Document generated on 10/01/2021 1:41 a.m.

RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne Canadian Art Review

--> See the erratum for this article

Anne Markham Schulz, The of and his Workshop. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1977. 176 + xxiii pp., 225 illus., $35.00 Debra Pincus

Volume 5, Number 1, 1978

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1077333ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1077333ar

See table of contents

Publisher(s) UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | Association d'art des universités du Canada)

ISSN 0315-9906 (print) 1918-4778 (digital)

Explore this journal

Cite this review Pincus, D. (1978). Review of [Anne Markham Schulz, The Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino and his Workshop. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1977. 176 + xxiii pp., 225 illus., $35.00]. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 5(1), 76–79. https://doi.org/10.7202/1077333ar

Tous droits réservés © UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit Association d'art des universités du Canada), 1978 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/

This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ sion on the one hand, and that of sont représentés à côté des artistes quête d’un paradis toujours loin­ Alexander the Great on the other. de l’Europe du Nord depuis le tain? Chacun pourra comparer les These illustrations, Restle informs début du XIVe siècle jusqu’au xvie images offertes par ce répertoire us, seem to be in accordance with a siècle avancé. Le catalogue de Wil­ avec l’art amoureux des Indes ou text which has corne down to us liam R. Levin est particulièrement du Japon pour s’en convaincre un only in a Latin and an old French riche: il fait chaque fois le point sur I)eU' ROLAND SAhHFAÇON version (1264) and which was la provenance et le style des Université Laval œuvres, sur les thèmes représentés utilized by Dante in his Divine Com- Québec edy. et leurs sources historiques ou artis­ There is a good bibliography and tiques. Le texte est toujours dense an appendix which includes a well- et très pertinent. Il renvoie à une conceived glossary of technical copieuse bibliographie dressée à la terms abundantly illustrated with fin. drawings. These give spécial value Deux textes, auparavant, intro­ to the book. Dispersed throughout duisent globalement les thèmes de the text are beautiful lithographs l’Amour et de la Mort dans l’art and engravings taken from early (Clifton C. Olds) et dans la littéra­ ANNE MARKHAM SCHULZ The nineteenth-century publications of ture (Ralph G. Williams). Le texte Sculpture of Bernardo Rossellino and western travellers to the East. They sur la littérature est particulière­ his Workshop. Princeton, Princeton recall B y ron’ s Childe Harold and Don ment intéressant. L’auteur nous fait University Press, 1977. 176 + xxiii Juan, Lamartine’s Voyage en Orient, faire un parcours rapide, mais très pp., 225 illus., $35.00. and the later writings of Loti. Read­ clair depuis Hésiode et Platon ing the book and pondering on the jusqu’à Dante, Boccace et le néopla­ Bernardo Rossellino has not yet had engravings, we become aware that tonisme de la Renaissance en pas­ the kind of critical monograph that there is always room for mystery in sant par Rome et par l’amour cour­ has been accorded most of his the old sites of the East. The author tois médiéval. Fort habilement, l’au­ contemporary Florentine artists. deserves our admiration and the teur apporte d’assez longues cita­ Active as both architect and publishers.our praise for producing tions de divers auteurs pour ap­ sculptor, and in both spheres over- a book unique among its kind. It puyer les diverses conceptions de shadowed by more attractive and will, one hopes, be widely trans- l’Amour et de la Mort et pour nous more charismatic personalities — lated. faire entrer d’emblée dans l’am­ Alberti in the field of architecture, GEORGE GALAVARIS biance même du Moyen Âge et au and Ghiberti in sculpture McGill University cœur des théories nombreuses — it has been difficult to sort out the Montreal qu’ont élaborées les spécialistes sur exact nature of his contribution to tous ces sujets. the early Renaissance. The most Le texte de Clifton C. Olds est comprehensive work on Bernardo plus court et quelque peu décevant. to date — a work that gives equal Il était d’ailleurs difficile de faire le considération to both his architec­ bilan d’œuvres très variées et même ture and his sculpture — is Maryla disparates de style (ivoire du début Tyszkiewicz’s Bernardo Rossellino du xive siècle, gravure de Dürer, (, 1928), written in Polish dessins italiens), déjà étudiés ail­ and published in an édition of Images of Love and Death in Late leurs dans leur contexte respectif et about one hundred copies. (An Médiéval and Renaissance Art. The rassemblées ici pour leur seule English translation of Tyszkiewicz’s University of Michigan Muséum of Art. affinité iconographique. C’est text, prepared under the direction 21 Nov. 1975—24 Jan. 1976 Essay s vraiment l’inconvénient de ce genre of Schulz, is to be found in the by Clifton C. Olds and Ralph G. d’exposition de déboucher sur des Kunsthistorisches Institut, Flor­ Williams; Catalogue by William R. considérations globales de portée ence.) It is a rather reverential Levin. Ann Arbor, University of éventuellement plus historique que study, elegantly produced on laid Michigan, 1976. 132 pp., 68 illus. proprement artistique. Dans cette paper with tipped-in photographs, veine, l’auteur aurait pu évoquer extremely useful for its compen­ Voici un catalogue d’exposition davantage certains aspects de la vie dium of documents but not a work admirablement exécuté et présenté, au Moyen Âge autres que la peste that places Bernardo in a well- sur quelques-uns des thèmes fon­ noire de 1348, présenter quelques- defined critical niche. More recent damentaux de la fin du Moyen Age unes des œuvres si nombreuses scholarship tends to divide Ber­ et de la Renaissance, ceux qui tour­ conservées dans divers monuments nardo into his architectural and nent autour de F Amour et de la d’Europe comme la sculpture funé­ sculptural personae: e.g., Léo Mort. L’illustration est abondante raire, les fresques, etc. Mais dans Planiscig’s Bernardo und Antonio Ros­ et elle met en valeur des œuvres l’ordre des idées générales, l’auteur sellino (Vienna, 1942), which con­ nombreuses conservées dans plu­ va certainement à l’essentiel lors­ centrâtes on the sculpture of both sieurs musées américains. On passe qu’il affirme que les regards et Bernardo and his extremely gifted des manuscrits, aux premières gra­ gestes des amoureux des xve et xvie younger brother; and now Schulz’s vures, aux dessins et peintures, aux siècles expriment la promesse de monograph, a rigorous attempt to tapisseries et tissus, aux ivoires, aux félicités à venir plutôt que l’empor­ see Bernardo’s sculptural produc­ objets de métal, aux bijoux et cof­ tement de la passion. L’homme tion with clarity and historical frets. Plusieurs maîtres italiens y occidental aurait-il toujours été en perspective.

76 RACAR / V / 1 The book is organized around into the early , though with ous standard of quality. The nine extant works which Schulz has Bernardo no longer the dominat- sculptural surfaces in the selected isolated as the sculptural commis­ ing artistic personality. In an in- commissions are subjected to a mi­ sions in which Bernardo was in- teresting introductory chapter, nute examination, resuking in a volved to a sufficient degree to be Schulz argues that Bernardo’s sud- cataloguing of fold types, a rigidly able to term them products of the den success as a sculptor has a great formai analysis of physiognomy, Bernardo Rossellino workshop. deal to do with a shift in taste in and a précisé noting of certain Documents link Bernardo to seven Florence away from the monumen­ peculiarities of working method of these commissions. Another tal figure and towards a more (such as the exact way in which an commission, the tomb of Giovanni utilitarian class of sculpture that artist chooses to make his surface Chellini in the church of S. one can term church furniture, a emphases or define contours by use Domenico at S. Miniato al Tedesco shift initiated and encouraged by of the drill). The methodology has just outside Florence, has been as- the économie straits of the 1430s. a great deal to do with a technical sociated with Bernardo in the liter- What Bernardo had to offer was aid that has transformed the con- ature, and the connection is main- a product in which the architectural noisseurship of art history in the tained here on the basis of ‘formai element was a major aspect of the twentieth century — the widespread resemblances.’ From the standpoint piece. Portais and tabernacles were use of photographs. The part-by- of the development of fifteenth- very much his line of work, and the part analysis of works presented century sculpture, the most impor­ shop established a corner on the here relates naturally to the use of tant work treated in the book is the sculptural market in the area of the detail photograph which breaks tomb of , the chan- tomb production. The 1440s and the momument up into conven- cellor of Florence, in S. Croce, 1450s are an intriguing period in iently analysable sections, frozen again a case in which documents do the history of tomb sculpture, for it for prolonged study. And with this not exist to support the attribution, is at this point that one finds a methodology, perhaps of necessity, but where a solid Florentine tradi­ significant increase in the number goes some of the cold efficiency of tion, stretching back to the six- of monumental tombs commis- the technician. It is often startling teenth century, names Bernardo as sioned by private citizens. Families to turn from the scrupulous dissec­ the artist. Schulz devotes a chapter that would put money into large tion in the text to the excellent to each of the nine commissions. A altars or fresco cycles now turn to photographs and expérience again separate catalogue appendix gives costly tomb projects, and even, as in the quiet grâce of this particular technical information and bibliog- the case of the Beata Villana tomb moment in Florentine sculpture raphy for each commission and commissioned from Bernardo in which the works in their wholeness another appendix gives transcrip­ 1451, to the redoing of tombs of allow one to see. tions of relevant documents. ancestors on a larger and grander The close analysis brings the au­ Born in about 1409 at Settig- scale. The Signoria itself, evidence thor to a view of how quattrocento nano, the site of important quar- suggests, becomes finally convinced sculpture was produced in at least ries, Bernardo begins his indepen- during this period of the prop- one mid-fifteenth-century work­ dent sculptural activity in 1433. ^e aganda value of the large-scale shop that is considerably different executes the now lost Sacrament sculptural tomb. It is in the late from anything yet put forward in tabernacle for the Bénédictine 1440s that Bernardo’s shop — very the literature. The making of Badia of SS. Fiora e Lucilla in likely in the employ of the state — sculpture becomes rather similar to , and in the same year re- préparés the impressive Bruni the craft of buon fresco. Each figure ceives a plum of a commission: the tomb, perhaps the most important is split up into a number of conve- façade sculpture for the Palazzo non-ecclesiastical tomb of the first nient segments and these are par- délia Fraternité in Arezzo, includ- half of the fifteenth century. Where celled out to members of the shop. ing a large relief of the Virgin of Bernardo stood in ail of this is The master intervenes at certain Mercy and two figures in niches — clearly indicated by the fact that five points, either to présent a segment the first of the nine commissions of the nine commissions dealt with that will serve as a model or to do a dealt with by Schulz. But these, as in this book are tomb commissions. section that has particular expres­ well as another Sacrament taberna­ Quite apart from what it does for sive or iconographie significance. cle prepared in 1436-38 for the our understanding of Bernardo Badia of Florence (extant frag­ Rossellino, Schulz’s book is invalu- ments, including a supporting eagle able for the information it contri­ console, walled up in the Chiostro bues towards our understanding degli Aranci of the Badia) are es- of the Renaissance tomb. sentially sporadic involvements in The author, however, is in firm the field of sculpture. It is not until pursuit of another goal, the ‘clas­ 1446 that Bernardo’s sculptural sification according to hands of the work becomes of real demand, and individual portions of ail the it is at this point that Schulz would monuments and identification of see a shop set up in which some one of those hands with the master twelve assistants of varying exper­ of the shop.’ Nothing so simple tise take on active rôles. The shop here as the assigning of figures to goes at full speed for about five different masters, but a thorough- figure 1. Bernardo Rossellino, years — late 1446 through 1451 — going analysis of every sculptural Tomb of Leonardo Bruni (detail). and continues to exist in some form component placed against a rigor- From Schulz.

RACAR / V / 1 77 Pièces often appear to hâve been worked on simultaneously by sev­ eral assistants either because of limited workshop space or because of the pressures of time. Schulz’s proposai for piecemeal sculptural production is a controv- ersial one and bound to attract a good many criticisms. As for Ber- nardo, the nominal subject of the book, the analysis leaves him de- nuded of anything resembling a personal œuvre. After the early façade sculpture of 1433-34 for the Palazzo délia Fraternità at Arezzo, executed prior to the formation of the shop, Bernardo’s personal pro­ duction is decidedly limited. No complété figure, with the exception of the miniature S. Egidio tabernac­ le angel, exists as an example of his mature style. He does seem to hâve had a flair for faces, this being an aspect of Bernardo’s work that pro­ figure 2. , Portrait Medallion, Tomb of Neri Capponi. vides an interesting background for From Schulz. Antonio Rossellino’s consummate handling of nuances of expression. up against the standard of what the sleeves of the Bruni effigy. An- Bernardo’s facial type is established author considers ‘finest’ at this par- tonio’s particular feeling for heavy, in the face of the Virgin at Arezzo, ticular artistic moment — the stan­ three-dimensional cloth cornes under the glaze of 1430s Florentine dard of a correct Florentine figure through well in Bruni’s left-hand classicism. It emerges fully in the type of ‘emphatic plasticity’ and sleeve — on the side turned towards faces of the angel and the Virgin in convincing movement, coming for the viewer — and is clearly some- the Annunciation group at Empoli of the most part out of Donatello. thing different from Desiderio’s 1447, with the réservation that the There is a serious question as to tendency to reduce the substance of Virgin is seen as not having re- how broadly the methodology can matter, treating the cloth of the ceived a final finishing. This leaves be applied to the analysis of Renais­ right-hand sleeve as strip folds that the face of the Empoli angel, ap- sance sculpture. If it work any- sink back against the figure in a propriately serving as the jacket where it works in Florence, where planar effect. The book’s most im­ illustration, and the portrait of the by the mid-fifteenth century there portant contribution to our picture Bruni effigy (Fig. 1) as the two was an unusual degree of unanim- of Renaissance sculptural styles lies, principal examples of Bernardo’s ity regarding the direction in which I believe, in its defining the early fully conceived sculptural style. sculptural excellence lay, and work of Antonio and Desiderio. Bernardo has not generally been where individual styles represented Schulz shows us a Desiderio who is seen as a major artistic hand, but if modifications within a generally ac­ able to de-emphasize the volume of Schulz’s conclusions are accepted cepted mode so that collaboration the figure without loss of convinc­ his contribution to Renaissance of the kind Schulz postulâtes be- ing physicality. In Alberti’s terms, it sculpture would be rather precisely comes feasible. is circonscription# winning out over defined as that of designer and With Bernardo as a sculptor de- modelling, and Schulz’s sensitive entrepreneur. I am largely con- moted to a position of minimal analysis of Desiderio suggests that vinced by the author’s reductionist importance, it is Antonio Rossellino the style of contour, that style which approach to Bernardo, but I would and the young assistant Desiderio has its most brilliant flourishing in like to emphasize that it in volves a da Settignano who step forward as the sixteenth century with Pon- number of a priori convictions and the founders of the sculptural style tormo, may be an alternative is at heart far more intuitive than of the second half of the fifteenth Florentine manner as early as the the fold-by-fold analysis of the text century. It seems only appropriate 1440s. might lead the reader to think. In that the commonly used surname The early Antonio also emerges order to isolate Bernardo’s style Rossellino cornes from a nickname from the book in a recognizable within the shop, Schulz has created evidently coined for Antonio, the way. He is seen in a full figure, a hypothetical model, that of a iittle redhead.’ The separating out almost entirely by his hand, in the first-class sculptor who would re- of the styles of Anontio and De­ left-hand genius of the Bruni tomb, veal in his work both the training of siderio shows how effective Schulz’s where Bernardo’s early classicism is Ghiberti and the powerful methodology can be with artists already on its way to being trans­ influence of Donatello. In practical who hâve well-defined and consis­ formée! into the idealized classicism terms, this means that the indi- tent individual approaches. We see of Antonio’s mature style. One of vidual pièces are not only analysed the two young sculptors working Antonio’s most distinctive pièces for stylistic consistency but are held side by side on the long, hanging while still working in his brother’s

78 RACAR / V / 1 shop is the portrait medallion of tions grafted onto the trunk of considerably infirmed — and, with Neri Capponi (Fig. 2). Following History. Préoccupations of other it, the keystones to an entire exeget- Planiscig, Schulz very effectively epochs are not ours and, moreover, ical approach inconsiderately ex- compares the medallion to An­ do not readily lend themselves to trapolated to other contexts since tonio’s signed and dated portrait the current demand for symmetri- that date. bust of Giovanni Chellini of 1456 in cal conclusions of‘incontrovertible’ One may regret the concision of the Victoria and Albert Muséum. nature, results which might surpass Verheyen’s analysis of the rustica We are given a beautiful analysis of the exegete just as the original designs (pp.47-48). This, admit- the portrait medallion which stres­ problems often surpassed contem- tedly, is no immédiate considéra­ ses Antonio’s technical virtuosity. It poraries. A number of issues here tion within the history of the Te as is a virtuosity that will emerge fully raised are neither comfortably re- designed and executed by Giulio developed in the 1460s in works solved to the point of equilibrium Romano, since it lends itself to such as the Nori and that or expressional formulae; nor are extensive theoretical discussion on key momument of the second half they apt to be other than disturbing the basis of the evidence offered. of the fifteenth century, the tomb in their seeming candour. The Te is constructed of stucco of the Cardinal of Portugal. Taking What if we were to accord in­ over brick, and the continuai visual the conclusions of the book only scriptions (placed by order of the and intellectual alternance of ars slightly beyond what Schulz has patron, often situated in part of the and natura is explicit in the façades, provided, it may not be an exagger- oldest building fabric, and which just as it is implicit in the renderings ation to say that Bernardo’s most form no visually incidental detail in of the Strada drawings of 1567/68 impressive production as a sculptor the décoration) as some real indica­ (Art Bulletin, xlix [1967], figs. 2-5): was his brother Antonio. tion of a general programme: the ‘falling triglyphs’ on the east FEDERICVS GONZAGA II MAR. V S.R.E. / and west of the court are prevented DEBRA PINCUS ET REIP. FLOR. CAPITANEVS by structural design from falling University of British Columbia GENERALIS / HONESTO OCIO POST below a certain point, even as it is LABORES AD REPARANDAM / VIRT. visually apparent that they would QVIETI CONSTRVI MANDAVIT. What if never reach that point. Art has a survey of the documentation for anticipated the ruinous effects of the sériés of ingenious chambers Nature and forestalled them (fig. and dependencies executed from 28), and this conceit is approp- egon verheyen The Palazzo del Te in 1525/26-34 on the Isola del Te riately contrasted with the or- Mantua: Images of Love and Politics. suggests, among other things, that thodox treatment of the north- Baltimore and London, The Johns it was virtually impossible to main- south court axis. The Manneristic Hopkins University Press, 1977. tain stylistic or conceptual tendency to juxtapose, or, more 156 + xvi pp., 84 illus., $22.50. homogeneity, save in a very general properly speaking, to superimpose sense, because of changing cir- visual and historical memory of This volume is Tittle’ only in thick- cumstance? Had Windows been es- Renaissance theory and practice ness, not in its intellectual density. tablished as functions of interior finds a splendid and personal In an epoch when archivai research décorative schemes (pp. 11-12), statement in this its proper place. is as obligatory as it has been fash- how could these equally serve the In like manner, the organization ionably trivialized, it is a relief to much-discussed courtyard façades of this study rightly supposes a find précisé summaries of informa­ of what originally was a villa subur- threefold restatement, albeit in dif­ tion contained in documents pre- bana — if only by its location — that ferent context and emphasis, of: senting, for the most part, no par- eventually became a palace con- interprétation cum exposition; a ticular problems of formulation or ditioned by and incorporating ail catalogue raisonne' of architectural nomenclature. Greater issues are prior structures? (The crucial early and décorative schemes and motifs, clarified or introduced with view of the structure is best ap- along with their surviving evidence economy, while fastidious accumu­ preciated in the colour reproduc­ (pp. 107-32); and only then the lations of references not borne out tion, Romisches Jahrbuch für documents themselves (pp. 133- by extant documentation are re- Kunstgeschichte, xn [1969], p. 165, 45), these latter arranged jected except when some principle fig. 4.) It is to be remarked that the chronologically, being further in- is at question. Verheyen’s discus­ impression of architectural regular- dexed by workers. Unlike F. Hartt’s sion accordingly unfolds as an un- ity and symmetry is implicit in Giulio Romano (2 vols., 1958), these usual example of rigorous choice of motif, e.g. the north façade, but not are not limited ‘almost exclusively subject and approach prior to re­ by any objective measure. Further, to the publication of documents in search and development. that an impressive argumentation which Giulio’s name appears,’ and The discussion of principles can be made for the tapering off of afford new insights into the nature naturally involves received ideas activity from campaign to cam- of workshop practice and the use of and interprétation founded upon paign, culminating in the virtual drawings (pp. 49-50). In them, we the amount and nature of informa­ abandonment of interior décora­ corne to understand the lack of tion available at any given period. tion after the adoption of more certain types of documents as well As a resuit, principles may con- expédient techniques than stucchi. as the proper usage of others, when sciously be placed where they must Were this accepted, the willed and essential discussions were doubtless needs be, as the foundations of eccentric Mannerism defined in of oral nature and never put down. critical fabric, as déterminants Pevsner’s essay ‘The Architecture The Palazzo del Te provides food rather than incidental considéra­ of Mannerism’ (1946) would be for thought at many levels. Al-

RACAR / V / 1 79