Vivante Drawings

Early Caravaggio Drawings Reported Discovered at the Castello Sforzesco

July 5th, 2012 § 1 comment § permalink

Ansa, the Italian Press Agency, and the Italian daily La Repubblica are reporting that 100 drawings by the young Caravaggio have been identified in the archives of Milan’s Castello Sforzesco. The drawings were culled from a group of close to 1,400 drawings done by Simone Peterzano and his students. Caravaggio was a student of the now almost forgotten Peterzano.

Caravaggio attr. | David | Chalk | Castello Sforzesco, Milan

La Repubblica has an online gallery of a few of the drawings. LINK HERE. Not to go immediately negative, the story reminds me of the Michelangelo at Fort Worth LINK HERE. To whip up interest, the drawings are being valued at 700,000,000 euros (that’s very near a billion!). Tomorrow, unsurprisingly, Amazon publishes the 600 page ebook. It’s written by Maurizio Bernardelli Curuz, from the Brera and Adriana Conconi Fedrigolli.

Cupid and Psyche

April 26th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo is hosting the exhibition La favola di Amore e Psiche. Il mito nell’arte dall’antichità a Canova. It makes sense that the exhibition should be held there because of the building’s Perino del Vaga frescoes figuring Cupid and Pysche. The frescoes decorate the apartment, specifically the bedroom, of Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese). The show has objects of all types: sculpture, ceramics, paintings, prints, and drawings.

There’s a magnificent Raphael drawing from Lille for a pendentive at the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche at the Farnesina, and another drawing from Turin for the same project. The exhibition was a bit disappointing because there were so few drawings. One of the exhibitions I’ve only known from the catalogue, and always regretted not seeing, was the 1981 show Gli Affreschi di Paolo III a Castel Sant’Angelo. Progetto ed esecuzione 1543-1548, curated by Filippa Aliberti Gaudioso and Eraldo Gaudioso. The catalogue has close to 150 drawings and to have seen them in the rooms next to the frescoes for which they were made, must have been a thrill. Knowing of this earlier exhibition sharpened the disappointment.

Still, there were two Raphael drawings. And then there was a very surprising black ink on papyrus drawing of Cupid and Pysche. She’s on the left and has butterfly wings, and Cupid with bird wings, is on the right. There’s no text on the papyrus and it may be that it was made as an independent work of art. If the dating of the papyrus drawing is right, it would mean that it’s contemporary with Apuleius’s Golden Ass, which narrates the story of the lovers. The papyrus was found in Egypt, but looks more Roman or Greek in style. The drawing is also amazing for its size–250 mm or about 10 inches across.

The exhibition opened on 16 March and closes 10 June 2012.

Constellations

March 13th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

Ursa Major, Detail from a 1490 English MS copying Alfonsine Astronomical Tables | Pen and ink, brush and pigment on vellum | British Library - Arundel MS 66

From dot to dot to dot. Each dot has a letter or number by it, and the child is asked to draw lines from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on, until an object, character, or scene emerges on the paper placemat or in the puzzle book. It works in that it keeps children engaged and quiet. It’s not an imaginative exercise, but it does teach numbers and letters and there is something satisfying about seeing a subject appear.

The constellations are drawn with imaginary lines connecting the stars into animals and characters. The kind of imagination necessary to come up with these framework lines was of the collective kind, spanning a great arc of time. There’s a German natural scientist who believes he’s recognized a 32,000+ year old mammoth ivory, unearthed in Germany, and incised with the constellation and figure of Orion. This January there was news of an incised ivory board with signs of the zodiac, used for the divination of horoscopes. It had been found in the 1990s in a Croatian (Illyrian) cave, and is said to date from the 4th century BCE, the earliest object of it’s type. (Reading about the cave find led to an entertaining article about the earth’s wobble and its throwing off astrological “profiles” by a month.)

I can’t pretend to know even one entire constellation. The best I can do is draw an imaginary line through the three stars of Orion’s belt, and the seven stars of the big dipper part of Ursa Major. The Greek vision of the constellations was widely adopted, becoming the standard, but the bright and distinct stars of the big dipper are seen in different ways depending on culture. In Italy it’s called the cart, in England it’s known as a plough, the Maya saw it as a parrot. Looking at the stars is like looking at the hearth–something quaint to remember as one sits by a backlit screen.

From Drawing to Bow

February 10th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

Since musical instruments are so beautiful, it’s easy to see why they’re so often included in works of visual art. It’s also easy to understand why there are so many musical iconography pages on the internet. Innumerable times I’ve hit upon these sites, probably the Recorder Home Page most frequently. The Répertoire International d’Iconographie Musicale (RIdIM) has a useful page of links pointing to flute, bagpipe and other specialized instrument sites, as well as more general music iconography sites.

Antonino Airenti, a professional bowmaker working in Liguria, has a page on his website, where he describes how he was asked to create a bow for a period bass viol, and how he went about producing it.

There’s something wonderful about Orazio Samacchini’s drawing being used in the 16th century to produce a painting, and then it being used again in the 21st century to produce a bow.

Antonino Airenti | Samacchini Bow | Cherry wood

Orazio Samacchini | Detail of Music-Making Angel from the Madonna and Child with SS Magdalen and Petronius, and Music-Making Angels | Oil on Canvas | 239 x 233.5 cm | Saltram House, Plympton, Devon

Orazio Samacchini | Madonna and Child with SS Magdalen and Petronius, and Music-Making Angels | Oil on Canvas | 239 x 233.5 cm | Saltram House, Plympton, Devon

15th c. Portrait Attributed to Piero del Pollaiuolo

February 1st, 2012 § 1 comment § permalink

The leading lot at Sotheby’s, in their 25 January 2012 sale, was a drawing attributed to Piero del Pollaiuolo. California’s Getty Museum bought the drawing. The beautiful portrait drawing of a young man has been variously given to the Paduan school, Marco Zoppo, and to the Mantegna circle. The Sotheby’s entry on the drawing is very detailed and can be found here.

Attributed to Piero del Pollaiuolo | Portrait of a Young Man | Black chalk, pen and brown ink on paper | 360 x 228 mm | Sotheby's Sale 25 Jan. 2012, lot 27

One of the works they compare lot 27 to is a drawing here in Rome at the Istituto Nazionale della Grafica. The Rome drawing is now assigned by the Istituto to Maso Finiguerra (a collaborator of the Pollaiuolo’s) although in the past it has been attributed to Francesco Pesellino, Antonio Pollaiuolo, and just simply 15th century Florentine school. The Sotheby’s cataloguers refer to the Rome drawing as by the Circle of Pollaiuolo. Just below is the Rome drawing and, at least to me, it looks as though it could be the very same sitter. Here is a link to the Istituto’s Maso Finiguerra drawing, where the image is of a better quality.

Maso Finiguerra | Profile of a Young Man | Pen and bistre ink, brush and brown watercolor, on ivory paper | 225 x 193 mm | Istituto Nazionale della Grafica, Rome

Viewing Tilt

January 9th, 2012 § 1 comment § permalink

The Getty has a nice online presentation of Federico Zuccaro’s series of drawings chronicling Taddeo’s formative years. They were exhibited as a group in 2007/08 and the multi-media supplement comes out of the exhibition. Some of the twenty sheets show Taddeo drawing: drawing by the light of the moon, at work on a study of an antique relief, drawing the Loggia of Psyche frescoes by Raphael and his school at the Farnesina, then the Laocoön, and finally Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. Wherever, Taddeo is very earnestly studying his subject and making marks on his drawing board.

Federico Zuccaro | Taddeo Copying Raphael's Frescoes in the Loggia of Villa Farnesina, Where He Is Also Represented Asleep | Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk and touches of red chalk | 423 x 174 mm | Getty Museum

When I was looking at the drawings, it came to me that he was drawing at an angle–not on a entirely horizontal or vertical surface, but gentler angles between the two–the sort of angle I prefer to look at drawings. In most galleries drawings are hung vertically, even ramrod vertical. This, combined with the disruptions of plexiglas and artificial light, does not make for ideal viewing.

When people talk about sculpture in the round, they talk about the different views and optimal views. With drawing is there a right tilt and is it the tilt at which the drawing was drawn? Readers with portable devices can try out all the angles.

Art Newspaper Photo of Louis-Antoine Prat | September 2010

Season’s Greetings

December 22nd, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

All best wishes for the holidays and 2012

Color Notes

December 11th, 2011 § 1 comment § permalink

I wanted to read about drawings in India, and found this drawing through a search involving the words India preparatory drawing. It had been in a Christie’s sale a few years ago, and it reminded me more of an underdrawing than a drawing made in preparation of another work. The catalogue didn’t go into detail (relatively low value work with a $2-3,000 estimate), but it looked to me like an early stage of a collaborative effort. The overall design had been roughed out in brush and gray color (looking like graphite) and wonderful color touches were applied in paint. (The cataloguer wrote “transparent and opaque pigments” which seems like a more sensible way of putting it – better than worrying about whether to write watercolor or watercolour and choosing between gouache or bodycolor or tempera.) The touches of color look like they are meant as a guide for the next artist in an assembly line.

India, Kotah, 18th century | Preparatory Drawing of a Seated King | Opaque and transparent pigments on paper | 330 x 277 mm | Christie's NY 20 March 2008, lot 206

After this I was thinking of written notations about color in drawings and there seem to be two main reasons for their inclusion: as memory aids for artists and as guides for collaborators. The drawing below, from an album (now dismantled) at the British Museum, gives both painted indications for color and written indications for color and fabric types for the costume makers who would have to execute the garments.

Stefano della Bella | Ballet Costume Study for a Gardener | Pen and brown ink, with brown wash and watercolour, over graphite | 276 x 202 mm | British Museum

As an example of memory aid color notes, I found this completely atypical drawing of Ingres. Atypical because he usually draws in the most controlled way. Instead, here it is all about registering the colors in a cloud formation quickly. Gris, bleu tendre, clair and the other words are dashed off as rapidly as the cloud outlines. M. Ingres was in such a rush that rather than write clair again, he used id.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres | Cloud Study | Graphite | 202 x 182 mm | Musée Ingres, Montauban

Filippino Lippi and Sandro Botticelli Exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale

October 18th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Italy’s 150th anniversary year is being celebrated, and many exhibitions have been devoted to the founding of the Republic. Birthdays for people last just one day, but for countries with centenaries and sesquicentenaries they last a year–way too long. The current government makes it all feel like a cruel joke. The Filippino Lippi and Sandro Botticelli show at the Scuderie del Quirinale is something to celebrate. It opened on 5 October and runs through 15 January 2012.

Filippino Lippi | Head of a Young Woman | Metalpoint with white heightening on unevenly grounded rose paper | 245 x 184 mm | Uffizi

Although the exhibition is called Filippino Lippi e Sandro Botticelli, it is much more of a Filippino Lippi show. There are documents in display cases throughout the exhibition that cover his earliest childhood, his early work with his father at Spoleto, his apprenticeship in Sandro Botticelli’s shop (Filippino’s early work was mistaken for Botticelli’s, then ascribed to the “Amico di Sandro” an invention of Berenson, before being correctly attributed to the young Filippino), letters of recommendation, detailed contracts, and at the end an inventory of the contents of house after his death. In the exhibition there are also works by Filippo Lippi, Benedetto da Maiano, Rafaellino del Garbo, Piero di Cosimo and others.

Filippino Lippi | Study for the Figure of St. Bernard | Metalpoint and white heightening on rose-ivory grounded paper | 212 x 131 mm | Uffizi

Most of the 20+ drawings in the exhibition are from the Uffizi, although there are some loans from France and the UK. The drawings are interspersed with the paintings in the galleries, and it’s wonderful to see a picture within eye shot of a preparatory drawing. The drawings are nearly all by Filippino, and are mostly metalpoints with white heightening. The papers are prepared and in shades of rose or gray or “light hazelnut” as it says in the catalogue. In some cases there are more white lines than stylus lines. What seems most extraordinary is the sense of movement, the animation of the figures. Metalpoints of many other artists are staid and serene. Filippino’s pen and ink drawings also have a wonderful feeling of being rapidly done and that rapidity emphasizes the rush and purposefulness of the figures.

Filippino Lippi | Study of a Catafalque Bearer | Metalpoint with white heightening on rose grounded paper | 180 x 132 mm | Christ Church, Oxford

Alessandro Cecchi, Director of the Pitti Gallery in Florence, curated the exhibition and wrote the biographical essay for the cataglogue. Its title Filippino Lippi, un pittore per tutte le stagioni or in English, Filippino Lippi, a Painter for All Seasons, sums it up. From a quick reading of what’s online for the press, these were some of the points, Filippino was liked by the different factions in Florence; counted Lorenzo il Magnifico, the Strozzi, the Del Pugliese as patrons; worked on sacred and profane subjects; didn’t fall into Savonarola’s web as Botticelli did; was held in such esteem that he was asked to complete Masaccio’s Brancaccio Chapel fresco cycle; produced designs for decorative arts and temporary funerary works; worked in and out of Florence–importantly at the Carafa chapel in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva here in Rome. The hardcover catalogue costs €49 (€39 if bought at the exhibition) and I’m hoping it will come out in paperback.

Bomarzo, Mugnano, and Chia Drawings

September 8th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

My father bought an apartment in Bomarzo in the 70s. It’s a tiny place, and very old. The building appears in a 1520 drawing and was already a few hundred years old when the drawing was made. It’s the house with the stepped outside staircase in the foreground, and it has changed very little. The stairs are so worn and bowl-like that it is hard to go up or down them without feeling you might lose your step. Still, they reinforce ideas of time.

The drawing is in Siena’s Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati, and is part of a sketchbook known as the Taccuino Senese which contains drawings associated with Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536). Peruzzi and his half-brother were hired by the Orsini family to build a wing for the palace, the Orsini Palace, in Bomarzo and for the building of the road leading south to Soriano nel Cimino and Viterbo. The drawing concerns the road project. It is the road which skirts the town on the left side of the sheet. A couple of workmen are engaged in roadwork – they are almost stick figures and can be seen below the collection mark.

Bomarzo’s Corso Meonia and Piazza della Repubblica

Bomarzo’s terrain is uneven and the town itself is built on a massive outcrop. The rock is volcanic and is called “peperino,” referring to the color of black pepper. Bomarzo is most famous for its garden, Orsini’s Sacro Bosco, now often known as the Parco dei Mostri or Monster Park, which makes use of the great boulders that are naturally present. The genius of the garden is that it makes use of what many people would consider a hindrance – the rocks – transforming them to fantastic sculpture. The steep hill at nearby Villa Lante, similarly, works a liability into an advantage.

There is still a lot of mystery about the Sacro Bosco. Pier Francesco Orsini, known as Vicino Orsini (1523-1583) had the garden built sometime after the death of his wife in 1557. The name of the architect Pirro Ligorio is sometimes advanced, but there is nothing sure there. Here is a link to the BHA/RILA page on the subject.

The draftsman most associated with the Bomarzo area is the Dutchman Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657) who spent about ten years living in Rome, starting in 1619. That Breenbergh was in the employ of the Orsini is probable, although undocumented. Most of Breenbergh’s existing 200 or so drawings figure Italian views. Below are some of Breenbergh’s views from Bomarzo, Mugnano, and Chia.

Tortoise at Bomarzo’s Sacro Bosco | Photo by Michael Miller | 2009

Pegasus Fountain and Tortoise at Bomarzo’s Sacro Bosco | Photo by Michael Miller | 2009

MUGNANO

Mugnano in Teverina is a hamlet with a population of about 300 people and is, governmentally, part of Bomarzo (c. 1,800 for entire pop.). As an aside, Angelo, Bomarzo’s bar owner and font of every type of information, let us know about a recent discovery–the bricks used to make Rome’s Pantheon, the Baths of Caracalla and other important Rome monuments came from Mugnano kilns. Here is a link to an article on the topic, with a photo of a beautifully designed and very 1960s looking brick maker’s mark. Mugnano is very close to the river Tiber, which was navigable in the Roman period.

This past weekend I walked around Mugnano with my son. We were hoping to find a similar view, but couldn’t. The same road is still used to access the town, but the huge rocks have been incorporated into the buildings, so that you can hardly see them anymore. Either that, or the Albertina drawing isn’t of Mugnano. Google’s Street View, jut below, is only vaguely related. The height of the rock is very different.

Mugnano’s Via Porta Antica leading to Via Goffredo Mamelli | Google Maps Street View

CHIA

Locally, the tower below is often called the Torre di Pasolini because of Pier Paolo Pasolini, the poet and film director who first rented the medieval complex in the 60s and then bought it in 1970. It’s more correctly called the Torre di Chia. Chia is not part of Bomarzo, but part of Soriano nel Cimino. Fortunately, the ruins are not much changed from the early 17th century when Breenbergh drew them.

Bartholomeus Breenbergh | Vue de Castel Bomarzo en Etrurie | Pen and bistre, brush and wash | 323 x 475 mm | Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris

Tower at Chia (or Pasolini’s Tower) | Photo by Michael Miller | 2009

Michael Miller’s photographs can be seen here: michaelmillerphoto.com

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