FRAME: Concept, History and Conservation: Symposium 2, AGNSW, Sydney, April 3 - 5, 2019 George Bisacca Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA
[email protected] Abstract This lecture traces the evolution of ornament in Renaissance Florence through manuscript illumination, sculptural and architectural detail, furniture and fresco painting, culminating in the art of Bernardo Buontalenti, who is seen as a link between Mannerism and the Baroque and whose designs in the decorative arts may be responsible for the emergence of the auricular style in frames for the Galleria Palatina at Palazzo Pitti after the devastating fire of 1638. Although various scholars and frame historians attribute the origin of the auricular style to the Netherlands, this is at odds with the otherwise austere and sparse ornament present on buildings and furniture both before and after its 20-year popularity in the Low Countries. Given the seamless evolution and proliferation of ornamental forms across more than three centuries in Italy in general and in Florence in particular, the style would seem to be more logically explained as an outgrowth of existing trends. The flatness and reduced scale of the Northern examples relative to the Florentine prototypes is probably due to the designs first being disseminated northward through drawings. Biography of the Author George Bisacca, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Before joining the Paintings Conservation Department at the Metropolitan in 1983, Mr. Bisacca received conservation training at the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, specializing in the structural treatment of paintings on solid support. He has since been invited to treat panel paintings at several institutions in the United States and Europe.