DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53068#0135
ROMAN PORTRAITS
world from his exalted station; such was his character, finding expression even
in the choice of colours. The black velvet with grey shading stands out against
a greyish-golden ground—the grey of the sleeves with slate-coloured shadows
and cool golden reflections. Such refinement of dress, with its materials carefully
chosen to match one another, may be found elsewhere only in Romanino’s
warriors in the frescoes at Cremona. This, then, was “1’elegante Castiglione”,
as Ariosto called him in his forty-second Satire. He himself voices the opinion
(Cortegiano, II, 27) that the cortegiano should not wear bright-hued clothes but
more sober colours—black, brown or grey; he should, in fact, show the “riposo” of
his inner self, a superior calm, in his outward appearance also. Castiglione himself
appeared on a mission to the French Court dressed in the Spanish fashion, which
at that time meant in discreet colours. These fashionable shades were a foreshadow-
ing of the “Spanish costume”; a century later they are an indication of the Puritan
taste of the Northern bourgeoisie. For this reason the light in the greyish-gold of
the velvet sleeve and the wealth of shades of black and brown could not fail
to make a deep impression on the republican Rembrandt, and to strike in him
related harmonies. In this connection it is always well to recollect that Rem-
brandt saw the picture without the Louvre varnish of two and a half centuries,
and that perhaps he found it less “golden” or “Rembrandtesque” than we do
to-day. But in any case, however hasty his sketch may have been (and
nothing else in it really corresponds), he left in reserve, from memory, a special
light to represent the colourless reflection on the folds. Let us be glad of this
trustworthy witness for Raphael as “painter”—in this age of ours that for long
believed, in its cautious reserve, that it had done enough if it conceded to him
value as a “draughtsman”.
The Castiglione was transferred from wood to canvas, thereby forfeiting
some of its original character. A picture belonging to the same period, the
Donna Velata, and another somewhat later, the Double Portrait of Two
Friends, the two Venetian poets Navagero and Beazzano, have preserved in a
wonderful manner the canvas style of the fresco-painter. The two friends, so un-
like one another, in the picture of the Doria Gallery, are known as the Venetians
Andrea Navagero and Agostino Beazzano (Plate i 19#). The bearded Navagero,
precisely at that time—at the beginning of 1516—entrusted with the office,
as honourable as it was important, of Librarian of San Marco, in his native city,
stayed in Rome with his poet friend; Bembo mentions them as taking part in
that excursion of March, 1516, to Tivoli with Raphael and Castiglione. We
must therefore imagine, at a time when Raphael’s interests belonged to archi-
tecture, and to antiquarian research as inseparable from architecture, an inner
bond of the two poets with the artist, that made him capable of a portrait so
intimate and bearing every mark of his own hand; a consonance of strength and
refinement. Perhaps no picture leads us so far into the circle of this humanist
society, with its claims to a balanced harmony of the outer and the inner; there is a
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117
world from his exalted station; such was his character, finding expression even
in the choice of colours. The black velvet with grey shading stands out against
a greyish-golden ground—the grey of the sleeves with slate-coloured shadows
and cool golden reflections. Such refinement of dress, with its materials carefully
chosen to match one another, may be found elsewhere only in Romanino’s
warriors in the frescoes at Cremona. This, then, was “1’elegante Castiglione”,
as Ariosto called him in his forty-second Satire. He himself voices the opinion
(Cortegiano, II, 27) that the cortegiano should not wear bright-hued clothes but
more sober colours—black, brown or grey; he should, in fact, show the “riposo” of
his inner self, a superior calm, in his outward appearance also. Castiglione himself
appeared on a mission to the French Court dressed in the Spanish fashion, which
at that time meant in discreet colours. These fashionable shades were a foreshadow-
ing of the “Spanish costume”; a century later they are an indication of the Puritan
taste of the Northern bourgeoisie. For this reason the light in the greyish-gold of
the velvet sleeve and the wealth of shades of black and brown could not fail
to make a deep impression on the republican Rembrandt, and to strike in him
related harmonies. In this connection it is always well to recollect that Rem-
brandt saw the picture without the Louvre varnish of two and a half centuries,
and that perhaps he found it less “golden” or “Rembrandtesque” than we do
to-day. But in any case, however hasty his sketch may have been (and
nothing else in it really corresponds), he left in reserve, from memory, a special
light to represent the colourless reflection on the folds. Let us be glad of this
trustworthy witness for Raphael as “painter”—in this age of ours that for long
believed, in its cautious reserve, that it had done enough if it conceded to him
value as a “draughtsman”.
The Castiglione was transferred from wood to canvas, thereby forfeiting
some of its original character. A picture belonging to the same period, the
Donna Velata, and another somewhat later, the Double Portrait of Two
Friends, the two Venetian poets Navagero and Beazzano, have preserved in a
wonderful manner the canvas style of the fresco-painter. The two friends, so un-
like one another, in the picture of the Doria Gallery, are known as the Venetians
Andrea Navagero and Agostino Beazzano (Plate i 19#). The bearded Navagero,
precisely at that time—at the beginning of 1516—entrusted with the office,
as honourable as it was important, of Librarian of San Marco, in his native city,
stayed in Rome with his poet friend; Bembo mentions them as taking part in
that excursion of March, 1516, to Tivoli with Raphael and Castiglione. We
must therefore imagine, at a time when Raphael’s interests belonged to archi-
tecture, and to antiquarian research as inseparable from architecture, an inner
bond of the two poets with the artist, that made him capable of a portrait so
intimate and bearing every mark of his own hand; a consonance of strength and
refinement. Perhaps no picture leads us so far into the circle of this humanist
society, with its claims to a balanced harmony of the outer and the inner; there is a
1
117