Italian Baroque Painting by Ellis K. WaterhouseReview by: Robert EnggassThe Art Bulletin, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Sep., 1963), pp. 291-293Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048106 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 291

the commission from the Loretan Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament by September 26, 1627. A first pay- ment of Ioo scudi was made in January I629; the second and final payment, of 200 scudi, was made on August I8, I630. (Archivio Storico della Santa Casa di Loreto, Confraternita Loretana del S. Sacramento: Registro dei Mandati dell'anno 1629 al r639, fols. 42a, 42b.) Vouet may have visited Loreto in 1627, but in a nineteenth century inventory in the Loreto archive there is a note, perhaps based on a document, that says Vouet was given the commission while he was staying in Venice (Oggetti, mobili d'arte posseduti della Santa Casa di Loreto [T44-BI-FI, no. 36])."

No. 62. Crelly neglects to mention that the recently discovered Time Vanquished by Hope, Love, and

Beauty in the Prado is signed and dated Rome, 1627. He does remark the "rich and brilliant" palette, but

apparently does not consider it as noteworthy as do other critics, myself included. Both Sterling' and Thuillier (op.cit., p. 76) find the color so Venetian that they believe Vouet did not go directly to France from Venice, but returned first to Rome, when he would have painted the Prado picture. Crelly simply assumes that the picture was painted before Vouet left Rome for Venice. Actually, a Roman document dated

May io, 1627, states that Vouet "deve frat pochi giorni passare in Francia" (p. i o). Furthermore, Vouet's letter from Venice of August 14, 1627 to Ferrante Carlo in Rome (Appendix, x) is difficult to reconcile with the idea that Vouet was planning to re- turn to Rome. The artist says that he hopes to finish the altarpiece for the Scuola di San Teodoro by the end of the month and then, "con l'aiuto del Signore, finir6 il mio viaggio, dove essendo arrivato non man-

cher6 di farne avvisata V.S." This sounds as though Venice were only a stop on the long journey from Rome to Paris, where he arrived on November 25. Also, the time available for a return trip to Rome was

little, especially if we assume that the record of the Loreto commission (see above, no. 57) indicates that he was still in Venice at the end of September. A final solution does not seem possible at the moment, but the Prado picture is, in any event, an important document for the history of "neo-Venetianism" in Rome in the late I620'S. If we assume that it pre-dates Vouet's trip to Venice it is more difficult to explain but even more

important as a striking and early indication of the strength of the already existing trend toward Venetian colorism in Rome.

No. 78. It now appears that the last digit in the date of the signed St. Bruno in San Martino in Naples is invisible. Nicolson (Burlington Magazine, cy, 1963, p. 21 o) feels that the picture is so baroque that a date toward I627 is probable. My own feeling is that, in terms of Vouet's style, the painting fits most comfort- ably into the period around 1623, that is, between the

Circumcision (fig. I5) and the Alaleoni Chapel Temptation of St. Francis (fig. I8). However, I think our knowledge of Vouet's early career is still too un- sure to allow us to say definitely that the traditional date of 1620 is to be abandoned. There is, after all, the possibility that a final "o" was once visible in the inscription. Furthermore, I think Nicolson exaggerates the novelty of the painting for the period around 1620. Reni, in his Santa Maria Maggiore fresco, and Lan- franco, in his altarpiece of the Madonna with St. Law- rence in the Quirinal Palace, had provided composi- tional prototypes. Also, I believe that Lanfranco's baroque experiments in the years just before 1620 were more appreciated than is generally realized (see my forthcoming article in Essays in Honor of Walter Friedlaender) and it would not be surprising if Vouet, for one of his earliest public commissions, tried to model his style on the example of the very successful Lanfranco. Thus, the painting seems possible for 1620, and the real question is whether it can be understood with such a date in the development of Vouet's some- what eclectic style.

No. 79. The date of the signed Circumcision in Sant'Angelo a Segno in Naples seems to read 1622 instead of 1623 (cf. BurUngton Magazine, cv, 1963, p. 210).

No. 136. Howard Hibbard, who has discovered inventories of the Patrizi collection, has kindly in- formed me that the Guitarist is not mentioned in the I624 inventory, but does appear in the 1739 inven- tory. Very probably the picture was bought by the Patrizi from Robert Harpur, an Englishman living in Rome, who was trying to sell his collection in 1677. In a list of his pictures there was "A woman playing upon ye Ghitarre. orig: of Monsr. Voet amonghst ye french one of ye best Painters & one of his best peeces." (Italian Studies, xv, I960, p. 24)

No. 141. Both the St. Ursula and the St. Martha are now owned by the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.

Finally, it is very good to have, beside the ample bibliography, an appendix of documents and letters. I fail, however, to see the point of reprinting F6libien's biography of Vouet in the appendix and then, in the footnotes to the text, referring the reader exclusively to the 1725 Trevoux edition of Felibien's Entretiens.

DONALD POSNER

New York University

5. I am grateful to Rev. Father Floriano, Archivist of the Santa Casa, for his generous assistance when I visited the Loreto archive.

6. I have recently had the opportunity to discuss this pic- ture with Professor Sterling.

ELLIS K. WATERHOUSE, Italian Baroque Painting, London, Phaidon Publishers, 1962, pp. 237; 204 figs.; 2 color p1s.; $7.50

"There are no footnotes in this book," says Profes- sor Waterhouse in the opening line of his latest volume,

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292 THE ART BULLETIN

"because it is meant to be that kind of book." It never- theless bears the clear imprint of the author's erudition and scholarship, despite the fact that all the apparatus has been carefully concealed. This is, for example, the first book I know of to give the date for the completion of Gaulli's fresco complex at the Gesih as 1685, not 1683, although documentation for the later date was first published more than a quarter of a century ago. Considering the scope of his subject, Waterhouse demonstrates an extraordinary familiarity with the present state of research. This affords him an excellent over-all view of what was going on in almost any place at a given time. Thus equipped, he surveys the vast body of material with a highly perceptive and admirably selective eye. The illustrations unfortunately fall a good bit below Phaidon's normally high stand- ards of reproduction. But the location of the objects themselves shows how well acquainted the author is with the widely scattered works. Quite naturally, most of the paintings he chooses are in Italy, but many are not to be found in the great galleries, the more famous churches, or even in the principal towns. Beyond the Alps he seems to have surveyed the continent, and beyond the continent he discovers examples as far off the beaten track as Tulsa, Oklahoma. Part of the freshness of the writing comes from the sense that the author is drawing directly on his recollection of the object, not the photograph. For frescoed vaults we have some indication of how wide a surface they cover, how far they are above our heads. It is this point of view which leads him to illustrate Reni's Aurora, end- lessly reproduced but seldom seen, with a photograph showing not just the central panel, but the lunettes and the enframement which are integral parts of the whole design.

Probably the greatest contribution of the book lies in its attempt to achieve an equitable balance between the many artistic centers that existed in Italy during the seventeenth and the first part of the eighteenth century. Most Seicento studies have centered on Rome, on Bologna, and on the School of Bologna as it evolved in Rome. Here are to be found the most significant developments of the century, and here the author cor- rectly places his greatest emphasis. But more than half the book is devoted to less well-known regional schools -Genoa, Naples, Milan, Parma, and the like. This is as salutary an innovation as it is radical, and deserves high praise. Inevitably also it raises problems. When the material has been so little studied, there can be little agreement on the works to be discussed. Were it not for Cristofano Allori, I myself would be inclined to skip over the whole School of Florence which Waterhouse feels has been unjustly neglected. De gustibus notwithstanding, I find it hard to understand how the author can speak of Giovanni da San Gio- vanni's Holy Family at an Inn (which to me is senti- mental and lacking in dignity) as "a work of the greatest charm . . . noble in its main lines." On the other hand I think it is a mistake to exclude all the Neapolitan still life painters.

Such minor disagreements aside, I very much like the author's selections and emphasis. The schools of the North Italian mainland emerge with exceptional clarity, partly through previous studies by Longhi, partly through the author's own investigations, and partly through the advantage he has taken of regional exhibitions held since the war. Here Tanzio da Varallo is probably the greatest revelation. Those who have never been to Varallo have probably been puzzled when they have come across illustrations of Moraz- zone's Ecce Homo: it has been reproduced several times recently without any explanation that it is not exclusively a painting, or entirely by Morazzone, but a tableau vivant in which the realistic polychromed statues in the foreground are the work of Tabacchetti and Giovanni d'Errico. Waterhouse not only makes this perfectly clear, but connects this technique to an older tradition strongly rooted in this region and with- out parallel in the rest of Italy.

The only major criticism I would make of this ex- cellent book--and perhaps even this is unjust in view of its brevity--is that the author does not really convey the idea that each region of Italy existed, and largely still exists, as a discrete cultural entity. He does introduce each section with a few lines of contem- porary history. For the reader familiar with Italy this is enough. But for the many who will read this book without having seen or studied the country, there is- apart from one or two highly acute observations about Naples-no way of understanding that the various artistic styles do not operate on one another within a closed system, but grow out of different soils, with each major region of the Italian peninsula having a predominant temperament, a set of proclivities, in short an ethos, which is clearly different from that of every other.

The book is written in a delightful, witty style. Occasionally, however, Professor Waterhouse's witti- cisms get in the way of his wisdom. Speaking of Pozzo's famous vault fresco at Sant'Ignazio, he says "From most points of view ... the effect is wholly unnerving. Columns fall inwards or sideways and the spectator feels as Samson must have felt after he had started work on the Temple at Gaza" (p. 75). I have seen the fresco often, from many angles, without feeling in danger. Even out of focus the effect is spectacular. Again, to criticize Giordano's fresco in the Palazzo Medici by saying it has "the atmosphere of a picnic," is "rather frivolous," and "lightly evades all those im- plications of power and propaganda which are im- plicit in the true Roman Baroque style" (p. 167) seems to me to be a half-truth which ignores Gior- dano's highly creative role in the development of the Rococo. Nor do there seem to me to be any reliable grounds for saying that Caravaggio "built up a legend about himself as a great revolutionary" (p. 22)

But such criticisms are of small consequence in the face of a book which is capable of giving so much pleasure while it instructs so well. In contrast to the many art historians who approach the language as if

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BOOK REVIEWS 293

it were their enemy, Professor Waterhouse handles English with an easy grace, reducing complex thoughts to simple phrases without loss of clarity. His book sparkles with an enthusiasm untouched by sentimen- tality. The whole field of Italian Baroque painting will become better known because of it.

ROBERT ENGGASS

Pennsylvania State University

ANTONIO MORASSI: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G. B. Tiepolo, London, Phaidon Pub- lishers, 1962. Pp. 239; 429 figs. ?7

Tiepolo is an artist who has made few appearances in the pages of THE ART BULLETIN. In American museums, however, his appearances are very much more frequent and there has for long been an interest which culminated recently in the brilliant acquisition by Boston of a major large-scale work, Time abducting Beauty [sic] which once belonged to Delacroix's friend Baron Schwiter. And it is worth noting that before any picture by Tiepolo entered the London National Gallery the Metropolitan already owned the interesting Investiture sketch related to the Wiirzburg composition. Although everybody is now busy denying it, the truth is that Tiepolo has had a tough time becoming respectable in scholarly circles, even while artists and curators have probably gone on shamelessly responding to him-regardless of the strictures of a Professor Roberto Longhi.

It took about a hundred and fifty years for anyone to understand how to study Tiepolo and that eight- eenth century to which he so ineluctably belonged. Indeed, in the usual confusion of morals and art, it remained for long doubtful whether Tiepolo "de- served" to be studied at all. One could supply striking examples of what some distinguished English art historians were still saying about Tiepolo even after the Venice exhibition of I95I--but these are better reserved for their obituaries or one's autobiography. To some extent the same cloud of reserve has covered Tiepolo's reputation in all countries. And let us admit that to those who have never visited the Palazzo Labia, the Villa Valmarana, or the Residenz at Wiirzburg, the chief evidence for esteeming the artist naturally remains largely inaccessible; it is only peculiar that this has not inhibited pronouncements. It was in Tiepolo's native land, positively in his native city, that the cloud of reserve, tinged with scorn, was first blown away: thanks to the puff of Pompeo Molmenti, too little hon- ored now as an art historian though Italy has seldom produced his like. Molmenti was more than a sensitive plant; his roots were deep in knowledge and, even while enjoying the art, he did not neglect the history. It is true that he presented his results in a rich confusion which requires close perusal to yield up its treasures; and the Teutonic thoroughness of Eduard Sack's sub- sequent monograph (published in I91 o) was like a rebuke. Sack daringly aimed at a catalogue raisonnr

of

both Tiepolo father and son, and of drawings as well as paintings. The flaws are obvious, but the result was a remarkable success, especially for the paintings. These two men (representatives of Southern passion and Northern method, but revelations, too, of how strong Northern passion can be and how weak South- ern method) are the twin pillars on which all Tiepolo studies will forever be based. Let us now praise famous men and the fathers that begat Professor Morassi's two-volume monograph of which volume two, under review, is this catalogue of Giambattista Tiepolo's paint- ings. Amen.

After Molmenti and Sack, it would certainly seem fair next to praise Morassi, who has a long history of studying Tiepolo, dating back as far as 1915 (when he indirectly contributed by re-attributing away from Tiepolo some frescoes at Crauglio). It was Morassi who, at a time when the first impetus of study had spent itself, revealed the existence and nature of Tiepolo's early style. More recently, it was he who first correctly read the date of 1757 at Valmarana, thus restoring order to the previous confusion. Along with these major contributions has gone his constant lesser activity of publishing new pictures, re-attributing others, evolving an image of Tiepolo that ought to be enshrined in the present volume. And yet, despite some undoubted utility, this volume is a disappointment. Frankly, it is not a totally surprising disappointment, because Morassi's volume one (published in 1955) contained the seeds of it in wanton dating, some definitely odd attributions, and an introductory essay that just did not have the "class"--or the authority- one would have hoped for after so many years of study.

Tiepolo is elusive; but that does not mean he does not exist. Yet it is virtually impossible from these two volumes to get any image of Morassi's Tiepolo. Partly this is because Morassi's eccentric historical pronounce- ments border on the incredible and cross over into lunacy. What is one to make of an art historian who refers to the neo-classic period "which lasted for more than a hundred years"? Let us leave this embarrassing subject and turn to volume two where at least no generalizations exist. Indeed, not a great deal does exist in these skimpy entries once location and size have been given. Attributions are provided but seldom argued, defended, or discussed. The master raps out the answer just as if he were the memory man in some T.V. program. If the picture is by Giambattista, a date is provided--equally unargued and apparently unarguable. Nobody else seems to have proposed any- thing, still less discovered anything. The literature for each picture is the minimal compatible with decency: mere fig leaves which the wind of haste has sometimes, apparently, blown off (witness the naked entries for the Copenhagen pictures, though they have all been the subject of an excellent uncited article by Rubow in Kunstmuseets Arsskrift, I956). As a result it seems not uncommon for the individual entry to omit the earliest reference to a picture (e.g., the Verona Helio- dorus, which an uncited x8th century guide book al-

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