BR.DEC.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 16/11/2011 15:14 Page 827 BOOKS and Anja Grebe. Of particular importance is the study of the impact of Bolognese art Raw Painting: ‘The Butcher’s Shop’ in France, where the birth of classicism is by Annibale Carracci. By C.D. Dickerson closely connected to such key figures as III. 93 pp. incl. 59 col. + 2 b. & w. ills. Sebastiano Serlio and Francesco Primaticcio, (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and well documented in essays by Sabine From- Yale University Press, New Haven mel, Dominique Cordellier and Sara Benzi. and London, 2010), $16.95. Sabine Frommel highlights Serlio’s extraor- ISBN 978–0–300–16640–8. dinary ability to invent a new artistic mode, an amalgam of the grand style of the artist’s Reviewed by XAVIER F. SALOMON home town and his thorough knowledge of classical culture, probably learned in the OVER THE PAST five years, the Kimbell Art humanistic and antiquary circles of Bologna. Museum in Fort Worth, has published a In Serlio’s sixth book he demonstrates series of illuminating and beautifully pro- his ability to use both French and Italian duced small books focusing on masterpieces 58. The butcher’s shop, by Annibale Carracci. c.1582. architectural languages, as did Primaticcio, from the Museum’s permanent collection. Canvas, 59.7 by 71 cm. (Kimbell Art Museum, Fort whose pictorial and architectural styles The volumes so far have ranged in topics Worth). were inspired by the decorations in Giulio from a fifteenth-century German silver Romano’s Palazzo Te at Mantua, as is sculpture of the Virgin and Child, to a panel familiar context. Rightly dismissing the idea evident from the Grotte des Pins or the from a predella by Fra Angelico, and Fred - of a family portrait, Dickerson discusses Hercules’ Fountain at Fontainebleau. Of eric Leighton’s portrait of the young May Annibale’s family background and the fact particular significance is the discovery that Sartoris.1 In size, content, quantity and qual- that his uncle Vincenzo was indeed a butch- Primaticcio’s fresco of The Annunciation in ity of illustrations, these books should serve er, and that his cousin Ludovico trained as Châalis Abbey was modelled on the intarsia as a model to other institutions on how to one before becoming a painter. Visually the of the Baptism of St Dominic in the choirstalls present significant new research and material two canvases are indebted to Northern exam- of S. Domenico, Bologna. on individual objects from permanent col- ples and to paintings of similar subjects by Part three is an analysis of Bolognese lections. The fourth, and latest, volume in Vincenzo Campi and Bartolomeo Passarotti. architecture and engineering as it was the series is dedicated to Annibale Carracci’s Agostino and Ludovico – and maybe even exported by emigrant Bolognese artists, and Butcher’s shop. Annibale – trained in Passarotti’s workshop their capacity to invent hybrid languages. Like the book, the small size of the paint- before dramatically falling out with their They included Aristotele Fioravanti, who ing should not diminish its importance. master. Surely this is Annibale’s commentary promoted Renaissance styles in Russia; Surrounded by carcasses and steaks, two on Passarotti’s art. Even though this was not Alessandro Pasqualini in Germany and the butchers are at work in their shop, their red a new type of painting it was a new way of Netherlands (in essays by Adriano Ghisetti shirts and white aprons echoing the blood treating the specific theme, investing a genre Giavarina, Dmitry O. Shvidkovsky and and fat of the meat that takes centre stage in scene with the grand language of history Christoph L. Frommel) and Raphael’s assis- the picture (Fig.58). The Kimbell canvas is painting, albeit veined with irony. In the tant Tommaso Vincidor, who transmitted very closely related to another – much larger compositions Carracci paid a noteworthy his master’s style to the decoration of the – painting by Carracci of the same subject, visual debt to Michelangelo and Raphael, as castle of Henry III of Nassau-Breda at Breda now at Christ Church, Oxford, and the two first noticed by Martin. in the 1530s (Krista De Jonge and Nicole should be analysed together. When writing Dickerson, writing about the Oxford Dacos). about the Oxford painting in the 1850s, Gus- painting, states that ‘it must have been a The fourth chapter focuses on the pan- tav Waagen found it ‘painted in a masterly commissioned work, and the person who European character of Bolognese culture, manner’, but could not help observe that commissioned it must have been fairly analysing the library of S. Gerolamo in the the subject ‘offended me by the vulgarity of wealthy’. This must, indeed, be the case and Certosa (Maria Gioia Tavoni), the impact of the idea’.2 Described by John Rupert Martin the author explores the possibility, proposed Achille Bocchi’s Symbolicae Questiones (Ilaria as ‘surely one of the most problematical by Zapperi in 1989, that Carracci’s patrons Bianchi), Pellegrino Tibaldi’s work at the works to issue from the studio of the Car - may have been a wealthy family of Bolognese Escorial (Fernando Marías), and the links racci’, the painting at Christ Church and butchers, the Canobbi. Dickerson’s chapter between Flemish art and Bolognese artists, the version in Texas have been the centre of on the ‘Butchers of Bologna’ is fascinating, for example the impact of Northern natu - wildly diverse theories around the inter - the key section of the book, presenting ralism on Passerotti (Angela Ghirardi), while pretation of their subject-matter.3 Martin original research on the trade in the city, from Simone Twiehaus and Michele Danieli identified the painting, following eight - livestock markets, to slaughtering facilities focus on Denys Calvaert’s activity as an eenth-century English accounts, as a satirical and market stalls. The butchers’ guild – engraver. portrait of the Carracci family; Barry Wind the Arte dei Beccai – was one of the most This multidisciplinary approach to the arts saw it as part of a wider comic artistic and prestigious in Bologna and one of only two of Bologna provides a complex analysis sim ilar literary tradition and perceived erotic over- with a prominent chapel in S. Petronio. The to a great mosaic, in which the tesserae are tones in its meaning; for Francesca Rossi, brothers Giuseppe and Girolamo Canobbi numerous stimulating suggestions. One of instead, Carracci’s was a direct attack on the were leading members of the guild and later the book’s merits is its capacity to go beyond religious control over butchers exercised by commissioned Annibale’s Baptism of Christ for disciplinary and geographical barriers and to Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti in connection to the family chapel in SS. Gregorio e Sisto. demonstrate how Bologna, far from being a fasting during Lent.4 Roberto Zapperi has Dickerson has studied precisely what butcher ‘minor’ centre, made a subtle but important been the first to try and firmly place the stalls in Bologna looked like and describes contribution to the European Renaissance, two paintings by Annibale within a rigorous these facilities (some of which were effective- acting as a crucible of a variety of personalities, documentary historical background.5 C.D. ly run by the Canobbi family), in particular styles and traditions. It provides the indispen- Dickerson has followed Zapperi’s general the so-called vaso grande and vaso piccolo. A sable tools for future research on the theme, approach and the result is a valuable contri- rare photograph is provided, showing via including a more synthetic approach which bution to Carracci studies. Caprarie around 1912–16, and the entrance is already planned by the organisers of the Painted around 1582–83 in Bologna, when to the vaso grande, since destroyed. project of which the present volume is the first Annibale was in his early twenties, the The Kimbell Butcher’s shop is most prob - tangible result. butcher scenes are undoubtedly steeped in a ably an initial study for the larger Christ the burlington magazine • cliiI • december 2011 827 BR.DEC.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 16/11/2011 15:14 Page 828 BOOKS Church painting. Annibale’s technique is emies with his wit and learning. They brought powerful, and the possibilities of Cortona’s astounding, the brushstrokes bringing to life new life to a city struggling under the weight new language were rejected. But Rosa, fêted the texture and weight of meat. Malvasia of a illustrious past, and the 1640s mark a by poets and men of letters, was at the centre recounted how Annibale had teased his turning point in Florentine culture. These of every world, admired and befriended even cook and cat with painted pieces of meat. essays, which open with a description of the by the most famous of Galileo’s pupils, and Dickerson describes Carracci’s technique melancholy last days of Galileo, and of the end playing a key role in new kinds of drawing and appropriately compares it to Venetian of the brief period of enlightenment that ‘il and theatre. In an ambitious essay on Rosa’s painting, and in particular to fitting examples divino vecchio’ had so gloriously brought to self-portraits Victoria von Flemming analyses by Titian and Tintoretto. Carracci’s style Florence, are distinguished by their variety of how Rosa himself dramatised his many roles and art, however, underwent a profound viewpoints and methodologies. They bring through self-portraiture. But so many prob- transformation, which resulted fifteen years together the history of art and architecture, lems remain over the dating, attribution and later in the Galleria Farnese in Rome. The literary history and the history of science, status as self-portraits of the works which she study of antiquity and the Roman artistic music and theatre, and as the essays unfold discusses that this essay does not convince.