Today we finished our grand tour of the Uffizi, which began yesterday morning. While the previous day’s exhibits were focused more on Florentine work and the development of the Florentine style over the centuries, today we got a taste of the northern styles of Italian artists from the sixteenth century.
We began our exploration of Northern Italy in Venice, with Giovanni Bellini’s Lamentation over the Body of Christ and Sacred Allegory, and Cima da Conegliano’s rendition of the Madonna and Child. It is questioned whether or not The Lamentation over the Body of Christ was a finished work. It was painted entirely in grisaille, but the canvas itself was prepared for color. The canvas is prepared however, for color, suggesting that Bellini had intended to render the images in color later, and never completed it.The Bellini works depicted in the Uffizi are atypical of the workshop’s usual style; Conegliano’s Madonna and Child is a better representation of the Bellini workshop’s pieces. From the Madonna and Child, one can instantly see the how the Venetian approach to painting differs from that of Florence. The colors are brilliant and carefully executed, with less emphasis on disegno, the bold, definitive lines often found in Florentine work.
The distinction from Florentine disegno is even stronger in the works of Correggio, famous throughout the Northern regions between Florence and Milan in his time. Correggio uses the revolutionary sfumato effect, invented by Leonardo da Vinci, in which figures and forms seem to step out of dark, smoky shadows, and the edges merge and blend. The faces of Correggio’s figures also mimic Leonardo’s preferred face type. The use of sfumato and mimicry of Leonardo’s figural style is an indication of his great influence in the area around Milan.Across from Correggio were three Mantegna paintings, Madonna of the Caves, a grand altarpiece, and a portrait of Cosimo de Medici’s illegitimate son. Patronized by the Gonzaga family, Mantegna painted in the same northern regions as Correggio, and yet his style is quite different from that of Correggio.
His great passion was for classical antiquity, and this passion is shown clearly in the Madonna of the Caves. As no painting of a human figure had been discovered from antiquity in his time, Mantegna drew his inspiration for the depiction of people from ancient sculptures. As such, he gives Mary and Christ a “stony” quality, as if he had taken sculpture and given it color and life. The figures have hard edges, their flesh is painted with cold grey tones without the usual pink hue, and their postures do not portray the same level of animation many other artists were using at the time.We next came to a portrait of a young woman called The Nun by Rodolfo Ghirlandaio. Unlike today, most portraits of the time were covered with a curtain with another panel upon which pagan or otherwise symbolic imagery might be painted. We are lucky that this particular portrait still has its original covering panel, as few such panels survive today. While the portrait itself is typical of the time – a woman is painted in a three-quarter profile – the panel is far more interesting. Upon it is painted an empty mask in color, surrounded by grisaille detail work. The presence of the mask is meant to draw attention to the fictiveness of the portrait, that the portrait is merely a representation of the exterior of the person, and not essence of that person. This concept of a portrait functioning as a mask appeared many times during our exploration of the Uffizi.
On the wall adjacent to Ghirlandiao’s portrait, an immense Michelangelo is hung - the Doni Tondo. A circular painting still set in its original frame, decorated with the sculpted faces of unknown persons, the Doni Tondo depicts the Madonna and Child and Joseph in the center, with and infant John the Baptist looking on, and nude males in the background. The Doni family who commissioned the painting did not have many sons, and wanted Michelangelo to incorporate the theme of fatherhood and fertility into the scene. As such, Joseph plays an unusually important role in the image. He, Mary, and Christ are situated in a bold triangular form. Mary sits between Joseph’s splayed knees, creating the idea of an erotic relationship between the two. They are further connected by Christ, who appears to be either handed up to Joseph, or down to Mary. While Mary’s arms extend towards and touch Christ, it is Joseph who is supporting the infant’s weight.
The Doni Tondo provides an excellent source of comparison between the Florentine and northern painting styles. Here, Michelangelo has painted his signature, heroic nude figures in vibrant colors, with heavy emphasis on anatomical accuracy. The forms, especially the drapery, are delineated with bold, dark lines, in contrast with the northern style in which light and shadow was used to distinguish objects and figures. Mary’s posture, turning towards Christ with her arms extended, is a nod to Michelangelo’s work on the Sistine Chapel, in which he painted one of the sibyls in the same position, but viewed from behind.
After careful examination of the Doni Tondo, we moved on to study artists of the Mannerist school. In the Renaissance, art was prized as a way of bringing the subject to life, and depictions of holy figures were used to bring one closer to the divine realm. However, there was also a growing concern over the many aspects of the Catholic Church, exemplified by Luther’s theses and the following protest against Catholicism. It was during this time that the Mannerists began to question the role of art in religion and society, and to express these questions in their art.
The first Mannerist we discussed was Andrea del Sarto, who painted the Madonna of the Harpies in 1517, notably the same year that Luther famously nailed his theses to his door. The painting features Mary holding Christ, standing upon a pedestal engraved with harpies, flanked by two small angels at her feet and two saints in mirrored, reverse poses. Sarto makes heavy use of sfumato, blending the edges of the figures together with the surrounding shadows. The ultimate effect is that Mary appears to be stepping out into the light from the darkness behind her. Sarto may have also used this technique to erase his own “artist’s hand.” At the same time that sfumato blends figures together and unifies the color scheme, it also has the tendency to smooth over brushwork, which has theological implications. Because the imagery is of a divine nature, Sarto wanted to remove traces of his own work on the painting to imply that it was divinely created.
Sarto’s decision to place Mary on a pedestal of harpies is a curious one, and difficult to explain. There are several possible theories. In ancient Rome, harpies were creatures that would help dead souls in the transition from life to death, so Mary’s placement above them could suggest that she is the vehicle that will help the soul transition from the earthly to the heavenly realm. Another theory postulates that this is an example of superlatio, as Mary standing on top of the pagan harpies might imply her domination over them. Finally, in keeping with Sarto’s mannerist tendencies, tying the image of Mary to the harpies might have been his way of commenting on the similarities of Christian imagery with pagan idols. He may have been expressing a fear that religious art was too close to idolatry, a fear similarly expressed by Luther.
Across the hall, we saw a portrait of Pope Julius II by Raphael. His rendering of the pope is not just beautiful, but clever as well. When greeting the pope in person, one must approach him at an angle and kiss the rings on his hand. Unlike in Ghirlandaio’s portrait of the nun, where he wanted to emphasize the fictive nature of portraiture, Raphael’s goal in painting the pope was to create the illusion that the pope was present in the portrait, even if the man himself was not present. To do so, he painted the pope sitting at an angle with his ringed hand in the center of the picture plane, such that the viewer would be forced to approach the painting in the same manner that one would approach the pope in the flesh. The effect was so successful that all portraiture of popes would be executed in a similar style for the next two hundred years. In fact, Pope Leo X sent a portrait of himself to a wedding that he could not attend, because it was as if the image could replace the man himself.The appreciation for Raphael’s work extended far beyond his papal portraiture, and is exemplified by the story of his Madonna of the Goldfinch. Originally by Raphael’s hand, the painting was shattered into thirteen pieces when the roof of the palace it was housed in collapsed after Raphael’s death. The owners regarded the painting so highly, that they had Bronzino and Ghirlandaio put it back together and repaint the majority of it. Even though it is mostly done by their hands, to this day it is still called a Raphael.
Our next mannerist was Rosso Fiorentino, whose work we have seen before at Santo Spirito. Always pushing the boundaries of what was considered acceptable, Rosso had difficulty finding commissions. In fact, the Ospedale degli Innocenti, who commissioned his Madonna Enthroned with a Saint, rejected the altarpiece before he had finished it. It is easy to see why they might; he paints with a heavy mascara style, smearing paint downward on the canvas. If sfumato erases the artist’s hand, his mascara effect does the opposite, and exaggerates it. The effect is that you get figures with dark eyes and dead, mask-like faces. In keeping with his mannerist tendency of questioning the role of art, he paints cadaverous, emaciated figures, as if to say that painting is nothing more than dead paint on a dead canvas. This flies in the face of the conventional ideal of art, that it should bring the subject to life. He uses the theme of paint as a dead medium in his Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro, in which his male nudes, while reminiscent of Michelangelo’s heroic nudes, are emaciated, and the female faces are dead and mask-like.
Rosso’s style couldn’t be more different from Titian’s Flora. Here, we have an idealized woman with soft, delicate features. She is painted in the typical portraiture convention, in three-quarter profile. However, no noble woman would have ever been painted in so sensual a manner – her light garment falls below her breast, and she offers flowers to the viewer in her right hand. There is some question about who she might have been. Some postulate that she may have been a courtesan, or some other woman, while others believe that she might simply be an idealized allegory.
Of course, one cannot go to the Uffizi without seeing Titian’s Venus of Urbino. This painting features a woman – again, soft and idealized as in Flora – reclining on a bed, with a dog at her foot and two maidservants in the background. She glances out towards the viewer, and her hand is suggestively placed between her legs.The original patrons are unknown, however, the Duke of Urbino caught a glimpse of the painting before it was completed, and fell in love with it instantly. He bought it from Titian, and hung it in his bedroom. The Duke was unmarried, and as such there is little doubt about what he used it for: a sexy pinup.
Because we don’t know who the original patrons were, it is impossible to know for certain what the intended purpose of the painting was. However, there are some who believe that the image was meant to be, not a sexy pinup, but a gift for newlyweds to encourage fertility. The placement of Venus’s hand suggests masturbation, reflecting the Renaissance belief that if a woman were to masturbate following intercourse, she would be more likely to conceive a son. The cassone, or marriage chests, in the background further suggest that this painting was intended for newlyweds. Finally, while Venus is indeed very sensual, the care with which Titian rendered every detail, from the delicate textures of the fabrics to the fur of the dog, is so exquisite that it is difficult to imagine that the painting was meant for nothing more than erotic pleasure.
Leaving the realm of Titian, we encountered Parmigianino’s Madonna with the Long Neck. This painting is very unsettling, just as Parmigianino intended. While the colors are rich and beautiful, the brushwork is almost nonexistent, and the figures are highly disproportionate, with elongated necks, limbs, and fingers. Furthermore, elements in the background don’t rationalize. The column by the Madonna’s head leads to nowhere, and the columns that should be behind it disappear, as if Parmigianino simply forgot to complete them. The drapery of the small figure of the man on the right is transparent, and a disembodied foot stands next to him. These impossibilities create a sense of artificiality, as if this world he painted is unreal. In this way Parmigianino shows his mannerist tendencies. While many believe that through painting the subject comes to life, Parmigianino instead argues the opposite, that a painting is unreal and artificial.Lastly, after viewing the Uffizi collection as it exists today, we finally got a taste of how it might of looked in its first days in the recreation of the tribune room. The Uffizi, translated to English as offices, was originally the location of the Medici-run Bureaucracy under Cosimo I. In 1580, Francesco I dedicated the tribune room to works of art, making it one of the first museums in Europe. Over the centuries, it was expanded into the grand tribute to art that we see today.
The tribune room is filled with portrait after portrait of Medici family members, many of which were by Bronzino. Two portraits, one of Lorenzo il Magnifico and Cosimo Vecchio, were done by Pontormo & Vasari. These were commissioned posthumously, and were the Medici’s way of tying together the old and new generations. In the portrait of Lorenzo, painted by his head are an empty mask and a satyr head, and a fictive carving of a gruesome face is placed beneath his hand. These faces and masks perform a similar function as Ghirlandaio’s mask on the panel covering the portrait of the nun; they function to remind the viewer that a portrait is nothing more than a representation of one’s exterior. Next to the portrait of Cosimo il Vecchio is a tree branch, representing the endless branch that was one of the Medici’s many symbols of their indomitable rule. Just as one can cut off a branch of the tree, only to find that another branch has grown in its place, one can kill one branch of the Medici, only to have the branch replaced with another. It was on that note that we adjourned for the day, and went our separate ways to enjoy the many sights and cities of Italy. Some of us went off to see Milan, others to Venice, and some to further explore the beautiful city of Florence. Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!
Lauren Damon
