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on firsthand information, Actually, this is a reprinting, paradoxically with added footnotes, of the rigid appli- cation of this rule three alsonow famous makes articles that appeared the in Paragone book somewhat less reliable than one might in I950 and 1951.- wish. Part II is a study of Cortona's The lacunae seem pictorialoffset, style, its antecedents, however, and its relation byto its numerous and exciting revelations, time. Part only III contains aa chronology few of ofCortona's which life; can be men- tioned here. A spectacular a chronologically ordered catalogueone raisonni is ofthe the discovery that Domenico Ghirlandaio artist's surviving work;was a list ofa lost orminiaturist destroyed paint- as well as a painter (a miniature ings, and ofin misattributions; the anBiblioteca "outline" for a cata- Vaticana bears his signature). Significant logue of the drawings; and,also finally, isan extensive the bibli- discovery of docu- ments that make itography. possible A huge body of illustrations to distinguish and several in- the hand of Gherardo di Giovanni dices make the bookdi easyMiniato and pleasurable to use.from that of his brother Monte, of Part III,Bartolomeo containing some two hundred d'Antoniopages of Varnucci from that of his brothercatalogues, is now the standardGiovanni, reference for Pietro and da of Giovanni di Giuliano Boccardi Cortona from as a painter. that The quality ofand significance his ofson Francesco and of Matteo da Terranova. Briganti's accomplishment Of can beinterest, fully appreciated only too, is the iden- tification of a woman if one remembers thatminiaturist, until now the one general study Donna Angela di Antonio de' Rabatti, of this greatof artist whom was Fabbrini's unsatisfactoryone work book is documented by signature. of I896.2 For the most part the catalogue entries pro- The abundance of vide the studentnew with all essentialinformation, information and oc- the reexam- ination and reassessment casionally, when a work of demands earlier it (e.g., the Barberini attributions in the light of recent discoveries, ceiling or the Pitti decorations), the the entry grows rigorous into distinction maintained between a little essay, documented and this quite sensibly frees the text factfrom and interpreta- tion, and the variety the burden of heavyof documentation. scholarly By now Seicen- apparatuses make this book a most valuable tisti will have begun to fillresearch the margins of the catalogue tool for the special- ist concerned with sections withFlorentine additions and amendments;' inminiature fact, im- painting. It will also be an indispensable portant new materials have alreadyfoundation been added and for any future attempt to write corrections a history made to the catalogues of in some Florentine excellent manuscript illumination. reviews of the book." However, it is just the thorough- There are some nesstypographical and accuracy of the author's researches thaterrors, enable only two of which may cause us toconfusion. make sensible use of new information On and topage 255, "Tav. 38" (in the margin) shouldrecognize errors or readomissions. The "Tav. importance of the37," and on pages 257 and 258, "Tav. catalogues can37" hardly beshould overestimated, but itread should "Tav. 38."

DARIO A. COVI not make one neglect the text. I shall devote this re- view to a discussion of the latter, partly because the University of Louisville chief questions raised by the catalogues have already been dealt with by other writers, but mainly because GIULIANO BRIGANTI, Pietro da Cortona I think o della the textpit- contains Briganti's most immediately tura barocca, , Sansoni, I962. challenging Pp. 357; and stimulating contributions. 289 figs., 16 color p1s. L. I8.000. Part I of the text, an essay that was first published more than a decade ago, is a classic discussion, illumined This book by Giuliano Briganti is a kindby good of sense, con- and it merited reprinting. Furthermore, flation of two related studies: one on the nature of the rest of the book is predicated on this essay and is style in painting, and one on the paintings obviously of the fruit of ideas that the author formulated Pietro da Cortona. Together they make a truly in dis- the context of this initial inquiry into the interpre- tinguished volume, and one of the most significant tationcon- of the Baroque. Thus, the pages in Part II de- tributions to the study of Seicento painting published voted to subjects like "la nozione veneziana del Cor- in recent years. It must be said at the start that it istona," not or "la Natura-Spettacolo" are elaborations of always an easy book to read, for the author tends to the ad- brief sketches of neo-Venetianism and of the rela- vance his investigation along several densely worded tion of man to nature that appear in Part I. Together, fronts at once. However, it is full of ideas and insights, Parts I and II represent a carefully structured argu- often witty and trenchant in its characterizations, ment and about the Baroque. constantly stimulating and thought-provoking. The author begins with a study of the "strange Part I is a discussion of the meaning of "baroque." word 'baroque' ":6 first in its general or metaphorical

I. I, Nos. I, 3, pp. 19-24, 6-14; II, No. 13, pp. 8-17. Paris, A 1724, pp. 185-186). slightly revised version of these essays has appeared in English 4. K. Noehles in Kunstchronik, xvI, 1963, pp. 95-ro6; W. in Encyclopedia of World Art, London, i960, II, cols. 257-267. Vitzthum in Burlington Magazine, cv, 1963, pp. 213-217, and 2. Vita del Cav. Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, Cortona. in Master Drawings, 1, 1963, PP. 49-51. 3. One minor addition to marginalia may be offered here. 5. The most recent contributions to this subject are 0. Kurz, The Battle of Alexander and Darius at Versailles (Cat. "Barocco: No. storia di una parola," Lettere italiane, XII, i96o, pp. 65), surely not by Cortona, is apparently the picture cited 414-444; by idem, "Barocco: storia di un concetto," Barocco Piganiol de la Force as by "Bourguignon," i.e., Jacques Europeo e Barocco Veneziano (ed. V. Branca), Venice, 1962, Courtois (Nouvelle description du ckdteau ... de Versailles, pp. 15-33i B. Migliorini, "Etimologia e storia del termine

This content downloaded from 159.149.103.9 on Wed, 19 Jul 2017 14:39:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 412 THE ART BULLETIN sense, where it has ments. always Nonetheless, it is certainbeen that Briganti's "extremely polemic, imprecise and adaptable to the now as tenmost years ago, has thevaried merit of reminding objects" us to (p. 18); and then in its "abbottonatissima, inquire into our methodological lucidepresuppositions. Foruniforme accade- mica" (p. I9)--that instance,is, in condemningBaroque the tendency to useas the terma critical and his- torical concept. The "Baroque"author for all seventeenth explains century art, Briganti that the idea, most fully elaborated by explains D'Ors, that the belief in a ofunified BaroqueBaroque period did as a universal and recurring "type not ofproceed fromvision" the observation of(analogous any stylistic or to and some- times identical with spiritual communityRomanticism) between Caravaggio, Carracci, has contributed little to historical insight, and Cortona, but from and a pre-existing, he andpoints certainly out that Croce's concept of Baroque questionable, as a theory kind of historical of evolution." "non-style" Unfor- or "mode of the ugly" can only tunately, his lead discussion is highlyto condensed, a critical and read- dead end. It is in the tradition of ers Germanwho are not familiar with theand background Austrian material scholarship that the concept of may findthe it difficult Baroque to follow. has had its greatest success and seems to haveThe last pages ofbeen Part I appeared most in Paragone under fruitful. At this point the essay, the title, "Milleseicentotrenta, which ovvero nowhere il Barocco." quite main- tains a tone of dispassionate Here the author argues that inquiry,while our present concep- becomes an espe- cially sharp polemic. tion Theof the Baroque author has come to be riddled provides with ambi- only a sche- matic outline of the guity, contradiction,historical and methodological background error, the of Stilge- schichte and Geistesgeschichte word "baroque" had a "very precise" while meaning when itsharply attacking their methods of treating was first applied to the visual the arts in the secondBaroque. half of The former, with its W61fflinian the eighteenth visual century. Baroque, schemes, for Quatrembre de makes the Ba- roque a "chapter in Quincyan andimaginary Milizia, described a style thathistory made a of art with- out artists," or else itradical departureclassifies from the aesthetic artistsnorms established "like dry flowers between an herbalist's by antiquity blotting and by , a style papers." that had as its Furthermore, it attempts to unify (evil) "undergeniuses Bernini, Borromini, the and Pietrobanner da Cor- of the Baroque, all artistic manifestations tona.7 Only this narrowfrom concept ofthe the Baroque, end Bri- of the Renais- sance to the beginning ganti insists, of refers tothe something neoclassicalreal and concrete. By reaction" (p. 24). The danger of extending Geistesgeschichte the term "Baroque" to include other seven- is seen in its tendency to discover teenth and eighteenthconnections century artistic modes we ob- "not between the prevalent tendencies scure and the true Baroque the and make various it impossible to under- artists of the age, but between some of stand. theThe author's former thesis is that the Baroque (Jesuitism, style is the Coun- ter Reformation, etc.) a unique artisticand phenomenon the created abstraction and propagated of a general style." This amounts by the generationto the that matured creation about I630, and the of "a hypothet- ical collective subconscious precise expression of a specific which cultural content--the ultimately seems to presuppose the history "spirit" of the momentof in styles". Baroque style is (p.to 25). The author makes a plea for a "history be understood as the "style of of 1630." art that is a history of artists, a history of Partliving, II, the heart of thethinking, book, represents the au- working individ- uals." He rejects the thor's demonstrationnotion of his thesis.of It provides, a "basic by way sentiment" or "vital sense of the age," and insists that such an idea of explanation, a rich, panoramic view of painting and is disproved by the "unbridgeable distance that sep- artistic culture in Rome from about 1615 to about arates.. . a Campanella from a Marino, a Caravaggio I665. In these pages the reader is treated to illuminat- from a Pietro da Cortona." For Briganti the task of ing discussions that range from such specialized prob- the historian of the seventeenth century is not to cor- lems as the style of Tuscan artists working in Rome in relate disparate stylistic phenomena, but to make dis- the first decades of the century to such fundamental tinctions: "Distinguere, allora, e ancora distinguere" (p. 25). historical questions as the meaning of classical and ar- The tone of these pages may seem unnecessarily cheological culture for Roman Seicento society. (The heated today, when few scholars (excepting perhaps latter is an analysis that cannot be too highly praised.) those stricken with what Briganti calls "pigrizia cul- However, the main argument for the author's thesis is, turale") will disagree with the author's main argu- of course, the analysis of the paintings of Pietro da Cortona, one of the creators and leading practitioners 'barocco'," Manierismo, Barocco, Rococo (Accademia Nazi- onale dei Lincei), Rome, 1962, pp. 39-49. fact that historians of the second half of the I9th century who 6. This is most obviously illustrated by the development of studied the Baroque were almost exclusively concerned with the W61fflin's work. In his Renaissance und Barock of 1888 he problem of the genesis of the style. Some of the material rele- was concerned with the problem of the transition of vantRenais- to this question is discussed by Briganti on pp. 23-24 and sance to Baroque style primarily in Italian architecture. in Inn. 22.his Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe of 1915 he attempted 7. Oneto should not exaggerate the precision of I8th century show how all the arts everywhere in Europe obeyed the usage. same De Brosse used "baroque" as a synonym for "gothic," laws of stylistic development, and to form an idea ofand "was Cavaliere d'Arpino and Caravaggio were, for Winckel- man als Zeitstil bezeichnen muss" (4th ed., Munich, mann 920o, and Bettinelli respectively, the painters whose art corre- p. 9). sponded to the decadent taste of Bernini and Borromini (see Kurz (Barocco Europeo . . . , p. 30) has emphasized Briganti's the nn. 2 and 13).

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of the Baroque style.begin to assemble underBriganti Briganti's banner of the shows Ba- that Cortona's pictorial means were roque, and thelargely only criterion for acceptancebased or rejec- on the work of Lan- franco and Guercino, tion is their "spiritualand content." on However, the it seems appreciation to of Vene- tian color in Rome me that the in cultural thefactors Briganti I620'S. isolates as crucial Most important, he argues convincingly for Cortona's work that are no more thanthe that. Not allcontent of of Cortona's paintings was essentially them are relevant for Poussin or,the I think, Sacchiexpression and of the new militancy of the MarattaCatholic (and probably not Church, for Tiepolo either), and the absolutist tend- encies of the Barberini, they are certainly insufficient and to explain the these artists. "classical" artifice of the intellectual and I think thatsocial to see them as thelife explanation of for the the art upper classes. These brilliant and of a whole erudite generation and its following pages is, in effect, tellto us much about art and culture in do what Seicentothe author himself warned against:Rome, discovering but I do not think they demonstrate connections the between validity some of the tendencies of of an agethe author's formula, "I630, i.e., the andBaroque." the abstraction of a general style.There are, to my mind, two serious objections The author's to identification it. ofFirst, the Baroque with the art of the genera- tion of 1630 in Rome"1630" complicates wasanother major really problem: the rela- not stylistically co- herent; second, some tion of Rubens artists to the Baroque style. working While Ludovico before I630 prac- ticed styles that seemCarracci and Lanfranco remarkably might possibly be relegated to like Cortona's. The author writes an early that or proto-Baroque the moment, artists Rubens "always who reached ma- turity toward spokeI630-Borromini, the new Baroque language without accent or any Bernini, Cortona, Sacchi, Duquesnoy, archaism" (p.and 31). This, thealso author grants, Poussin is true (p. 28)--created "the various modes even of Rubens' of Italian the works (I6oo-I6o8).Baroque" Consid- and "assimilated and gave their personal ering Briganti's repeated inflection insistence that the climate ofto the spirit [of the time]" (p. 34). Now 1630 was veryto different a certain from that of I6oo00 orextent I6Io, one is justified in speaking of "generation is it logical to conclude that "withoutstyles." any doubt the Members of a gen- eration in a given spirit place that animates areall Rubens' likely work is already theto share cultural ex- periences, attitudes, spirit of I630" etc.,(ibid.)? Now eitherand the cultural their con- works will reveal something of this ditions community. that gave rise to the Baroque style onlyIn crystal- terms of generation style there is a connectionlized around i63o and therefore Rubens between is not Baroque Cortona, Sacchi, and Poussin. However, (or is only proto-Baroque) I duringcannot his Italian period, agree that this con- nection is strong or elseenough these conditions already toexisted andimply could nour- the existence of a "spirit" or "basic ish thesentiment" visual arts before I6Io and therefore theof Ba- 1630, and to suggest that the multiform roque style visual is not identical withmodes the style of 1630.of A the time can all be placed under the third rubric possibility is that specific "Baroque and limited cultural con- style." Indeed, the author himself is ditions, forced despite their relevance to in particular interpret instances, Pieter van Laer and Michelangelo may haveCerquozzi, less to do with the creation of majorwho modes were creating the bambocciata around of pictorial expression I630, than Briganti as supposes. the belated representa- tives of an earlier It seems generation's to me that if we consider the Baroque, "naturalism" as (p. 54). Moreover, Poussin Milizia did,is to be ultimatelymerely a manner or mode of repre- explained as an "iso- lated case," as a sentation,classicist then we can make "outside more meaningful con- the Baroque move- ment" (pp. 9 -92, nections andIoI). distinctions. However,The Baroque style is best granting these major exceptions, understood, the I think,author as a set of pictorial insists formulae that the art of the generation of 1630 rooted in thewas grand tradition otherwise of Italian Cinquecento Baroque, and he includes Andrea art.Sacchi, Essentially it was theas heritage a ofclassicist the Venetians "within the Ba- roque movement" and of (p.Correggio 92),that was made which into a new expressive creates, I think, the greatest difficulty tool by for Ludovico Carracci,his Lanfranco thesis. and others. DespiteRu- the profound visual differences bens, between and then Cortona, elaborated Sacchi's on it and expanded work and Cortona's, which Briganti analyzes its possibilities (and itin is this detail, point in the style hethat argues, neverthe- less, that Sacchi Milizia must declared exaggerated be and consideredcorrupt and, in effect, Baroque (albeit Classicistic-Baroque) christened because "baroque"). Thus a chainhe of connectionsshared the "nutrimenti spirituali" of his can be tracedgeneration from artist to artist in the development (p. 89). This can only mean that the forms of a work of art and the manner of Baroque forms. Around I600oo these forms were in which it is composed and painted have little to do used to express some prevalent tendencies of the time, with whether it is Baroque or not. It is the "spirit" and around I630, when new ideas and attitudes crys- that counts. It is clear then that Briganti's Baroque, tallized, some of them-perhaps the most significant- after all, is not Milizia's Baroque, which referred to acould be, and were expressed in the Baroque style. manner, a mode of representation, and from which an Some of the same ideas were expressed in other styles artist like Sacchi was definitely excluded. For the au- by Poussin and Sacchi. This explains the community thor, not only are Cortona and Sacchi, and Luca Gior- of generation. But Poussin and Sacchi saw things-no dano and Baciccia and Tiepolo Baroque, but so also are less real-in the age that Cortona and his followers and his following (pp. 89-90o). One did not, and these things could not be expressed in a wonders whether Batoni is also to be considered Ba- Baroque style. If we must have a name for the styles roque. Thus a great many disparate visual phenomena of Poussin and Sacchi, of and of Maratta,

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perhaps we can use patronized the Vouet terminology and Valentin as well as Cortona. ofIn Milizia and call them the "sublime" the context or of Briganti's "beautiful" discussion these are minor or "expressive" styles.8 But it would objections, be but I bringbetter them up here to because, preserve while I distinctions and not call them agree "Baroque"; with the author's main arguments, and I feel it that would be better to maintain clarity ultimately and he "overidentifies" not call the style themof Cortona and "Classicistic-Ba- roque." his contemporaries with a social class. I am afraid that my criticisms of Briganti's concep- In a sense, the author's conclusion is that Cortona's tion of the Baroque may have obscured my admiration generation in Rome sold out to a declining ruling class for this major effort to resolve one of the central issues (p. 11 2), that it abandoned the "more difficult paths of art history. Only a writer with the author's erudi- of free research" (i.e., Caravaggism) to create repre- tion and breadth of vision could have attempted it. If sentational modes that could "illustrate the vain dreams we cannot accept all of his conclusions, this seems less of [the ruling class'] fantasy" (p. 55). He insists, important than the fact that he has given us a picture therefore, in the final sentence of the text, that "a judg- so wide in scope and so sharp in detail that the essential ment on the work of Cortona and Bernini must be problems we must deal with stand out boldly. balanced by a judgment on the society and the culture The supreme accomplishment of the book is its whose interpreters they were" (p. I 13). To my mind analysis of Pietro da Cortona's version of the Baroque the author is here confusing historical and moral judg- style. With a few reservations this can be said to be ments with aesthetic judgments. "Bourgeois Holland" absolutely convincing, and presented with exemplary may have had, as Briganti says, a "freer, more modern clarity and economy.9 In the text relatively few, but culture" than did seventeenth century Rome, but in characteristic, paintings from each period are consid- what sense was it also "higher" (p. I 13)? What- ered in detail. In the discussion of Cortona's work of ever our opinion of the "Establishment" of the the early I62o's paintings like the Capitoline Sacrifice Seicento, I think we must admit that in Bernini it had of Polyxena and the Mahon collection Oath of Semi- an artistic representative who equaled the very best ramis serve to illustrate the new pictorial and presenta- that could be claimed by the good burghers of Holland. tional devices that the artist was creating. Briganti Certainly Cortona's decorations in the Barberini and demonstrates that these pictures, in their stress on sceno- Pitti Palaces are propagandistic and encomiastic, but to- graphic effects and on heroic, melodramatic moments, day it doesn't matter whether or not we admire the distinguish themselves from works of the previous gen- families and ideals they celebrate; for the artist was eration; they emerge as clear reflections of the rigid able to transform the "vain dreams" of his patrons social relationships of the time, of the manners, intothe a "high" poetry that still captivates and that car- conventions, "the pretensions of the dominant social ries the spectator away on the wings of artistic illusion. class to dignity and grandeur" (p. 63). The historian can analyze the relation of art to society; In this connection Briganti also points out that the if he insists on judging one by the quality of the other, ideals of this social minority explain "the radical thenre- it is surely more meaningful to judge a society by jection of realistic and everyday forms in art" (p. 6o) the art that it fosters than an art by the society it -that is to say, the ultimate rejection in Rome of serves.the Caravaggesque tradition. This is certainly true, but TheI ceiling of the Gran Salone in the Bar- think one should emphasize the fact that these social berini Palace in Rome was Cortona's main achieve- ideals coincided with the authority of Italy's grand ar-ment in the 163o's, and the decorations in the Pitti tistic tradition. For despite its brilliant success, the Cara- Palace in Florence dominated his activity in the I640's. vaggesque style had acknowledged faults in the mind The author's discussion of these monuments is careful of the Italian artist and critic who was aware and re- and sensitive, and is enhanced by his feeling for the spectful of his heritage, while the claims of the poetican- content of a historical situation. The latter en- tique, of Raphael, Michelangelo, Correggio, and Ti-ables him, for instance, to dispose of one vexatious tian could not be ignored. Essentially, this aesthetic problem in a single, telling sentence. The significance motivation for rejecting Caravaggism could affect art- of Cortona's visit to Venice in 1637 and, especially, its ists directly, regardless of their connections with the possibleso- influence on the design and color of the Bar- cial milieu. Indeed, Briganti perhaps overestimates the berini ceiling is a question that might have led to pages ability of a social class to recognize immediately its own of inconclusive discussion. Briganti, who earlier ex- best aesthetic interests. After all, in the I620's Cas- plains Cortona's crucial experience with Venetian color siano del Pozzo, Marcello Sacchetti, and the Barberini in the 162o's (pp. 65-66), simply and correctly dis-

8. The usual terms today are "classic" or "classical," which the literature he cites. The following is a typical example. On have something to recommend them if they are understood to p. 31, speaking of neo-Venetianism in Rome around 163o, he describe a pictorial mode that adheres closely to the ideals of credits "Longhi nel lontano 1916." No footnote. The reader the "classic" art of Raphael. However, the tendency to con- who doesn't happen to know that the reference is to Roberto fuse "classical" with "classicizing" and "antiquicizing," and to Longhi, "Gentileschi, padre e figlia," L'arte, xIx, I916, will extend the term so that it includes the so-called classical find no help in the bibliography, for there is no entry under phase of Rembrandt's art, etc., makes one wonder "1916." if it isCitations from inadequately indexed I7th century really more satisfactory than Milizia's terminology. books are given without page references, and even without 9. In one particular, economy is carried much too book far. titles. No- where in the text does the author make adequate reference to

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misses the idea work,that and it does the not seem possible 1637 to explain ittrip satis- was in any way fundamental for factorilythe in termsBarberini of the internal stylistic developmentfresco: ". . . fu un sog- giorno brevissimo: of his art. dueThe facts suggest settimane instead that some special se non meno di un piovoso novembre, circumstance con affected Cortonale whenchiese he was designing buie e una gran furia nel cuore di tornansene the fresco. a casa" (p. 87). The author emphasizes Considering the clear reflection the of the Farneserelation Gal- of Cortona's Barberini fresco tolery in Cortona'sAnnibale finished fresco, and Carracci'sconsidering also ceiling decora- tion in the Galleria the close relation Farnese, of his earlier ceiling designs although to the he points out that despite clear same reflections monument, it does not seem unlikelyof thatthe the earlier work in the design, Cortona's originalceiling plan for the Grannevertheless Salone looked very much represents a dif- ferent world of form like Annibale's masterpiece.and Indeed,content.'0 the Farnese Gal- Cortona evidently had Annibale's scheme lery scheme offeredin themind logical solution when for the Bar- he was first com- posing the fresco. berini vault,In where this a multiplicity connection of independent narra- one is surprised that a drawing in tive scenes Munich, were also to be painted ontwice a coved vault. published as a pre- liminary study for The Munich the drawing, Barberini of course, represents just suchCeiling," is nowhere mentioned by the an "Annibalesque" author. design, with quadriThe riportati drawing sur- represents a florid but direct rounded elaboration by the delimiting frames of painted of architec- the Farnese Gallery scheme and is closely ture and of sculptural related and "living" ornaments. to Nowthe Barberini design. Obviously Briganti Cortona's ceiling,doesn't representing Divine consider Providence, was the drawing au- thentic, but since conceived it as a kindis of thependant to Sacchi'sonly ceiling ofknown drawing that might represent an Divine earlyWisdom in the stageBarberini Palace. of In 1633, the Barberini scheme, it seems peculiar whenthat Cortona wasit just should beginning his work, be Sacchi totally ignored. Per- sonally, I am inclined completed his fresco. to Sacchi's acceptceiling, although it isit as Cortona's, and even if it is really considerably a study smaller than Cortona's, for creates the the illu- ceiling of the Villa del Pigneto (ca. sion 1630), of a vast, open, and unifiedas space.Noehles If my guess has now tenta- tively suggested,"2 about theits original importance nature of Cortona's design is cor- would not be greatly lessened. Indeed, therect, then, I designsthink, he would have foundof it constricted,the Pigneto and Castel Fusano ceilings are, overly detailed, in and somehowa sense, small by comparison preparatory stages in the development withof the thegrand spaciousness Barberini of Sacchi's fresco. Thescheme. In any event, I do not think one competition can from Sacchi responsibly called for revisions in his de- reject Posse's at- tribution of the sign, Munich and one can easily imagine drawing his procedure: reduc- without making a reasonable counterproposal ing the bulk of the painted architecture; about eliminating its authorship and purpose. the delimiting frames; carrying clouds and figures Actually, Briganti across one compartment has intonot the next. Thebeen result was much concerned with the genesis aof splendidly the open and design unified design, but of bought theat Barberini fresco, and his discussion the costdoes of narrative not, and structural therefore, clarity, a "defect" supersede Posse's fundamental study that was severely of criticized the by Sacchi andceiling."' his circle. In Furthermore it seems to me that his nextthe ceilings, authorin the Pitti Palace, Cortonahas aban- not sufficiently ap- preciated the uniqueness doned the device of spatial interpenetration, of one but found aspect of Cortona's invention. The use another solution, of one thatan he evidently open considered morearchitectural frame- work to establish and define an interior and exterior satisfactory and that is perhaps closer to his early de- space, and the creation of an illusion of forms moving signs than to the Barberini vault. In the Pitti the real freely between them was a novelty in Roman ceiling stucco frames divide the ceilings into compartments and design. It was the means by which Cortona produced maintain an absolute separation between the individual the effect of an explosive extension of the spectator units. However, the rooms are now dominated by the space and of irresistible movement. Now this interpene- main "quadri," which open out in painted views of tration of spaces is a device that does not appear in any the exterior space. This solution has the advantage of providing great, unified, illusionistic spaces while main- of the earlier ceiling designs in which Cortona was in- taining clear divisions between the many elements of volved, and, in its principles, it differs from the artist's the design. Thus the Barberini ceiling would appear early easel paintings, where Briganti shows that "the to be a special, and not entirely characteristic, product action is enclosed in a carefully defined space, which of Cortona's Baroque style. This does not, however, in is alien to the spectator" (p. 63). Equally important, any way invalidate Briganti's conclusion that with this after the Barberini fresco the artist never used this de- fresco Cortona "reached the high point of his artistic vice again. In other words, this aspect of the ceiling is career" (p. 88). something of an isolated phenomenon in Cortona's und die Deckenmalerei in Rom," Jahrbuch So. On the iconography an important addition to Briganti's der preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XL, 1919, p. 168, fig. 26; discussion is W. Vitzthum, "A Comment on the Iconography of K. Noehles, "Zur 'Mostra di Pietro da Cortona' in Rom," Pietro da Cortona's Barberini Ceiling," Burlington Magazine, Kunstchronik, x, 1957, P. Ioi, fig. 3. CIII, 196i, pp. 427-433. iz. Kunstchronik, xvI, 1963, pp. 99-1oo. i i. H. Posse, "Das Deckenfresco des Pietro da Cortona im 13. Op.cit.

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The author did not conceive of this book as a con- Luxembourg (seats of the Chamber of Deputies and ventional monograph and, because he was primarily the Senate), where Delacroix painted three extensive concerned with the development of the Baroque style projects from 1833 to 1847. Most of these murals are around 163o, he quite understandably treats Cortona's placed high and illuminated by windows that sometimes late work with some brevity. Indeed, in Part II fifty- dazzle the observer rather than lighting the paintings. five pages are devoted to the period from 1612 Theto generous number of details in the plates of this I639 while only twenty-one pages are given to thebook will be welcomed by those who already know the period from 1640 to 1669. Considering the author's murals as well as by those who have not seen them. intentions and admitting that the factual material neces- The spontaneity of brushwork revealed by close-up sary for an understanding of Cortona's last three dec- photographs should disprove the generalization that ades of activity is found in the catalogue sections, Delacroix's it large paintings are remote from the inti- seems a little unfair to criticize him for this. Still one mate and personal qualities of his small easel paintings. cannot help wishing that he had attempted a more This generalization has undoubtedly been based on the thorough interpretative study of the artist's later work Saint-Sulpice murals (1849-1861) which are in many since the book will obviously serve us for a long time respects rigid, and which present a marked contrast as the standard monograph on Cortona's painting. with the loose form of the late easel paintings. But the Cortona's work, beginning with the earlier murals in the government buildings are closer ceilings and culminating with the Palazzo Pamphili in form to the easel paintings. fresco, opened the way for a new development in Although Walter Friedlaender, in his David to Italian decoration. It would be wrong to see thisDelacroix, suggested the importance of a study of the merely as a continuation of the artist's earlier style. murals In to shed light on Delacroix's development as an the 1640's Cortona shifted his pictorial emphasis from artist, no sustained studies have appeared beyond sev- the activity of mass to the activity of volume, from pon-eral brief scholarly articles and a host of appreciations. derous forms to light, swiftly moving figures, and Thishe is the first book devoted exclusively to the murals, created luminous, airy spaces in ceilings that lead anddi- its author has attempted to make it a basic work. rectly to and ultimately to Tiepolo. In several respects he has succeeded; it is unlikely that It is quite natural that one should concentrate aon better and more thorough collection of photographs Cortona's monumental secular decorations, for hewill ever be forthcoming, and equally unlikely that made his most spectacular and enduring artistic con-there ever will be gathered in a single volume so much tributions in this field. Yet the old artist could be, ondocumentation on all of the murals. But beyond photo- occasion, a religious painter of considerable power. graphs and documents there is little analysis or inter- Briganti calls attention to such splendid and moving pretation of either style or content. Of the nearly two works as the Annunciation in San Francesco, Cor- hundred text pages all but twenty to thirty consist of tona, and the Procession of S. Carlo in San Carlo documents ai quoted in full or part. Catinari, Rome; but these works deserve further study. M. Serullaz's intention to include all the documents I have emphasized those aspects of this book that relevant to Delacroix's murals necessitated the reprint- do not seem to me entirely convincing or that seem ing of material already published by Moreau-Nelaton to call for more discussion. For the rest, a brief sum- and Escholier, and of letters and notes readily available mary cannot do justice to this important book; I incan Andr6 Joubin's editions of the Correspondance and only recommend it and report my pleasure in reading the Journal. To this material he adds critical reviews it, and also in looking at it. For the publisher has pro- from newspapers accessible only in Paris, and unpub- duced a handsome volume worthy of its contents. The lished official letters and reports from the national black and white illustrations are mostly very good andarchives. All of these sources are presented with metic- the color plates, while not of uniform quality, make ulous a accuracy, but usually without comment. Docu- real addition to our understanding of Cortona's art. ments, published and unpublished, are arranged chron-

DONALD POSNER ologically within the chapter, each chapter being de- voted to one of the projects, beginning with the three New York University small frescoes at Valmont, Delacroix's only works in that medium. At the end of each chapter are two MAURICE SERULLAZ, Les peintures murales pages, more de Dela- or less, of suggestions of specific stylistic sources for the murals; the introductory chapter croix, Paris, Les Editions du Temps, 1963. Pp. 613; (eleven pages) covers the same theme of Delacroix's 125 figs., 16 color plates. NF I 0o. roots in the past (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, This book presents good photographs andItalian extensive and French painting), quoting extensively documents on a major aspect of Delacroix's from workhis own that writings. The text is, therefore, predom- is still not well known, the mural paintings inantly which a presentation he of sources and must be judged executed in Paris between 1833 and 1861.from Althoughthis point of view. many students and artists have come to know Footnotes the three are restricted to marginal references giv- murals in the church of Saint-Sulpice ingand sources the Apollo for quotations. The bibliography is chrono- ceiling in the Louvre, few have had opportunitylogically arranged, to including reviews and studies on gain entrance to the Palais Bourbon and the the murals Palais since du their completion; it is strongest on

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