ULEMHAS Review 2008
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Birkbeck Continuing Education History of Art Society ULEMHAS REVIEW 2008 2 ULEMHAS Review EDITORIAL CONTENTS n reading Caroline Brooke's excellent article on Renaissance drawings, I was struck by the way Renaissance Faces Odrawing has been neglected as a discipline in - Elena Greer 3 recent times in our colleges of art. It is apparently no longer considered absolutely fundamental to the training of an The Embellishment of the Crystal Palace artist as it used to be, even up to and including the two - Mike Davies 6 world wars, when war artists were used to record events ULEMHAS Noticeboard 8 around them (as in the Tonks article). It would take another whole article to discuss why this situation has arisen, not A Little-known Drawing from the wholly explained by the advent of audio-visual materials Workshop of Vittore Carpaccio and computer graphics. - Caroline Brooke 9 Drawing has always played a subservient role to her two big, but not ugly, sisters, Painting and Sculpture, often Henry Tonks: Artist and Surgeon being regarded as a mere preliminary study or exercise - Mike Smith 11 before the artist creates a fully finished work, when a quick sketch often has an immediacy and freshness lost in a more Paint and its use laboured work. Yet there has been no lack of interest in in the Restoration of Buildings drawing, judging by attendances at several recent exhibitions, notably the Leonardo da Vinci one at the V&A - Catherine Hassall 13 with its working models (packed throughout its run), the small but exciting display of Guercino drawings at the Book Reviews 15 Courtauld Institute, and the vast collection of Windsor Castle drawings shown at the Queen's Gallery. ULEMHAS Programme 2008/09 16 During the Renaissance artists and patrons argued over This edition contains a loose-leaf list of forthcoming the relative merits of painting and sculpture in what is exhibitions, compiled by Liz Newlands. known as the paragone. The painters thought their art was superior because it did not involve dirt, noise and sweat, as sculpture did, and the sculptors thought that their extra ULEMHAS website: www.ulemhas.org.uk dimension gave them the advantage. Drawing did not even come into the equation, although both painters and sculptors used it. The argument was never resolved, indeed it never could be resolved, since each art form has its own, entirely separate merits. Now, of course, the distinction between all three arts has become blurred, since 'installation' art often incorporates mixed elements of The ULEMHAS Review editorial panel drawing, painting and sculpture. Ann Halliday (Co-ordinating Editor), Claire Andrews, Erna We thank all our contributors for their generous Karton, Elizabeth Lowry-Corry, Bill Measure, Liz Newlands, contributions, which are sure to be of interest to ULEMHAS Robin Rhind, Susan Richards, Anne Scott. members. Ann Halliday ULEMHAS Committee MEMBERS' FORUM Bill Measure (Chair), John Dunlop (Hon. Treasurer), Robin We welcome comments and suggestions from ULEMHAS Rhind (Hon. Secretary), Lois Gamier (Membership Secretary), members on any aspect of the society's activities. Your Malcolm Armstrong (Bookings Administrator), Rosemary letters will be printed in our autumn supplement if space Clarke, Robert Gwynne, Jacqueline Leigh, Elizabeth Lowry- allows. Please send them to Bill Measure, 90 Richmond Corry, Anne Scott, Daphne Taylor, John McNeill (Lecturer Road, Leytonstone, London E11 4BU or email him at [email protected] by 30th September 2008. Member), Dr Andrew Gray (Webmaster). ULEMHAS Review: No reproduction or transmission without prior consent. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the editors. We cannot accept Enquiries about membership should be addressed to: liability for loss or damage of material which is submitted at owner's risk. Lois Garnier, 9 Fernside Court, Holders Hill Road, London, NW4 1JT (Tel: 020 8346 8254). Other correspondence to Bill FRONT COVER: Lorenzo Lotto (about 1480-1556/7): Measure, 90 Richmond Road, Leytonstone, London E11 4BU Messr Marsilio and his Wife, 1513 (Tel: 020 8558 5491) or Robin Rhind, 33 The Crescent, London © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P 240) SW19 8AW ULEMHAS Review 3 RENAISSANCE FACES: VAN EYCK TO TITIAN by Elena Greer National Gallery, London: Sainsbury Wing - 15th October 2008 - 18th January 2009 Curator: Susan Foister Catalogue by Lorne Campbell, Miguel Falomir, Jennifer Fletcher and Luke Syson Fig. 1: Piero di Cosimo: Giuliano and Francesco Giamberti da Sangallo, architect and musician, about 1485. © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-C-1368 with SK-C-1367) his Autumn a number of famous Renaissance names across Europe and America. The exhibition will provide a and faces will be brought together at the National unique opportunity to examine the relationship between a TGallery for a major exhibition of Renaissance variety of media used to create portrait likenesses, and will Portraiture. Renaissance Faces: van Eyck to Titian will trace include medals, sculpture, drawings and manuscripts, the development of portrait painting from the early 15th alongside approximately 70 paintings. The show will be century through to the late 16th century. Organized in accompanied by a substantial, fully-illustrated catalogue collaboration with the Museo del Prado, Madrid, the featuring essays by experts on the subject including Lome exhibition will combine the strengths of both collections to Campbell, the author of Renaissance Portraits (1990), explore a geographical and chronological breadth never which remains the standard reference book on the subject. before treated in an exhibition of this type. As the title The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue will suggests, the exhibition will feature portraits made in explore fundamental questions of likeness, memory and both Northern and Southern Europe, examining the artistic identity, as well as examining portraits commissioned in exchange between the two regions and the subsequent connection with courtship, friendship, family and marriage. impact on the development of portraiture. The evolution of the state portrait will be a highlight of the The show will feature all the great names of the Italian exhibition, and will focus on issues of power and the and Northern Renaissance from Bellini to Dürer, van Eyck to presentation of dynastic ambition. In addition to the display Titian, including some outstanding loans from the Prado as and exploration of this wide variety of portrait types, the well as major loans from public and private collections exhibition will also examine the artistic processes involved 4 ULEMHAS Review of Emperors on ancient coins, with their associations of power, on Renaissance patrons and artists who took up the format. Likewise, the juxtaposition of sculpted busts, including the highly individualized sculpture of Niccolò Strozzi by Mino da Fiesole on loan from the Bode Museum, Berlin, and painted portraits, will demonstrate the impact of antique sculpted busts on Renaissance sculptors and painters. Simultaneously, the room will introduce another key theme of the exhibition, namely the artistic exchange between artists from Northern and Southern Europe. Exceptional works by artists like Memling and Dürer will hang alongside works by Bellini and Antonello da Messina to illustrate the technical and compositional impact of these artists on their Southern European counterparts. While the first room is devoted to issues of likeness and commemoration, the second room will examine exactly how, and with what motives, sitters were represented, whether with a coat of arms, an inscription, an attribute or sometimes even a disguise. Attributes were included in portraits to strengthen the identity of the sitter and the manner in which they wished to present themselves. For example, Martin van Heemskerck's compelling Portrait of a Lady with Spindle and Distaff (Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid) reinforces the virtue of his subject by portraying her with these traditionally worthy domestic objects, which are mentioned in the Old Testament Proverb praising the virtuous wife. Picking up the theme of the revival of the antique, Fig. 2: Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1557): Self Portrait, 1523-5 the room will also feature images of collectors of © The Trustees of The British Museum, London (1936, antiquities who were able to show off their 1010.10) purchases and their intellectual identities as learned humanists. The exhibition will provide a fascinating context for understanding Holbein's Ambassadors, in preparing a portrait commission. the centrepiece of the room. An alternative mode of The first room will examine the origins of portraiture representation was to portray the sitter in the guise of one's when it first began to flourish as an independent genre in favourite saint, or even as the Virgin Mary, and examples of the early 15th century and will introduce key themes that this rather curious blend of piety and portraiture will be will be revisited throughout the exhibition. One fundamental considered, including Savoldo's sumptuous portrait of a lady theme will be the commemorative function of portraiture in the guise of Saint Margaret who is identified through the both in terms of the recording of likeness and status, but also surprising attribute of a dragon (Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome). the notion of the portrait as a means by which to The third room is devoted to the function and use of memorialize the subject after death. In this respect, the portraits within personal relationships as love tokens or gifts, portrait became more than just a painted likeness of an or in commemoration of a significant event in the life of a individual, but also a representation of the soul. The study of relationship. Portraits commissioned to commemorate antique artefacts such as portrait busts and ancient coins and friendships were extremely popular within humanist circles, classical texts, such as those by Pliny, renewed interest in the and the loan of Massys' Portrait of Peter Gillis from a private function and format of portraiture in antiquity for collection will represent one of the most famous of these Renaissance scholars.