Art Eyewitness Book Review: The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance

Edited by Gordon Campbell

Oxford University Press/$39.95/506 pages

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Andy Warhol and the Renaissance of the 1400's-!500's seldom occupy the same paragraph in art history books or essays. Yet as I finished reading The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance, Warhol's famous (or infamous) prediction came to mind.

"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes."

Since the fame of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Durer has lasted a lot longer than a quarter of an hour, my reflection on Warhol's statement seemed little more than a random thought. But as I reread some of the especially cogent passages of the Oxford volume, the following statement seemed a likely candidate for having directed my thoughts in Warhol's direction.

The proliferation of images and texts brought about by the invention of printing (c.1440) confirm that the Renaissance experienced a revolution comparable in magnitude to the recent emergence of the Internet. The word 'selfie' is recent but the Renaissance brought about and developed the self-portrait and the portrait. 

This perceptive insight appears in the chapter of the Oxford book, "The Civilization of the Renaissance," written by François Quiviger. An echo of the title of the famous nineteenth century book, The Civilization of the Renaissance In Italy by Jacob Burckhardt, is detectable here. Quiviger and the other members of the team of scholars who wrote The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance show that the impact of this cultural revolution spread far wider than Italy.
   

Hans Holbein, The Ambassadors, 1533

The Renaissance was marked by world-changing inventions like movable-print and realistic portrait painting. These in turn facilitated the emergence of "the sense of the self in the world." During this long-ago era, the seeds of modern individualism were planted. Whether our opportunity for fame lasts fifteen minutes or five centuries, the debt we owe to the "brave new world" of the Renaissance is considerable.

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance is the latest in an outstanding series of books dating back to the 1980's. Based on the latest historical research but aimed at the general reader, the Oxford "Illustrated's" have maintained a very high standard over the years. This volume, edited by the great Renaissance scholar, Gordon Campbell, certainly maintains the Oxford University Press reputation for excellence.

Among the historians recruited to write this authoritative book is Felipe Fernández-Armesto, who edited The Oxford Illustrated History of the World, reviewed earlier this year in Art Eyewitness. The chapter written by Fernández-Armesto deals with the global impact of the Renaissance. With his usual verve and command of the historical source material, Fernández-Armesto investigates the way that interconnected bonds were forged between far-flung nations and societies.

 The process of globalization was very slow during the 1400's and early 1500's, being contingent more on mariners' understanding of the trajectory of the "trade winds" than of strategic planning by the governments of Europe.

"The history of the world, as traditionally written," Fernández-Armesto wryly observes, "contains too much hot air and not enough wind."

Afro-Portuguese Ivory Hunting-horn, c.1490-1530

The carved ivory horn, shown above, illustrates this world-wide perspective on the Renaissance. It was made in Africa for the European market and taken back by Portuguese maritime traders. The base of the horn shows an armillary sphere, the Coat of Arms of the Portuguese royal house and the cross of Beja. Scenes of Europeans and Africans fighting and hunting animals are also featured.

If the global trade had been limited to exotic products such as this ivory horn, the world  would be a different place today. Vast hauls of treasure from the New World, chiefly silver, flowed into the Spanish treasury and flowed right out again. The "King's Fifth" was used chiefly to purchase weapons, especially gunpowder-firing cannon, state-of-the-art warships and elaborate fortifications capable of resisting the formidable armies and fleets of the rival Valois French monarchy and  the Ottoman Turks. There is an instructive chapter on the Renaissance "arms-race" written by David Parrott in the Oxford volume.

Giorgio Vasari, The Battle of Lepanto, 1572

If the Renaissance witnessed endemic warfare, the growth of a world-wide slave trade (with plenty of guilt to share among all the participants of this "trafficking of souls") and social repression in most European societies, can we really justify the claim that a "Renaissance" actually took place? Or is such a claim more of the "hot air and not enough wind" which Fernández-Armesto derides?

It is the contention of the Oxford team that the Renaissance was indeed a revolutionary epoch in every field of creative endeavor. This was especially true in the visual arts, which we will focus upon shortly. The unpleasant aspects of the Renaissance are not brushed aside and the prevailing theme of the book is best summarized by Quiviger in the concluding remarks of his chapter:

Many scholars have observed that the ideals and values of the Renaissance are merely a sugar coating concealing the darker, violent, and ever present nature of men, driven by ambition and rivalry. Sugar coating is nevertheless a first step towards sweetening. This is simply a matter of not confusing a period with its ideals… Similarly, the ideals of good manners and elegance… may not have been the norms of their time but their European diffusion suggests that they did eventually have an impact upon the world.

The "sugar coating" which the Renaissance applied to European society and indirectly to the world was a long and complex process. Because we still see the results in art, architecture and literature produced during 1400's and 1500's, it is easy to miss two fundamental points.

Most of the texts used by Renaissance scholars were available only because "Dark Age" scribes, many of them Irish monks, had preserved them. If a manuscript copy of a Latin text survived to the ninth century, as Peter Mack writes in his chapter on Renaissance humanism, it "was never truly lost again." Greek texts were similarly preserved in the Byzantine Empire and transmitted to Italy in the years prior to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. 

Petrarch's copy of Livy, c.1329.

 Detail of manuscript copy of the history of Rome by Livy, 22.1

The "heroic" role of the Renaissance scholar was to rigorously organize and study what had been salvaged from ancient times and to disseminate this "new" knowledge all over Europe. Humanism, as the new scholarship was called, had commenced decades before the first use of the printing press in the early 1450's. We can see Humanism in action on the manuscript pages of the Roman history of Livy, personally copied and corrected by Petrarch (1304-1374) and further annotated by Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457).

Secondly, the artistic revolution of depicting Jesus, the Virgin Mary and other saintly figures with flesh and blood naturalism was another Medieval development. The preaching of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) and his followers, the Franciscans, emphasized the humanity of Jesus and the need for Christians to practice levels of devotion that reflected the sufferings of Jesus and the Christian martyrs.

The preaching of the Franciscans called for "art that bleeds" as Andrew Graham-Dixon memorably described in his wonderful book, Renaissance. Artists, both in Italy and Flanders, complied with alacrity. 

Jan van Eyck, Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, c.1435

It was the Flemish who took the key step of transferring the naturalism used in portraying Jesus, Mary and the Apostles to portraits of Christian believers. Special attention was given to those willing to pay to be included in the picture, like Chancellor Rolin of Burgundy, shown above. But the real breakthrough came about when Italian merchants working in Flanders, like Tommaso Portinari, commissioned paintings showing them and their wives praying before Jesus and his mother.

 Prior to the arrival in Italy of these oil paintings from Flanders, Italian artists had been exploring other aspects of art, such as creating a sense of visual space through the use of linear perspective. Portraits in Italy were chiefly done in profile, because of the obsession with collecting ancient Roman coins. Of deeply-probing psychological insight, there was precious little. When the portraits by Flemish masters like Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling reached Italy, the effect was dramatic.

Antonello da Messina, Portrait of a Man (Il Condottiere),1475

In this sensational portrait by Antonello da Messina, we can see the result. This incredible work is the perfect embodiment of the Renaissance "sense of the self in the world."

Antonello may have learned oil painting from an itinerant Flemish painter at the court of the Kingdom of Naples. However he acquired the techniques of the Flemish masters, Antonello soon matched them in the ability to probe the human soul and to portray the result on canvas or panel.

The age of Individualism had dawned.

Albrecht Dürer, The Large Piece of Turf, 1503

The techniques of close investigation of human character began to be applied to the study of nature, stunningly revealed in Durer's Large Piece of Turf. Soon the new critical thinking and observation was being trained on the stars and planets, leading to Copernicus' challenge to traditional, earth-centered astronomy. The Oxford volume includes a chapter filled with insightful analysis of the Scientific Revolution which ultimately was the most momentous result of the Renaissance.

Just about every facet of life in Europe was affected by the "new" learning and meticulous tinkering which the Renaissance engendered. This extended even to special techniques for folding napkins at banquets into the shape of animals, ships and castles! This too is described in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance.

The Oxford volume, however, does not cover in great detail the famous incidents in the careers of the titans of Renaissance art. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer and Titian do make appearances in the book and their art works are considered in the broad context of Renaissance civilization. Two chapters provide a solid foundation to the study of Italian art (written by Francis Ames-Lewis) and the Northern Renaissance (Paula Nuttall and Richard Williams).

Most of the familiar and fascinating events, feuds, etc. are not featured. No mention of screaming matches between Michelangelo and Pope Julius II. Discussion of Italian art ends for the most part with the death of Raphael in 1520.

I can see the point of Gordon Campbell and his team of Renaissance scholars, given the global framework of this outstanding book. There is so much ground to cover and it makes sense to concentrate on the factors that created the Renaissance "sense of the self in the world."

Never-the-less, reading The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance has placed me in a perplexing situation not unlike that faced by the actor, Bill Murray, in the movie Groundhog Day!

My very first exposure to Renaissance art ended - as does the corresponding chapter of the Oxford book - with Italian art in the early 1500's. Way back in the 1970's, I took an undergrad course in Renaissance art. The professor was so smitten with Brunelleschi, Donatello  and other Quattrocento masters that we ran out of time. When the course ended, Leonardo was still waiting for the paint to dry on The Last Supper.

Hopefully, Oxford University Press will publish an Illustrated History of the Later Renaissance and I will finally discover what happened to Michelangelo.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                                           
Images courtesy of the National Gallery, London, the British Museum, Musée du Louvre, the Albertina Museum, the British Library and Wikipedia.org 

Introductory Image:
Book Cover. Courtesy of Oxford University Press

Hans Holbein (German/Swiss, 1497/8-1543) Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ('The Ambassadors'), 1533. Oil on oak: 207 x 209.5 cm. National Gallery, London: NG1314

Artist unknown ((Africa,Sierra Leone) Afro-Portuguese Ivory Hunting-horn, c.1490-1530. Carved from elephant ivory, base of horn fitted with silver-gilt rim:  48.2 centimetres. British Museum, Af1979,01.3156.

Giorgio Vasari (Italian,1511–1574) The Battle of Lepanto, 1572. Fresco in the Sala Regia of the Vatican. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giorgio-vasari-battle-of-lepanto.jpg

Petrarch's copy of Livy. Detail of manuscript copy of the history of ancient Rome by Livy, 22.1, with corrections by Petrarch, 1304-1374, (interlinear) and Lorenzo Valla (marginalia). Italy and France (Avignon), late 12th century-c 1329. British Library, London. Harley MS 2493, f 105v.

Jan van Eyck (Flemish, c.1390-1441) Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, c. 1435. Oil on panel: 66cm x 62cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_of_Chancellor_Rolin

Antonello da Messina (italian/Sicilian, 1430-1479) Portrait of a Man (Il Condottiere), 1475. Oil on panel: 36.2 cm (14.2 ″); Width: 30 cm (11.8 ″).  Musée du Louvre, Paris. http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=obj_view_obj&objet=cartel_13724_28067_p0003425.002.jpg_obj.html&flag=false

Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528) The Large Piece of Turf, 1503. Watercolor and body color, heightened with white body color: 40.8 cm (16 ″) x 31.5 cm (12.4″). Albertina Museum,Vienna.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer-The_Large_Piece_of_Turf,_1503_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection

Philadelphia Museum of Art

November 3, 2017 –February 19, 2018

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection, on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is an exciting and important exhibition - for unexpected reasons. 

This exhibition is much more than a thoughtful reexamination of great masterpieces collected over a century ago. Old Masters Now presents a living collection, rich in new insights and revelations, asserting its cultural importance in ways that its first owner never could have expected.

The Johnson Collection occupies a special place in Philadelphia's cultural history. John G. Johnson is certainly not as famous an art collector as the controversial Dr. Albert Barnes. But in many ways, he was just as daring and adventurous in acquiring major works of art. Indeed, Johnson's choices often confound our stereotypes of Gilded Age art collectors. 

John Graver Johnson (1841–1917) was born in Chestnut Hill, then a small town outside Philadelphia. The son of a blacksmith, Johnson graduated from the city's prestigious Central High School and the University of Pennsylvania. Incredibly, a childhood photo of him survives from the 1840's, showing the sharp, perceptive eyes of a "Philadelphia lawyer" - years before he became one.

John G. Johnson: Boy and Man

Johnson was the greatest corporate lawyer of post-Civil War America. Although he only served briefly in the Pennsylvania Militia during the Civil War, it should not be forgotten that Johnson was a member of a generation that had passed through the "fire" of America's most tragic era. 

Johnson was a charter member - through hard work, rather than inheritance - of the American elite. But he knew the meaning of "nobless oblige," of giving back to the community that had nurtured him.  In Johnson's case, this was Philadelphia.

"I have lived my life in this City," Johnson stated in his will. "I want the collection to have its home here.” 

Johnson's collection - 1,279 paintings, 51 sculptures and  over 100 objects in other media - is the keystone of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery View showing photo of John G. Johnson's home

When you enter the exhibition galleries, huge mural-size photos of Johnson's splendid homes on S. Broad Street are on display. For a moment or two, you can imagine yourself entering these opulent Edwardian-era rooms. 

Fantasy should not edge out reality, however. My wife, Anne, noted that the second interior photo, taken in 1936 long after Johnson's death in 1917, is stacked floor-to-ceiling with framed paintings. Significantly, it shows the escalating collection after Johnson's wife, Ida, died in 1908. 

     Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery View of the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit,          Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection

The exhibit galleries, in contrast, display a significant number of Johnson's treasures in a spacious, almost contemplative atmosphere. In a nod to historical authenticity, one wall of the exhibit gallery is hung in the "stacked" manner of Johnson's home. 

I did not linger very long in front of this vintage display. There are so many great masterpieces in the exhibit, commanding our attention. 

Callisto Piazza, Musical Group, c.1520's

I've been looking at many of these "Old Masters" in the Johnson collection for decades now. For many years, these were grouped together in a separate gallery, by the terms of Johnson's will. He actually stipulated that they be kept in his Broad Street mansion, but his executors wisely ignored his wishes and brought them to the much safer environment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Seeing the Johnson Collection masterpieces in this brilliantly curated exhibition is a revelation. I realize that, for all the times I have looked, I have never really "seen" many of them as Johnson did. One gets the sense that Johnson's art collection became a way for him to channel his love, after the great personal loss of his wife's death, to future generations.

When it came to his day job, Johnson was a hard-eyed realist. Johnson twice refused appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. He did not want to exchange the $100,000 per year he made representing J.P Morgan, the Rockefeller family and the Sugar Trust for a paltry Supreme Court salary of $8,000. 

At the same time that he made all that money, Johnson also served on Philadelphia's Fairmount Park Commission which oversaw the city art collection. It was upon his recommendation that Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Annunciation was purchased in 1899. This painting was the first work by an African-American artist to enter a public collection in the United States and now hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Art had great meaning  for Johnson on many emotional levels. Empathy, intellectual stimulation and aesthetic pleasure obviously guided his choices. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mark Tucker, the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Director of Conservation, about one of Johnson's most surprising selections
. 
The painting in question is Portrait of a Young Gentleman, by Antonello da Messina. Antonello came from Sicily, the only major Renaissance artist born in southern Italy. Somehow, Antonello established contacts with artists from the Netherlands and learned about oil painting. He was the first to master oil painting in Italy. His surviving works of art are comparatively rare and were not especially popular with American collectors in Johnson's time.

Antonello da Messina, Portrait of a Young Gentleman, 1474

Why, then, did Johnson buy this portrait of a brash young man with a probing look in his eyes?

"The subject of Antonello's portrait," Mark Tucker noted, "has just come into the studio from the street. The collar of his doublet is undone and the cord used to stitch it in place is dangling loose. Usually, the sitter in a Renaissance portrait is posed very formally, every detail of his attire in perfect order.

"Antonello is not concerned with a formal pose in this portrait, of how the subject was dressed. Instead, he painted the movements of his mind."

There can be little doubt that Johnson bought this outstanding work of Renaissance art because he sensed that this alert, questioning, savvy fellow from the Quattrocento was a kindred soul.

The movements of Johnson's mind led him from collecting rather conventional  contemporary works like Mary Cassatt's very early genre scene, On the Balcony, to more daring choices like the Antonello portrait . 

Édouard Manet, The Battle of the U.S.S.“Kearsarge” and the C.S.S.“Alabama”, 1864

Johnson's range of interest extended to the Impressionists and  in 1888 he purchased Édouard Manet's Civil War naval scene, The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama.” Johnson saw this striking painting at a display of Impressionist art, organized by the French art agent, Paul Durand-Ruel, in New York City. Johnson may have been influenced to buy Manet's painting by his own military experience during the Gettysburg campaign.

This almost monochromatic work utilized Japanese-inspired compositional elements like a high horizon line and the off-center placement of the schooner in the foreground of the painting to convey a "you-are-there" viewpoint. Manet was long thought to have witnessed the sea combat, which took place just outside Cherbourg harbor in 1864, but careful scholarship has revealed that he painted the battle based on newspaper accounts.

In 1894, Johnson purchased Jan van Eyck's small devotional work, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata. With this pivotal acquisition, Johnson began assembling one of the largest collections of paintings from the Netherlands, works created between 1400 and 1700. By the end of his life, Johnson 's Flemish and Dutch masterpieces numbered 425. On the whole, he chose very wisely. But with art scholarship still in its infancy, a number of his paintings, thought to be by Rembrandt or by Bosch, have not retained their attribution.

Johnson also bought what he thought was a pair of tipsy Dutch drinkers by Frans Hals.  Subsequent research showed that it was painted by Judith Leyster, the greatest woman artist of the Dutch Golden Age. But an even greater surprise was in store about The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier), painted around 1639. A print from the 1600 showed the same pair in the company of a lively skeleton, encouraging them to drink. In 1992, the conservators at the Philadelphia Museum of Art decided to put Leyster's painting to the test.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of Judith Leyster's The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier) 

As expected, a skeleton was detected lurking below a layer of overpainting. Mark Tucker meticulously removed this paint, restoring the skeleton to "life" and showing that Leyster's work had a very serious message. It was a memento mori, a caution about heedless over-indulgence and a warning against disregard of God's commandments.

Along with van Eyck's St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, the jewel of the Johnson Collection's Netherlandish works is Rogier van der Weyden’s Crucifixion, with Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460.  Along with Thomas Eakin's The Gross Clinic, van der Weyden's Crucifixion is the greatest painting in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is also a very powerful depiction of the struggle of faith vs. despair. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Detail of Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion, with Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460

This pair of complementary wood panel paintings has been the subject of exhaustive study. It is now believed that they were placed side-by-side on the shutters of an elaborate altarpiece. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Mark Tucker showing the placement of Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion on a model of a medieval church altarpiece, now missing

A wonderful model, which  Mark Tucker demonstrated at the press preview, shows the configuration of these Johnson collection paintings along with two others, discovered in 2012, that were part of the amazing altarpiece. The remaining paintings - and the altar - have yet to be discovered, if indeed they still exist.

Another work by Rogier van der Weyden figures in the Johnson Collection exhibit. The life-sized altarpiece, now in the Prado, Descent from the Cross, c. 1434, was copied many times. Around 1520, the Netherlandish artist, Joos van Cleve, reprieved Descent from the Cross, placing the dramatic scene against a naturalistic landscape. The original has a gold-leaf background.

Van Cleve's homage to van der Weyden has not been displayed for thirty years. It was painted on five wooden panels which have separated several times causing paint loss and other damage. The panels have also warped over time.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Lucia Bay with Joos van Cleve's The Descent from the Cross

A major conservation effort, requiring a year's exhaustive labor, was undertaken by Lucia Bay, an assistant conservator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The triumphant restoration is on display in the exhibit, enabling us to value van Cleve's painting as a major work of art. Rather than a derivative copy, van Cleve created a new version of this moving scene by van der Weyden, placing it within the context of the emerging school of landscape art.

Johnson traveled frequently to Europe to search out masterpieces. In an engaging memoir, Sight-Seeing in Berlin and Holland among Pictures (1892), he explained the philosophy upon which he based his collecting endeavors:

Art gives us real delight only when the eye derives pleasure from what is really worthy.

This is a cryptic remark, capable of being interpreted in a number of ways. Johnson closely studied art, becoming a master of appraisal. Yet the financial value of art works did not determine what was "really worthy" about the paintings and sculptures he collected.  Nor did Johnson select art works because they conformed to popular standards or the dictates of academic authority.

"Worth" derived from a process of engagement between collector and  object. Johnson carefully took the measure of the art he chose for his collection and  the paintings and sculptures, in turn, became an expression of his life, of the "the movements of his mind."

      Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of photo of John G. Johnson's home, c.1936                       Auguste Rodin's Thought appears at center

In one of the mural-sized photo's of his mansion, the one with paintings stacked floor to ceiling, we see one of the sculptures he collected. Thought by Auguste Rodin shows the head of his mistress/muse, Camille Claudel, emerging from a block of undressed marble. Rodin modeled the likeness of Claudel in clay but another artist, Camille Raynaud, did the actual sculpting.

Rodin originally called the work Thought Emerging from Matter. Looking at it in the exhibition galley of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one senses again "the movements of his mind" coming into play. Rodin's Thought clearly resonated with Johnson's powerful intellect and equally powerful emotions. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Auguste Rodin's Thought 

Upon receiving Thought, Johnson wrote to Rodin: 

[Y]our lovely marble has at last arrived and fascinates me . . . you have made that coldest of all things—marble—warm with life. I hope it will long dream in its present surroundings of paintings by the Masters of the Old and of the New Art.

That is where Rodin's Thought does indeed find its home, "dreaming" in the company of Johnson's treasures at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Its companionship with The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama,” St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata and the other great works on display is about to enter a new phase, or perhaps new "dimension" would be more exact. 

The Philadelphia Museum will soon unveil the Johnson Collection in a new digital publication. According to a press release, the Philadelphia Museum curators have "made use of a new technology implementing IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) to present digital images in a more versatile and flexible way."
When the digital version of the Johnson collection is released, I plan to do a follow-up review on this wonderful research tool.

"Masters of the Old and of the New Art" appearing in a new, digital format! There can be no more fitting way to begin the second century of the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                                           
Images courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image

Rogier van der Weyden (Netherlandish 1400-1464) Crucifixion, with Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460. Oil on panel, 71 inches × 6 feet 1 3/8 inches (180.3 × 186.4 cm)  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 335, 334. John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of photo of John G. Johnson, as a young boy, 1840's, combined with detail of Conrad F. Haeseler's Portrait of John G. Johnson, 1917. Oil on Panel, 34 x 24 inches. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Miss Julia W. Frick and Sidney W. Frick, 1971.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery View of the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit, Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection.showing photo of John G. Johnson's home. Archival Photo.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Gallery View of the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit, Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection.

Callisto Piazza (Italian,c.1500-1561/62) Musical Group, c.1520's, Oil on panel, 35 5/8 x 35 3/4 inches (90.5 x 90.8 cm) Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 234, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Antonello da Messina (Italian,1430-1479) Portrait of a Young Gentleman.  Oil on panel,

12 5/8 x 10 11/16 inches (32.1 x 27.1 cm)  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 159, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama.”  Oil on canvas, 54 1/4 x 50 3/4 inches (137.8 x 128.9 cm)  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 1027, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of Judith Leyster's The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier), c.  1639. Oil on canvas, 35 1/16 x 28 15/16 inches (89.1 x 73.5 cm).  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 440, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017), Detail of Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion, with Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, c. 1460.

Anne Lloyd, Photos (2017) Mark Tucker, Director of Conservation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, showing the placement of Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion on a model of a medieval church altarpiece, now missing. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Lucia Bay, Conservator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with Joos van Cleve's The Descent from the Cross. Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Detail of photo of John G. Johnson's home, c.1936                Auguste Rodin's Thought appears at center. Archival Photo.                                               

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2017) Auguste Rodin's Thought, modeled,1895, carved by Camille Raynaud, c.1900, Marble, 29 1/8 x 17 1/16 x 18 1/8 inches (74 x 43.4 x 46.1 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cat. 1148, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917.

Sicily: Culture and Conquest at the British Museum

Sicily: Culture and Conquest

British Museum, London 

April 21 – Aug 14, 2016 

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The island of Sicily is the subject of a fascinating exhibition currently at the British Museum, Sicily: Culture and Conquest. Like Sicily itself, the exhibit dazzles the imagination. And like this ancient land, there is much about the exhibit that does not "meet the eye." 

Strategically set in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily is a land of opposites. Bursting with fertility and abundance, the island is haunted by violence and death. It is the birthplace of some of the most creative masters of European culture: Archimedes of Syracuse (d.212 BC), Antonello da Messina (1430-1479) and Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936). It is also the homeland of the Cosa Nostra. 

In antiquity, Sicily was the setting for one of the most significant Greco-Roman myths, the story of Demeter and Persephone. When her daughter, Persephone, is abducted by Hades,  god of the underworld, Demeter wins her release for part of the year. In spring and summer, Persephone is free. Nature blooms, crops ripen - and then comes winter. This, to the ancient Greeks, explained the regenerative cycle of nature. 

But how evocative is the myth of Demeter and Persephone of the fate of Sicily! Joy mixed with an equal portion of sorrow, salvation and damnation forever linked. 

There are two hundred works of art in the British Museum exhibition, covering Sicily's history from antiquity to the Renaissance. Two periods, the rise of the Ancient Greek city-states and the Norman French rule during the Middle Ages, are extensively covered. Other eras, notably the long period of Roman rule, are illustrated with only few works of art. Given the thousands of years covered by the exhibit, this imbalance was perhaps necessary. But it does have some unfortunate consequences.

An excellent place to start grappling with Sicily: Culture and Conquest is the Terracotta Altar with Three Women. 

The altar comes from the Greek colony of Gela on the south coast of Sicily. It dates from around 500 BC, well after the first Greeks beached their galleys on the coast at Naxos in 735 BC.  In terms of style, this terracotta statue is early in the Greek artistic tradition and it represents religious and social themes even earlier - much earlier.

Terracotta Altar with Three Woman and a Lioness Mauling a Bull, 500 BC

Here we see Demeter and Persephone, along with another goddess, Hecate, who cared for Persephone in Hades during her months of wintry exile. Hecate was a goddess of very ancient origin. The three goddesses represent the Mother Goddess cult which preceded Zeus and the Olympian gods. 

Above the three goddesses on the Gela altarpiece is a depiction of a female lion or panther savagely killing a bull. Is this violent scene a reference to the female-male conflict implicit in Persephone's abduction by Hades? Does this  bloody encounter recall a myth from the pre-Greek people of Sicily, the Sicels? We are unlikely to know with certainty.

Gela was a major site of terracotta production in ancient times.The British Museum exhibit also displays a  terracotta roof ornament with head of a gorgon from a temple in Gela. Gorgons were fearsome female deities in Greek myth whose very look could turn a person to stone. This one was likely placed to protect the Gela temple in time of war. 

Antefix in the form of a Gorgoneion, c. 500 BC

Sadly, Sicily was to figure as a battleground from antiquity to the 1943 invasion by Allied forces in World War II. The principal combat in ancient times was between the Greeks in Sicily against the Phoenician maritime power, Carthage. 

The Phoenicians, originally from Lebanon, had established the major city-state of Carthage in North Africa and settlements in Sicily during the 9th century BC. These Semitic peoples were intrepid seaman, creators of the alphabet we still use and tough fighters. But they were merchants first of all. The Phoenicians preferred the art of the deal to the art of war.

There is but one work of Phoenician art in Sicily: Culture and Conquest, a mask designed to protect graves at Carthage from evil spirits. This does a disservice to Phoenician culture. Compared with the Greek art on view, it is easy to look at this grimacing image and conceive of the Phoenicians as an alien civilization.

Grave Mask from Carthage, 5th Century BC

The Greeks had early developed a jealous dislike of the Phoenicians. Sicily represented  the promised land to the Greeks and they were not prepared to share it with Carthage. Syracuse, with one of the most superb harbors in the Mediterranean, became the superpower among the Greek city-states on the island. The rulers or tyrannoi of Syracuse were determined to expand their territorial holdings over Sicily.

The British Museum exhibit displays several outstanding works of "the art of war" recalling ancient bloodshed in Sicily.  A marble statue of a warrior from the city-state of Akragas (modern-day Agrigento) was created around 470 BC. It was certainly part of a monument celebrating the resounding victory over Carthage ten years before by the Greek forces commanded by Gelon of Syracuse and Theron, the ruler of Akragas. 

Statue of a Warrior, c. 480 BC

This great battle in 480 BC, Himera, was won at the same time as the victories of Athens and Sparta against the Persian invaders, 480-479 BC. The Akragas war monument was clearly intended by the Greeks of Sicily to remind their boastful cousins in the ancestral homeland that they had triumphed over the "Barbarians" as well.

After the battle of Himera, the Greeks in Sicily followed the example of Athens, Sparta and Corinth by fighting endlessly among themselves. Carthage regained much of its strength and began to reassert its power in Sicily. After a deadly chess match lasting over two centuries both the Greeks and Carthaginians were checkmated by a new player, the Romans.

Amazingly, Carthage had been an early trade partner and ally of the fledgling Roman Republic, founded in 509 BC. It took many years for the Romans to bring the Italian peninula under their rule. All the while, they watched Carthage and the Greeks wage costly wars without either side gaining hegemony  over Sicily.

In 264 BC, the Romans made their move, clashing with Carthage in the first of the three Punic Wars. The British Museum exhibit displays a truly remarkable piece documenting the "art of war"  during those terrible conflicts. 

Bronze Rostrum or Roman naval ram, 243-241 BC

Normally,  I would hardly consider the rostrum or battering ram mounted on the prow of Roman warship as a work of art. But this menacing weapon illustrates perfectly the relentless warfare that turned Sicily into the gate of Hades for thousands and thousands of war victims, not merely for Persephone in the myth. 

The rostrum was excavated from the seabed in 2008 near Levanzo, on the western tip of Sicily. Here on March 10, 241 BC, the Roman fleet smashed the naval squadrons of Carthage in the climatic battle of the war. The rostrum came from one of the 30 Roman ships lost in the battle. 

Detail of Bronze Rostrum, showing figure of Victory, 243-241 BC

It is a measure of Roman determination and confidence that the bronze ram had been cast with a winged-figure of Victory. 

Rome was to sustain further losses in the Second Punic War, when Hannibal invaded Italy in 218 BC. But Rome won in the end, destroying Carthage in 146 BC. Sicily was reduced to vassal status. Its rich lands were turned into vast, grain-producing estates called latifundia. 

Apart from this bronze naval ram, Sicily: Culture and Conquest presents few works of art or artifacts from the Roman era. Since this period lasted for an entire millennium, up to the brief Arab conquest in 965 AD, this is a debatable curatorial decision. Indeed, it may well be a serious omission preventing a proper understanding of Sicily's history.

Sicily is the site of the greatest surviving mosaic installation of the Roman era in Europe. This is the great series of mosaic pavements at the Villa del Casale near Piazza Armerina in central Sicily. Created early in the  fourth century AD, it shows wild animal hunts and bikini-clad (or at least the Roman equivalent) female athletes. 

What the mosaics of Villa del Casale really depict is the staggering difference between the privileged lifestyle of the elite of Roman society, the honestiores, and those who served them. The grinding existence of the humiliores is notably absent from these mosaics.

It is missing too from Sicily: Culture and Conquest.                                                                                                                                                                                              . Yet, without some acknowledgement of this centuries-long impoverishment, the rise of the Cosa Nostra cannot be understood. Indeed ,the first Mafia were the Gabellotti. These were the managers whom absentee landlords during the 1800's - descendants of the honestiores - relied upon to run their estates.  The Gabellotti, with no Roman legions to fear, seized power themselves. Sicily and much of the Western world, is still dealing  with the deadly legacy of the Gabellotti.

If the British Museum exhibits skims lightly over the Roman domination of Sicily, compensation is abundantly made in the galleries devoted to the Norman Kingdom and the the reign of Frederick II. These incredible episodes from the Middle Ages are brilliantly explored, presenting art and literary treasures of a unique realm, tolerant, multilingual and open to new ideas. 

Bronze Falcon from Norman-era Sicily or Southern Italy, c. 1200-1220

The Normans arrived in Italy as mercenary knights in 1016 AD, fighting for and against just about everybody including the Pope. The Normans, descendants of the Norsemen who had raided the north of France, were mighty warriors. Christian baptism had changed them barely at all. They were Vikings on horseback. 

In  1061, the Normans launched a thirty-year campaign to "liberate" Sicily from the Arabs. The details of their campaigns and their later rule has been memorably chronicled by the great historian, John Julius Norwich in his books, The Normans in the South 1016-1130, and The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130-1194. We will concentrate on the amazing  - and unexpected - flourishing of culture under the Normans.

Like the Carthaginians, the Normans in Sicily had limited manpower. Instead of hiring mercenaries to wage war, they used others, Greeks and Arabs, to build churches, create works of art and manage the economy. 

The Virgin as Advocate for the Human Race, c. 1130 AD

The exquisite mosaic, the Virgin as Advocate for the Human Race, was made by Byzantine Greeks around 1130 AD. This was the era of King Roger II, the greatest Norman ruler. Originally from the Cathedral in Palermo, the Virgin as Advocate for the Human Race beautifully evokes the toleration that was the foundation of Roger's tremendous achievements.

The compassion and empathy in the Virgin as Advocate is reinforced by a work which symbolizes the spirit of "coexistence"  that marked the era of Roger II. It is easy to miss this funerary piece, insignificant in size, but it is key to the medieval galleries of the exhibit.

Tombstone with Eulogy to Anna, Written in Four Languages, 1149 AD

In 1149 AD, a clergyman named  Grisandus set-up this memorial plaque for his mother Anna. The eulogy was  written in the four languages used in Norman Sicily: Judaeo-Arabic (Arabic written in Hebrew script) on top, Latin on the left, Greek on the right, and Arabic below.

If only this touching, multi-language work of art could have characterized the whole course of Sicily's development from the Norman era to ours!

Unhappily, this is an "exceptional" work of art because it is an exception. Sicily's golden age came to an end when Frederick II died in 1250. The "wonder of the world" to some, Antichrist to others, Frederick was a rare example of a brilliant, tolerant and effective ruler during the Middle Ages - and today. 

Sicily: Culture and Conquest concludes with a painting believed to be a work by Antonello da Messina. One of the earliest Renaissance artists in Italy to use oil paint, Antonello was a master of psychological depth as well. His Madonna, from the collection of the National Gallery of Art in London, is vastly different from the Virgin as Advocate for the Human Race.

Antonello da Messina, Virgin and Child, c. 1460-9

The eyes of Antonello's Madonna are firmly closed. She does not look at Jesus, who is not a child but rather a weird, doll-like man. As the angels lower a glittering crown on the Madonna's head, we become aware of the dread anticipation she feels. The pain on her face reminds us of Antonello's depictions of Christ being crowned by thorns before his crucifixion. 

This jewel-covered crown may not have skin-piercing thorns. But Mary's sorrowing countenance conveys the pain it will bring. This disturbing work is entitled  - most inaccurately - The Virgin and Child. 

A much more appropriate name for this strange, haunted painting springs readily to mind:    

The Madonna of Sicily's History.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved. 
Images Courtesy of the British Museum, London, UK

Introductory Image:  
Fragment of a Metope from Temple C, Sicilian Greek, Limestone, c. 540 – 500 BC, H: 460 mm, W: 470 mm Lent by: Palermo Museo Archeologico Regionale, Antonio Salinas, Via Bara All'Olivella, 24, 90133 Palermo, Italy, museum # NI 3899                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
Terracotta Altar with Three Woman and a Lioness Mauling a Bull, Sicilian Greek, 500 BC, Terracotta H: 1140 mm, L: 750 mm, D: 350 mm Lent by: Museo Archeologico Regionale Di Gela, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 1, 93012 Gela 

Antefix in the form of a Gorgoneion, Sicilian Greek, about 500 BC, Terracotta, H: 385 mm, L: 380 mm, D: 880 mm Lent by: Museo Archeologico Regionale Di Gela, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 1, 93012 Gela

Grave Mask, Carthage, North Africa, 5th Century BC, Baked Clay, H: 17.7 cm © The Trustees of the British Museum, British Museum # 133128

Statue of a Warrior, Sicilian Greek, c. 480 BC, Marble, H: 861 mm Lent by: Lent by: Museo Archeologico Regionale di Agrigento, Contrada San Nicola, 12, Agrigento, 92100, Italy, Ag 217

Bronze Rostra from Levanzo, Roman-era Italy, 243-241 BC, Bronze, H: 700 mm, W: 500 mm Lent by: Soprintendenza per i Beni culturali e ambientali del Mare Palazzetto Mirto - Via Lungarini, 9, Lungomare Cristoforo Colombo, 4521 (Istituto Roosevelt) Palermo 90100, Italy  # Egadi 4

Bronze Falcon, Norman-era Sicily / Southern Italy, 1200-1220, Gilded Bronze, H: 279 mm, W: 165 mm, L: 79 mm Lent by: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York  Metropolitan Museum # 47.101                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Mosaic of the Virgin Haghiosoritissa, Norman-era Sicily,  12th Century, H: 750mm, W: 620mm Lent by: Museo Diocesano di Palermo, Via M. Bonello, 2, 90133 Palermo, Italy, museum # 6

Tombstone with Eulogy to Anna, Mother of Grisandus, Written in Four Languages, Church of  St. Michael the Archangel, Palermo, Sicily, 1149, Inlaid Marble, W:  410 mm, L: 320 mm, D: 45 mm max Lent by: SoprIntendeza di Palermo, Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. Via Calvi, 13, 90139 – Palermo, museum # 19304

Antonello da Messina (Sicilian, 1456-1479) Virgin and Child, c. 1460-9, Oil on wood, 43.2 x 34.3 cm National Gallery, London, UK, Salting Bequest, 1910, NG2618