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Portraits of Artists and Collectors
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see also:
Lorenzo Lotto
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Lorenzo Lotto:
Andrea Odoni
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Lorenzo Lotto
Portrait of Andrea Odoni
1527
Oil on canvas, 114 x 101 cm
Royal Collection, Hampton Court
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The humanist and antique dealer Andrea Odoni is presented amidst
his collection of antiques. He sits at a green-covered table,
wearing a voluminous and richly lined, fur-collared coat. His large
head, inclined a little to one side, is framed by his beard, and by
his dark hair, which is parted in the middle. Gazing at the
spectator, Odoni has placed one hand on his chest in a gesture of "sincenta"
(here: reverence, or deference), while his other holds out a small,
possibly Egyptian statue to the spectator. By contrast with the room
in Titian's portrait of Jacopo de Strada, Odoni's antique cabinet is
simply furnished. Against the whitewashed wall, the statues seem to
have developed a fantastic life of their own, especially on the
right where the shadows are deeper. Antaeus is shown wrestling with
Hercules on the left, while a statue on the right, from the Vatican
Belvedere court, shows Hercules with the skin of the Nemean lion. On
the far right there is yet another Hercules, a "Hercules mingens"
(the Classical hero as "Manneken Pis"), before a well, or trough,
over which a female figure, perhaps Venus, is leaning. Classical
antiquity seems revived in the form of a huge head emerging from
under the table-cloth. In fact, this is the head of Emperor Hadrian,
the "Adrian de stucco" mentioned by Marcantonio Michicl in 1555 in
his Odoni-collection inventory. The much smaller torso of Venus
appears to nestle up to the head, to - probably calculated - comic
effect. Although monochromatic, and indeed partly ruined, the
sculptures seem mysteriously animated. Lotto invokes the magical
properties of the image; he gently parodies the theme of the
"re-birth" of Classical art by taking it literally. The small statue
in the collector's hand, reminiscent of Diana of Ephesus, indicates
the artist's and sitter's demonstrable interest in Egyptian
religion. At Venice, Lorenzo Lotto's place of birth, where he often
stayed - the painting was executed after 1526, while Lotto was
staying at Venice - there was widespread interest among the
humanists in Egyptian hieroglyphics as a source of arcane knowlege
and divine wisdom. This "science" could be traced back to Horapollo,
the author of a treatise on hieroglyphics, which had survived in
Greek translation.
In her dissertation on the work of Lorenzo Lotto, published in 1977,
Diana Wronski Galis posited that the artist's rendering of antique
sculptures was intended as a warning - along the lines of Petrarch's
"De remediis utnusque fortunae" (On the use of medicines for good
and evil) -against the evils of collecting worldly treasures.
However, this theory is neither borne out by the painting itself,
nor can it be reconciled with the self-image of the patron; indeed,
the very fact of his having commissioned the painting in the first
place would then make no sense at all. Her thesis therefore has
little in common with the reality of the painting. The passionate
collector Odoni would hardly - as patron - permit such censure of
his person, let alone commission it.
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 Lorenzo Lotto
Portrait of Andrea Odoni
(detail)
Although partially ruined, the antique sculptures in the background seem
mysteriously animated.
The renaissance of Classical art is taken quite literally here.
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see also:
Titian
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Titian:
Jacopo de Strada
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Titian
Portrait of Jacopo Strada
1567-68
Oil on canvas, 125 x 95 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
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Unlike Giovanni Battista Moroni's Sculptor, who is shown from the
side with his head turned toward the spectator and strong hands
firmly holding a small antique torso of Hercules, Titian's Jacopo de
Strada is portrayed in action. Strada seems to be communicating with
an imaginary person to the right of the spectator, for whom, as if
in response to a request of some kind, he has picked up a Roman copy
of the Aphrodite Pscliumene (Aphrodite "with the necklace). The
movement has caused the fur around his collar to slip, so that only
his left shoulder prevents it from falling.
Here Strada has the aged artist, his close friend, paint him not
only surrounded by the trappings of his profession, but with all the
badges of his office. His clothing - the fur, red silk sleeves and
satin sheen of his waistcoat - shows the great wealth of this
painter, goldsmith, archaeologist, art collector and art expert from
Mantua. The gold chain wound four times around his neck, carrying a
pendant with a helmeted head in profile, is a sign of his noble
birth, as is his sword, whose hilt is casually visible to the right
of the table. Ostensibly, the sitter is indulging in a vastly
exaggerated display of self-importance. His vanity is equally
expressed in the cartouche ornamenting a pillar which, like part of
a stage set, has no structural purpose beyond providing a surface
for the following inscription: JACOBVS DE STRADA CIVIS ROMANVS CAESS.
ANTIQVARIVS ET COM. BELIC. AN: AETAT: LI: et C.M.D.L. XVI (Jacopo de
Strada, Roman citizen, Imperial Collector of Antiques and War
Minister, aged 51, in the year 1566). Strada was evidently proud of
his activities as a collector and merchant of antique objects. Under
Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria he founded the Munich "Antiquarium",
later going on to fulfil similar duties at the imperial courts of
Vienna and Prague under Emperors Ferdinand I, Maximilian II and
Rudolf II, to whom he succeeded -incapable as he was of passing off
an opportunity - in marrying off his own daughter. His position as
War Minister is another exaggeration. The term (possibly added
later) "comes bellicus" should be understood as as description of
his actual work, which involved drawing up plans for war machines.
Strada's interest in numismatics - he began his career collecting
coins and wrote a book in the late 1550s entitled "De consulibus
numismatibus" -is illustrated by the Roman coins lying on the table
next to the torso. His erudition is indicated by a pile of books on
the ledge behind him, probably his own writings. That the portrait
is as much an act of friendship and homage as a commissioned piece
of work can be seen in the words of a letter lying on the table: "Al
Mag Sig Tizian Vecellio... Venezia".
"A younger artist than Titian... could not have painted such a
beautiful, dignified likeness of a person so lacking in charm. For a
younger artist would not have had the benefit of the boldness of
style that was so characteristic of Titian's later years, his
generosity and expressive brushstroke, the wonderful glowing warmth
of his colours... It was the rank of the sitter which decided the
character of his portrait; a person's individuality was shown
through the media of various attributes, books and the like, but not
by means of the psychological analysis or labelling of a sitter.
That Titian nonetheless managed simultaneously to express the
general and the particular, the ideal and the reality, the sitter's
gentility and his villainy, is due to a restlessness that is not
usually found in this artist's work."
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Giovanni Battista Moroni
The Sculptor Alessandro Vittoria
1560-65
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Artists' Self-Portraits
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see also:
Albrecht
Durer
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Albrecht Durer:
Self-Portrait with a Fur Coat
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Jan van Eyck
Christ |
 Albrecht Durer
Self-Portrait in a Fur Coat
1500
Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
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While confirming Albrecht Durer's reputation as a keen observer
of the natural irregularities of the human form and a scrupulous
recorder of minute empirical detail, this self-portrait nonetheless
appears idealised. This impression probably derives from the intense
symmetry of the full-face, bust portrait. F. Winziger has traced the
underlying structural principles of its composition to medieval
systems of proportion and triangulation. Durer adopted the technique
of hieratic frontality from medieval paintings of Christ, and from
representations of Veronica's kerchief with the imprint of Christ's
face. This has led a number of art historians to make the portrait
the object of their own, quasi-religious aestheticism. Ernst Buchner
(1953), for example, found its "elevation to a realm transcending
quotidian individuality, a realm of human greatness bordering on the
sacred" so "compelling" that he felt "removed by the artist's
serious gaze to a higher plane of human existence".
Whether it is permissible to see this painting as an "Imitatio
Christi", or whether, inspired by the Italian theorists of art
Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, Durer saw himself as a
creator-god, or demiurge, remains open to debate. In fact, a
sentimental passage from one of Durer's later writings (1512)
enthuses over the esteem in which artists once were held, when
"great masters were placed on a level with God". It is difficult to
ascertain whether this reflected Diirer's opinion in 1500. It has
been even suggested that the inscription may not be genuine. In John
Pope-Hennessy's opinion, for example, Diirer cannot have executed
the painting before his second visit to Italy in 1505/07.
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Albrecht Durer
Self-Portrait of Strasbourg, at 22
1493
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If iconographical and typological considerations make some of
these suggestions seem quite feasible, their wholesale acceptance as
a model for the interpretation of Durer's self-portrait would be
more than rash. The qualities demanded by the "Imitation of Christ"
- according to the late medieval writer Thomas a Kempis in a
widely-known work entitled "De imitatione Christi" -were modesty,
austerity and humility. Durer's vain awareness of his own,
fashionable good looks in this self-portrait, especially evident in
his hairsyle and fur-lined coat, hardly seems in keeping with these
moral precepts. His finely curled hair falls in a cascade of
ringlets onto his shoulders, and a flurry of curls stands up on his
forehead. Durer had already projected a dandified image of himself
in a self-portrait he painted in 1498, now in Madrid. An even
earlier self-portrait, executed in 1493 and now in Paris, had shown
the artist as a highly fashion-conscious young man. While Erasmus
criticised long hair in his "Golden Book of Manners for Little
Boys", demanding hair be prevented from "hanging onto the forehead
or falling loosely onto the shoulders", Diirer continued to advocate
an artistic "counter-culture".
It is difficult to explain the position of the artist's right hand.
With index and middle fingers spread, and fingertips practically
closed - an unlikely, and physically awkward feat - his hand seems
to function as a clasp, fastening the two flaps of his fur-collar.
Or is it meant as a "reflexive" gesture? Perhaps it is an expression
of deferential respect, a recurrent feature in the Italian portrait
of the day.
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 Albrecht Durer
Self-Portrait with Gloves
1498
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 Albrecht Durer
Self-Portrait at 13
1484
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 Albrecht Durer
Self-Portrait with a Bandage
1492
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 Albrecht Durer
Studies of Self-Portrait
1493
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 Albrecht Durer
Self-Portrait in the Nude
1505
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 Albrecht Durer
Self-Portrait
1521
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 Albrecht Durer
Self-Portrait as the Man of Sorrows
1522 |
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