Introduction to Art Historical Research: Western Painting NTNU Graduate Institute of Art History November 11th 2009 ©2009 Dr Valentin Nussbaum, Associate Professor Jacopo Pontormo, Descent of the Cross, 1526-28, Santa Felicita, Florence 1 Fra Angelico, Descent of the Cross, 1432, Museo San Marco, Florence 2 Guillaume Marcillat, Deposition and Entombment, 1526, Jacopo Pontormo, Descent of the Cross and Annunciation, 1526-28, Santa Felicita, Florence 3 Jacopo Pontormo, Descent of the Cross, 1526-28, Santa Felicita, Florence / Study for the Capponi Chapel Pietà, 1526, Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford Lippo Vanni, Annunciation, ca. 1350-65, fresco, Monteriggioni, Eremo di S. Leonardo al Lago 4 Jacopo Pontormo, The Visitation, 1528-29, San Michele, Carmignano Jacopo Pontormo, The Christ Judge with the Creation of Eve (Drawing fot the choir of San Lorenzo church, Florence) and Group of dead people, 1546-56, Uffizi, Florence 5 « Having then closed off the chapel with walls, hoardings and curtains, and given himself over to complete solitude, he kept it for the space of eleven years so firmly locked up, that no living soul except himself ever went in there, neither friends, nor anyone else. ( …) On the other wall is depicted the universal Resurrection of the dead, which is to be on the last glorious day, with such variety and confusion that the event itself will perhaps not be more real or, so to say, true to life that Pontormo has painted it (…) But I have never been able to understand the doctrine of this scene (though I know that Jacopo had a good mind himself and kept company with learned and well-educated people), specifically what he meant to signify in that part of the painting where Christ on high his bringing the dead back to life, while below His feet is God the Father, creating Adam and Eve. (…) in any place at all did he pay heed to any order of composition, or measurement, or time, or variety in the faces, or changes in the flesh colours, or, in brief, to any rule, proportion or law of perspective; and instead, the work is full of nude figures with an order, design, invention, composition, colouring, and painting done in his own personal way, with so much melancholy and so little pleasure for the beholder, that I am resolved, since even I do not understand it though I am painted myself, to let those who see it judge for themselves. For I truly believe I would drive myself mad to become embroiled with this painting, just as, it seems to me, in the eleven years he spent on it, Jacopo sought to embroil himself and whoever looks at it with those extaordinary figures » Giorgio Vasari, The Lives, 1568 Rosso Fiorentino, Descent of the Cross, 1521, Pinacoteca communala, Volterra 6 7 Rosso Fiorentino, Marriage of the Virgin, 1521, Pinacoteca communala, Volterra 8 Raphaël, The Marriage of the Virgin, 1504, 170 x 117 cm, Pincoteca Rosso Fiorentino, Marriage of the Virgin, 1521, Pinacoteca Brera, Milan communala, Volterra Parmigianino, Self-portrait, 1523-24, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 9 « Then for Madonna Maria Bufolini of Città di Castello, Francesco was commissioned to paint a panel picture intended to be placed in San Salvatore del Lauro, in a chapel near to the door; and in this he painted in the air the figure of Our Lady who is reading and has the Christ Child between her knees, while on the ground below he showed, kneeling on one knee, the figure of St John, who turns his body and points to Christ, in an extraordinarily beautiful attitude, and also here on earth the foreshortened figure of St Jerome in Penitence, lying asleep. But he was prevented from bringing this work to full completion by the sack of Rome in 1527, which not only for a time caused the banishment of the arts but also the taking of the lives of many craftsmen; and Francesco himself came very near to losing his own life, because when the sack of Rome began he was so wrapped in his work that even after the soldiers had started to penetrate the houses and there were already several Germans in his, despite all the uproar he remained intent on what he was doing. But when they reached him and saw him at his work, they were thunderstruck at the painting which they saw, and, like the gentlemen they must have been, let him continue. And so while the poor city of Rome was being devastated by the impious cruelties of those barbarian troops, profane and sacred things alike, with no respect to God or men, Francesco was provided for and greatly honoured by those Germans, and protected from all harm. » Parmigianino, Vision of St Jerome, 1527, National Gallery, Londres 10 Raphaël, Madonna of Foligno, 1511-12, Musei Vaticani, Rome Parmigianino, Vision of St Jerome, 1527, National Gallery, Londres Michelangelo, Bruges Madonna, Onze Lieve Vrouw Church , Bruges Parmigianino, Vision of St Jerome, 1527, National Gallery, Londres 11 Leonardo da Vinci, St John the Baptist, Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin St Ann and the 1513-16, 69 X 57 cm, Louvre, Paris Child, 1498-1500, 142 x 104,5 cm, National Gallery, London Parmigianino, Vision of St Jerome, 1527, National Gallery, Londres « And would to God that he had always pursued his studies in painting, and not indulged in fantasies of solidifying quicksilver to make himself richer than he had been created by Nature and Heaven! For then he would have been without equal in painting, and truly unique. Whereas by seeking for what he could never find, he wasted time, scorned his art, and did harm to his own life and fame (…) Finally, still always obsessed by that alchemy of his, like all the others who have once lost their wits over it, and changing from gentle and fastidious person into an almost savage man quite different from what he was, with beard and long straggling locks, he was assailed, in this sorry state of melancholy and oddness, by a grave fever and dysentry which in a few days made him pass to another life; and in this way he found an end to the travails of this world, which was never known to him save as a place full of trials and tribulations (…) Francesco took delight in playing lute, and his hand and mind were so well accomodated to this, that he was no less excellent at it than he was in painting. But it is certainly true that he had not worked capriciously and had put aside the foolishness of the alchemists, he would truly have been one of the rarest and most outstanding painters of our age (…) I certainly blame anyone who is happy to work very little or not at all, and always wastes time on thinking up schemes, seeing that the wish to use trickery and so attain a goal one cannot achieve otherwise often causes one to lose what one knows in seeking what cannot be known. » Giorgio Vasari, The Lives…, 1568 12 Parmigianino, Judith, ca.1530 Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Miracle of the Slave, 1548, Michel-Ange, the Sunset, vers 1525, New Sacristy, San Accademia, Venise Lorenzo, Florence 13 Raphaël, Sacrifice at Lystra, c. 1515-16, Victoria an Albert Museum, Londres Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Miracle of the Slave, 1548, Accademia, Venise Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Discovery of the Body of St Mark, 1562-66, Pinacoteca Brera, Milan 14 Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Translation of the Body of St Mark, 1562-66, Accademia, Venise Tintoretto, Massacre of the Innocents, c.1579-81, Scuola di San Rocco, Venise 15 Tintoretto, Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1528-27, Scuola di San Rocco, Raphael Sanzio, Fire in the Borgo, c.1514, Vatican, Rome Venise Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, 1498, Santa Maria delle Grazie Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Washing of the feet, c.1547, Prado, Madrid 16 Hendrik Goltzius. Icarus, after Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem 1588 Annibale Carracci, Butcher’s shop, 1583, Christ Church College, Oxford 17 Bartolomeo Passerotti. Butcher’s shop, vers 1580, Galleria Joachim Beukelaar. Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, d’Arte Antica, Rome 1565, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles Annibale Carracci, The Bean Eater, 1584, Galleria Colonna, Rome 18 Tintoretto, Annunciation, 1583-87, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venise Annibale Carracci, Annunciation, The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle Annibale Carracci, Baptism of Christ, 1584, San Gregorio, Bologne 19 Annibale Carracci, Detail of the Baptism of Christ, 1584, San Gregorio, Bologne Piero della Francesca, Baptism of Christ, 1448-50, Annibale Carracci, Baptism of Christ, 1584, San Londres National Gallery Gregorio, Bologne 20 Raphaël, Transfiguration, 1518-20, Annibale Carracci, Baptism of Christ, Titien, Assumption, 1516-18, Frari, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome 1584, San Gregorio, Bologne Venise Annibale Carracci, St Luke’s Altarpiece, 1592, Louvre, Paris 21 Annibale Carracci, Landscape with the Flight into Egypt, 1603-04, Galleria Doria-Pamphilii, Rome Claude Lorrain, Landscape with the Queen of Saba, 1648, National Gallery, Londres 22 Guido Reni, Massacre of the Innocents, 1611, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologne Guido Reni, Atalante and Hippomenes, 1622-25, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples 23 .