DOI issue:
Nr. 3-4
DOI article:Recenzje
DOI article:Ames-Lewis, Francis: [Rezension von: Patricia Lee Rubin, Alison Wright (Hg.), Renaissance florence: the art of the 1470s, Bernard Aikema, Beverly Louise Brown (Hg.), Il Rinascimento a Venezia e la pittura del Nord ai tempi de Bellini, Dürer, Tiziano]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49350#0683
662
Francis Ames-Lewis
2. Antonio Pollaiuolo, Three fighting nudes,
Cambridge (Mass), Fogg Art Museum,
1940.9. Pen, ink and wash on paper
2. Antonio Pollaiuolo, Trzej walczący nadzy
mężczyźni, Cambridge (Mass), Fogg Art
Museum, 1940.9. Rysunek piórkiem
lawowany, na papierze
a magnificent Valencian lustreware jug (81),
probably madę for Lorenzo the Magnificent, a group
of six engravings ‘on themes of love and chastity’,
several paintings and the elaborate drawing of
‘Abundance’ (London, British Museum; 87) by
Botticelli, and a marble female bust (82) attributed
to Andrea del Verrocchio but which looked to some
observers morę like a 19th-century imitation of
Florentine Renaissance portrait-bust sculpture.
At the latter end, the coherence of the exhibition
began somewhat to fali apart; the last room in
particular appeared to be the depository of all works
of art that could not be fitted in elsewhere. This may,
of course, have represemed reasonably accurately
how a ‘beautiful camera’ in the 1470s would have
appeared: contemporary inventory listings suggest
that such rooms contained a fairly miscellaneous
collection of paintings and other objects. Earlier on,
however, the display was much morę cohercnt, and
the two rooms devoted to the arts of the Verrocchio
workshop were especially magnificent. A series of
generous loans madę it possible to bring together
almost all the known drawings by Verrocchio
himself, and an instructive group by members of his
workshop through which aspects of the training
received by his apprentices were illustrated. Some
of these drawings were tellingly related with the
remarkable group of paintings and terracotta
sculptures that had also been assembled. The
juxtaposition of a study of an angel (16), finely
executed in silverpoint by Lorenzo di Credi, with the
terracotta Angels (Paris, Louvre; 14-15) by
Verrocchio, which are generałly (though not by the
curators of this exhibition) associated with the
Forteguerri Monument in Pistoia, neatly suggested
the intimate interdependence of the two- and the
three-dimensional in Verrocchio’s art. This was
reinforced by the juxtaposition of the Madonna and
Child (27) in Frankfurt (here attributed to Piermatteo
d’Amelia) with an almost identical composition in
terracotta (28), probably by Francesco di Simone
Ferrucci. Both this type of use and reuse of
standardized motifs, such as the pose here of the
Christchild, and the close interrelationships between
different members of the workshop, were re-
emphasized in shcets of sketches by the same artist
(42) and by Verrocchio himself (36). This was
a selection of exhibits and exhibition display at their
very best.
In tribute to the significance of classical art as
inspiration in this period, there was a group of
artistic responses, in sculpture (the Lisbon Head of
a Warrior from the Luca della Robbia workshop;
62), drawing (Leonardo da Vinci’s early ‘Head of A
Warrior’ in the British Museum; 63) and engraving,
to Verrocchio’s lost marble reliefs of Alexander and
Darius, given by Lorenzo the Magnificent de’
Medici to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
Eąually impressive was the collection of works by
Antonio Pollaiuolo and his circle. With the
exception of the National Gallery’s own Martyrdom
ofSt Sebastian (43), which was the focus of the long
vista through the main gallery, the hanging of this
section of the exhibition was somewhat congested.
Nevertheless, once again the juxtaposition of this
altarpiece and the New Haven Hercules, Nessus and
Deianeira (46), with a series of ‘heroic’ drawings
and engravings of the małe nudę (44, 47, 50-51,53-
57) by Antonio Pollaiuolo, madę for telling
comparisons.
Most remarkable in the display of ‘Sacred
Beauty’ was a little-known Pieta (72) by Filippino
Lippi, loaned from Cherbourg and specially cleaned
for this exhibition. This exquisite painting showed
the intensity of Filippino’s debt to Netherlandish
painting in generał at the beginning of his career, and
to Rogier van der Weyden’s Uffizi Entombment,
Francis Ames-Lewis
2. Antonio Pollaiuolo, Three fighting nudes,
Cambridge (Mass), Fogg Art Museum,
1940.9. Pen, ink and wash on paper
2. Antonio Pollaiuolo, Trzej walczący nadzy
mężczyźni, Cambridge (Mass), Fogg Art
Museum, 1940.9. Rysunek piórkiem
lawowany, na papierze
a magnificent Valencian lustreware jug (81),
probably madę for Lorenzo the Magnificent, a group
of six engravings ‘on themes of love and chastity’,
several paintings and the elaborate drawing of
‘Abundance’ (London, British Museum; 87) by
Botticelli, and a marble female bust (82) attributed
to Andrea del Verrocchio but which looked to some
observers morę like a 19th-century imitation of
Florentine Renaissance portrait-bust sculpture.
At the latter end, the coherence of the exhibition
began somewhat to fali apart; the last room in
particular appeared to be the depository of all works
of art that could not be fitted in elsewhere. This may,
of course, have represemed reasonably accurately
how a ‘beautiful camera’ in the 1470s would have
appeared: contemporary inventory listings suggest
that such rooms contained a fairly miscellaneous
collection of paintings and other objects. Earlier on,
however, the display was much morę cohercnt, and
the two rooms devoted to the arts of the Verrocchio
workshop were especially magnificent. A series of
generous loans madę it possible to bring together
almost all the known drawings by Verrocchio
himself, and an instructive group by members of his
workshop through which aspects of the training
received by his apprentices were illustrated. Some
of these drawings were tellingly related with the
remarkable group of paintings and terracotta
sculptures that had also been assembled. The
juxtaposition of a study of an angel (16), finely
executed in silverpoint by Lorenzo di Credi, with the
terracotta Angels (Paris, Louvre; 14-15) by
Verrocchio, which are generałly (though not by the
curators of this exhibition) associated with the
Forteguerri Monument in Pistoia, neatly suggested
the intimate interdependence of the two- and the
three-dimensional in Verrocchio’s art. This was
reinforced by the juxtaposition of the Madonna and
Child (27) in Frankfurt (here attributed to Piermatteo
d’Amelia) with an almost identical composition in
terracotta (28), probably by Francesco di Simone
Ferrucci. Both this type of use and reuse of
standardized motifs, such as the pose here of the
Christchild, and the close interrelationships between
different members of the workshop, were re-
emphasized in shcets of sketches by the same artist
(42) and by Verrocchio himself (36). This was
a selection of exhibits and exhibition display at their
very best.
In tribute to the significance of classical art as
inspiration in this period, there was a group of
artistic responses, in sculpture (the Lisbon Head of
a Warrior from the Luca della Robbia workshop;
62), drawing (Leonardo da Vinci’s early ‘Head of A
Warrior’ in the British Museum; 63) and engraving,
to Verrocchio’s lost marble reliefs of Alexander and
Darius, given by Lorenzo the Magnificent de’
Medici to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
Eąually impressive was the collection of works by
Antonio Pollaiuolo and his circle. With the
exception of the National Gallery’s own Martyrdom
ofSt Sebastian (43), which was the focus of the long
vista through the main gallery, the hanging of this
section of the exhibition was somewhat congested.
Nevertheless, once again the juxtaposition of this
altarpiece and the New Haven Hercules, Nessus and
Deianeira (46), with a series of ‘heroic’ drawings
and engravings of the małe nudę (44, 47, 50-51,53-
57) by Antonio Pollaiuolo, madę for telling
comparisons.
Most remarkable in the display of ‘Sacred
Beauty’ was a little-known Pieta (72) by Filippino
Lippi, loaned from Cherbourg and specially cleaned
for this exhibition. This exquisite painting showed
the intensity of Filippino’s debt to Netherlandish
painting in generał at the beginning of his career, and
to Rogier van der Weyden’s Uffizi Entombment,