Making Visible the 'Motion of the Mind'
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Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 1998 EXHIBITS Making Visible the ‘Motion of the Mind’ Morto é il disegno or che great deal from Leonardo da Filippo parte. Vinci (1452-1519), especially o (Drawing is dead now i in the techniques of sfumato h O 2 , that Filippo is gone.) n and chiaroscuro. i l r —Lost epitaph of e b O , Motion of the Mind Filippino Lippi, San Michele e g e l Visdomini, Florence, 1504 l o The particular insight C n i l r gained by studying an artist’s e b he first major exhibition O drawings, is that they reveal , m of the work of Filippino u the creative process by which e T s u Lippi (1457-1504), one of the M he works his ideas out, as he t r A most important artists of the l turns them into a finished a i r Fifteenth-century Italian o work of art. Hence, the m e Renaissance, was on display M “motion of the mind” of the n e l l at New York City’s Metro- A artist becomes visible in politan Museum of Art from itself. This is especially true Oct. 28, 1997 to Jan. 11, 1998. when both the drawing, and Entitled “The Drawings of the finished work of art, can . C Filippino Lippi and His Cir- . be viewed side by side. D , cle,” the exhibit brought n There are several such o t g n together rare works on loan i instances in the Lippi exhib- h s from museums around the a it, including the cartoon W , t r world, including 117 draw- A (drawing) “Male Saint Hold- f o ings—80 by Filippino—plus y ing the Body of the Dead r e l l others by Fra Filippo Lippi a Christ with Angels Bearing G l a (Filippino’s father), Sandro n Instruments of the Passion,” o i t Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo, a both in pen and brown ink N Raphael Sanzio, and other with brown wash, and a fin- “Male Saint Holding the Body of the Dead Christ with Angels Bearing Florentine masters. ished painting of the same Instruments of the Passion,” drawing (top) and painting, c. after 1500. “Filippino Lippi is the subject, on panel. only major artist of this peri- Looking at the drawing, od with enough surviving work for a of Saint Paul, one of the strictest broth- we see that it is quite elaborated, well serious drawings exhibition, with the erhoods in Florence, and, later, the Con- developed, and, therefore, closely related exception of Leonardo,” writes George fraternity of Saint Job.1 to the finished work. The painting is a R. Goldner, curator of the exhibition, Filippino first apprenticed in his predella panel, usually one of several who adds that, in assembling the exhib- father’s studio, where he learned his art, small works, located at the bottom of a it, “the drawings were chosen as works assisting Filippo with such notable pro- large altarpiece (itself usually composed of beauty”—something easily attested to jects as the murals in the choir of Spoleto of several panels). Artists of this period by visitors to the exhibit. Cathedral; later, he became an assistant often had much greater freedom in both to the painter Sandro Botticelli (1445- __________ Student of Renaissance Masters 1510), who was himself a student of Fra 2. Sfumato comes from the Italian word, “to Filippino began life in the shadow of Lippi. And, while these influences on vanish”; it was invented by Leonardo to scandal, having been born the son of the Filippino were important, especially in depict the changes in atmospheric per- Florentine painter and Carmelite monk, his early works, he would later learn a spective, including transitions between Fra Filippo Lippi, and Lucrezia Buti, a colors, and between light and shade; in his __________ nun from the convent of Santa notes on painting, Leonardo says that light Margherita. (Being born out of wedlock 1. Giorgio Vasari (1511-74), Florentine and shade should blend “without lines or was no bar to success as an artist, how- painter and architect, best known for his borders, in the manner of smoke.” biographies of the artists of the Renais- Chiaroscuro, literally, light-dark; the tech- ever, as Leonardo’s own illegitimate sance, The Lives of the Most Excellent Ital- nique of using contrasts between light and birth attests.) Despite Filippino’s color- ian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors, first shade, and the subtleties of shadow, to ful origins, Vasari reports that he led an published in 1550, now widely available in model three-dimensional forms in space; exemplary life, joining the Confraternity English as The Lives of the Artists. hence, a key element in perspective. 91 © 1998 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. the selection of subjects, and the Left: “Head of an Elderly Man execution, of the predella panels, Turned to the Right with Downcast than they had in the main altar- Eyes,” drawing, 1480-83. Right: piece, which was often strictly Masaccio and Filippino Lippi, assigned by the patron who com- “Raising of Theophilus’s Son and missioned the work. So, it is often St. Peter Enthroned,” fresco, these smaller panels that tell us Brancacci Chapel. Right, below: more about the artist’s own fresco detail. thinking, than the larger parts of the main altarpiece. figure standing third from the Although the drawing and left, in the “Raising of Theo- painting are quite similar, there philus’s Son,” who gestures to his are some notable changes in the companions, toward the dramatic painting, through which the artist scene before them. sought to focus our thoughts on Del Pugliese may also be the the content of the Passion story, model for St. Peter, himself, as as he developed the finished he looks out, rather gravely, g i z p work. In the drawing, the repre- i from the bars of his cell, in the e L sentation of Christ has more the , previous fresco in the cycle. The e t s n quality of an anatomical study, ü figure looks older, and more K n whereas, in the final painting, we e sober, than the St. Peter of d n e are made to focus on the peaceful d Masaccio’s earlier frescoes, as he l i B expression of the face, and the r listens intently to St. Paul, who e d limpness of the body, which is m gestures with his right hand, u e s emphasized by the heaviness of u telling Peter of a discussion he the arms, which have become M has just had with Theophilus, longer and more substantial. This “soft” The Brancacci Chapel the prefect of Antioch. Paul had gone quality is underscored by the sinewy to Theophilus, who had imprisoned motion of the fabric which wraps Perhaps Filippino’s most significant Peter, and told him that Peter had the around Christ. work, and certainly that for which he is power to resurrect the dead. Theo- Subtle changes have also been made best known, was the completion of the philus responded that he would imme- in the composition. The opening of the fresco cycle depicting the life of St. diately release Peter, if he were able to cave, now directly behind the figure of Peter, in the Brancacci Chapel in the resurrect his son, who had died four- Christ, illustrates the use of chiaroscuro Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in teen years before. to achieve a dramatic effect. (Note, also, Florence, which had been left unfin- If we compare the drawing of the the confident manner in which Filip- ished some fifty years earlier by the elderly man, to that of the Brancacci St. pino uses broad brushstrokes to suggest great Masaccio, and his assistant, Peter, we might see why Filippo chose the rough stones of the cave, whose tex- Masolino. There is little doubt that Fil- the man in the drawing for his model of ture is contrasted to that of the angels’ ippino was strongly influenced by the saint, even though he had to alter his feathery wings, which are nonetheless Masaccio, and it was probably from the appearance somewhat. Try to imagine rendered using the same economy of earlier master that Filippino learned the what the pensive man with the down- technique.) art of naturalistic portraiture.3 cast eyes might look like, if he were to Another small change in the struc- One drawing in the Metropolitan lift his head and raise his eyes. This is ture of the composition—drawing the exhibit which demonstrates this in a not the haughty, sometimes angry Peter angels in closer to the central triangle, very powerful way is the Head of an we see in the earlier frescoes of the formed by Christ and the Saint, and Elderly Man Turned to the Right with Chapel series. enfolding them within the same shadow Downcast Eyes. Clearly a portrait, it is In the next fresco scene, we see St. that surrounds the dead Christ—rein- generally believed to be that of Piero di Peter after his release from prison, when forces the pyramidal shape, whose trian- Francesco del Pugliese (1428-1498). The he was taken immediately to the tomb gular stability suggests an unchanging exhibit catalogue suggests that he may of the son of Theophilus, and performed Eternity. And, the changed expression have been the model for the dignified the miracle of resurrection. As a result on the face of the angel to the left of the __________ of this, the entire population of Antioch panel—who now gazes directly at the were converted to Christianity.