Uva-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) 'Maniera sfumata, dolce, e vaga': the recent canonization of Federico Barocci Witte, A. DOI 10.4000/perspective.5818 Publication date 2015 Document Version Submitted manuscript Published in Perspective : la revue de l’INHA Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Witte, A. (2015). 'Maniera sfumata, dolce, e vaga': the recent canonization of Federico Barocci. Perspective : la revue de l’INHA, 2015(1), 161-168. https://doi.org/10.4000/perspective.5818 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:06 Oct 2021 “Maniera sfumata, in the field, especially with respect to research on workshop practice between the Renaissance and dolce, e vaga”: the baroque period. the recent canonization Significantly, most recent publications on Barocci were written by Italian and Anglo-Saxon of Federico Barocci scholars. The sole exception to this is Stephanie Ruhwinkel’s catalogue of Barocci drawings in Arnold Witte the Martin von Wagner Museum in Würzburg – which actually is a long-awaited inventory of works rediscovered in the 1970s. 2 Still, many – ARCANGELI, 2012: Luciano Arcangeli, Federico Barocci: i disegni della Galleria nazionale delle Marche = The Drawings recent English and Italian publications in one of the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Rome, 2012. 110 p., way or another build upon positions first 100 col. ill.; 25 €. formulated in the early twentieth century in – Federico Barocci, 2009: Federico Barocci, 1535-1612: l’incanto German debates on the painter and his historical del colore, una lezione per due secoli, Alessandra Giannotti, context, in which he was often mentioned only Claudio Pizzorusso eds., (exh. cat., Siena, Santa Maria del- cursorily. 3 Characteristically, Heinrich Wölfflin la Scala, 2009-2010), Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana Editoriale, 2009. 432 p., 270 col. ill. ISBN: 978-8-83661-423-3; 35 €. considered Barocci as an entwicklungsgeschichtli- chen Zwischenglied or “intermediate stage in [art – GILLGREN, 2011: Peter Gillgren, Siting Federico Barocci and the Renaissance Aesthetic, Farnham/Burlington, Ash- historical] development,” as his work mixed gate, 2011. 342 p., 24 col. and 143 b/w ill. ISBN: 978-0- stylistic features of the Renaissance and the 75466-868-8; £ 74 (102 €). baroque. 4 The same goes for Werner Weisbach, – LINGO, 2008: Stuart Lingo, Federico Barocci: Allure and Devo- who stressed the sentimental value of Barocci’s tion in Late Renaissance Painting, New Haven, 2008. 294 p., art, and for Nikolaus Pevsner, who considered 100 col. and 100 b/w ill. ISBN: 978-0-30012-125-4; $ 75 (66 €). his figures as governed by abstract schemes, and ultimately as austere and lacking in sensuality. 5 – MARCIARI, VERSTEGEN, 2008: John Marciari, Ian Verstegen, “Grande quanto l’Opera: Size and Scale in The first monograph on Barocci therefore Barocci’s Drawings,” in Master Drawings, 46/3, fall 2008, started by reconstructing the artist’s oeuvre on the p. 291-321. basis of extant works and contemporary sources: – SCHMARSOW, 2010: August SCHMARSOW, Federico Baroc- August Schmarsow’s series of articles published ci, un capostipite della pittura barocca, Luigi Bravi ed., with from 1908 to 1914 fashioned him as the “founder” an introduction by Andrea Emiliani, Urbino, Accademia 6 Raffaello, 2010; Italian translation of Federigo Barocci: ein of the baroque style. While Schmarsow mainly Begründer des Barockstils in der Malerei, Leipzig, 1909. discussed the authenticity of Barocci’s drawings, Harald Olsen (in 1955) and Andrea Emiliani The painter Federico Barocci has received re- (in 1974, 1985 and 2008) focused on paintings, newed attention in the last decade: monographs with continuing attention to their relation with and exhibitions manifest an increased interest the works on paper. Both did so on the basis of in his life, work and impact on later artists. The the description of the painter’s artistic process by (sub)titles of recent exhibitions such as Brilliance Giovanni Pietro Bellori, thereby positioning Bellori and Grace (London, The National Gallery, 2013), as a crucial contemporary source on the painter. Renaissance Master of Color and Line (Saint Louis With respect to his position in art-historical deve- Art Museum, 2012) or L’incanto del colore (Siena, lopment, Barocci was classified as “proto-baroque” Santa Maria della Scala, 2009-2010) high- by Olsen, thereby circumventing the (then still lighted the visual attraction of his work for the unresolved) discussion between Weisbach and general beholder 1. Academically, his canonical Pevsner. 7 Andrea Emiliani, on the other hand, status has also grown since the early twentieth deemed the stylistic in-between position of the century, from a mere subsidiary phenomenon for painter a mere problem of definition; instead, he the study of a transitional phase in art history to argued for viewing him as a “reformer” working that of an artist in his own right, who is finally in a situation of cultural and social upheaval. 8 being recognized in a broader context. Recent Notwithstanding the ideological take on manne- discoveries grant him a still more central position rism in his introduction (in which he weighed in Lectures 91 Federico Barocci 1. Federico on the 1960s debate on the period, referring in Barocci, particular Arnold Hauser’s position) 9, the main Madonna del Popolo, 1579, part of Emiliani’s book consisted of a connois- Florence, Galleria seurial catalogue that maintained the traditional degli Uffizi. comparison of Barocci’s paintings with preparatory studies on paper. His approach was therefore based on the concept of authenticity, and it also explains why Emiliani, in his introduction to the recent Italian translation of Schmarsow’s foundational text (in SCHmaRSOW, 2010), can still subscribe to his precursor’s monographic approach, wherein the painter’s individual qualities were proof of his vorauseilende Genialität (anticipating genius). Barocci as a religious painter From 2000 onwards, the discussion on Barocci shifted towards an evaluation of his work in his- torical, cultural and especially religious contexts, coinciding with the new take on the Counter- Reformation 10. It also signified a step away from Bellori’s stylistic and technical view on the painter towards Giovanni Baglione’s statement that Barocci “led the [beholder’s] hearts back to devotion.” 11 One of the most influential publi- Vatican Museums) where, according to Lingo, an cations furnishing such a new perspective was unfamiliar moment is chosen from an otherwise Stuart Lingo’s Federico Barocci: Allure and Devotion predictable subject matter – or as a traditional in Late Renaissance Painting (LINGO, 2008). Its subject in an unexpected guise – as with the central focus lay on the terms vaghezza and divoto, Madonna del Popolo (1579, Florence, Galleria as these had been applied specifically to Barocci degli Uffizi; LINGO, 2008, p. 225-231; fig. 1). in Baglione’s contemporary evaluation of his Thanks to Barocci’s self-chosen retreat in Urbino work. Lingo explains these terms in the context – as a result of his illness – there are many letters of late Cinquecento art criticism, showing how documenting the dealings between the painter they traditionally resulted in opposite demands: a and his patrons in which this tension (and also, painter might produce devout works adhering to Lingo states, his artistic persona) becomes visible. religious decorum, but these often lacked visual In other compositions as well, Barocci inserted attraction that might “lure” the beholder into innovative elements meant to capture the atten- admiration, while vaghezza equaled lasciviousness tion of those beholders who were aware of the and thus clashed with devotional expectations contemporary debates on art, while at the same (LINGO, 2008, p. 6-7, referring to Baglione, 1642, time following traditional schemes that satisfied cited n. 10, p. 134). Lingo applied this dichotomy his ecclesiastical patrons who needed liturgically to Barocci’s work, regarding his paintings as the effective works. Although Lingo does not draw outcome of a continuous exchange between this conclusion, it is tempting to say that Barocci artistic development and religious demands in the mediated between the formalistic stylistic currents late sixteenth century – or, phrased differently, as of late mannerism and the religious demands of the product of a constant and productive tension the Counter-Reformation – a tension that was between archaizing and innovative tendencies. resolved in the early baroque; and in this sense, Lingo therefore interpreted Barocci’s works Lingo’s work could be seen as a return to the cen- as either a presentation