introduction to art historical research: western painting

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Introduction to Art Historical

Research: Western Painting

©2009 Dr Valentin Nussbaum, Associate Professor

NTNU Graduate Institute of Art History

November 11th 2009

Jacopo Pontormo, Descent of the Cross, 1526-28, Santa Felicita, Florence

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Fra Angelico, Descent of the Cross, 1432, Museo San Marco, Florence

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Guillaume Marcillat, Deposition and Entombment, 1526, Jacopo Pontormo, Descent of the Cross and Annunciation,

1526-28, Santa Felicita, Florence

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Jacopo Pontormo, Descent of the Cross, 1526-28, Santa Felicita, Florence / Study for the Capponi Chapel Pietà, 1526,

Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford

Lippo Vanni, Annunciation, ca. 1350-65, fresco, Monteriggioni, Eremo di S. Leonardo al Lago

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Jacopo Pontormo, The Visitation, 1528-29, San Michele, Carmignano

Jacopo Pontormo, The Christ Judge with the Creation of Eve (Drawing fot the choir of San Lorenzo church, Florence) and Group of dead people, 1546-56,

Uffizi, Florence

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« Having then closed off the chapel with walls, hoardings and curtains, and given himself

over to complete solitude, he kept it for the space of eleven years so firmly locked up, that no living soul except himself ever went in there, neither friends, nor anyone else.

( …) On the other wall is depicted the universal Resurrection of the dead, which is to be on the last glorious day, with such variety and confusion that the event itself will perhaps

not be more real or, so to say, true to life that Pontormo has painted it (…) But I have

never been able to understand the doctrine of this scene (though I know that Jacopo had a good mind himself and kept company with learned and well-educated people),

specifically what he meant to signify in that part of the painting where Christ on high his bringing the dead back to life, while below His feet is God the Father, creating Adam and

Eve. (…) in any place at all did he pay heed to any order of composition, or

measurement, or time, or variety in the faces, or changes in the flesh colours, or, in brief, to any rule, proportion or law of perspective; and instead, the work is full of nude figures

with an order, design, invention, composition, colouring, and painting done in his own personal way, with so much melancholy and so little pleasure for the beholder, that I am

resolved, since even I do not understand it though I am painted myself, to let those who

see it judge for themselves. For I truly believe I would drive myself mad to become embroiled with this painting, just as, it seems to me, in the eleven years he spent on it,

Jacopo sought to embroil himself and whoever looks at it with those extaordinary figures »

Giorgio Vasari, The Lives, 1568

Rosso Fiorentino, Descent of the Cross, 1521, Pinacoteca communala, Volterra

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Rosso Fiorentino, Marriage of the Virgin, 1521, Pinacoteca communala, Volterra

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Rosso Fiorentino, Marriage of the Virgin, 1521, Pinacoteca communala, Volterra

Raphaël, The Marriage of the Virgin, 1504, 170 x 117 cm, Pincoteca

Brera, Milan

Parmigianino, Self-portrait, 1523-24, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

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« Then for Madonna Maria Bufolini of Città di Castello, Francesco was

commissioned to paint a panel picture intended to be placed in San Salvatore

del Lauro, in a chapel near to the door; and in this he painted in the air the

figure of Our Lady who is reading and has the Christ Child between her knees,

while on the ground below he showed, kneeling on one knee, the figure of St

John, who turns his body and points to Christ, in an extraordinarily beautiful

attitude, and also here on earth the foreshortened figure of St Jerome in

Penitence, lying asleep.

But he was prevented from bringing this work to full completion by the sack of

Rome in 1527, which not only for a time caused the banishment of the arts but

also the taking of the lives of many craftsmen; and Francesco himself came

very near to losing his own life, because when the sack of Rome began he was

so wrapped in his work that even after the soldiers had started to penetrate the

houses and there were already several Germans in his, despite all the uproar

he remained intent on what he was doing. But when they reached him and saw

him at his work, they were thunderstruck at the painting which they saw, and,

like the gentlemen they must have been, let him continue. And so while the

poor city of Rome was being devastated by the impious cruelties of those

barbarian troops, profane and sacred things alike, with no respect to God or

men, Francesco was provided for and greatly honoured by those Germans, and

protected from all harm. »

Parmigianino, Vision of St Jerome, 1527, National Gallery, Londres

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Raphaël, Madonna of Foligno, 1511-12, Musei Vaticani, Rome


Michelangelo, Bruges Madonna, Onze Lieve Vrouw Church ,

Bruges


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Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin St Ann and the

Child, 1498-1500, 142 x 104,5 cm, National

Gallery, London

Leonardo da Vinci, St John the Baptist,

1513-16, 69 X 57 cm, Louvre, Paris


« And would to God that he had always pursued his studies in painting, and not

indulged in fantasies of solidifying quicksilver to make himself richer than he

had been created by Nature and Heaven! For then he would have been without

equal in painting, and truly unique. Whereas by seeking for what he could never

find, he wasted time, scorned his art, and did harm to his own life and fame (…)

Finally, still always obsessed by that alchemy of his, like all the others who have

once lost their wits over it, and changing from gentle and fastidious person into

an almost savage man quite different from what he was, with beard and long

straggling locks, he was assailed, in this sorry state of melancholy and

oddness, by a grave fever and dysentry which in a few days made him pass to

another life; and in this way he found an end to the travails of this world, which

was never known to him save as a place full of trials and tribulations (…)

Francesco took delight in playing lute, and his hand and mind were so well

accomodated to this, that he was no less excellent at it than he was in painting.

But it is certainly true that he had not worked capriciously and had put aside the

foolishness of the alchemists, he would truly have been one of the rarest and

most outstanding painters of our age (…) I certainly blame anyone who is

happy to work very little or not at all, and always wastes time on thinking up

schemes, seeing that the wish to use trickery and so attain a goal one cannot

achieve otherwise often causes one to lose what one knows in seeking what

cannot be known. »

Giorgio Vasari, The Lives…, 1568

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Parmigianino, Judith, ca.1530

Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Miracle of the Slave, 1548, Accademia, Venise

Michel-Ange, the Sunset, vers 1525, New Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence

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Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Miracle of the Slave, 1548, Accademia, Venise

Raphaël, Sacrifice at Lystra, c. 1515-16, Victoria an Albert Museum, Londres

Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Discovery of

the Body of St Mark, 1562-66, Pinacoteca

Brera, Milan

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Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Translation of the Body of St Mark, 1562-66, Accademia, Venise

Tintoretto, Massacre of the Innocents, c.1579-81, Scuola di San Rocco, Venise

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Raphael Sanzio, Fire in the Borgo, c.1514, Vatican, Rome Tintoretto, Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1528-27, Scuola di San Rocco,

Venise

Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), Washing of the feet, c.1547, Prado, Madrid

Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, 1498, Santa Maria delle Grazie

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Hendrik Goltzius. Icarus, after Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem 1588

Annibale Carracci, Butcher’s shop, 1583, Christ Church College, Oxford

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Joachim Beukelaar. Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, 1565, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles

Bartolomeo Passerotti. Butcher’s shop, vers 1580, Galleria d’Arte Antica, Rome

Annibale Carracci, The Bean Eater, 1584, Galleria Colonna, Rome

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Annibale Carracci, Annunciation, The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle

Tintoretto, Annunciation, 1583-87, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venise

Annibale Carracci, Baptism of Christ, 1584, San Gregorio, Bologne

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Annibale Carracci, Detail of the Baptism of Christ, 1584, San Gregorio, Bologne


Piero della Francesca, Baptism of Christ, 1448-50,

Londres National Gallery

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Raphaël, Transfiguration, 1518-20, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Titien, Assumption, 1516-18, Frari, Venise


Annibale Carracci, St Luke’s Altarpiece, 1592, Louvre, Paris

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Annibale Carracci, Landscape with the Flight into Egypt, 1603-04, Galleria Doria-Pamphilii, Rome

Claude Lorrain, Landscape with the Queen of Saba, 1648, National Gallery, Londres

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Guido Reni, Massacre of the Innocents, 1611, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologne

Guido Reni, Atalante and Hippomenes, 1622-25, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples

introduction to art historical research: western painting

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