Vivante Drawings

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

Filippino Lippi | Appartition of the Virgin to St. Bernard | Oil on panel | 210 x 195 cm | Church of the Badia | Florence

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.

At Villa Lante, about an hour north of Rome, there are beautiful box hedges and parterre.  Box, like birch bark, has been used as a surface for drawing. Some of the box hedges at Villa Lante are very tall, and if you look into the center of the hedges, you’ll see trunks thicker than you would imagine–wide enough for small rectangular drawing supports.

Villa Lante | Box and Watercourse for Fountains | Bagnaia, Italy

Early draftsmen used boxwood to make model-books where they could record successful compositions, poses, and subjects for future use. Boxwood, because of its great density and because it could be smoothed to a high degree, was the wood of choice. Parchment, fig wood, and paper were also used. Cennino Cennini, writing in circa 1400, tells of how to prepare a boxwood drawing surface in Chapter V of his Libro dell’arte (English here) and and in Chapter VI he talks of fig wood, specifying that the fig wood should be old.  To make a little panel, he calls for pieces of wood as high and wide as “un sommesso.” According to the 1612 Crusca dictionary, a sommesso is the width of a fist with the thumb extended, as in the hitchhiking gesture. For me, that is about 6 inches (I’ve seen some translations of Cennini say 9 inches, which seems too much. There’s a limit to box trunk width.) Whether box or fig, he says to clean it well, smooth with a cuttlebone, dry, and then coat with well ground bone dust and spittle.

There are too few examples of model books, and especially boxwood ones. I don’t think there are any early drawings on fig wood tablets. The drawing on box just below is given to a Jaques Daliwe. The attribution to Daliwe is based solely on an inscription on one of the 12 pages that make up the Berlin model book. The inscription might also refer to an owner of the model-book. There are a total of 22 drawings, mostly in metalpoint with white heightening. A couple of the drawings are based on illuminations of the Limbourg Brothers, though this one is not. If boxwood grew to be bigger, would they have wanted larger drawings, or were they happy to have a book that was so easily transportable to bring along to their various jobs?

Jaques Daliwe | Head Studies | Metalpoint, brush and white heightening on grounded boxwood panel | 89 x 130 mm | Liber picturatus A 74 Staatsbibliothek Berlin