The Word made Visible in the Painted Image The Word made Visible in the Painted Image: Perspective, Proportion, Witness and Threshold in Italian Renaissance Painting By Stephen Miller The Word made Visible in the Painted Image: Perspective, Proportion, Witness and Threshold in Italian Renaissance Painting By Stephen Miller This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Stephen Miller All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8542-8 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8542-3 For Paula, Lucy and Eddie CONTENTS List of Illustrations ..................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements .................................................................................... xi Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One ................................................................................................. 3 Setting the Scene The Rise of Humanism and the Italian Renaissance Changing Style and Attitudes of Patronage in a Devotional Context The Emergence of the Altarpiece in Christian Worship From Gothic to Renaissance, from Polyptych to Pala Patronage Study 1: Duccio, Maestà Study 2: Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with St. Frediano and St. Augustine (Pala Barbadori) Study 3: Antonio and Bartolomeo Vivarini, Certosa Polyptych Study 4: Jacopo Bellini, Gattamelata Altarpiece Study 5: Giovanni Bellini, Pala di San Giobbe Study 6: Titian, Assumption of the Virgin Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 23 Perspective: Fixing the Eye Perspective as Symbolic Form Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 39 Proportion: Divine Proportion–A Balancing Act The Golden Section Divine Proportion at work in Specific Paintings viii Contents Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 55 Witness to the Word made Flesh Witness to the Word Nativity and Circumcision Baptism Crucifixion Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 73 Threshold: Crossing the Doorsill of the Beyond Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 91 Conclusion: The Invisible made Visible, the Illusion made ‘Real’ The Ontology of Theology and Art Glossary of Terms ..................................................................................... 99 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 107 Index ........................................................................................................ 113 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS SEE COLOUR CENTREFOLD Chapter One Fig. 1-1 Duccio, Maestà, FRONT: (tempera on poplar), 1308-11, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena Fig. 1-2 Duccio, Maestà, BACK: 1308-11, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena Fig. 1-3 Fra Filippo Lippi, Pala Barbadori, 1438, © Musée du Louvre (RMN- Grand Palais, Musée du Louvre, Jean-Gilles Berizzi), Paris Fig. 1-4 Antonio and Bartolomeo Vivarini, 1450, Certosa polyptych, Bologna Fig. 1-5 Giovanni Bellini, c. 1487, Pala di San Giobbe, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice Fig. 1-6 Titian, Assumption of the Virgin, 1515-18, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice Chapter Two Fig. 2-1 Leonardo da Vinci, Perspectival study of the Adoration of the Magi, c. 1481, © The Uffizi Gallery, Florence Fig. 2-2 Masaccio, The Tribute Money, 1426-27, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence Fig. 2-3 Masaccio, Holy Trinity, c. 1426-28, Sta. Maria Novella, Florence Fig. 2-4 Piero della Francesca, Flagellation of Christ, c. 1460, Galleria Nazionale della Marche, Urbino Fig. 2-5 Leonardo da Vinci, The Annunciation, c. 1472-76, © The Uffizi Gallery, Florence Fig. 2-6 Euan Uglow, Nude from Twelve Regular Vertical Positions from the Eye, Victoria Gallery, University of Liverpool, 1967, © The estate of Euan Uglow (image courtesy of Browse & Darby) Fig. 2-7 Fra Andrea Pozzo, St. Ignatius being received into Heaven, 1691-94, fresco ceiling of the Church of Sant’Ignazio, Rome Chapter Three Fig. 3-1 Fra Filippo Lippi, The Annunciation, c. mid-1450s, © The National Gallery, London Fig. 3-2 Euan Uglow, Root Five Nude, 1976, © The estate of Euan Uglow (image courtesy of Browse & Darby) x List of Illustrations Fig. 3-3 Euan Uglow, Diagonal, 1971-77, © The estate of Euan Uglow (image courtesy of Browse & Darby) Fig. 3-4 Michelangelo, The Holy Family (Doni Tondo), oil and tempera on panel, c. 1506-07, © The Uffizi Gallery, Florence Chapter Four Fig. 4-1 Raphael, Madonna del Cardellino, c. 1506, © The Uffizi Gallery, Florence Fig. 4-2 Raphael, The Madonna of the Meadow, 1505-06 (or 1507), Kunsthistorisches Museum Fig. 4-3 Agnolo di Cosimo (called Bronzino), Holy Family, c. 1540-42, © Musée du Louvre (RMN-Grand Palais, Musée du Louvre, Gérard Blot), Paris Fig. 4-4 Bronzino, An Allegory of Venus and Cupid, c. 1545, © The National Gallery, London Fig. 4-5 Veronese, Holy Family with St. Barbara and the Infant St. John, c. 1560, © The Uffizi Gallery, Florence Fig. 4-6 Parmigianino, Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Jerome, 1526-27, © The National Gallery, London Fig. 4-7 Raphael, The Ansidei Madonna, c. 1505, © The National Gallery, London Fig. 4-8 Verrocchio and workshop (including Leonardo da Vinci), Baptism of Christ, Florence, c. 1476, © The Uffizi Gallery, Florence Fig. 4-9 Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ, 1450, © The National Gallery, London Fig. 4-10 El Greco, The Baptism of Christ, 1597-1600, Prado, Madrid Fig. 4-11 Crucifixion scene from Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, c. 1515, Unterlinden Museum, Alsace, France Chapter Five Fig. 5-1 Andrea del Sarto, Madonna of the Harpies, 1515-17, © The Uffizi Gallery, Florence Fig. 5-2 Correggio, Madonna of Saint George, late-1520s, oil on panel, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden Chapter Six Fig. 6-1 Giotto, Lamentation, c. 1305-06, Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book began life as the dissertation, and assortment of connected papers, written for my MA in Christianity and the Arts at King’s College London (in collaboration with The National Gallery, London), in 2013 and 2014. I am indebted to the Christianity and the Arts course leader, and my dissertation supervisor, Professor Ben Quash, for the creation of a rich and rewarding interdisciplinary course at King’s and for his support, encouragement, suggestions and feedback during my time there. I benefitted from contact with several members of the Theology and Religious Studies department at King’s, through various seminar groups and discussions, including: Dr. Aaron Rosen, Revd. Professor Richard Burridge, Professor Paul Joyce and Professor Eddie Adams, among others. Others who have offered suggestions and engaged in correspondence, which has been helpful to my research include: Dr. Jennifer Sliwka of The National Gallery, London and Professor Paul Hills of The Courtauld Institute of Art. Acknowledgement is due to the various museums, galleries and estates that have granted copyright permissions for the images used. These are separately credited. Special thanks are due to the National Gallery, London for granting a scholarly waiver for the images used in this first edition. This is an important initiative on behalf of the National Gallery. Its support of scholarship and encouragement of research into the nation’s collection of Old Master paintings is invaluable to academics and researchers alike, especially to those working with limited budgets. I would also like to thank William Darby and Indigo Carnie of the Browse & Darby gallery, for their help in securing the copyright permissions in connection with Euan Uglow’s estate and in supplying the image material used for the three Uglow paintings reproduced here. xii Acknowledgements Certain material in my concluding section first appeared in my paper On the Threshold: Theology of images and the spatial Christ (itself adapted from part of my Masters dissertation) published in the journal Theology (SPCK/Sage Publications Ltd. Vol. 118 No. 5). Material from that essay has been incorporated, in revised form, into the concluding section here. Thanks are also due to Samuel Baker, my commissioning editor, Victoria Carruthers, my author liaison, and Amanda Millar, typesetting, at Cambridge Scholars Publishing (CSP), for their unflagging support in helping to successfully resolve the various publishing complexities necessary to steer this project to its conclusion and for generally making things as painless as possible in the process. Indeed, it is with great gratitude that I acknowledge the support and encouragement I have received from several quarters in this venture, and not least to my family with love and thanks in allowing me the luxury of the time spent on this project. INTRODUCTION This book explores the areas of perspective, proportion, witness and theological threshold in the devotional art of the Italian