention (for example, Melencolia 1, Nemesis, The Four Witches,  the portraits). In a sense, as far as their religious works are concerned, Dürer explains while Pontormo dreams.

1 Pontormo e Rosso Fiorentino: Divergenti Vie della "Maniera", catalogue published by Mandragora on the occasion of the homonymous exhibition held at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence in 2014: Carlo Falciani, Giovanni Maria Fara and Antonio Geremicca all contributed articles  in which the influence of Dürer's prints was discussed.

Attilio Brilli in Itinerari del Manierismo in Toscana (Silvana Editoriale, 1994) also discusses this influence. Numerous other authors stress the influence of prints made by northern artists, that is, from artists who lived beyond the Alps (Germany, Flanders, etc.); Alessandro Cecchi, Antonio Natali and Carlo Sisi for example, in the excellent catalogue (published by Marsilio) to the exhibition L'Officina della Maniera, held in Florence at the Uffizi in 1996-97.

2 According to Saint Luke's Gospel (1, 36-44) both the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth were miraculously pregnant at the same time; Mary went to visit her older cousin who was eventually to give birth to a son, later known as John the Baptist.

3 Most art historical analysis of Pontormo's Visitation notes the so-called 'rhomboid' shapes of the two principal actors, Mary and Elizabeth, and duly traces that shape back to the Four Witches print; we might notice that, in the first place, the Witches in Dürer's print are not pregnant and neither are they particularly 'rhomboid' in form. In the second place, as mentioned, the event of the Visitation occurred when both protagonists were pregnant, possibly giving rise, one would have thought, to a characteristic shape: surely Pontormo hardly needed to seek inspiration for that! As suggested here, what seems more likely to have attracted his creative attention was the fact of four women standing together  and the partial appearance of the one (almost) looking out at us. An example incidentally, of how artists may 'borrow' something from another's work but then proceed to adjust it for their own purposes. One might also point out in this context the pre-existing 'rhomboid-shape' of the large female figure in pink, directed away from the viewer and towards Mary, in Pontormo's Deposition panel in Sta Felicita, which was painted between 1525-28 - that is, before the Visitation.

4 One very interesting and beautiful example however of monochrome painting is the fresco cycle depicting the Life of Saint John the Baptist, painted by Andrea del Sarto between 1508 and 1526, in the Chiostro dello Scalzo in Florence. It will be remembered that Andrea del Sarto was one of Pontormo's masters but also incidentally, as Vasari tells us, that when working in the Scalzo, Andrea took inspiration from the prints of Dürer.

5 This is interesting in both cases, that is, in the case of Pontormo and Dürer, since the normal representation of the Passion of Christ is with (ancient) Roman soldiers as the attendant guards. Dürer may have wanted to 'update' so to speak his image, to make the scenes more accessible by clothing his characters in contemporary garb; this was done by Italian artists too. In fact, both artists have used contemporary buildings as part of the setting although Pontormo has clothed his figures in what passes for 1st century AD dress. However, Pontormo's adoption of the Landsknechte-type of soldier, in Florence, is puzzling. He may simply have liked the look of these fearsome German soldiers from an artistic or visual novelty point of view, and so kept them in his pictures as he adapted Dürer's images. However, one wonders if perhaps there may not have been a political aspect to his use of uniquely Germanic soldiers, soldiers who, in his pictures, will eventually put the Saviour to death. Although it was to occur roughly two years later, in 1527, the tragedy of the Sack of Rome was carried out by precisely this type of soldier, the Landsknechte, together with Spanish and some Italian mercenary troops. The mutinous Germanic part of the forces which attacked Rome and, more specifically the papacy, were representatives of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, a German prince. The problems between the papacy and the Emperor are complex, the two parties being sometimes on the same side, sometimes on the opposite. In this context, although before the Sack itself, it was not unusual for local enemies to be portrayed as the villains in religious works; in the present case, this is mere speculation however!

Two Pictures in the NGV

 Today I have decided to write about two pictures which are to be found in the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), which is in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Australia where I live. The first is a large painting which I have loved since I was a child, when I first saw it.

I

It is called The Banquet of Cleopatra and was painted in Venice by Giambattista Tiepolo in 1744, at which time it was purchased directly from his studio and sent to Dresden. In 1764, it was bought by Catherine the Great of Russia, in which country it remained, in various palaces and museums, until its ultimate sale in 1932 and subsequent purchase (in London) in 1933 by the NGV. Apparently, in the late 1920s the USSR was in need of foreign currency and had put a number of its pictures and other treasures up for sale. The painting is a large oil on canvas (250 x 370cm) and this is interesting because Tiepolo painted several versions of this subject, at least one of which is in fresco (Palazzo Labia in Venice); several other versions, both large and small, are known and are kept in various European collections, as well as in Russia.

The Banquet of Cleopatra, 1744, oil on canvas by Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770) in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

Image:Public Domain Wikipedia

The Banquet of Cleopatra (NGV) is a typically large Venetian bravura piece, that is, a suitably serious subject from history, mythology or the Bible, usually crowded with all sorts of figures, including dwarfs and African servants, all wearing beautiful clothes, and set, where appropriate, in grand pseudo-classical loggias or palaces. Our painting is set in a loggia of a type reflecting classical Roman influence, even though the legendary event of the wager between Marc Antony and Cleopatra may have occurred in Egypt!1 In niches set into the pale wall which substantially separates the loggia area from the arched wall in the background, are two very Romano-Greek looking 'Egyptian' statues, both however very half-hearted attempts at setting an Egyptian scene. Further disinterest in historical 'fact' is demonstrated by those same beautiful clothes which are at the height of contemporary Venetian fashion, amongst the aristocracy at least, despite the historical period of the event, that is, the latter part of the 1st century BC. The only concession to historical accuracy, apart from elements of the architecture derived from Greco-Roman models (not Egyptian), is the very elaborate helmet worn by Marc Antony, the figure wearing the red cloak, with his back to us.

Naturally, the patrons of such images were the aristocracy and the rich of Venice - which was very rich at that time - which traded with the Levant in all sorts of commodities, from spices and cloth to coffee! This wealth is here on display as it was even in religious images of the period: the servants, the dogs of various breeds, the fine stuffs such as the damask table cloth (possibly, as the name suggests, from Damascus), the beautiful scenographic settings, the elegantly-dressed courtiers in the background. But the most expensive thing in the whole image is the legendary priceless pearl which, holding between her fingers, Cleopatra is about to drop into a glass of vinegar - which she drinks - thereby winning her bet with Marc Antony about who could host the most expensive banquet. 

Without going into detailed analysis of the numerous formal elements of this master-work, I would like to concentrate on one particular curiosity, namely, the ubiquitousness of decorative heads: be they human, animal or fantastical! In this case, I am not referring to the brilliant heads of the human actors - nor those of the numerous pet dogs - but instead, to the small heads and figures adorning many objects within the image, from Marc Antony's helmet, to the handles of pitchers.

This photo, a detail of The Banquet by Tiepolo (NGV) shows the silver bowl of fruit which is sitting in the middle of the banqueting table, in the centre of the composition; to note are the winged mermaid-like figures and the vaguely Egyptian face directing its gaze out of the painting. (Photo: the author)

This photo shows the two pitchers situated on the floor in front of the table: note here the scene containing two figures engraved on or set into the larger pitcher; on the side of the smaller pitcher is a laughing satyr's head, a sort of human face with a beard and goat's horns, possible a symbol of lust. (Photo: the author)

A close-up detail of the smaller pitcher (Photo:the author)

This detail is of a decorative element on Cleopatra's chair and can be seen to the left of her right wrist; it appears to be a kind of Egyptian-like head, perhaps attached to a snake's body. (Photo: the author)

Of similar heads and figures there are many placed throughout the painting, including on a suspended pitcher on the extreme right and the harpy figure of the small fountain in the extreme lower left corner; but perhaps the most elaborate example is in fact that helmet worn by Marc Antony. This helmet, a parade helmet rather than one to be worn in battle, has a winged dragon supporting its beautiful magenta-plumed crest, as well as what appears to be a lion above the ear and, below that, an old man's bearded face with its moustache hanging over Marc Antony's cheek. Indeed, the helmet is one of the most striking features in the whole painting, a painting containing many beautiful and elaborate details. 

The reason these small decorative heads attracted my attention was their similarity to those used ubiquitously by Michelangelo in his sculpture and architecture. They appear for instance on the armour worn by one of his figures of the dukes in the New Sacristy (Sagrestia Nuova) of San Lorenzo in Florence: on both the back and the front of the cuirass worn by the figure of Giuliano de' Medici; similar motifs are the lion skin headdress worn by the figure of Lorenzo de' Medici, as well as a kind of bat-like head on the arm of his chair. Likewise, the figure of Night on the tomb of Giuliano is adorned, apart from the realistic owl, with a very odd mask. Bat-like and anthropomorphic heads reappear time and time again, both in the New Sacristy - for example on the candlesticks on the altar and on the friezes along the walls -  and in the Laurentian Library; there still exist some of his original sketches for these strange faces (and figures), all of an astounding variety.2

This small detail of Michelangelo's enormous output was taken-up by both his contemporaries and by many artists who came later as, in the present example, we see in Tiepolo. While Michelangelo may not have actually invented these grotesque 'masks' as the Italians call them, he certainly developed and 'popularised' them among artists.

Before moving on to discuss another picture in the NGV, I would like to comment on one more thing in Tiepolo's great painting and that is a particular element of its structure, and this because it is similarly used in that next picture. From the point of view of its colour, Tiepolo has 'constructed' The Banquet of Cleopatra on this basis: in general, the brightest and purist colours are closest to the viewer, the less strong are in the middle-ground and the weakest or most dilute are in the backgound. The visual effect is that we experience the figures 'in front' as closest to us (they are also the largest), the less brightly-coloured as somewhere in the middle distance, and the least strong as further back (for instance, on the background parapet); a simple comparison of the central table and its diners with the arched wall in the background should make the difference in colour brightness and purity clear. Tiepolo was by no means the first to utilise colour in this formal, constructive way but he does use it! As mentioned earlier, this is not an exhaustive analysis of this painting but I hope it will stimulate a closer look next time.3

II

 The second painting is by the very important French artist, Nicolas Poussin, who painted it in Rome for an Italian art collector in Turin. The Crossing of the Red Sea is in oil on canvas and measures 156 x 215 cm; it dates from 1632-34. Poussin was deeply affected by the strong contemporary interest in classical art and so went to Rome to study, a common pilgrimage for artists from all over Europe at the time; he died there in 1665. As we can see, both the subject and its handling are very different from Tiepolo's somewhat later, and in theme more aristocratic, picture.

The Crossing of the Red Sea, 1632-34, oil on canvas by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

Image: Public Domain Wikipedia

To begin with, the three principal actors in the immediate foreground are possibly derived from some ancient Roman sculptural example; although Roman statuary was not generally coloured, the basically nude figures are clothed in loin cloths which happen to be in the three primary colours, namely red, yellow and blue. This is no accidental or casual decision: the three primaries are so called because they cannot be made any stronger or brighter (by the admixture of other colours) than they already are. This means from a formal point of view, that they stand out more strongly than any other colour, whether it be a pure colour - straight from the tube so to speak4 - or a mixture. In fact, mixing any colour with any other colour will reduce the individual power or strength of all of the colours in the new mixture.

Painters use both 'straight from the tube' colours and mixtures of them to produce different effects; as we saw with the Tiepolo painting, painters can 'construct' space or depth with the relative strength of their colours. In Tiepolo's picture and in this one by Poussin, depth in space has been created, that is the illusion of depth, through the manipulation of the colours, some stronger, others less so. Of course, there are other means with which to create space, such as receding perspective lines (as in the floor of Tiepolo's painting) and making things and people smaller as they are fictively 'further away' from the viewer. In Poussin's painting, the major figures are both larger and more strongly coloured than are the other figures; this can be seen for example, in the red worn by the foreground figure, a 'pure' red in his case but, as it is used on the clothes of other figures further back, it becomes gradually weaker and weaker, eventually being a kind of 'grey' version of its original pure, unadulterated condition. The fictive light source, very important in this painting, also adds to the sense of depth as well as to the drama: the main 'natural' light is falling more or less only on the lower left quarter or so of the image, thereby drawing our attention particularly to those parts, and especially so to the three main foreground figures.

Detail of The Crossing of the Red Sea by Poussin showing the principal foreground figures in their red, blue and yellow clothing. Note the beautiful 'academic' drawing, the strong shadows, the general 'curved arch' shape created by the movement of these men as they gather up the shields of the now-submerged Egyptians. (Photo: the author)

Poussin's painting is to my eyes now somewhat rhetorical; many of the figures have a 'wooden' quality and the whole thing has a sort of overblown feeling, albeit that it represents a quite dramatic event. From a personal point of view, the lower foreground 'strip' containing the three major figures, with its beautiful drawing and colour, is the only part of this painting that appeals to me in any way; I have no objection to pictures about Old or New Testament stories, about religious matters generally, but, given Poussin's acknowledged love of Classical art, the lower strip of this picture could just as easily - and more successfully - be a painting of or from an ancient Roman relief sculpture.

A detail of the man in blue demonstrating Poussin's drawing and colouring skills. In this kind of 'academic' painting, the figures would be first modelled in a monochrome reddish brown onto which the lights and darks would be added; in essence, the 'in shadow' areas of this figure have hardly been touched, whereas the lighter areas have been modulated to indicate the shapes of the muscles and the fall of light - here clearly from the left. (Photo: the author) 

When the NGV is open and you feel like spending a little time with just a couple of works (actually the best way to visit a museum), I hope these comments may add something to your experience.

1 Egypt by this time had been a Hellenistic culture for about two hundred and seventy years, a culture set in train by the conquests of Alexander the Great; the lover of both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, Cleopatra VII belonged to the Ptolemaic Dynasty (305-30 BC) and was the last of several historical queens with this name. Also, by this time Egypt had declined enormously from the days of the powerful Pharaohs and, from 30 BC, was no more than a client state of the Romans. It is therefore reasonable to expect that there would have been some Greco-Roman buildings in different parts of Egypt, especially one supposes near the coast. In one of the sources of the Cleopatra story, Plutarch's Life of Antony, it seems that the first meeting between the two occurred in Cilicia (today, southern Turkey), but that they then retired to Alexandria in Egypt; it is unclear exactly where the famous banquet actually took place. In any case, the architecture in Tiepolo's painting is an amalgam of Renaissance elaboration of classical models, some archeological knowledge and fantasy. 

Two further comments concerning the setting: Tiepolo was enamoured of the very large and wonderful paintings of his 16th century Venetian predecessor, Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), many of whose pictures also relied on fantastic classically-inspired architectural settings. An even earlier predecessor was the famous and influential architect, Palladio, whose neo-classical villas and palaces could be seen all over the Veneto and whose compositions may have had some influence on the architectural themes of Tiepolo. Incidentally, it is known that Tiepolo was often assisted by a colleague who specialised in the painting of architectural settings, Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna, although it is not established as far as I know that Mengozzi Colonna had a hand in our Banquet.

2 Such bat-like faces and other dragon-like inventions of Michelangelo's can be seen in Florence in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Laurenziana), again at San Lorenzo, both in the floor designs and on the ends of the study benches. They can be seen in Rome on the Porta Pia, on the Tomb of Julius II in San Pietro in Vincoli, on capitals at the Campidoglio and on the Palazzo Farnese, the so-called 'fregio con maschere' or, frieze with masks. It would seem that Michelangelo amused himself with this endless invention, no doubt occasionally taking some inspiration from the faces of the real people around him! Similar bizarre and fantastic creations however, which had a wide diffusion in the Middle Ages as well, go back at least to ancient Rome where contemporary fresco examples can be seen in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. Mannerists too made use of such devices, for instance in Bronzino's Portrait of a Young Man with a Book (c. 1530), in the Met, NY. 

3 One other curiosity in Tiepolo's Banquet is the positioning of the tall figure wearing a blue cape and hat, situated in the foreground to the left: a casual glance at this figure would lead us to assume that it was he who was carrying the large platter of food with his left arm. On closer inspection however, it becomes clearer that behind him is a smaller figure, the back of whose head is only just visible, who in fact is carrying the charger - although he appears to have no feet! The tall man in blue does have a left arm which, again on closer inspection, we can see he has brought around behind his back. And finally, what seems to be a small head growing out of his right shoulder in fact belongs to another attendant actually placed behind Cleopatra. Why is this interesting? Because, normally, figures are placed in paintings so that they are clearly seen, sometimes partly obscured by buildings, trees or other figures but, nevertheless, their 'action' or role is clear. In this instance, although the figure in blue is apparently clear enough, in fact his position and that of the figures he obscures is to say the least, ambiguous.

4 Tube colours did not come into use until the mid-nineteenth century; prior to that, artists bought the coloured powders or pigments from their artists' colour-man and mixed them with a binder (oil or egg or other) at their studios. Oil colours could be kept for some time, before they started to dry and become hard, in small pig's bladder pouches or bags as is sometimes seen in self-portraits. The advent of commercially-prepared colours in metal tubes revolutionised the ability of artists to keep their paints workable, almost indefinitely, and to go out into the landscape, that is, to work away from the studio. This invention was acknowledged as such by some of the Impressionists. Neither Tiepolo nor Poussin, nor Veronese or Michelangelo had tube colours!

Timeline: Michelangelo, Florentine sculptor, painter, architect and poet: 1475-1564 

                Palladio, (from Padua) Venetian Republic architect: 1508-1580

                Veronese, (from Verona) Venetian painter: 1528-1588

                Poussin, French painter: 1594-1665

                Tiepolo, Venetian painter: 1696-1770