The Great Age of the Portrait
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Problems of Portrait Interpretation
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Titian
Ranuccio Farnese
1542
Ranuccio (1530-1565) was the son of Pierluigi Farnese
(1503-1547), whose own father,
Pope Paul III (his real name was
Alessandro Farnese), had made him Duke of Piacenza
and Parma.
Ranuccio was in Venice in 1542, and it is thought that
Titian painted the young nobleman's
portrait during that year. The
cross decorating his robe identifies him as a Knight of Malta.
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Most art historians continued to see the portrait in the light of
Hegel's views until well into the twentieth century. The
Expressionist aesthetic continued in this vein, giving metaphysical
presence to the "essential being" of the subject portrayed. It was
thought that this quality could be ascertained directly from
physiognomic expression.
Philosophical and scientific interest in psychological questions
increased, especially in Italy, during the second half of the
quattrocento.18 It had become a matter of compelling urgency to gain
a clearer picture of the "pathological" significance of certain
mimic or gestural manners of expression, since emergent capitalist
trade relations demanded the ability to "read" the intentions of
business partners and to seek protection against fraud. A similar
situation had arisen in the political sphere, where exposure to the
new economic conditions made it essential to establish some means of
orientation in a world of increasingly unstable and opaque
interrelations. It was therefore not surprising that many of the
early physiognomic handbooks were composed specifically for
merchants and statesmen.
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Giovanni Battista della Porta
Physiognomic comparison between a
human and an animal.
From: De humana physiogno-mta.
Vico Equcnse
1586
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Writers such as Michele Savonarola, the grandfather of the famous
Dominican preacher, or the scholar Pomponio Gaurico committed
themselves to the interpretation of bodily expressions. They
analysed the expressive force of different parts of the face, the
eyes for example, which even today's characterological studies
regard as the "mirror of the soul". In so doing, they would
frequently allow themselves to be guided by the notion of the
humours found in earlier, medical theories of the temperaments.
Studies undertaken by Leonardo da Vinci, too, attached separate
meanings to different parts of the body. The various grotesque
figures which resulted from his work on the classification of
anatomical and physiognomic aspects of the human face have rightly
been seen as precursors of the modern caricature (Leonardo da
Vinci Grotesque Heads).
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Leonardo da Vinci
Grotesque Heads
1494
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However, most physiognomic tracts were highly schematic in approach.
Often, as with Giovanni Battista della Porta, they drew
psychological parallels from what appeared to be physical
resemblances between animals and human beings, much in the tradition
of the medieval "bestiarium humanum". Such sources are unlikely to
help us understand the Renaissance or Baroque portrait, unless, of
course, we assume the artists also sought advice from them, or
translated them into their own visual medium. From a cultural and
historical point of view it may be quite correct to see portraiture
and physiognomy as deriving from related needs and interests.
However, the mechanistic application to contemporary
portrait-painting of classifications found in such compendia can
easily lead to misinterpretation. Indeed, it is doubtful whether
today's spectator can interpret the sitter's gestures correctly at
all. Would it be correct, for example, to attribute a "fixed" gaze
to Antonello da Messina's so-called Condottiere (Antonello
da Messina "Il Condottiere")? According to Pomponio Gaurico,
this was a sign of insanity - a reading which the portrait as a
whole hardly serves to corroborate. His gaze and protruding lower
lip have led various critics to attribute to the sitter a firm
strength of will, indeed almost ruthless defiance. Thus he has come
to be seen as cold-blooded and inhuman, a power-hungry usurper and
commander of mercenaries.
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Antonello da Messina
"Il Condottiere"
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The most well-known object of psycho-diagnostic projection,
however, is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa
(Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa), whose smile has attracted almost every
interpretation imaginable. It is prudent to be wary of the
diagnostic interpretion of expression. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
penned a well-known warning against the dangers of pseudo-scientific
attempts to discern the personality on the basis of arbitrary
physiognomic characteristics.
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Leonardo da Vinci
Mona Lisa
1503-1505
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It remains open to debate whether the psychological aspect of
portrait-painting - though undeniably intended by artists and
patrons - really was quite as important as art critics, influenced
by a later aesthetics of empathy, continued to propagate. Instead of
attempting - in an entirely unhistorical manner - to determine the
personality of the sitter through diagnoses that can be affirmed or
rejected according to each spectator's perception of the painting, a
process amounting to little more than a Rorschach test, it would
surely be more productive to examine the relationship between
psychological aspects and the social function of portraits (or their
genres).
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Melozzo da Forli
Pope Sixtus IV appoints Platina as Prefect of the Vatican Library
1475
Melozzo shows Pope Sixtus IV (1414-1484) in a quadratura hall of
pillars, painted according to the rules of centralized perspective.
The pope is shown in the company of his nepotes Giovannino and
Giuliano della Rovere (who later became Pope Julius II), and two
other courtiers (Girolamo and Rafaele Riario). Before him kneels
Bartolommeo Sacchi, known as Platina, whom the pope is shown
appointing to the position of Prefect of the Vatican Library.
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Sitter and Setting
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It is important to remember that portraits are always the products
of composition. They are the result of an agreement between the
artist and the sitter, between an aesthetic conditioned by the
relatively autonomous precepts or traditions of the genre and the
patron's individual requirements. Although relations between the
artist and his patron might have been strained to the breaking
point, they generally provided a framework in the form of a
contractually underpinned consensus within which the patron - at
least during the period we are considering here - was able to
formulate his own wishes and thus go some way towards determining
how his "imago" would be perceived. However conscious the use of
psychology in a portrait might therefore be, to view its subject
solely in characterological terms would be to expect the naive
spontaneity of a fleeting, everyday scene from what is essentially
an aesthetic construct.
The intended effect of a portrait was often revealed in its setting,
which generally consisted of a spatial environment by means of which
the sitter sought to define his role in society and to tell the
spectator something about his interests, intentions and values.
Backgrounds, whether landscapes or interiors, were compositional
devices consisting of several different elements which would
sometimes combine to form an integrated, atmospheric whole. These
elements converted ideas into objects, into symbols representing
types of social practice.
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David Teniers the Younger
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm's Gallery at Brussels
1651
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Settings, however, were not merely symbolic ensembles, but referred
the spectator to two main fields of worldly activity which were
increasingly thought to be diametrically opposed. Landscape
backgrounds thus often referred to the public sphere, much as the
very notion of different landscapes (Ital. paesaggio, Fr. paysage)
was for a long time associated with the division of land into
jurisdictional and administrative territories, each representing a
socio-political, cultural unity. This is well illustrated by the
landscape backgrounds in Piero della Francesca's Montefeltro-diptych
(Piero della Francesca Federigo da Montefeltro and his Wife
Battista Sforza), which show us the territory ruled over by
the sitters, the Duke of Urbino and his wife.
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Piero della Francesca
Federigo da Montefeltro and his Wife Battista Sforza
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The background of Luca Signorelli's so-called Lawyer (Luca
Signorelli Middle-Aged Man)
-showing a detail of an urban landscape, presumably intended as
ancient Rome - consists of various ancient monuments and ruins,
perhaps suggesting that the sitter was interested in archaeology.
Beyond documenting what may possibly have been a contribution to the
preservation of monuments - for he lived during, or shortly after,
the era in which ancient Rome was restored under Pope Sixtus IV -
the background may be a reference to the man's interests and
humanist erudition, expressed by two scenes, probably taken from
ancient history or mythology, painted at either side of his head.
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Luca Signorelli
Middle-Aged Man
1500
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Background scenes often assumed the character of a so-called "impresa".
This was a motto expressing a resolution or lifelong pledge. It
might also be described as a personal emblem or badge (see
Giovanni Battista Moroni Don Gabriel de la Cueva). The "impresa" first
emerged as a medieval heraldic device at the Burgundian court, but
its underlying principle was soon taken up by the ascendant
bourgeoisie. It was not unusual for a sitter to use the device for
purposes of identification with some figure in ancient history or
mythology.
By the late fifteeenth century, the "impresa" had often become
obscure and mysterious, sometimes presenting an insoluble riddle.
Ideas inspired by the cabbala or by alchemy joined "hieroglyphic"
symbols and pictorial cryptograms said to be based on the
Alexandrian scholar Horapollo's (4th century A.D. ?) reading of
ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The "hieroglyphica" were sometimes
invented by the artists themselves, however.
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Hans Holbein the Younger
Erasmus of Rotterdam
1523
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Besides the landscape, the interior (bare or furnished) was a second
type of background by means of which the sitter might give symbolic
expression to his norms and values. This may be seen in portraits by
Hans Holbein the Younger (see Hans Holbein the
Younger Georg Gisze, Erasmus of Rotterdam). The
portraits of the merchant Gisze or humanist scholar Erasmus
demonstrated a desire for privacy, a wish to withdraw from the
public sphere. The sitters are nevertheless shown engaging in types
of activity whose effect carried well beyond the private realm.
Their desire to perfect their knowledge of the world is illustrated
by the objects which surround them, instruments of technological
progress and symbols of "modern" civilisation such as the telescope,
the planisphere or the globe. Books symbolised the spread of
knowledge and assumed a central position in portraits of Erasmus.
Many symbols have nothing to do with knowledge, however, referring
instead to the sitter's moral or ethical beliefs, or adhesion to
certain notions of virtue. The latter played a particularly
important role in early modern portraits of women. These portraits
almost always showed married women, brides or fiancees, and
occasionally courtesans. The objects surrounding them were allusions
to certain qualities attributed to women, or expected of them by
society. The settings of these portraits were therefore almost
exclusively concerned with the social and artistic definition of the
female gender role.
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Hans Holbein the Younger
Erasmus of Rotterdam
1523
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The Functions of Portraits
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Portraits painted between the fifteenth century and the end of the
seventeenth century must be seen in connection with the advent and
development of empiricism, a tendency which had been making itself
felt in the arts since the late Middle Ages. Their execution
therefore seems guided by an underlying rationalistic impulse, an
impression reinforced by demands that they should be true to life
and their subjects verifiable - criteria, in other words, derived
from the practicalities of "rational" Roman Law. Paradoxically,
however, portraits from this era still exhibit many magical or
fetishistic characteristics. These were expressed in the
"substitutive" or "vicarious" properties of the portrait, qualities
which had been attributed to the likeness since the dawn of
civilisation.
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It had long been customary - and indeed remained so until well into
the Age of Enlightenment - for likenesses of criminals who continued
to elude the authorities' grasp to be "executed" in place of their
real persons ("executio in effigie"). The law stipulated in such
cases that the painting should be an accurate representation of the
delinquent, and that the chastisement be applied symbolically to the
picture as if to the parts of a real body. A similar phenomenon,
based on ideas of sympathetic magic such as those sometimes
witnessed in shamanism, was the scratching out of a portrait's eyes.
The practice is found to this day, as evidenced by hoardings, often
of a political nature, with figures whose eyes have been erased. At
the time, however, the vicarious disfigurement of an enemy's or
opponent's features was still widespread. Atavistic behaviour of
this kind included the public display of likenesses of outlawed
persons in order to proclaim their disgrace. These portraits usually
caricatured their subjects and were designed to provoke the
spectator's scorn and derision.
The examples cited above are almost all related to matters of
jurisdiction or politics. Their attitude towards the person
portrayed is dismissive, or negative, driven by the desire to punish
or enact revenge. However, the talismanic or fetishistic quality of
a portrait could equally express a positive attitude towards its
subject.
An early eighteenth-century description of diplomatic protocol
informs us that "the likeness of the Sovereign... is usually
displayed in the form of a raised half-length portrait between the
baldachin and chair of state in the audience chambers of his envoys.
The painting represents the person as if he were actually there, for
which reason those seated may not turn their backs towards him, nor
may any person, ambassadors ex-cepted, leave his head covered when
entering a room in which the likeness of a ruling potentate hangs"
(1733).
This passage shows that one of the "vicarious" properties of the
portrait was its "representative" function (which it has to this
day). The purpose of most likenesses was the more or less frank
demonstration of power, hegemony or prestige. This was of course
equally true of the "executio in effigie", only here the purpose was
to destroy the power held by the adversary.
Portraits of ruling princes were particularly candid demonstrations
of the will to power. Among these, however, the equestrian portrait
has a special place. Following the example of the equestrian
sculpture of Marc Aurel (161-180 A.D.), the equestrian portrait was
generally intended to awe the spectator into submission. Its use
during the Renaissance and Baroque was not confined to
demonstrations of pathos by feudal princes who wished to reinforce
their claim to power. It is indicative of the resourcefulness of the
ascendant bourgeoisie that parvenu-usurpers such as the mercenary
commanders of the day - the condottieri - were capable of
appropriating this means of displaying their power. However, since
the power of their pockets was not always sufficient to afford a
sculpture in stone or marble, some condottieri had to make do
posthumously with the illusionistic - but nonetheless imposing -
impression created by a commemorative fresco (Andrea del Castagno
Monument of Niccolo da Tolentino).
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Equestrian Statue of Marc Aurel
161-180 AD
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Andrea del Castagno
Monument of Niccolo da Tolentino
1456
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Roman patrician carrying
busts of his ancestors
c. 30 BC
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Counterfeits of humanist scholars, however subtle or discrete, were
also displays of power and social prestige. Competing for status
with the rich merchant class and nobility, they demonstrated with
proud restraint the superiority of their erudition, spiritual values
and ethical independence.
In general, therefore, it may be said that all portraits were
intended to impress. They sought to command respect for the
authority of the sitter, however extended or limited the scope of
his influence might be.
"Commemoration" was a particularly important function of
portraiture. Durer's well-known dictum on the ability of paintings
to preserve the likeness of men after their deaths was an expression
of faith in the magical victory of art over time, as if painting
could overcome death. It is significant in this respect that the
portrait itself is descended from the tomb effigy, or at least was
originally associated with this art form. Examples of likenesses of
deceased persons - usually members of the high clergy - in the form
of reliefs or sculptures on altar tombs date from as early as the
high or late Middle Ages: the tombstone of Archbishop Friedrich of
Wettin (c. 1152) at Magdeburg cathedral, for example, or that of
Siegfried III of Eppenstein (Mainz cathedral), shown crowning two
reduced-scale kings.
Links between the portrait and the cult of the dead may be traced
back to antique art. In Roman times wax masks were taken of the dead
and kept in a shrine in the atrium of patrician villas. "These
likenesses were taken for commemorative purposes and were not
considered works of art. Owing to the ephemerality of wax, they
probably did not keep longer than a few decades. The wish to
recreate them in marble is therefore understandable, unfulfilled as
it remained until early in the first century B.C. During this period
the patricians saw their hegemony threatened. It is therefore
possible that their desire to exhibit their ancestors publicly was
combined with a need to reassert their claim to power."
These bust portraits, the "imagines maiorum", held here by the Roman
patrician and usually carried at the head of public processions,
evidently served as models for the sculptors of the quattrocento, as
perhaps can be seen in Donatello's painted clay busts of Niccolo da
Uzzano. Contemporary paintings attempted to imitate the plasticity
of the bust portrait, the artist employing illusionistic devices,
such as the application of realistic colouring, to make up for a
lack of real plasticity.
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Jacopo Pontormo
Lady in a Red Dress
1532-1533
This elegant lady, sitting with dignified, upright posture before
a conche-like recess and absent-mindedly gazing towards the
spectator, wears a vermilion dress whose large, bright, evenly-lit
surface contrasts with the olive-green sheen of her sleeves. Her
lap-dog symbolises conjugal fidelity. Her rosary signifies
piousness.
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The functions of the portrait mentioned above, together with their
concomitant archetypical ideas, norms and expectations, may be seen
as examples of mental structures whose emergence can be traced back
to the early stages of civilisation. They had endured (in the sense
of Fernand Braudel's "longue duree", or extended duration) the
vicissitudes of time and the passing of several different types of
societies.
Their universal character and usefulness as a frame of reference
make it necessary to see the modern portrait in relation to these
structures. Our purpose shall be to elucidate the specific
historical significance, the purpose, allusiveness and relation to
the history of ideas, of the symbolic forms manifested in various
styles and subjects. Since all forms of aesthetic expression occur
within specific cultural and social contexts, it is necessary to
expose them to iconological analysis.
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This book sets out to analyse some of the major works of early
modern portraiture. The portraits themselves have been selected on
the basis of their subjects' rank and profession (e.g. portraits of
popes, princes or humanist scholars), or gender (portraits of
women). The value of this method of selection is its proximity to
both the painters' intentions and their patrons' requirements. While
neither can be said to have considered the formal aspects of
portraiture insignificant, they nonetheless saw them as the
compositional means of reaching a pre-defined, figurative goal,
although this, in turn, was conditioned by certain aesthetic
expectations with specific historical roots.
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