DOI article:
Czekalski, Stanisław: Jan Białostocki, Goya's "Third of May", and the aporias of research on the genetic relations of paintings
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52534#0098
tent of the adapted painting, wishing the beholder to
associate the two works on that level. When Dürer
represented Adam, following the model of Apollo,
"most likely he did not care if the connection was noticed by
the beholder. He made a new painting, using a perfect ico-
nographie schéma of the old work, and the perfect form bo-
rrowed from the pagan deity ... was supposed to affect the
beholder by itself.”42 * There are, however, allusive ico-
nographie transpositions which can be properly un-
derstood only by comparing the transforming work
with the transformed one. “Approaching a work based
on an allusive transformation, the beholder must realize that
he is facing an ‘ambiguous’ object, whose old content is still
alive and combined with the new one."^ Bialostocki gave
an example of allegorical portraits: in such cases the
point is to represent “one person as another whose
dignity, according to the artist’s intention, is trans-
ferred onto the sitter to be appropriately sensed by
the beholder.”44 A relationship of this kind is obvious
when the sitter is equipped with a proper costume or
attributes clearly identifying his alter ego (Bronzino’s
“Andrea Doria as Neptune”, “Cardinal Albrecht of
Brandenburg as St. Jerome” by Cranach). Yet other
examples referred to by Bialostocki seem more du-
bious: is Callimachus on the epitaph tablet by Wit
Stwosz (Cracow, Dominican church) supposed to be
recognized as an evangelist or a Church Father, while
a woman hugging children on a portrait by Reynolds
(London, National Gallery) is a personification of
Caritas? On what basis are we to décidé whether the
artists actually had such allusive intentions or — to
summon Gombrich’s theory — they just corrected
schemes which they considered quite obvious for re-
présentations of a scholar in his study or a loving mo-
ther because they could not find others, equally per-
tinent? How can we know that the dead worker from
Daumier’s etching was supposed, in the artisťs in-
tention, to be recognized as a modern incarnation of
Christ? After all, this can by no means be confirmed.
Such doubts can be continued to include a question
if the frame subject, understood in most general terms
as an idea which serves as a common denominator
for the content of the paintings compared is not, in
fact, just an effect of the Interpreters interpictorial
42 Ibidem, p. 155. In a footnote, the author adds: “Applying all
the proportions of the Belvedere Apollo to Christ Resurrected in his
‘Small Passion', Dürer hoped that tbe connection would be noticed."
associations projected on the artistic origin of the work
and the artisťs intention. Having adopted (although
to a limited degree and with objections) the assump-
tions of structuralism and the theory of archétypes,
Bialostocki could believe that due to the common deep
structure of the human mind his own associations
related to the elementary meanings of paintings cor-
responded to those of their makers. Is it not true,
however, that the same painting, with all his aspects
of content, can be associated with many others, re-
vealing different “frame ideas’f For instance, as re-
gards Poussin’s “Rinaldo and Armida”, one may as-
sign to it a number of frame subjects (i.e. the alleged
artisťs intentions), formulating them differently, de-
pending on other représentations that would come
to one’s mind, such as, to follow Bialostocki, the an-
tique iconography ofSelene and Endymion (the frame
subject: “visitation of the sleeping hero by the heroine"'), or
Correggio painting “Venus, Satyr, and Cupid” (the
frame subject: “a beautiful human figure sleeping under
the trees, lustfully watched by an individual of the opposite
sex”), or Titians “Danae” (the frame subject: "a beau-
tiful human figure which aroused someone’s love, lying with
provocatively spread legs"), or “The Sacrifice of Isaac”
(the frame subject: “a wingedfigure halts a knife aimed
atan unarmedyouth”). Besides, regardless of that pano-
ply of possible thematic associations triggered by
“Rinaldo and Armida”, which point to different ré-
férencés from the tradition of représentation and mo-
dels, in terms of the arrangement of the whole scene
and connections between figures, Poussin’s painting
reveals particularly striking analogies with a work
unrelated to it by any meaningful frame subject. It is
Raphael’s “Madonna with a Veil” (called also “Ma-
donna with a Diadem”) — one of the “archétypal" Ma-
donnas of the Italian artist. A distinct similarity of
the two paintings, accidentai or not, makes it equally
possible to claim that “Rinaldo and Armida” is
a perverse travesty of the image of Holý Mary’s love
of the Child.
Bialostocki’s theory, assuming that an interpréta-
tion reflects the key intention of the work and that
the interpictorial associations of the beholder repeat
the more or less conscious associations of the artist,
43 Ibidem, p. 154.
44 Ibidem, p. 153.
96
associate the two works on that level. When Dürer
represented Adam, following the model of Apollo,
"most likely he did not care if the connection was noticed by
the beholder. He made a new painting, using a perfect ico-
nographie schéma of the old work, and the perfect form bo-
rrowed from the pagan deity ... was supposed to affect the
beholder by itself.”42 * There are, however, allusive ico-
nographie transpositions which can be properly un-
derstood only by comparing the transforming work
with the transformed one. “Approaching a work based
on an allusive transformation, the beholder must realize that
he is facing an ‘ambiguous’ object, whose old content is still
alive and combined with the new one."^ Bialostocki gave
an example of allegorical portraits: in such cases the
point is to represent “one person as another whose
dignity, according to the artist’s intention, is trans-
ferred onto the sitter to be appropriately sensed by
the beholder.”44 A relationship of this kind is obvious
when the sitter is equipped with a proper costume or
attributes clearly identifying his alter ego (Bronzino’s
“Andrea Doria as Neptune”, “Cardinal Albrecht of
Brandenburg as St. Jerome” by Cranach). Yet other
examples referred to by Bialostocki seem more du-
bious: is Callimachus on the epitaph tablet by Wit
Stwosz (Cracow, Dominican church) supposed to be
recognized as an evangelist or a Church Father, while
a woman hugging children on a portrait by Reynolds
(London, National Gallery) is a personification of
Caritas? On what basis are we to décidé whether the
artists actually had such allusive intentions or — to
summon Gombrich’s theory — they just corrected
schemes which they considered quite obvious for re-
présentations of a scholar in his study or a loving mo-
ther because they could not find others, equally per-
tinent? How can we know that the dead worker from
Daumier’s etching was supposed, in the artisťs in-
tention, to be recognized as a modern incarnation of
Christ? After all, this can by no means be confirmed.
Such doubts can be continued to include a question
if the frame subject, understood in most general terms
as an idea which serves as a common denominator
for the content of the paintings compared is not, in
fact, just an effect of the Interpreters interpictorial
42 Ibidem, p. 155. In a footnote, the author adds: “Applying all
the proportions of the Belvedere Apollo to Christ Resurrected in his
‘Small Passion', Dürer hoped that tbe connection would be noticed."
associations projected on the artistic origin of the work
and the artisťs intention. Having adopted (although
to a limited degree and with objections) the assump-
tions of structuralism and the theory of archétypes,
Bialostocki could believe that due to the common deep
structure of the human mind his own associations
related to the elementary meanings of paintings cor-
responded to those of their makers. Is it not true,
however, that the same painting, with all his aspects
of content, can be associated with many others, re-
vealing different “frame ideas’f For instance, as re-
gards Poussin’s “Rinaldo and Armida”, one may as-
sign to it a number of frame subjects (i.e. the alleged
artisťs intentions), formulating them differently, de-
pending on other représentations that would come
to one’s mind, such as, to follow Bialostocki, the an-
tique iconography ofSelene and Endymion (the frame
subject: “visitation of the sleeping hero by the heroine"'), or
Correggio painting “Venus, Satyr, and Cupid” (the
frame subject: “a beautiful human figure sleeping under
the trees, lustfully watched by an individual of the opposite
sex”), or Titians “Danae” (the frame subject: "a beau-
tiful human figure which aroused someone’s love, lying with
provocatively spread legs"), or “The Sacrifice of Isaac”
(the frame subject: “a wingedfigure halts a knife aimed
atan unarmedyouth”). Besides, regardless of that pano-
ply of possible thematic associations triggered by
“Rinaldo and Armida”, which point to different ré-
férencés from the tradition of représentation and mo-
dels, in terms of the arrangement of the whole scene
and connections between figures, Poussin’s painting
reveals particularly striking analogies with a work
unrelated to it by any meaningful frame subject. It is
Raphael’s “Madonna with a Veil” (called also “Ma-
donna with a Diadem”) — one of the “archétypal" Ma-
donnas of the Italian artist. A distinct similarity of
the two paintings, accidentai or not, makes it equally
possible to claim that “Rinaldo and Armida” is
a perverse travesty of the image of Holý Mary’s love
of the Child.
Bialostocki’s theory, assuming that an interpréta-
tion reflects the key intention of the work and that
the interpictorial associations of the beholder repeat
the more or less conscious associations of the artist,
43 Ibidem, p. 154.
44 Ibidem, p. 153.
96