Painting in Renaissance Florence 1500-1550 New Haven and London, Yale University Press 2001

Rezensionen figer. Sie konnen den ungewohnlichen Wert ungemein anregendes Buch, eine auch unter- dieses Beitrags nicht mindern, der gerade recht haltsame Lektiire uberdies. Die Diskussion ist kommt zu Albertis 6oostem Geburtstag. Ein eroffnet. Hans-Karl Lucke David Franklin Painting in Renaissance Florence 1500-1550 New Haven and London, Yale University Press 2001. 273 pp., III. ISBN 0-300-08399-8 The period which David Franklin has set out ignore much of the art of the second and third to examine in his new book is the one which generations of the Cinquecento, and it was not Giorgio Vasari in his Lives termed the modern until the beginning of the 20th century that a epoch. In this first history of western art, group of Central European art historians led issued in Florence in 1550, and in a revised by scholars like Max Dvorak, Lili Frohlich- edition in 1568, Vasari divided art into three Bum and Walter Friedlander noticed a differ periods, comparable to childhood, youth and ence in style between the first and second maturity in life. An age of juvenile experi generation. Holding up the art of the past as a ments had started with Giotto; it was followed mirror for the expressionist art of their own by an improved age, youthful but greatly time they felt that after c. 1520 art expressed advanced in which “the truth of nature was a spiritual roothlessness and a crisis similar to exactly imitated”. And finally there had come what they experienced themselves in the wake the modern, mature age, Vasari’s own: at once of the Great War. They distinguished between graceful, inventive, diverse and accomplished, two styles in this period: the High Renaissance studded with a range of artistic giants like characterized by works which were calm, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian and Michelangelo. balanced and harmonious, a somewhat fos The latter was a universal genius and repre silized moment of equilibrium in strong con sented the most absolute perfection. Beyond trast to the period starting around 1520, him Vasari virtually saw nothing, but he seems which they saw as a widely dispersed, com to have suspected a decline comparable to old plete style of its own, and which they labelled age which follows man’s maturity.Mannerism borrowed from the word maniera To project the new style into more effective which Vasari had used as an expression of relief Vasari placed 1 yth-century art on a rela praise for works covering the whole “mod tively inferior plane. Although he thought that ern” period. Troubled, neurotic and anti nature should be kept steadily in view, he social artists like Pontormo, Rosso and Parmi found the art of the 15 th century too simply gianino were presented as typical mannerists natural. The best modern works were ideal and their style was explained as a reaction to ized beyond nature. Ease, softness of tone and social upheavals like the Sack of Rome in blend of light and shade were key components 1527. But this does not work very well. of the “new” style. Whereas he saw a dramatic Mannerist artists like Giulio Romano, break between the styleof the 15 th and 16th Bronzino and Vasari were socially assimilated centuries, he saw no incongruency between and highly successful, and the Sack of Rome the art works of the earlier and later parts of was the result of a series of wars which had the period he called the modern. This view ravaged Italy ever since the French invasion of was apparently shared by his contemporaries. 1494 and thus coincided with the period of the Scholars of later centuries, however, tended to High Renaissance. So as 20th Century pro- 95 Rezensionen gressed new observations, trends and mean and that is certainly one of the merits of the ings were attached to the term. “Poise, refine book; but Franklin’s overall concern »to ment and sophistication ... works of art that promote heterogenity, not linearity« makes it were polished, rarefied and idealized away almost impossible to follow the artistic from the natural” were some of the expres development in Florence chronologically. sions carefully selected by John Shearman in Transverse trends, mutual influences, and his Mannerism of 1967. Other characteristics fashions followed and dropped by different of the style were grace and elegance. But much artists at various moments are difficult to of this could also be said about High Renais discuss within this framework, and inconsis sance art. The interpretation of the Mannerist tency in the approach to the careers of the style as a reaction against High Renaissance different artists makes it still harder for the values began to yield for the idea that Manner reader to form an impression of what happened ism developed out of High Renaissance. After since some artists are treated chronologically, the end of the Cold War and its political and others thematically. This disposition is oddly social polarization scholars became increas reminiscent of Vasari’s Lives and this is unfor ingly aware of ambiguities in every field. tunate since the period with which we are con Human achievements are increasingly studied cerned was Vasari’s own time which he of as single efforts alienated from society and course could not assess. One also suspects that environment. It has become clear that different the reason for the curious fact that Franklin styles have lived side by side inalmost every has left out Bronzino is that Vasari only society at almost any time, and that a style in treated him briefly among the Accademici del art is not comparable to a team shirt which the Disegno in the 1568 edition of his Lives. artist put on to join the game, but comes into Franklin’s sympathies are clearly with the existence through the achievements of indivi artists of the second generation whom he dual artists who may be rivals in many ways as divides into two groups: the conservatives and were Leonardo and Michelangelo.the innovators. The mature del Sarto, In his new book David Franklin follows this Pontormo and Rosso, who worked together trend and challenges the applicability of the on several occasions, are the leading innova term “Mannerism” to Florentine painting in tors, who, it is claimed, reacted against the the first half of the 16th century. In his own conservatives, whose main representative was words one of his main purposes is “to examine Fra Bartolommeo’s follower Ridolfo Ghir the basis of the term High Renaissance and landaio. alter what might be meant by the mannerist Like Wolfflin Franklin is not comfortable with period”. Although he does manage to demon the ‘classic’ artists of the High Renaissance. strate how uncomfortably the labels High But unlike Wolfflin, who made a tremendous Renaissance and Mannerism fit the actual effort to try to understand their goals and achievements of the artists the book is not as intentions, Franklin’s treatment of them stays concerned with this aspect as one would on the surface. By referring to the fact that expect. This is mainly due to the disposition of none of these painters were directly affected the book into a series of chapters each focused by Antiquity and thus cannot be estimated by on a single major figure and his followers. It Wolfflin’s term ‘classical’, which Franklin has gives Franklin the possibility to treat a number misunderstood as “a destination of qualities of minor artists like Antonio di Donnino from ancient art”, he sets aside an expression Mazzieri, Jacopodell’Indaco, Giovanni Lar- which, although not applied by Vasari and his ciani, Baccio Ghetti and Jacone, who have contemporaries, has proved very useful for hitherto not been included in broad surveys, analysing the works by the artists of the first 96 Rezensionen generation of the Cinquecento. The usual Marcantonio for issuing of engravings after meaning of ’classical’, however, relates to the his designs and chose “from the work of other achievement of harmony: The balancing painters to form from many different styles geometry of the composition or, as aptly one that was for always held his own”. affirmed bySidney Freedberg, “the destina Vasari’s treatment of Pontormo is contrary. He tion of the individual data of nature into rep is criticised for being indecisive and uncertain resentative types imbued with a slow pulse of of his aims. Other artists like Piero di Cosimo, life and an other-worldliness which resembles, Bacchiacca, Jacone and Baccio Bandinelli are in its essence that of Greek classical sculp criticized for their unsocial behaviour and ture”. extravagant or bizarre manners. Franklin Deprived of the discernments offered by the interprets this attitude as a sign that Vasari term ‘classic’ Franklin relegates Fra Bartolom misunderstood Florentine art and that he was meo to an inferior position. Fra Bartolommeo more sympathetic with Roman art at the time, was held in high esteem by Vasari who praises the ideals of which Franklin considers funda him for his fine colorism and “for his intro mentally different from those found in duction of the toning of the figures, a great Florence. However, for Vasari it was impera gain to art, as they seem to be in relief, and are tive to increase the prestige of the arts and executed with vigour and perfection”, essen their performers and his reproaches of these tial qualities of the High Renaissance style. Fra Florentine artists should rather be seen as indi Bartolommeo was a “member” of the quartet cations of this aim than a manifestation that who conceived this style in the 1490s (the “the Florentine tradition was insufficient for other participants were Leonardo, Raphael Vasari’s needs”. Furthermore Vasari’s views and Michelangelo), playing a role comparable on Pontormo and the other Florentine artists to Braque’s in the creation of Cubism in Paris just mentioned appear to have been shared by around 1906.

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