RAR, Volume 31, 2016
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Rutgers Art Review The Journal of Graduate Research in Art History VOL. 31 Rutgers Art Review The Rutgers Art Review (RAR) is an annual journal produced by graduate students in the Department of Art History at Rutgers University. The journal is dedicated to presenting original research by graduate volume the editors convene an editorial board made students in Art History and related fields. For each up of students from the department and review all new submissions. The strongest papers are then sent to established contribute to existing scholarship. Articles appearing scholars in order to confirm that each one will in RAR are abstracted and indexed online in America: History and Life, ARTbibliographies Modern, the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, BHA (Bibliography of the History of Art), Historical Abstracts, and the Wilson Art Index. The journal is university, museum, and public libraries in North distributed by subscription to many of the finest America and Europe. to printed volumes before Vol. 30, visit: For more information about RAR or to suscribe RAR.Rutgers.edu Cover Image: Augustin Pajou (1730–1809) and Louis Garnier (1639–1728). Parnasse François. Conceived after 1708 by Évrard Titon du Tillet (1677– 1762). 1708–1721. Medallions by Simon Curé and completed with additional medallions and statuettes by Augustin Pajou. Bronze, 260 x 235 x 230 cm. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY Staff &Thanks Editors Special Thanks The editors would like to thank our faculty adviser, Sarah Blake McHam, for providing the Erin Fitterer Kirsten Marples thoughtful counsel and guidance necessary to Jeff Fraiman produce Vol. 31 of the Rutgers Art Review. Editorial Board We thank our indispensable editorial board Isabel Bartolome members, for their commitment to the process Todd Caissie and for their incisive critiques and productive Stephen Mack discussions of the submissions, as well as key Kimi Matsumura assistance during the proofreading process. Sophie Ong Kathleen Pierce We also express our gratitude to our esteemed Alison Van Denend outside readers. The role of outside reader can often be a thankless one, and we thank our readers for taking the time out of hectic schedules to review To contact the staff at submissions and provide invaluable feedback. Rutgers Art Review, email: We must thank our graphic designer, Susannah [email protected] Hainley, for her creativity and patience. To our authors, thank you for sharing your research with us and the Rutgers Art Review audience. Your patience during an at times seemingly interminable process was much appreciated. In This Issue A Novel Nymphaeum: Raphael’s Inaugural Architectural Commission in Rome Reconsidered 4 ALEXIS CULOTTA Romanesque Sculpture: The Coiled 20 StrategiesMan in the of Archivolt Signification at Vézelay in ALICE ISABELLA SULLIVAN Parnasse e(s)t Patrie: Louis XIV in Undying Bronze 37 THADEUS DOWAD 4 A Novel Nymphaeum life of a man with nothing else to do.”3 To date, the analysis of these initial structures has Raphael’s Inaugural Architectural remained most general. Stefano Ray’s Raffaello 4 Commission in Rome architetto (1974) and the subsequent Reconsidered compendium of a similar title published by Ray, 5 offer the most complete published account of these ALEXIS CULOTTA twoChristoph structures. Frommel Though and foundational,others (1984) their analysis amounts to mostly measurements and preliminary observations, particularly in the case Chigi’s riverfront casino. of Raphael’s first architectural project, that for fter illustrious Rome fell prey The perfunctory nature of this structure’s analysis is due in part to the lack of information on its “A withdrew, as the city collapsed. But design and construction. No ground plans or full where Agostinoto barbarian Chigi founded Furies, allhis the kingly gods palace, preliminary sketches for the structure survive; and restored a truly ancient splendor, gods and the building itself, which suffered the wrath of their consorts at once descended again from the heavens.” 1 So wrote Neapolitan humanist in a ruinous state by the late sixteenth century.6 Girolamo Borgia of sixteenth-century Sienese the Tiber’s flooding as early as 1514, was already banker Agostino Chigi’s Roman villa suburbana, Though the casino was rebuilt for its magnificent banquet of 1518, the next great flood of the now better known as the Villa Farnesina. A 1577Tiber onlyin 1531 fragments no doubt of inflictedwhat once more stood. damage,7 By the magnificent structure nestled along the banks followingleaving Frommel century to painter find in Gaspare Du Pérac’s Celio drawing wrote of scholarsof Rome’s search arterial for Tiber a better River, understanding the Farnesina of its of only the ruins of the casino along the banks enigmatichas been the patron, subject Chigi, of significant and the artistic study masters as of the Tiber.8 at work there. Deciphering the design of this celebrated riverfront casino is all the more problematic villa, however, too few have probed Raphael’s due to the lack of conclusive visual contributions.For all the words His that rendering have been of the spilled Triumph on the documentation. None of Raphael’s sketches, of Galatea (c. 1512–1513) in the loggia of the plans or even dimensions for the casino survive, same name tends to be glossed over in a review save for a few rudimentary cartoons. Indeed, of his work, and his design for the decorative much of what is presumed of the riverfront program in the adjacent Loggia di Amore e Psiche casino has been handed down through drawings (1518–1519) has often been discounted as the of Rome along the Tiber, all of which reveal the handiwork of his workshop.2 What has been most villa and its accompanying outbuildings with lacking is an examination of his role as architect of the villa’s stables and riverfront casino. These confounding factor in exploring this riverfront two projects represented the inaugural works of structurevarying inaccuracies is understanding and inconsistencies. how it functioned A final in his architectural career, one that John Shearman conjunction with the supposed accompanying lauded as exhibiting “a density of activity which subterranean grotto, highlighted in the epigrams would be startling enough in eight years from the written by Egidio Gallo and Blosio Palladio in A Novel Nymphaeum: 5 Raphael’s Inaugural Architectural Commission in Rome Reconsidered contemporaneous commemoration of Chigi’s commissions from 1514 on,13 few have survived fabled villa.9 Both Gallo’s and Palladio’s poems in sketches and even fewer still stand. bathing and boating pond lined with seating moment at which Raphael’s interests turned anddescribe accessible a grotto from serving exterior as a stairs, fishpond10 where, or toFurthermore, architecture it or, is impossiblefor that matter, to pinpoint archaeology. the One can turn, however, to John Shearman’s with tremulous leap, [and] straightway hide discussion of Raphael’s sketch of the Pantheon as Gallo describes, “the Nymphs flock together (U 164 Ar) to propose the initiation of Raphael’s in which they enjoy residing with busy song.”11 architectural interests as around the year 1506.14 themselvesThough Gallo in conjuresthe first moutha fantastical of the undergroundpond. This reinforces Raphael’s early presence in lair with his prose, any hard evidence for its Rome, and it also positions this sketch as one existence has yet to materialize. architecture.15 Raphael had already begun such Despite these challenges, this examination explorationof the first examples through theof Raphael’s architectural pure elements study of will propose a novel reconstruction of the he wove into his paintings. The earliest known riverfront casino along with its relation to architectural drawing16 appears in a study for the supposed grotto below as a revival of the the Coronation of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino nymphaeum, an architectural type dormant (Musée des Beaux Arts, Lille), wherein a quickly drafted cortile overlaps with the bottom right- of Raphael’s development as an architect and hand corner of the page.17 Such architectural since ancient times. Following a brief discussion study would develop into the grandly painted Baldassarre Peruzzi on his production, discussion architecture of Raphael’s early works, as seen in willthe earlythen influenceturn to a detailed of architect analysis and antiquarianof the the famous Spozalizio della Vergine (1500–1504), riverfront casino. It will use scholarly knowledge but Raphael’s sketch of the Pantheon interior of similar structures, such as the relatively marks a pivotal moment, as Raphael began his contemporaneous nymphaeum at Genazzano — transformation from architectural painter to attributed to both Donato Bramante and Peruzzi architect through a concurrent study of — and the Casino del Bufalo, as well as the the antique. Raphael’s design for this riverfront casino was Architectural design was, in the early years of drawnextrapolation from the of ancientFarnesina nymphaeum. data, to suggest In addition that the cinquecento, inextricably linked to study to showcasing the potential level of exchange of the antique, or in other words, archaeology. between Raphael and Peruzzi during their As Marcia Hall comments, “The Rome in which Raphael arrived in 1508 was already a massive several insights and hypotheses into the design of construction site.”18 The construction of which thistenures casino at the in an Farnesina, effort to thisilluminate research a portion also offers of Hall speaks is a quite literal one, as by 1508 Raphael’s contribution to the fantastical feel Rome was in the midst of the massive renovatio led by Pope Julius II. As Raphael’s sketch of the Pantheon illustrates, he gleaned inspiration Blurryof Chigi’s Beginnings Farnesina from the structures of antiquity, both extant and extinct. Raphael’s architectural career has suffered from little remaining evidence.12 Though he Raphael’s exploration of the antique and of was involved in a number of architectural architecture continued to punctuate his painterly A Novel Nymphaeum: 6 Raphael’s Inaugural Architectural Commission in Rome Reconsidered production in the years following.