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RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne Canadian Art Review

Irving Lavin and John Plummer, ed., Studies in Late Medieval and Paintings in Honor of Millard Meiss. New York, Press, 1977. Volume 1: text, 163 + xx pp.; Volume 2: plates, 164 pp., $75 Wendy Stedman Sheard and John T. Paoletti, ed., Collaboration in Italian Renaissance Art. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1978. 268 + xxi pp., illus. $20 Debra Pincus

Volume 8, Number 2, 1981

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1075010ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1075010ar

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

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

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Cite this review Pincus, D. (1981). Review of [Irving Lavin and John Plummer, ed., Studies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Paintings in Honor of Millard Meiss. New York, New York University Press, 1977. Volume 1: text, 163 + xx pp.; Volume 2: plates, 164 pp., $75 / Wendy Stedman Sheard and John T. Paoletti, ed., Collaboration in Italian Renaissance Art. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1978. 268 + xxi pp., illus. $20]. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 8(2), 167–170. https://doi.org/10.7202/1075010ar

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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/ retardataire tendencies of a Giotto or creased understanding of that era a Cimabue. It was, as Haskell notes, which saw, for instance, the debate ‘a desperatc attempt, made in the over the purchase of the Elgin mar- interests of modem art, to preserve bles for the British Muséum, the traditional and absolutc standards organization of England’s National of “beauty” from barbarian con­ Gallery, and the rapid growth of tamination’ (p. 102). the Louvre as a treasure house of Besides the influence of leading European culture. In a sense, Redis­ art dealers, critics and historians, coveries has more to do with how we another important factor in the think about the history of art and it shaping of tastes was the art exhibi­ should cause more historians to tion. One of the largest and most think barder about the central facts influential of these was held in of , namely the art itself. Manchester in 1857. Called the Art Treasures Exhibition, Old Masters RAYMOND I.. WILSON from every period and school were California State College at Stanislaus shown. But because so many of the established collectors had refused Sir George Gilbert Scott, Albert to lcnd their works to this ‘provin­ Memorial, London, 1863-72. From cial’ exhibition, many heretofore irving i.avin and John plummer, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Architec­ ‘minor’ masters were shown like ed. Studies in Late Médiéval and Ren­ ture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centu­ Hams Memling and Andrea aissance Painlings in Honor of Millard ries, Baltimore, Penguin Books, Mantegna. Most popular of ail. it Meiss. New York, New York Uni­ 1963, p. 90. was gencrally agreed, was Annibale versity Press, 1 977. Volume 1 : text, Caracci’s Three Maries. 463 + xx pp. ; Volume 2: plates, Implicit in this study, which inci- 164 pp., $75. dentally throws much new light on WENDY S1T.DMAN SHEARD atld JOHN Masters among English collectors, a period which saw the growth of r. paoi.e i 11, ed. Collaboration in Ital­ especially for Titian and for an art industry parallel with the ian Renaissance Art. New Haven and Giovanni Bellini. Enthusiasm for industrial révolution, is the conclu­ London, Yale University Press, the Italian masters was further sion that artistic values are relative 1978. 268 + xxi pp., illus. $20. fired by the high-class plunder to an âge or point of view. This con­ which had begun flowing into Paris clusion holds that artistic values are The essays under review here hon- from Italy. Following in the wakc of the product of a web of social, éco­ our two art historians, Millard Napoleon’s armies, agents for the nomie and cultural factors. More- Meiss and Charles Seymour, Jr., great central muséum in Paris care- over, the implication is clear that who hâve made highly signifiant fully made their sélections and our own artistic and art-historical contributions to the development packed them off. The resuit was a values are similarly cletermined and of art history in the United States - ‘rediscovery’ of early Italian art subject to similar changes. and thus, by extension, in Canada - among Frenchmen. The opposite point of view - that and who represent two of the most Pursuing the phenomenon of there are artistic values or measures important establishment training changing tastes from another of quality as timeless and as endur- grounds for scholars in the disci­ angle, Haskell points out that in ing as art itself- is not so often or so pline: Princeton and Yale. These England following the Revolution- ably represented in our limes. two universities were among the ary Wars there was a revival of Kenneth Glark, nevertheless, has first. in North America to make art interest in the Italian painters of for years acted the loyal opposition. history a respected component of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen­ In his recent book, What is a Master- the undergraduate curriculum, and turies, especially for Giotto and piecef, he argues for the existence in the 1930s - as foreign scholars Cimabue. Yet in the space of a few and utility of such canons of quality began coming to America - were years a 180° turnabout look place as originality, the ability to synthe- developing graduate departments with Giotto, Cimabue, and their fol- size the spirit of a time, and the equipped with superb libraries and lowers now berated as ‘primitives,’ insight that allows one to make excellent associated art collections. ignorant of even the fundamentals one’s own personal expériences It is only very recently, in fact, that of draw'ing. universal. Il must be conceded, the character given to art history in This change in attitude was due, though, that Lord Glark’s vision is North America by that small group Haskell believes, in part to the loftier and more abstract than that of predominantly Eastern schools, increasing numbers of forgeries of of the average collector or muséum with Princeton and Yale in the fore- Old Masters. Because of this, col­ curator whose motives are more front, has begun to be seriously lectors were being warned away usually conditioned by prevailing questioned. Taken as a whole, the from adding the painters of this âge trends and fashions. essays may be said to function as a to their holdings. Also contributing In fact, Rediscoveries in Art might tribute to Establishment art history to this change in attitude was the hâve been subtitled : The Taste of as practiced in the New World. feeling that modem art, specifically Collectors and Curators in England The w'ork of both scholars the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and France with Respect to the Old focused on the Italian Renaissance needed to be protected and insu- Masters. Conceived of in this way, in its early phases, an area that has lated from the degrading and the topic contributes to our in- traditionally attracted many of the

RACAR / VIII / 2 16? best minds working in the field. by a patron not even sufficiently scheme of spiritual interprétation. I Meiss was the more visible of the established in Florentine society to cannot be as positive about the two. He began his teaching career hâve a surname. However any for- results of Mirella Levi D’Ancona’s in the early 1930s, and up until his ther mining of this particular vein is multi-level reading of Mantegna’s death in 1975 worked with great stopped short by the fact that the Vienna St. Sébastian panel, which is skill to bring European méthodol­ cycle itself has not survived. a sobering example of where highly ogies to American students and to Hendrik W. Van Os, in ‘Vecchietta imaginative iconographical analysis represent the American viewpoint and the Persona of the Renaissance can lead - in this case to an inter­ abroad : ‘the roving ambassador of Artist,' gœs in a different direction, prétation of Sébastian as, simulta- American good will in the realm of back to the personality of the artist, neously, ‘Janus, Apollo, Diana, and scholarship and beyond,’ as he was and argues that in certain instances Christ,’ with built-in référencés to characterized in one memorial - his case in point is the Sienese art­ Albertian theory and Paduart phi- essay. Seymour, who died in 1977, ist Vecchietta - style and iconogra­ losophy adding to the provocative combined the careers of muséum phy may be the resuit of personal mix. curator and teacher-scholar. Edu- pressures experienced by the Ren­ Meiss was also a pioneer in mak- cated in large part at Yale - his aissance artist breaking into the ing American art history aware of father was president of the univer­ upper levels of society. the assistance that could be pro- sity - he was the first curator of Meiss’ iconographical studies - vided by technical analysis, in par­ sculpture at the National Gallery in brilliant as they often are - do not ticular of frescœs, and by close Washington and returned to Yale attempt the intégration of his post- physical analysis of both frescœs in the late 1940s to assist in the Black Death investigations. But and panels. This is an area in which development of the art history they did much to convince Ameri­ Italian scholarship has been ex- department and the art gallery. He can scholars of the importance of tremely active. Leonetto Tintori may hâve been at his best in the moving beyond formai analysis and présents an almost novelistic saga classroom, one of those inspiring of the possibilities of the Panofsky on the history of the use of white teachers who lead students to ask type of motif analysis. It is appro- lead in the fresco cycles of useful questions and to work imagi- priate that some of the most sub- S. Francesco in Assisi, with Simone natively. stantial essays published in his hon­ Martini and his astonishing tech­ The Meiss Studies in Late Médiéval our should corne under the general nical facility coming across as the and Renaissance Painting is alto- rubric of iconography. Herbert von hero of the day. Ugo Procacci and gether the more ambitious publica­ Einem, in a very useful essay, Umberto Baldini deal with the tion : 45 essays from a well-known, ‘Bemerkungen zu Raffaels Madon- graduai supplanting of the sinopia international group of scholars, the na di Foligno,’ shows that Raphael’s stage in fresco design in about the handsome two-volume format painting was planned from the out- middle of the fifteenth century by dosely following the prestigious De set as part of a tomb chapel ensem­ the use of small preparatory Artibus Opuscula XL, Essays in Honor ble, and that it must be read and its sketches and full-scale cartoons, the of , edited by Meiss sources understood with this fonc­ latter pricked for direct transfer to himself in 1961. Meiss’ writings tion as the major directing factor. the top layer of wet plaster. There tend to divide up into distinct Marilyn Aronberg Lavin’s note on is clearly much to be absorbed from méthodologies. I11 spite of suggest­ Campin’s Mérode Altarpiece finally this kind of technical exploration ive asides that hint at issues lurking solves the problem of how to read and the mysteries still abound - beneath the fabric of the discussion, the featured bit of carpentry being e.g., the very complété and one- the focus in his works is on a single prepared by Joseph in the right- point perspective construction problem, be it iconographical, tech- hand panel of the triptych : it will underlying an undistinguished and nical or formai. The important be, when finished, the centre board unadventurous mid-fifteenth-cen- exception to this is his venture into of the strainer of a wine press - or, tury fresco in the Spedale di Santa social art history, Painting in Flor­ rather, of a Mystic Wine Press, an Maria délia Scala in Siena, brought ence and Siena After the Black Death, image used by Isaiah and later pop- to our attention by Enzo Carli ; or published in 1951, in which a nota­ ularized by Augustine in connec­ the exact interprétation to place on ble shift in style and iconography is tion with the blood sacrifice of the elaborate and multi-colour lay- put within a context of économie Christ - and thereby becomes ers of sinopia - combined with a and social upheaval. Il is, interest- another piece of the Passion/Sacri- mixed-media fresco technique - ingly, the aspect of his work least fice imagery that overlays and used by Pisanello in the newly dis- fully represented in this collection, intersects with the nominal Annun- covered cycle at Mantua, as dis- and by two essays that are meant ciation theme of the altarpiece. cussed by Giovanni Paccagnini. A primarily to suggest directions for In 1945 Meiss argued definitively related sériés of articles, by James future research. Creighton Gil- for the mystical reading of light H. Stubblebine, Marvin Eisenberg, bert’s ‘The Patron of Starnina’s in fifteenth-century painting; in and Giuseppe Marchini, apply Frescœs,’ addresses itself to the an analysis of the Annunciation physical and iconographie analysis question of classes of patronage in theme, Samuel Y. Edgerton prés­ to the problem of the reconstruc­ the early fifteenth century, and by ents what is, in effect, a companion tion of dispersed Trecento panel close analysis of documents and study that argues for the mystical ensembles. source material maintains that a reading of perspective construction The center of attention is Italy, major fresco cycle painted by in fifteenth-ccntury painting, a and above ail Tuscany, but there Starnina in the church of the Car- transforming agent that draws the are a number of articles which mine in Florence was commissioned physical world into a multi-level touch on Meiss’ secondary interest

168 RACAR / VIII / 2 of Northern painting and manu- explicit homage to his fellow schol- Orpheus panel of disputed author- script illumination. Charles Ster­ ar’s involvement in the spécial ship as her case study, Wendy ling, Marie-Madeleine Gauthier, methodology of technical examina­ Stedman Sheard examines in detail and François Avril show various tion. James S. Ackerman’s long con­ the new kind of non-narrative aspects of Italian influence in tribution to the Meiss Studies, painting, characterized by an origi­ Northern production ; to be partic- ‘Alberti’s Light’ - an article that nal use of classical source material, ularly noted is Federico Zeri’s pub­ spells out Alberti’s brilliant pulling that cornes to the fore in Venice ca. lication of an important Bohemian together of material from different 1490-1500. Douglas Lewis adds - Madonna of Humility panel of ca. sources to achieve a picture of the convincingly, in my opinion - a 1360, where the Christ child, act of seeing directly applicable to much needed piece to the Antonio assisted by the Virgin to rise from the painter’s work - perhaps can Lombardo œuvre in the form of a her lap, offers his open palm for also stand as a model for the next handsome bronze relief datable to her inspection - a work that draws stage of art history in North the year 1512, a piece that clarifies innovatively on both Italian style America: the absorption of infor­ Antonio’s skill at vivid translations and iconography. Venice, which mation from a variety of sources in of emblematic concepts. A smaller- attracted Meiss towards the end of the production of a synthesis that is scaled study by Paul F. Watson has his career, is given some play, and inherently new. some things to say about Titian’s there are several useful articles on The Seymour memorial volume response, and non-response, to Renaissance architecture. offers some encouraging thoughts . The plate volume is well laid out in that direction. Collaboration in Another important aspect of this with clear captions, and the repro­ Italian Renaissance Art is not the collection is its concern with the art- duction of photographs is excellent. elaborate, official affair of the ist as part of a working situation Included in Volume 1 is a bibliogra- Meiss Studies but rather a single with very real économie and phy of Meiss’ writings - numbering volume of 14 generally short essays, organizational pressures. No less 132 items. the majority by Seymour’s former than five essays concentrate on con­ When one stands back from the students and immédiate colleagues ditions of production in the period separate pièces, one is struck by the at Yale. The organization in ternis from the fourteenth through the shadow of authority that hangs of five Italian artistic centres sixteenth century, ranging from over the collection. The names of appears to be designed to de-em- James H. Stubblebine’s discussion the Masters who hâve established phasize Florence, although that city of tabernacle production of a size the terms for handling Renaissance still gets the lion’s share of articles, suitable for private dévotion in the art occur again and again in the and sculpture (traditionally less Duccio workshop, to George essays: Berenson and Panofsky; attended to in Renaissance scholar- Kubler’s glimpse into the kinds of Alberti and Vasari. The received ship, and not a medium that data a late sixteenth-century archi­ tradition that implicitly informs the engaged Meiss) is dealt with exten- tect would carry around in his port­ book has it that Florence is far and sively. Rome gets two contributions. folio. Client-architect problems are away the vital centre of Renaissance André Chastel touches on the polit- treated with refreshing direetness art; that the fourteenth and fif- ical significance of archaizing style by Edmund P. Pillsbury in his anal­ teenth centuries are working - in in post-Reformation Rome, where a ysis of the Vasari/Cosimo 1 interac­ the Vasarian scénario - towards the monumental and deliberately tion in the interior staircase project sixteenth century standard of excel­ Quattrocentesque Saint Peter is for the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. lence ; and that the foremost task of carved by Lorenzetto in the 1 530s The catering to popular taste in art history is to illuminate individ­ to accompany a fifteenth-century fifteenth-century Florence through ual achievement. The press of Saint Paul by Paolo Romano hauled the production of low-cost replicas authority is something that has out of storage. John R. Spencer in clay, stucco, and papier-mâché of characterized the developing phase draws attention to artistic activity in famous Virgin and Child reliefs - of art history in America to which Quattrocento Rome, and through sometimes imitating in their col- both Meiss and Seymour belong, a new photographs* and physical ouring the more de luxe bronze or phase that may now be ending. On analysis helps our understanding of marble versions and sometimes the négative side, the respect for that major fifteenth-century com­ decorated as if they were paintings authority has had the resuit of fix- mission, the centre doors of - is handled by Ulrich Middeldorf. ing art historical discussion within a S. Peter’s, done by Filarete and John T. Paoletti reviews procedures pre-established schéma and sup- co-workers in the period 1433- in the sculptor’s workshop and pressing individual voice. In its pos­ 1445. North Italy is generously questions whether Donatello’s itive aspects, it has meant an energy attended to. David Alan Brown bronze David may not be a late, in collecting many kinds of évi­ attempts a de-mystification of the post-Donatello . casting from an dence - hence the interest in multi­ Leonardo Madonna of the Rocks abandoned Donatello model ; the ple méthodologies that is a notable problem by going to adaptations argument stretches the evidence feature of the work of Meiss and found in Milanese painting, in the but usefully calls attention to prob- Seymour and that is évident in their process arguing for the London lematical aspects of the bronze respective honorary volumes. It is version as a reflection of Leonar- David. not surprising that Charles Sey­ do’s mature artistic thinking of the mour, in an article relating use of 1490s. We are given two major X-ray analysis to search for the essays on trends observable in *Spencer reports that these photo- presence of Titian in a small Cir- Venetian art as it moved into the graphs are now available through Foto cumcision panel, chose to pay sixteenth century. Using a small Vasari, Rome.

RACAR / VIII / 2 169 I also find of interest the the best account of this artist availa­ 1980, pp. 56-62) is quite con- reaching, open approach to Renais­ ble in English. vincing. sance art theory seen here in two During the last twelve years there The reader will not find any new essays. David Summers, who has has been a considérable amount of attributions to the artist in this been working fruitfully in this area activity in Titian studies which has monograph which is mercifully free for a number of years, explores the produced such significant publica­ of reattributed Giorgione and Renaissance understanding of tions as the multi-volume mono- Giorgionesque works and of the physiognomy as one of the outward graphs of Pallucchini and Wethey ascription of early sixteenth- manifestations of the soûl, and as well as Panofsky’s Problems in century Venetian furniture panels finds the reflection in Michelan- Titian. Among the most important to the young Titian. Such a severe gelo’s David of what appears to hâve studies of the documentary sources and welcome pruning of works of been almost a stéréotypé in Renais­ of the artist hâve been those of doubtful authenticity enables Hope sance body theory : the leonine type Charles Hope. Consequently, the to offer a new chronology of the - ‘the male type in its perfect form’ appearance of a one-volume mono­ artist’s earliest undisputed paint­ as a late antique text, known to the graph on the great Venetian ings. Jacopo Pesaro Presented to St. Renaissance, put it - signifying painter by this scholar is of consid­ Peter (Antwerp), The Baptism of courage and daring. George érable importance to the spccialist Christ (Rome), Christ of San Rocco L. Hersey shows how Renaissance in the art of the Italian Renaissance (Venice), Noli Me Tangere (London), thinkers such as Marsilio Ficino and of concern to anyone inter- and The Three Ages of Man and Holy could be stimulated by the growing ested in the general development of Family with St. John the Baptist and a discipline of architectural theory to European painting. Donor in Edinburgh are ail consid­ conceive of a ‘cosmic temple’: the l'he author states in his Préfacé érée! to hâve been completed before building as a memory image of the that he has chosen not only to con- Giorgione’s death in 1510. This is Universe in three-dimensional pro­ centrate upon the larger works donc on the apparent assumption jection. (which is understandable with an (p. 26) that Titian was born about The Editors are to be com- artist whose extant paintings num­ 1485, rather than about 1488-90 as mended for providing an index to ber over three hundred), but to favoured by most modem scholars. the book, a rarity in Festschrift pro­ ‘examine the basic issues on which In itself this is possibly acceptable, ductions. there is still disagreement among but when one adds the Fondaco The word Collaboration in the title art historians ...’ In general he not frescoes and even one or two other of the Seymour volume stands for a only examines such issues, but takes paintings according to one’s own network of meanings. On one obvi- a definite position, which, ipso facto, reconstruction of this stage of ous level, it means the co-operation must lrequently be a controversial Titian’s career, then, even allowing between artists, or between artist one. This makes for lively reading, for a high rate of survival of the and patron ; on another level, as even though non-specialists will early works, it constitutes a very alluded to by Sheard in her intro­ perhaps be distracted by the fact busy and productive beginning for duction, it refers to the work of the that the art historians with whom an artist who is known throughout scholar, a créative collaborator with the author disagrees are almost the rest of his life to hâve worked a past moment in history. There never named and the contentious very slowly. Another reason why is also the collaboration of ap- publications seldom cited. these works are ail dated before proaches. Meiss and Seymour True to his stated aims, the 1510 is the belief that Titian taught that a range of méthodo­ author pays little attention to the painted in a Giorgionesque manner logies exist in order to make the his­ social and political background of only during that painter’s lifetime. torical moment corne alive. More Titian’s artistic development, but This is more difficult to accept, and more clearly it emerges that the despite other remarks to the effect especially when one is later pre­ task of their followers is to fuse the that he has tried to place the artist sented with a proposai to move méthodologies in what may be not within the wider context of Vene­ forward by about ten years - (to so much collaboration as a charting tian painting, there is little consid­ c. 1516) - the Louvre Entombment, of new territory. ération of the influence of Giovanni because of its supposed Giorgio­ Bellini or Giorgione and none of nesque qualities. DEBRA PINCUS Titian’s relationship to Palma il Among the works of Titian’s The University of British Columbia Vecchio. Nor is his mature work maturity there are also some ever really compared with that of re-datings. The Prado St. Margaret is brought forward to c. 1554-58 chari.es iiope Titian. New York, his rivais Pordenone and Tinto- Harper and Row; Toronto, Fitz- retto. The most frequently men- from an usually accepted date in henry 8c Whiteside, 1980. 170 pp., tioned of Titian’s contemporaries is the mid-1560s (as determined by 86 illus., 32 col. pis., $39.95. the rather unimpressive Andrea style), because of the presumption Schiavone. However, Hope « con- that it was done for Margaret of For the past four hundred years cerned with the influence of the Hungary who died in 1558. Il Titian has been helcl in the highest great High Renaissance masters of should be noted that Wethey (The esteem as one of the greatest and Florence and Rome and his argu­ Paintings of Titian, 1, London, 1969, most influential of ail European ment concerning the influence of p. 142) was aware of this possibility, painters, so that it is surely para- Fra Bartolommeo upon the Assunta but did not re-date the work. doxical that art historians of today in the Frari, which he appears to Another controversial re-dating sometimes still refer to Crowe and bave made independently of which is contrary to the usual stylis- Cavalcaselle’s 1877 monograph as Creighton Gilbert (Art Bulletin, lxii, tically determined chronology of

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