Art Eyewitness Book Review: Maniera: Pontormo, Bronzino and Medici Florence

Maniera: Pontormo, Bronzino and Medici Florence

Edited by Bastian Eclercy

Prestel Publishing/304 pages/$60

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, is one of Europe's most innovative museums. The recent Städel exhibition, Maniera: Pontormo, Bronzino and Medici Florence, presented art works from one the most contentious periods of European history, Italy during the mid-1500's.

The accompanying volume to this exhibit, published by Prestel, is a work of art in itself. The abundant illustrations include copies of paintings not on display at the Städel, thus enabling more thorough comparison with those on view. The perceptive essays in the book, edited by the noted historian, Bastian Eclercy, raise many important questions - and answers -  about this controversial chapter of the Renaissance.

Gallery view of the Städel Museum exhibit, Maniera

Why Italian art of the 1500's should be a "difficult" subject can be explained in one word: mannerism. 

The Städel exhibit uses the Italian word, maniera, rather than the more familiar and dismissive Mannerism. In modern scholarship, maniera points to the many and varied interpretations of art that flourished in Italy during the 1500's. 

This change of terminology and the inspired efforts of the Städel Museum curators redirect our attention away from theories about Italian art of the 1500's to the art works themselves. It is a noble endeavor, a much needed one and it almost succeeds.

Almost. 

Mannerist art gained its clouded reputation because decisive changes were held to have occurred in Italy during the 1520's - and not for the better.

Raphael, Esterházy Madonna, c. 1507-08

Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael were dead by 1520 and art was at an impasse following the death of these inimitable masters. Likewise, Italy was ravaged by war, climaxed by the sack of Rome in 1527. The art that was created following these terrible events was held to reflect a devastating emotional malaise.

Some of the masterpieces displayed in the Städel exhibit and the Prestel catalog show the impact of the Italian Wars. Jacopo Pontormo's St. Jerome as Penitent was painted a year after Protestant troops employed by the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, pillaged the city of Rome. Charles V aimed to teach Pope Clement VII a lesson about power politics. Eight thousand people were murdered and the holiest city of  Christendom was desecrated.

Jacopo Pontormo, St. Jerome as Penitent, c.1528-29

Pontormo's St. Jerome beats his chest with a rock, having flung aside his cardinal's robe. It is one of the most searing images of a soul in agony in Renaissance art. Utterly realistic, yet surreal in its effect, Pontormo's St. Jerome powerfully evokes physical and spiritual torment.

How different is Pontormo's St. Jerome as a Penitent to the absorbed, scholarly St. Jerome of Albrecht Durer's famous engraving, dating to 1514. Nor does St. Jerome's companion, the lion, sleep contentedly as Durer depicted him. Instead, the lion in Pontormo's version looks upon the naked, suffering man with a look of incredulity... as we are likely to do, the more we study this amazing painting.

However much the tragic slaughter in Rome oppressed the minds of Renaissance painters, the sad fate of Florence had a profound effect as well. The headlined artists in the Städel exhibit, Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1556) and Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572), were both Florentines. They witnessed the destruction of the political liberties of Florence, crushed by the resurgence of  Medici power - glittering, bountiful and despotic.
                                                                                     
Pontormo learned his craft in the studio of Andrea del Sarto, one of the greatest Renaissance masters of desegno or drawing. This was the specialty of Florentine artists and Pontormo took del Sarto's lessons to new levels of excellence. One of the outstanding works in the Städel exhibit is a drawing in red chalk which for many years was mistakenly ascribed to del Sarto.

Jacopo Pontormo, Study of Two Standing Women, c. 1515

Study of Two Standing Women was proven, as far back as 1958, to have been drawn by Pontormo. It has still to be properly acclaimed, for as Eclercy writes in the Prestel catalog, "it has not received the attention it deserves: it is, after all, one of the single most virtuoso drawings of Pontormo's early phase."

The sense of energy, potential and kinetic, of this drawing, dated to 1515, is incredible. We can see a prefiguring of the writhing movement of the tormented St. Jerome in this drawing. Even more remarkable, is the way that we sense the flow of power, of vigor, that will propel the bodies of these women forward and off the page.

If a thread of development can be traced from Pontormo's early sketches to his St. Jerome as Penitent, that is a rare case of continuity. Pontormo was one of the most searching and eccentric artists in history. His famous Deposition from the Cross - which did not appear in the Städel exhibit - has a brilliant color scheme totally at odds with its somber subject. Nothing in Pontormo's variegated work, however, prepares us for the mythology-themed paintings which he created in the 1530's.

Whatever their style, Pontormo's works prior to 1530 had been notable for their religious feeling. His Venus and Cupid, though based on  a drawing by Michelangelo, is alarmingly erotic. 

Jacopo Pontormo, Venus and Cupid, c. 1533

Venus and Cupid is a "pagan" work of art, not unlike the first century frescoes that would be discovered in Pompeii centuries later. But Pontormo was a Christian artist and so was his disciple and student, Agnolo Bronzino. Here was "mannerist" art that was a radical departure from anything that had come before.

Bronzino painted his version of Venus and Cupid, even more sexually charged, around 1545. It did not appear in the Städel exhibit. Instead the exhibit wisely focused on Bronzino's portrait painting. During the 1530's, portrait commissions shifted from providing images of saints or clergymen to "power portraits" - Medici power.

Florence was a city with a strong tradition of civil liberties. Around the time of the sack of Rome, the Florentines took advantage of the turmoil in Italy to re-establish their cherished Republic. But a catastrophic outbreak of plague claimed 36,000 lives.

Alarmed at this resurgence of political independence in Florence, Charles V, Pope Clement VII and the Medici staged a rapprochement. They conveniently "forgot" about the sack of Rome. The desperately weakened Florence was besieged by their forces and fell after a heroic resistance in August 1530.                                                                      

Political liberty was dead in Italy and artists like Pontormo and Bronzino had to adapt.

Bronzino was a brilliant portrait painter, as can readily be seen in his Portrait of a Lady in Green, painted between 1530-32. It is a work in the evolving tradition of Renaissance portraiture whereby the life-like image of the sitter permits insight into her inner character as well. 

Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of a Lady in Green, c. 1530-32

Psychological insight of the kind that Bronzino showed in Lady in Green in 1530 was no longer desirable in 1537. The Medici, restored to power, wished to be depicted as austere, unflinching authority figures. Having little real power, these Italian nobles wished to be seen as all powerful.

Bronzino's Portrait of a Lady in Red, which serves as the introductory image of this review, is believed to represent Francesca Salviati, the aunt of a Medici duke, Cosimo I. It is tremendously accomplished in many ways. Yet, it is a disturbing work, very much of the kind that has raised "red flags" about Mannerism.

The impassive, "ice goddess" countenance of the Lady in Red is really a mask rather than an accurate likeness. The face is almost androgynous and is drained of individuality, empathy and the marks of life experience. Lady in Red is a Renaissance Athena, a personification rather than a person. 

Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of a Lady In Red, (detail)

Looking closely at the charming, skillfully-modeled lapdog held by Lady in Red, I wonder if Bronzino was making a sly comment on the restored Medici regime in Florence. As Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, used to say of the treacherous backstabbing in Washington D.C., "If you want a friend in this town, get a dog."

Debate has long raged over whether Mannerism represented a decline in standards or a reformulation in Renaissance art. These shifts in appraisal are examined in an excellent essay in the Prestel book.

During the 1500's, it was the judgment of the Catholic Church on the merits of Mannerist art that carried the most weight. When a Christian martyr, St. Sebastian, was depicted by Bronzino as a smiling, beautiful, nearly-naked boy, pierced by a Cupid's arrow, the reaction of the Catholic Church was not hard to predict.

Agnolo Bronzino, St. Sebastian, c. 1528-29

In 1545, Church leaders convened the Council of Trent to reform  Christendom following the Protestant Reformation. Religious art was a major agenda item.

Religious art, according to the Council of Trent must affect the emotions of the Christian faithful, not provide erotic enjoyment or cerebral reflection. In his wonderful book, Renaissance, Andrew Graham-Dixon quotes Gabriele Paleotti, the bishop of Bologna, on the Catholic Church's zealous attitude to art.                                                                                                    
Paleotti wrote in 1582 that the aim of religious art is to  leave Christians feeling "shattered" by depictions of Christ's crucifixion or a saint's martyrdom.

If a work of religious art fails to stimulate a Christian's ardor, then Paleotti wrote "we must be made of marble or wood if we do not feel deeply moved, if our piety is not stimulated afresh and our inner being is not deeply affected by remorse and devotion."

In the eyes of the Church, a statue or a painting that remained "marble or wood" rather than a testament of faith was deeply offensive.  Artists who created such works were censured, even the great Michelangelo.

Bronzino's Portrait of Eleonora di Toledo at the Städel Museum exhibit, Maniera

The debate over Mannerism which began with the Council of Trent has continued to this day. It is never likely to be resolved because the issues involved were meaningful  in the 1500's and remain so. True religious art cannot remain a thing of "marble or wood." Yet artists must have the freedom to create works in their own "manner."

The outstanding effort that went into Maniera, both the Städel exhibit and the Prestel catalog, represents a major step in judging this key episode in the story of Western art. In the future dialog about Mannerism, Maniera will serve as a long-standing point of reference.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Images courtesy of the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

Introductory image and detail:
Agnolo Bronzino (Italian, 1503–1572) Portrait of a Lady In Red (Francesca Salviati?), c. 1533. Oil on poplar, 89.8 x 70.5 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. Foto: Städel Museum – ARTOTHEK

Gallery view of the Städel Museum exhibit, Maniera.  Photo: Städel Museum 

Raphael (Italian, 1483–1520) Esterházy Madonna, c. 1507-08. Oil on panel, 29 x 21.5 cm. Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 2016

Jacopo Pontormo (Italian, 1494–1557) St. Jerome as Penitent, c. 1528/29. Oil on poplar, 105 x 80 cm. Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover. Photo: Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover – ARTOTHEK

Jacopo Pontormo (Italian, 1494–1557) Study of Two Standing Women, c. 1515. Red chalk on paper, 39,3 x 26,1 cm. Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung. 

Jacopo Pontormo (Italian, 1494–1557) after a cartoon by Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Venus and Cupid, c. 1533. Oil on panel,  128 x 194 cm. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florenz
© Foto: Antonio Quattrone

Agnolo Bronzino (Italian, 1503–1572) Portrait of a Lady in Green, c. 1530-32. Oil on poplar, 76,6 x 66,2 cm. Windsor Castle, State Apartments, Windsor. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015

Agnolo Bronzino (Italian, 1503–1572) St. Sebastian, c. 1528-28. Oil on panel, 87 x 76,5 cm.
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid


Portrait of Eleonora di Toledo at the Städel Museum exhibit, Maniera. Photo: Städel Museum 

Monet and the Birth of Impressionism

Monet and the Birth of Impressionism 

By Felix Krämer and others 

Prestel/$65/296 pages 

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Monet and the Birth of Impressionism, the new exhibit at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main, is part of a worldwide reappraisal of the role of the Impressionist painters in the rise of modern art.

Last year, an intriguing exhibition at the Musée Marmottan in Paris focused on Claude Monet's iconic work, Impression, Sunrise, which helped provide the "New Painting" with an unforgettable title. Another major art survey now at the National Gallery in London, later to appear at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, traces the pivotal role of the art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, in the triumph of Impressionism.  A retrospective of the fellow member (and patron) of the Impressionists, Gustave Caillebotte, is due at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in the summer of 2015.

The Monet exhibit at the Städel might well get overlooked, given the number of other Impressionist-themed art shows. Thanks to an outstanding companion volume published by Prestel, that's not likely to happen.

Exhibition view of "Monet and the Birth of Impressionism" Photo: Städel Museum

There is no substitute, of course, for viewing an art work or art exhibition "in the flesh." The curators of the Städel have assembled a particularly impressive array of Impressionist masterpieces. But other museums have mounted great exhibits, as well, the jaw-dropping 2013 Impressionism: Fashion and Modernity at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, being a case in point. 

Monet and the Birth of Impressionism makes a major statement (in fact several) on the Impressionist era. It takes works of art which are very familiar and puts them under an interpretive microscope. The results are often unexpected. The chief curator of the exhibition, Felix Krämer, writing about a painting by Monet, The Luncheon, makes a passing comment that could well serve as a verdict for the entire Impressionist epoch.
Questioning conventional interpretations of this imposing early work, Krämer states that "in Monet's Luncheon nothing is what it initially seems."

Claude Monet, The Luncheon, 1868

The Luncheon, painted in 1868-69, is a fitting work to begin a consideration of the exhibit and the companion book by Prestel. Monet's painting is deliberately restrained in the color palette he chose, shades of browns and grays, black and the silvery white of the table cloth. In subject matter, Monet took what appears to be a very conservative, prosaic theme - a family meal. Yet "nothing is what it initially seems."

Monet hearkened to Charles Baudelaire's controversial 1863 essay, “The Painter of Modern Life.”  Baudelaire scoffed at the decadent Romans and medieval jongleurs filling the canvases at the annual Paris Salon. Instead, Baudelaire extolled a new kind of artist who would find meaning in the day-to-day reality of life:

He is looking for that indefinable something we may be allowed to call ‘modernity’, for want of a better term to express the idea in question. The aim for him is to extract from fashion the poetry that resides in its historical envelope, to distil the eternal from the transitory.

Monet "extracted" from daily routine a timeless image of family love and harmony. However, even in this celebration of one of the joys of life there are hidden ironies. 

Krämer notes that Monet was in desperate financial circumstances when he painted The Luncheon. The setting was a friend's home, where he was staying with Camille Doncieux and their son, Jean, born out-of-wedlock. Camille's left hand, still without a wedding ring, is obscured. She likely posed for the enigmatic woman in black. Monet was too poor to afford paying a model.

Monet delayed exhibiting The Luncheon, after it was completed, because he feared it would be seized by his creditors. In any case, the monumental size of the work was another controversial point. Monet chose a large-scale format that the art establishment deemed suitable for high-minded historical works, not a baby's lunch. In 1870, the Salon rejected The Luncheon along with Monet's evocation of Sunday bathers, rippling water currents and dappled shade, La Grenouillère.

Claude Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869

is well-known, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir painted versions of the riverside resort, side-by-side. The Städel exhibit displays a smaller rendition of La Grenouillère by Monet. The original was destroyed during World War II. Here is another ironic element in the story of Impressionism. La Grenouillère was painted in 1869, as people sought to escape, if only for a Sunday afternoon swim, the clouds of war gathering over France.

Napoleon III's decadent empire collapsed in 1870 amid smashing military defeats by the Germans and a revolt of the Parisian working class in the aftermath of la Débâcle. 

Jules Andrieu, Ruins of the Paris Commune, 1871

Impressionism arose not from a weekend jaunt in the country but from corpse-strewn battlefields and the ashes of the Paris Commune. Indeed, the original idea for a special exhibit by the Impressionists was proposed before the war by Monet's friend and fellow painter, Frederic Bazille, who was killed-in-action in November 1870.

Use of the terms Impressionism or Impressionist before the opening of the first exhibition of the "New Painting" in 1874 is another of the "nothing is what it initially seems" elements of the Impressionist story.

According to the endlessly repeated legend of Impressionism's birth, Louis Leroy (1812 - 1885) dubbed Monet, Renoir and the other "Independents" as Impressionists. Leroy, a witty journalist for Le Charivari, coined the term from a pun on the title of Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise. 

Amédée Charles Henri de Noé, Caricature in Le Charivari, April 16, 1877

Leroy's sarcasm certainly provided some notoriety for Monet's group and cartoonists aimed volley after satiric volley at the artists. But Felix Krämer's brilliant analysis demolishes the founding myth of Impressionism which maintains that the first group exhibit in 1874 was an abject failure and that Leroy's bon mot gave the artistic movement its name.

Basing his conclusions on the records of the Paris newspapers and journals who sent correspondents to the 1874 Impressionist Salon, Krämer notes that "out of about 50 reviews, only seven are negative, among them Leroy's satire." Furthermore, the term Impressionist had already been applied to several pioneering landscape painters like Charles Daubigny who had been called "leader of the School of Impression" in 1865.

As a crowning stroke, Krämer notes that most of the media criticism of the 1874 exhibit focused upon including works by conservative, realist painters in the display which were not up to the standard of the "lively, succinct, dashing, simply bewitching" style of the Impressionists. 

Impressionism had a very long pedigree reaching back to the Barbizon painters and beyond. The Städel Museum collection has rich holdings from the pre-history of Impressionism. These include works by very fine artists like Antoine Chintreuil (1814-1873), whom I am rather embarrassed to say I had never heard of before. (Chintreuil is not listed in the Oxford Dictionary of Art, either.)

Antoine Chintreuil, Landscape with Sunlight and Rainclouds, 1870

Chintreuil's The Rain Shower reminds me of Approaching Thunder Storm by Martin Johnson Heade (1819–1904). This great landscape was painted just before the American Civil War and has come to symbolize the threatening political atmosphere leading to that conflict. Heade painted Approaching Thunder Storm based upon a sketch of an actual storm. Chintreuil worked directly from nature too. Perhaps, the rather mystifying group of peasant women - one of whom seems to be staging a sit-down strike - was simply an event he actually witnessed and was not included as an allegorical element.

Claude Monet, Summer (Meadow at Bezons), 1874

Monet painted a similar landscape in 1874, Summer (Meadow at Bezons), with a women relaxing in the field. But there is absolutely no need to wonder about underlying meanings here. By 1874, Monet and most of the Impressionists had completely discarded symbolism, allegory and historical references, all the artistic elements that had been used to justify landscape painting. The young woman in Summer is simply taking a rest.

Before long, Monet almost entirely abandoned including people in his landscapes. Monet's 1873 Luncheon totally marginalized his son, Jean, and wife Camille. Unlike the 1868 Luncheon, they are mere bystanders, literally "in the shade" rather than "center stage."  

Claude Monet, The Luncheon: Decorative Panel,1873

Monet's path to the Eden of Giverny was a road he traveled on before the actual beginning of Impressionism. The Städel exhibit includes one of Monet's earliest landscapes, The Chailly Road through the Forest of Fontainebleau (1865). It shows his growing obsession with the atmosphere of the surrounding landscape at the expense of all else. As Paul Cezanne later declared, "Monet is only an eye, but my God, what an eye!"

Claude Monet,The Chailly Road through the Forest of Fontainebleau, 1865

Impressionists who continued to depict people in their paintings, such as Edgar Degas and Berthe Morisot, were likewise more concerned with the essence of visual reality.They expended less and less effort on capturing the personal features and details of dress of their subjects. A fascinating essay on Morisot in the Prestel book recounts how she was criticized for her lack of finish. The writer, Ingrid Pfieffer, quotes Morisot, showing her extreme intelligence and grasp of the true nature of art.

"The eternal distinction between drawing and colour is childish," Morisot declared, "since colour is only an expression of form."

Berthe Morisot,  Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight, 1875

As Impressionism developed, all of the Impressionists focused on representing "this moment." Time itself became the chief subject of their work. In another brilliant essay in the book, André Dombrowski writes that Impressionism's "quick and unfinished touch seems to have provided the modern cultures of speed - exemplified by the velocities of railway travel and telegraphic communication - with their first appropriately modernist form."

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral: The Portal, Morning Effect, 1893-1894

Impressionism reached its climax during the 1880's. Neo-Impressionism, articulated in Georges Seurat's exacting dot-as-stroke Pointillism was introduced at the last Impressionist Salon in 1886. As Dombrowski notes, these revolutionary artistic movements took place just as the industrialized world assumed its mature form and time itself was standardized to insure that workers everywhere, from factory hands to Impressionist painters, kept to schedule.

Monet and the Birth of Impressionism, both the exhibit at the Städel Museum and the splendid companion volume published by Prestel, provide meaningful insights into the world that Monet, Renoir, Morisot and the rest observed and immortalized on their canvases.

If their era was but a fleeting instant in human history, the Impressionists certainly measured up to Baudelaire's injunction. Live in the present moment and "distill the eternal from the transitory."

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Images courtesy of the  Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City and Prestel. 

Introductory Image                                                                                                           

Cover Image, Courtesy of Prestel

Exhibition view "Monet and the Birth of Impressionism" Photo: Städel Museum

Claude Monet (1840-1926) The Luncheon, 1868. Oil on canvas, 231.5 x 151 cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main Photo: Städel Museum – ARTOTHEK © Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), La Grenouillère, 1869. Oil on canvas, 29 3/8 x 39 1/4 in. (74.6 x 99.7 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929, Accession Number: 29.100.112, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Jules Andrieu (1838–1884) Ruins of the Paris Commune, 1871. The Hôtel de Ville after Fire, 4th arrondissement, Paris, 1871. Albuminprint, 28,6 x 37,6 cm Paris, Musée Carnavalet Photo: Jules Andrieu / Musée Carnavalet / Roger-Viollet

Amédée Charles Henri de Noé (French, 1819-1879) Madame! Cela ne serait pas prudent. Retirez-vous!, 1877. Published in: Le Charivari, 16. April 1877 Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main Photo: Städel Museum – ARTOTHEK © Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

Antoine Chintreuil (French, 1814-1873) Landscape with Sunlight and Rainclouds, 1870.
Oil on canvas, 96 x 133,5 cm Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main Photo: Städel Museum - ARTOTHEK Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main / Property of Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) Summer (Meadow at Bezons), 1874. Oil on canvas 57 x 80 cm Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie Photo: bpk / Nationalgalerie, SMB / Jörg P. Anders

Claude Monet (1840-1926) The Luncheon: Decorative Panel,1873. Oil on canvas 160 x 201 cm Musée d`Orsay, Paris Photo: bpk | RMN - Grand Palais | Patrice Schmidt © Musée d`Orsay, legs de Gustave Caillebotte, 1894

Claude Monet (1840-1926) The Chailly Road through the Forest of Fontainebleau, 1865.
Oil on canvas 97 x 130,5 cm Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen Photo: Pernille Klemp © Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926) Rouen Cathedral: The Portal, Morning Effect, 1893-1894. Oil on canvas, 110 x 73 cm Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Sammlung Beyeler
Photo: Robert Bayer, Basel