Ernst Gombrich - A Crisis of Art (Ch. 18)

8/17/2019 Ernst Gombrich - A Crisis of Art (Ch. 18)

1/25

I8

A CRISIS

OF

ART

Europe later

sixt nth

century

Round about

1520

ll

lovers

of

art

in the

I tali an cities scCincd to agree

that

painting

had reached

the peak of perfection. Men such s

Michelangelo

and

Raphael,

Titian and Leonardo had

actually

done

everything that former generations

had

tried to do.

No

problem of

draughtsmanship

seemed

too difficult for

them

no

subject-matter too

cornplicatcd. They

had shown how to

con1binc

beauty

and

harmony

with

correctness,

and

had even

surpassed-

so

it

was

said-

the

most

renowned

statues

of Greek

and

Roman antiquity.

For

a

boy who

wanted

one day

to become

a great painter hitnself, this general

opinion

was

perhaps not altogether

pleasant

to

listen to.

However much he may

have adn1ircd

the

works

of the

great living n lasters,

he must

have

wondered

whether it was

true that nothing

remained

to

be done

because

everything

art

could

possibly

do

had

been

achieved.

Some appeared

to

accept this idea

s

inevitable,

and

studied hard to

learn

what Michelangelo

had learned and to imitate

his

manner s best they could. Michelangelo

had loved to draw nudes

in

cmnplicated

attitudes- well, if

that

was

the

right thing to do they would copy

his

nudes and put

them

into their

pictures whether

they fitted

or

not.

The results

were

sonretimes slightly

ludicrous-

the,sacred scenes

from

the

Bible

were

crowded out by

what

appeared to be

a

training

team

of young

athletes.

Later

critics, who saw

that

these young painters had gone wrong since they

merely

imitated the

manner of Michelangelo

because it was in fashion,

have

called this the

period of Mannerism. But not all young artists of this

period

were so

foolish

s to believe

that ll

that

was asked

of art

was a

collection of

nudes

in difficult postures .

Many indeed doubted

whether art

could ever

come

to

a standstill, whether

it

was not possible, after all,

to

surpass

the

fatuous

masters of

the former generation

ifnot in

their handling

of human

fonns

then

perhaps,

in

some

other respect.

Smne wanted

to

outdo thent in the

nutter of

invention.

They

wanted to paint

pictures full of signiftcance and

wisdom-

such

wisdon1,

indeed that it should rentain obscure

save to

the

most

learned

scholars. Their

works

almost rese1nblc

picture

puzzles

which

cannot be solved

save

by those who know what the

scholars

of he time

believed to be the true meaning

ofEgyptian hieroglyphs,

and of many


2/25

JCl A

CRISIS

01 AI


3/25

J J

U O J ~ .

L TER SIX I

H N

TII CCNTURV

it, too,

is

a caprice ,

fo

r it has four identical sides, each with a porch in

the form ofa temple fac;:adc grouped round a central hall which recalls

the Roman Pantheon,

pa;? e

12o jig11re 75. However beautiful the

comb

ination may be, it is hardly a building

which one

wo

uld like to

live in. The search for novelty and effect has in terfered with the ordinary

pur

pose

of

architecture.

A typical artist of this period was the Florentine sculptor and goldsmi th

D

envenuto

Cellini (rsoo-71). Cellini has descr

ibed

his

own

life

in

a

famous book, which gives an immensely colourful and vivid picture of

his age.

He

was boastful, ruthless and

va in

,

but it s

hard to be cross with

him because he te lls the story ofhis adventur

es

and exploits with such

gusto that yo u think you arc reading a novel by Dumas. In his vanity and

conceit and in his restlessness, which drove him from town to town and

fi:om

court to court, picking quarrels and earning laurels, Cellini is a

real product of his time. For him, to be an artist was no longer to be a

r

es

pectable and sedate

ow

ner

of

a

wor

kshop: it was to be a

v

irt uoso for

whose favour princ

es

and cardinals sh

ou

ld

comp

ete . O ne

of

the few works

by his hand which have come down to us is a golden

sa

lt- cellar, made for


4/25

364 A CRISIS

Of

A lt l

the King of France in 1543 jigure

233.

Cellini tells us the story in great

detail. We hear how he snubbed two famous scholars who ventured to

suggest a subject to

him

, h

ow

he made a

mo

del in wax ofhis

own

invention represen ting the

Earth

and the Sea. To

show

h

ow

the

Earth

a

nd

the Sea in terpenetrate he made the lq TS

of

h e two figures interlock:

The

Sea, fashioned

as

a man, held a finely

wrought

s

hi

p which could hold

enough salt,

beneath

I had

put four

sea-horses and I

had

given the figure a

trident.

The Earth

I fashi

oned as

a fair

woman, as

graceful as I could

do

it.

Beside her placed a ri

ch

ly decorated temple

to

hold the pepper.

But

all

this subtle inv

ention

makes less interesting reading than the story

of

how

Ce

llini carr

ied

the gold from the King s treasurer and was attacked

by

four

bandit

s,

a

ll ofwhom

he

put

to flig

ht

single-handed.

To

some

of

us the

smooth elegance of Cellini s fit,rtu es may look a little over-elaborate and

affected. Perhaps it is a consolation

to know that

their master had

enough

of that healt

hy

rob ustness

whic

h his

work

seems

to

lack.

Ce

llini s outlook is typical of the restless

and

hectic attempts of the

pet;

od

to create

somet

hing

more int

eresting a

nd

unusual than for

mer

generations had done. We find the same spirit in the paintings ofone

of Co

rreggio s

fo llowe

r

s,

Parmigianino

(1503-40) .

I can well imagine that

some may find his Madonna ,jigure

234

almost offensive because of the

affectation and sop

hi

sticat1on

with

w

hich

a sacred subject

is

treated.

There is nothing

in

it of

the ease and simplicity

with

which Raphael

had

treated that anci

ent

theme. The picture is called the Madonna

wit

h the

long neck because the painter, in his eagerness to make the Holy Virgin

l

ook

graceful and elega

nt

, has given her a neck like

that

ofa swan. H e has

233

Benve

nuto

Cellin

Salt-

cellar 15 43

Chasedbraid and cna

on dxmy

ba


5/25

65 EUIWI E, LATER SIXTEENTH

EN T

U II Y


6/25


7/25

67 r.UROPE, LATER SIXTEioNTII C.EN J URY

stretched

and

lengthened the proportions of the hunun body in a strangely

capricious way. The hand of the Virgin

with

its long delicate fingers, the

long leg

of the angel in the

foreground,

the lean, haggard

prophet

with a

scroll

of

parchment-

we

see thern all

as

through

a distorting mirror.

And

yet there can be no doubt

that

the artist

achieved

this effect through

neither ignorance

nor

indifference.

He

has taken care

to

show us that

he liked these unnaturally

elongated

forn1s, for,

to make doubly

sure of

his effect, he placed an oddly shaped high

o l u n ~ n

of equally unusual

proportions

in the background

of

the painting.

s

for

the

arrangernent

of

the

picture,

he also showed us

that

he did not believe in

conventional

harmonies. Instead

of

distributing his figures in equal pairs on

both

sides

of

the Madonna, he cranm1ed a jostling crowd ofangels into a narrow corner,

and

left the

other

side

wide

open to

show

the tall figure

of

the

prophet,

so

reduced

in size through the distance that he hardly reaches the Madonna s

knee. There can be no doubt, then, that if this be madness there

is

method

in

it.

The

painter

wanted

to

be unorthodox.

He

wanted

to

show

that

the

classical solution of perfect hannony

is not

the only solution conceivable;

that

natural sim.plicity is

one

way

of achieving

beauty, but that there

arc less direct ways of getting interest ing effects for sophisticated lovers

of art. Whether

we

like

or

dislike the road he took, we must admit that he

was consistent. Indeed, Parmigianino and all the artists of his tin1e who

deliberately

sought

to create sornething new and unexpected, eve n at the

expense of the natural

beauty

established by the great n1asters, were

perhaps the first

modern

artists.

We

shall see,

indeed,

that what is now

called modern art n1ay have had its roots in a similar urge

to

avoid the

obvious and

achieve effects which differ fron1 conventional natural beauty.

Other artists

of

this strange period, in

the

shadow

of

the giants

of

art,

were

less despairing

of

surpassing thern

by

ordinary standards

of

skill

and i r t u ~ s i t y

We may not agree with all

they

did,

but

here,

too,

we are forced to

admit that some

of their efforts arc startling enough.

A typical example

is

the statue of Mercury, the messenger of the gods,

by a Flernish sculptor, jean de Boulogne (1529-16o8),

whom

the

Italians called Giovanni da Bologna or Giambologna,_figure

235 He

had set himself the task

of achieving

the i1npossiblc- a statue which

ovcrcon1es the weight of dead nutter and

which

creates the sensation of

a rapid flight

through

the air. And

to

a

certain

extent he was successful.

Only with a tip ofhis toe docs his famous Mercury touch the ground

rather, not the ground, but a gush of air which cornes out of the n1outh

of a mask representing the South Wind. The whole statue is so carefully

balanced

that

it rcal1y seems to

hover

in the air - almost to speed

through it, with swiftness

and

grace. Perhaps a classical sculptor,

or

even Michelangelo, n1ight have found such an effect unbecmning to a


8/25

A

CRISIS OF

AWl

statue

which should

remind one

of

the

heavy

block

of

nutter out

of which

it

was shaped- but Giarnbologna, no less than

Pannigianino,

preferred to

defY these well-established rules

and to show what

surprising effects

could

be achieved.

Perhaps the greatest

ofall

these

nustcrs ofthe

latter

part of

he

sixteenth

century

lived

in

Venice. He was calledJacopo Robusti,

but

nicknamed

Tintoretto 1518-94). He too had tired

of

he simple beauty

in

forms

and

colours

which

Titian

had shown to

the Venetians- but his

discontent must have been n1m c

than

a n1ere desire to accon1plish the

unusual. He seems to have felt that, however incon1parable Titian was as

a painter

ofbeauty,

his pictures

tended

to be more pleasing than rnoving;

that they were not sufficiently exciting to make the great stories

of

he

Bible and the sacred legends live for us.

Whether he

was right

in

this or

not,

he must, at any rate, have been resolved to tell these stories in a different

way, to make

the

spectator feel the thrill and tense drarna

of he

events

he

painted.

igure

36

shows

that

he

did indeed succeed in

nuking

his pictures

unusual and captivating.

At

first glance this

painting

looks confused

and

confusing. Instead

of

a clear arrangement

of

he nuin figures in

the

plane

of

the picture, such as Raphael had achieved,

we

look

into the

depths of

a strange vault. There is a tall

nun

with a halo at the left corner , raising his

ann

as

if

o

stop

something

that is

happening- and

if

we follow

his gesture

we can see

that

he

is concerned with

what is

going

on

high

under

the

roof

of

the vault on the other side of he picture. There are two men

about

to

lower a dead body from a

tornb- they

have lifted its l id-

and

a

third

man

in

a turban is helping them, while a noblenun in the

background

with a torch

is trying to read

the

inscription

on another tomb. These

men arc evidently

plundering a catacomb. One

of

he bodies is stretched out on a carpet in

strange foreshortening,

while

a dignified old

man in

a gorgeous costun1e

kneels beside

it and

looks at it. Ib the right corner there is a group

of

gesticulating

111en

and women, looking

with

astonishment at the saint- for

a saint the figure with the halo

must

be. If

we

look more closely we sec that

he

carries a book-

he is

St

Mark

the Evangelist, the

patron

saint

ofVenice.

What is

happening?

The picture

represents the story

ofhow

the relics of

St Mark

were

brought from Alexandria (the town

of

he infidel Muslims)

to

Venice,

where

the £tmous shrine

of

he

church

ofSt

Mark

was

built to

house them. The story goes that St

Mark had

been bishop at Alexandria

and

had

been

buried

in

one

of he

catacon1bs there.

When

the Venetian party

had

broken into

the

catacomb on the pious errand of inding the body

of

he

saint,

they

did

not know which of he nuny

tombs

contained

the treasured

relic. l3ut when they can1e

upon the

right

one,

St Mark suddenly appeared

and

revealed the retnains ofhis earthly existence. That

is

the mon1ent

which

Tintoretto selected. The saint comrnands

the

men not to continue


9/25

1j6

lllllorctto

llrt

f

iudiu of

St 1

l

ark s

remain

s

1562

llil

011

II

V.lS, 4 5X

405

U\1, l

jC)

X1

5CJ X.

in

c c ~ di

13rl ra,

Milan

l ; l J I ( Q I ~ , LAT[R S I

X I HNT

II C:[NTU

Y

sea

rching

the tombs. His bod y is found;

it li

es at his feet, bathed in light,

and already its presence is working miracles. The wri th ing man o n the right

is fi·eed fi·om a de

mon

who had possessed

him and wh

o is

se

en escaping

fi·om his

mouth

like a wisp of smoke. T he nobleman who kneels down

in gratitude and ado ration is the

Don

or, a member of he religious

co nfraterni

ty who

had commissioned the painting. No doubt the whole

picture

must

have struck

contem

porari

es

as

eccentric.

Th

ey

may have b

ee

n

rather shocked by the clashing contrasts o fli ght

and

shade, of closeness

and

distance, by the lack ofharmony in gestures and movement. Yet they must

soo n have under

stoo

d

that

w

ith mo

re ordinary methods Tintoretto co

ul

d


10/25


11/25

}7

Ell O I ~ • I.A I ~ I t SIXTEENTH CENTUHY

St

Gc 1ge multhc

dmgo11 c. 1555-8

Oilonr.HIVJ>. •57-:i x

too.J em.

62

x

wY.·

in:

Nation.1l Cdkry. Loudou

not have created the in1pressiun ofa tren1endous n1ystery unfolding before

our eyes. To achieve this purpose Tinturetto even sacrificed that

111ellow

beauty ofcolour that

had

been

the proudest

achievernent

ofVenetian

painting, ofGiorgione and Titian. His painting ofSt George s fight with

the dragon, in London,_fi, ?ure 237 shows how the

weird

light and the

broken tones add to the feeling

of

ension

and

excitement.

We

feel

the

drama has just reached its

clinux.

The princess seerns to

be

rushing right

out

of he

picture towards us

while

the hero is ren loved, against all rules,

£u into the background

of

he scene.

Giorgio

Vasari (I

51

1

74),

the great Florentine critic and

biographer

of

the period, wrote

ofTintoretto

that had he not abandoned the beaten

track

but

rather followed the beautiful style ofhis predecessors, he would

have

becmne

one of

the

greatest painters seen

in

Venice . As it was, Vasari

thought his work was marred by careless execution and eccentric taste.

He

was puzzled

by

the lack

of finish Tintoretto

gave his

work. His

sketches , he says, are so crude that his pencil strokes

show more

force

than judgement and seen1 to have

been

made by chance. It is a reproach

which fron1 that tin le onwards has often been nude against modern artists.

Perhaps this is

not

altogether surprising, for these great innovators in art

have often concentrated on the essential things and refused to worry

about technkal perfection in the usual sense. In periods like that of

Tintoretto,

technical excellence

had

reached such a high standard that

anyone with son1e 1nechanical aptitude cou ld

nuster

son1e of ts tricks.

A

man

like Tintoretto

wanted

to show things

in

a

new

light,

he wanted

to explore new ways

of

representing the legends and myths of the past.

He

considered his painting

complete

when

he had conveyed

his vision

of

the

legendary scene. A Sinooth

and

careful finish

did

not

interest

him,

for

it did not

s e r v ~

his purpose. On the contrary i t nllght have distracted

our attention fi·om the dramatic happeninbrs of

the

picture. So

he

left it at

that, and left people wondering.

No one

in the

sixteenth

century took

these

methods

further than a

painter

frmn

the Greek island of Crete, Domenikos Theotokopoulos

(1541 -r6r4),

who

was called El Greco ( the Greek ) for short. l-Ie had

come to Venice fi·om an isolated part

of

the world which had not

developed any

new

kind

of

art since the Middle Ages.

In

his hon1eland,

he must have been used to seeing the images of saints in the ancient

Byzantine

nnnner-

solen1n, rigid and remote fi·om any semblance

of

natural appearance. Not

being

trained to look at pictures for

their

correct

design, he found nothing shocking in Tintoretto s art,

but

rnuch that was

£.1.scinating. For

he

too,

it

seems, was a passionate

and

devout nun, and

he

felt an urge to tell the sacred stories in a new and stirring

nnnner.

After his

stay in Venice

he

settled

in

a distant part ofEurope- in

Toledo,

Spain,


12/25

372

A CIUSIS

OF

ART

where

again

he

was not likely to be disturbed

and

harried by critics askin g

for co rre

ct

and natural

design

for in Spain,

too

, the

medi

eval ideas

on

art

still lingered on. T his may explain

why

El Greco s art surpasses even

Tinto

retto s in i

ts

bold disregard

of

natural forms and colo urs, and in its

stirring and dramatic vision . F i ~ r e 38 is one ofhis most startling and


13/25

373

EUROH

. ,

lATUI S XTHNTII CENTURY

lJ9

11Greco

llrdlltrr Hc>rteusio

l rlix

f ,rrnr,;ci,,o,

1609

011

011

C U l V l ~

I IJ X 86

WI, 44 lz

I } .

in;

t\lu\Cum

o

in.: Arts.

lhl\1011

l j 8

:

Greco

lltr

p c 1 1 i 1 1 ~

of the

Fifth

Sml if ltc Apocalypse

r 16oS-14

01l on

c . ; a u v ; ~ s

2

2+-:S

x

lt}l K em. SRVA x 76 in;

Ml tropolil;m Museum o

An, New

York

exciting pic

tur

es. It represents a passage

fi om the Revelation

of

St John, and it is

St

John

himselfwhom

we

sec on one side of

the pic ture in visionary rapture,

looking

towards H eaven and raising his am1s in a

prophetic gesture.

The

passage is the

one

in w

hi

ch the L

amb

summons StJohn to 'Come and sec' the

opening

of

he seven seals.

And

when he

had opened the ftfth seal, I saw under the

altar

th

e souls of hem that were slain for the

word of

God,

and for the testimony which

they held: And they cried with a loud voice,

saying "How long, 0 Lord , holy and true,

dost thou not judge and avenge

ou

r blood

on them

that dwell

on

the earth?

And

white robes were given

unto

every

one

of

them ' (Rev. vi. 9 - 11

).

The

nude ftgurcs,

with their excited gestures, arc therefore

the

martyrs w

ho

rise to receive the heavenly

gift ofwhite robes. Surely no exact and

accurate drawing

cou

ld ever have expressed

with

su

ch

an uncanny and

conv

in

cin g force that terrible

vis

ion ofdoomsday, when the very saints

call for the destruction

of

his

world

. It

is

not difficult to see that

El

Greco

had learned much from Tintoretto's unorthodox method ofl opsidcd

composition, and that he had also adopted the manne1ism ofover- long

figures like that ofPannigianino's sophisticated a d o n n a f i . ~ u r e 234.

13ut

we

also realize that El Greco e

mp

loyed this artistic

me th

od

wi

th

a n

ew

purpose.

H e lived in Spain , where religion had a mystic fervour found hardly

anywhere else. Tn this atmosphere, the sophisticated art ofMannerism lost

much

of

ts character of

an

art for

con

noisseurs. Thou

gh

his

work

strikes us

as

incredibly 'modern', his contempo raries in Spain do not seem to have

raised any objectionssuc h

as Va

sari did to T intoretto's works. His greatest

t r a i t ~ f i g u r e

239, can indeed stand beside those ofTitian , page 333,_figure

212.

Hi

s studio was always fully employed. H e seems to have engaged a

number of ssistants to cope with the many orders he received, and that may

explain

why

not all the works that bear his name are eq ually

good

. It was

only a genera

tion

later that people began to CJiticize his unnatural forms and

colours, and to regard his pictures

as

something like a bad

joke;

and only

after the First W orld War, wh

en

mod

ern

ar

tists

had taught

us

not to apply

the same standa

rd

s of ' correctness' to all works ofart, was El Greco's art

rediscovered and unders

tood

.


14/25

374 r\

ClUSIS

OF ART

In the northern countries, in Germany, Holland and England, artists

were confi·onted with a

nmch

more real crisis than

their

colleagues

in

Italy

and Spain. For these southerners had only to deal with the probletn of

how

to paint

in

a

new

and

startling

nunneL

In the

North

the question

soon

faced then1 whether painting could and should continue at alL This

great crisis was

brought

about by the Reformation. Many Protestants

objected to pictures or statues

of

saints in churches and regarded them as

a sign

of

Popish idolatry.

Thus

the painters in Protestant regions lost their

best source ofincon1e, the painting

of

altar-panels. The stricter arnong

the Calvinists even objected to

other

kinds ofluxll1y such

as

gay

decorations

of

houses, and

even

where these

were

_pennitted

in themy,

the clinute and the style

of

buildings were usually unsuited to large

fi·esco decorations such as Italian nobles con1missioned for their palaces.

All that remained

as

a regular source of incmne for artists was book

illustration and

portrait

painting,

and it

was doubtful

whether

these

would

suffice

to

1nakc a living.

We can witness the effect of this crisis in the career of the greatest

German painter of

this generation, in the life of Hans Holbein

the

Younger

(1497-1543).

Holbein

was twenty-six years younger than Diirer

and

only three years older than Cellini. He was born in Augsburg, a rich

n1erchant city with close trading relations with Italy; he

soon

n1oved to

Basle, a renowned centre

of

the New Learning.

The knowledge which Dilrer strove for so passionately throughout his

life thus came more naturally to Holbein. Conling fi·om a painter s family

(his father was a respected master) and

being

exceedingly alert,

he

soon

absorbed the achievements

ofboth

the

northern

and the Italian artists.

He was hardly

over

thirty when

he

painted the

wonderful

altar-painting

of

the Virgin

with

the

funily

of

the

burgomaster

ofDasle

as

donors,

figure

240.

The fonn was traditional in all countries, and we have seen

it

applied in

the Wilton

Diptych, pages 216-17,_figure 143, and Titian s

Pesaro

Madonna ,

page J J O J i ~ u r e 21o But Holbein s painting

is

still one

of the

n1 ost perfect examples

of

ts kind. The

way

in

which

the donors

are arranged in seemingly effortless groups on

both

sides of the Virgin,

whose

calm and ~ e s t i figure is fi·amed by a niche of classical forms,

reminds us

of

the rnost

hannonious

compositions

of

the Italian

Renaissance, of Giovanni Bellini,

page

J27,figurc 208, and Raphael, pa,rze

JI7,Jigure

203.

The careful attention to detail, on the other hand, and

a certain indifference to conventional beauty, show that Holbein

had

learned his trade in the North. He was 011 his way to becmning

the

leading nuster

of the Gennan-speaking countries

when

the tunnoil

of

the

Reformation

put

an end to all such hopes. In 1526 he left Switzerland for

England with a letter of recommendation

fron1

the great scholar, Erasmus

Ham Holbein

the Younger

i71c

Vi1siu a/1 1 Child

111ith the family :r

Rttt;( OIIlas/a 1\1eycr,

l52:::l

Alwr-p lilllillg: o l on

wood. q6.) x 102

nn,

57 x - J - 0 ~ in;

]);mnstOldt


15/25

75 ATER

S X I HN I

C.hNTU

RY


16/25

376 A C US S

OF

ART

ofRott

erdam. 'The arts hert: arc fi·eezing, Erasmus

wrote

commending

the painter to his friends, among w

hom

was Sir Thomas More.

On

e of

Holbein s first

job

s

in

England was to prepare a large

portr

a

it of

that other

great sc

hol

ar s famil

y,

and so

me

detailed studies for this w ork are still

preserved at Windso

r

Castle,.figure 241 IfH

olbein had

ho p

ed

to

get away

from

th

e turmoil of the Reformation he mu st have

been

disappointed by

la ter events,

but

wh

en he

fina

ll

y settled

in Eng

land for

goo

d and was given

the official title of Co urt Painter by Henry VIII he had at least found a

s

ph

ere

of

activity

which

allowed

him

to

live and

work.

H e

co

uld

no

longer paint M adonnas, but the tasks of a Court Painter

were

excee

din

gly

manifold. He designed j

ewe

llery and furniture, costumes for pageantries

and decorations for halls, weapons and goblets. His main

job,

however,

was to paint portraits of the royal household, and it is due to Holbein s

unfailing eye

th

at we still have such a vivid picture

of

the men and

women of

H e

nr

y VIII s period J i

gure 242

shows his portrait of Sir Richard

Southwell, a courtier and official who took part in the dissolution of the

mon

asteries.

Ther

e is nothing dramatic in these portraits

of Holbein

,

nothing to ca tch the eye, but the longer

we

look at them the more they

seem to reveal

of

the sitter s mind and personality. We

do not doubt

for a

moment that they are n fact faithful records of wha t Holbein saw, drawn

with out fear

or

favour.

Th

e way in which H olbe

in

has placed the figure

in the pi

ct

ur

e shows the sure touch of the master. Nothing seems left to

chance; the whole

co

mposition is so perfectly balanced that

it

may easily

H

am

Holbein

th

t: Yo

un ger

A1111e Cre.


17/25

77

UHOPE,

LA 1' 1 SIXTnnN ·I H CENTURY


18/25


19/25

379 O P E I A I t SIX ' NTII U R Y

2llrlo11

1532

Oil on wood 96 3 x

S5.7

nu

JS

x

in:

Gt••n:ildc.•g:;.alt>ric . Stta{lichc

Mu

\Ccn.

llt rli

11

seem obvious to us. But this was Holbein s in ten tion.

In his earlier portraits he had still soug

ht

to display

his

wonderfu

l skill

in

the rendering

of

details, to

characterize a sitter through his setting, through the

things among which he spent his

l

e .fi.f?

ur

243. The

older he

grew

and the more mature his art became, the

less did he seem in need of any such tricks. H e did not

want

to

obtrude

himself and to divert attention

fi·om

the sitter. And it

is

pr

ecisely for this masterly restraint

that we admire

him

most.

When

H olbein had left the Gem1an-speaking

countries, painting there began to decline

to

a

frightening extent, and wh

en

H olbein died the r t ~

were in a similar plight in England. In fac t, the only

branch

of

painting there that survived the Reformation

was that

of

portrait painting,

which Holbein

had so

firm ly established. Even in this branch the fashions

of

southern Mannerism made themselves increasingly

felt, and ideals

of co

urtly refinement and elegance

replaced the simpler style ofHolbein.

The

portrait

of

a

yo u

ng Elizabethan nobleman,.figure

244

gives an idea of this

new

type ofportraitu

re

at its

best. It

is

a miniature by the famous

En

glish mas

ter

Nicholas Hilliard (1547- 1619), a contemporary

of

Sir Philip Sidney and

William Shakespeare. We may indeed think of Sidney s pastorals or

Shakespeare s

comedies

w h

en

looking at t

hi

s dainty youth

who

leans

l

anguic Uy

against a tree, s

uJT

ounded

by thorny

wild roses, his right hand

pr

essed against his heart. Perhaps

th

e miniature was intended as the

yo

ung

man s gift to the lady he was wooing, for it bears the Latin insc1iption

Dat

poenas

la

udata ftdes , w

hich

means roughly,

my

praised faith procures m y

pain . We ought not to ask whether these pains were any

mo r

e real than

the painted thorns on the miniature.

A

young

ga

llant in those days was

expected to make a s

how of

griefand

unrequited

love. These sighs and

these sonnets were all part ofa graceful and elaborate game, which

nobody

took too

seriously but

in

which everybody wanted to shin e by inventing

new

variations and new refinements.

If we look at Hilliard s miniature as an object designed for tllis game,

it

may no longer strike us as affected and artificial. Let us

hope

that when the

maiden received this token

of

affection

in

a prec

iou

s case and saw the pitiful

pose of her elega

nt

and noble wooer, llis praised faith had at

la

st its reward.

There

was only

one

Protestant

country

in

Europe where art

fu ll

y

survived the cr

isi

s of he R

eform

ation - that was the Netherlands. There,


20/25

iRO A C.RISIS

01·

Al


21/25

381 fUROPE, l . i \ fER

SIX'

~ . E N T I I

CEN-J

URY

the northern artists, who were no longer needed for the painting ofaltar

panc1s and other devotional pictures, tried to find a market for their

recognized specialities and to

paint

pictures the

main object

ofwhich

was

to

display

their

stupendous

skill

in

representing

the

surface

of

things.

Specialization vvas

not

even

quite new

to the artists of these lands.

We

rerncmber

that

Hieronymus Bosch,

page 358 jigures

22 )-JO, had

tnade

a

speciaHty ofpictures ofhell and of demons even before the crisis ofart.

Now, when

the

scope

of

painting

had becmne

n1orc restricted, the painters

went furthe r along this road.

They

tried to develop the traditions of

northern

art which reach back to the titne

of

the

dr leries

on the margins

of medieval manuscripts, page 211

figure

140

and

to

the scenes of real life

represented in fifteenth-century art,

page 274 jtgure 177.

Pictures in which

the painters deliberately cultivated a certain branch

or

kind ofsubject,

particularly scenes fi-om daily life, later becam_e known

as

'genre pictures

~ n n e being the French word for

branch

or

kind).

The

greatest

of

the

Flernish

sixteenth-century

masters

of

genre was

Picter 13ruegel

the Elder

(1525?-69). We know little ofllis life

except that

he had been

to

Italy, like so many northern artists ofhis time, and that he

lived and

worked

in Antwerp and Brussels, where he painted most of his

pictures in the 156os, the decade in which the stern Duke ofAlva arrived

in the Netherlands. The dignity

of

art

and of

artists was

probably

as

important

to him as it was to DUrer

or

Cc1lini, for in one

of

his splendid

drawings he

is

clearly out to point a contrast between the proud painter

and the stupid-looking bespectacled man who fumbles in his

purse

as he

peers

over

the artist s

shoulder jlgure

245.

The

'kind'

ofpainting

on

which l3ruegc1 concentrated was scenes from

peasant life. He painted peasants tnerrytnaking, feasting

and

working, and

so people haY e con1e to think of

him as

one of the Flemish peasants. This

is a comtnon mistake which we arc

apt

to

make

about artists. We are often

inclined to confuse their

work with

their person.

We

think of Dickens

as

a n1embcr ofMr Pickwick's

jolly

circle, or ofJulcs

Verne as

a daring

inventor

and

travciier. IfBruegel had been a peasant himself he could not

have

painted

thcn1

as

he did. He certainly was a

townsman

and his attitude

towards the rustic life of the village was very likely similar

to that

of

Shakespeare, for whom Quince the

Carpenter

and Bottom the

Weaver

were a species

of'clown'.

It was the custom at that time

to

regard the

country yokel

as

a figure offun. I do

not think

that

either Shakespeare

or

Bruegel accepted this custon1 out

of

snobbery, but in rustic life human

nature

was less disguised

and covered up

with

a

veneer

of

artificiality

and

convention

than in the life

and

nunners

of

the gentlemen Hilliard

portrayed. Thus, when they wanted to show up the folly ofhumankind,

playwrights and artists

often took

low life as their subject.


22/25

JS

i\ CRIS I S OF ART

One o f the most perfect of

lJrue

gcl s human comedies is his famous

picture of a cou nt ry wedding,.figure

2 6. Like

most pictures, it loses a

great deal

in

reproduction: all details become m uch sma

ll

er, and we

must therefore look at it with double care.

The

feast takes place in a barn,

w

ith

str

aw

stacked up high in

the

background.

The

bride

sits

in fi·ont

of

a

piece ofblue cloth, with a kind c

rown

suspended over her head. She

quie

tl

y wi th folded hands and a grin of utter

co n

tentment on her

stupid

face .figure 247. I

he old man in the chair and the

wo rn

an beside

her

are probably her parents, while the man farther back, who is so busy

gobb

lin

g his food with his spoon, may be the bridegroom. Mo st of the

people at the table conce

nt

rate

on

eating and drinking, and

we

n

ot

ice t

hi

s

is

on

ly the begim1ing. In the left-hand corn er a man pours o ut beer- a

good number of e

mpty

j ugs are still in the

basket-

while tw o rnen with

whi te aprons arc ca rrying ten mo re platefuls ofpic

or

porridge

on

an

improvised tray.

One

of

th

e guests passes

th

e plates to the table. But much

more is going on.

There

is the crowd in the background trying to

get

in;

there arc the musicians, one of th

em

with a pathetic, forlorn and hun gry

look in

hi

s eyes, as he watches the food being carried past; there are the

two ou ts

id

ers at

the

co rn

er

of he table,

the

fi.i.ar and

the

magistrate,

246

l ictcr Rru

egd tlw

f-:lder

P

ra5a

lll wcdtfi11g

c.

Ij 6S

il o n w oo

1 1 1

x 16 J

cm i x 6

.J

Y

in

:

M . : h ~ . s

t\1ml·u enna


23/25

147

l

c il

o i u

n:

l - fl

JSJ loU

l iOn

LA T

Ut

SIX I EEN

TII

C EN

TUitY

engrossed in their ow n co nversation ; and there is the child in the

foreground, who h

as got

hold ofa plate, and a feathered cap much too

large fo r its lit tle head, and who is completely absorbed in lick

in

g the

delicious

food

a pic

tu

re

of

innocent

greed.

But

what

is

eve

n

more

admirable th an all tllis wealth of anecdote, wit and observation, is the

way in wh ich Bruegel has organized his picture so th at it does n

ot

look

cr

ow

ded or co nfusing. Tintoretto

him

self could not have produced a

more convin

ci

ng pictu re ofa c

ro

wded space than did Bruegel with his

device of the table receding in to the backgrou nd and the

movement

ofpeople starting wi th the crowd at the barn doo r, leading up to the

foregro

und an

d the scene of the food carriers, and back again through

th e gesture of the man se rving the table who leads our eyes directly to

the small

but

central figmc of the grinn ing b1ide.

n these gay, but by no means simple, pictures, Bruegel had discovered

a new

kingdom

for art w

hi

ch the generations of Netherlandish painters

after

him were

to explore to

the

ful

l.

fn France the crisis of art took again a different turn. Situated between

It

aly and the

northern

co un tries, it was influenced by both.

Th

e vigorous

tradition

of

French medieval art was at first threatened by the inrush of the

It

alianate fashion, which French painters found

as

difficult to adapt as did

their colleagues in the Netherlands pnge 357,_/i,( ,ure

228. Th

e form in which


24/25

Italian art was finally

accepted by high

society was

that of the

elegant

and refined

Italian Mannerists of Cellini s type, figure 233. We

can

sec its

influence in the

lively

r l i f ~

from a

fountain by the French

sculptor,

J

can

Goujon (died rs66? ,jigure 248.

There

is

something both ofParmigianino s

fastidious elegance

and Giambologna s

virtuosity in these exquisitely

graceful figures

and the way they

arc fitted

into the

narrow strips reserved

for then1.

A

generation later an

artist arose

in

France

in whose

etchings

the

bizarre

inventions

of

the

Italian Manne rists

were represented

in the spirit ofPicter

Bruegel:

the

Lorrainian,Jacques

Callot

(1592-1635). Like

Tintorctto

or

s

Jean Goujon

Ny111phs from the

Foutaine

des

Irmoccllts

l547-9

IVL rbl; each pane\2 10 x

ri3 Clll,

94\ 2 X 2.J--} ; in;

MusCc National de_

Monument< Franpis, Paris


25/25

JS ~ t J I W I ~ , I 1\THl S X .EN III C:ENT

URY

149

Jacques C allot

Tll'o [ltllinu doums

. 1622

Dt IJil of

IChing:

from

rhc

.ait.s 'O

:t

lli di Sfc;;,.ania'

Tndr/(•o Zuccaro at Wclrk

ci/Jthc sraj}oldiug ofa

Jlaln

ce.

l-Ie

is

watched

IVith

ndmirntiou

by the

•l) ed

Michelnujielo

ll•hi t•

the

goddess

of

Fa111e

tmmpets hi;

triJ' "Ph n/1 o11er the

IIW/d

C. 1590

n

wing

Or

Fe

Documents

Ernst Gombrich - A Crisis of Art (Ch. 18)