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8/10/2019 Maria Loh - New and Improved: Repetition as Originality in Italian Baroque Practice and Theory
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New and Improved: Repetition as Originality in Italian Baroque Practice and TheoryAuthor(s): Maria H. LohSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 477-504Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4134443
Accessed: 05/01/2010 14:32
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e w a n d
Improved
Repetition
s
Originality
in
t a l i a n
a r o q u e
P r a c t i c e
a n d
T h e o r y
Maria
H.
Loh
In
her
essay
"The
Originality
of the
Avant-Garde,"
Rosalind
Krauss concluded
with
a
brief discussion about Sherrie
Le-
vine's
original photographs
of
reproductions
of other
artists'
photographs
(Fig.
1).
Originality
and
repetition,
Krauss ar-
gued,
could not exist
without
each other.
The former
was the
basis for both the
myth
of the
avant-garde
and,
in a somewhat
ironic
pairing,
the
authority
of institutional
bodies-that
is,
the
museum,
the
historian,
and the artist. The
repression
of
repetition,
moreover,
was
crucial
for the
perpetuation
of its
twin.
Endless
replication,
from
Auguste
Rodin's
multiple
original
bronze
casts
to Levine's
deliberate
repetitions,
chal-
lenged
the
modernist
obsession
with
the
originality
of the
avant-garde.
In a similarmove, Abigail Solomon-Godeau identified "se-
riality
and
repetition, appropriation,
intertextuality,
simula-
tion or
pastiche"
as
the
primary
devices
employed by post-
modernist
artists.2
More
generally, Craig
Owens
subsumed
these
practices
under
the
"allegorical impulse."
The
post-
modern
artist
or
allegorist,
Owens
suggested,
appropriates,
interprets,
and confiscates
images
not to
"restore
an
original
meaning
that
may
have been lost
or
obscured"but
instead to
add,
replace,
supplant,
and
supplement
one
meaning
with
another.3
This
is
evident,
for
instance,
in
Levine's
photo-
graphs
after
photographs,
which
are no
longer
about the
objects
photographed
but instead about
repetition
as an
essential
aspect
of
the
act of
representation
in
and of
itself.
Commenting on her own work, Levine borrowed Roland
Barthes's
pronouncement
on the
death of the
author;
sub-
stituting "painter"
for
"author,"
she
suggested
that "the
viewer is the tablet on which all the
quotations
that make
up
a
painting
are inscribed
without
any
of them
being
lost.
A
painting's meaning
lies not
in
its
origin,
but
in
its destination.
The birth of the viewer
must be
at
the cost
of
the
painter."'
At
bottom,
there is a desire to
subvert
the
institutionalization
and commercialization of artistic
production by
denying
unique authorship
and
objecthood
to the work of
art. Two
epistemological
transformationscan be
noted here. The first
is the
displacement
of an
antiquated
and
somewhat reaction-
ary
understanding
of
originality
as
an
essential
quality
of
the
omnipotent,
self-sufficientartistic
genius
as manifested in the
unique object
the
singular
autograph
painting,
the autho-
rized
photograph, sculpture,
and so
on).
The second
is
an
alternative nvestment in a modified notion of the work of art
as
a
contextwith
its
own
intentions,
in
which the
possibility
of
originality
is
continuously negotiated
between the
producer,
the
object,
and the
spectator
with each new
viewing experi-
ence.
Keeping
these issues in
mind,
this
essay
will
explore repe-
tition as a critical
strategy
in
both
Baroque practice
and
theory."
With
the
renewed interest
in
and
quotation
of
Ve-
netian Renaissance art at the
beginning
of the
seicento,
originality
and
repetition,
as we shall
see,
were
intimately
bound to one another in the
painting
and artistic
discourse
of this
period.
Even
though
Krauss's
essay
has
acquired
its
own
mythic
status,
the
myth
of
originality
maintains its
hold
on art historical
discourse,
especially
when it is concerned
with
a
period,
like the seventeenth
century, populated by
Geniuses and Great Masters. One often
makes
the
assump-
tion,
for
instance,
that
originality
is an
immanent
category
of
judgment,
but the term
"originality"
is
itself an
eighteenth-
century
invention.6
This
is not to
say
that a concern
with,
an
abiding
interest
in what
we now call
originality
did not
exist
prior
to its
formulation as a word.
In
order to
gain
a better
understanding
of
the
historical context
in
which the term
"originality"
came into
being,
we
must
listen more
closely
to
the discourse that
brought
it into existence and that it even-
tually replaced. Repetition
played
an
important
role in the
formulation of both
Baroque
practice
and
theory.
Rather
than
a classic modernist axis of
originality
versus
repetition,
premodernist
discourse
addressed the
question
of artistic
innovation within the limits of
imitation and emulation. Sev-
enteenth-century
beholders
articulated their
reception
of
an
aesthetic mode
that
embraced
demonstrative
repetition
through
its
own
historically
bound
terms,
among
which we
will consider mixture
(misto),
wit
(acutezza),
novelty
(novita),
theft
(furto),
and
pastiche (pasticcio).
If
Barthes
and Levine
speak
about the birth of
the
reader/
viewer at the
expense
of
the death
of
the
author/painter,
we
can also entertain the prospect of a more fluid and less binary
relationship
between the two
categories,
for in all
cases
the
author/painter
is his or her
own
first
reader/viewer,
and in
many
cases,
subsequent
readers/viewers
are also
themselves
authors/painters.7
This
is the
situation,
in
any
case,
for the
specific
group
of Italian
Baroque
artists
on whom we shall
concentrate
here. It
may
come as no
surprise
to art historians
of the
dubiously
termed
"early
modern" that
many
postmod-
ernist attitudes about artistic
production
and
interpretation
find a certain
resonance
in
both the
practice
and
theory
of an
earlier
premodernist age;
this
may
not, however,
be so evi-
dent
to scholars of
subsequent periods.
When
Julia
Kristeva referred to the text as a
"mosaic of
citations,
which absorbed and transformed its
individual com-
ponents,"
or when Barthes called it a "tissue of
quotations"
and
a "multidimensional
space
in
which
a
variety
of
writings,
none of them
original,
blend and
clash,"
or
when
Jacques
Derrida described
it
as an archive
of
"always already transcrip-
tions"
(or
the
"always-already-read," according
to Fredric
Jameson),
these authors were all
drawing
from a classical
topos
of eclectic imitation outlined
by
authors
long
before
them.8
Predating postmodernism by
over three hundred
years,
the
Baroque
theorist Secondo Lancellotti
pointed
out,
"There are
many
books
in
one
book,
and
many
authors
speak
through
the mouth
of
one author."
Crediting
Aristotle as his
own
point
of
reference,
Lancellotti
explained
that this
type
of
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478
ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2004 VOLUME LXXXVI
NUMBER
3
1
Sherrie
Levine,
After
WalkerEvans
(no. 21),
black-and-white
photograph.
Collection of
the artist
invention elicits a certain
type
of
pleasure
from us because
"we
feel
great
delight
when we see two
equal
forces
(or
two
forces between
whom we are unable to detect too much
difference)
come
together
in
competition."9
In
spite
of the
historical and
ideological
differences that
necessarily
sepa-
rate Lancellotti from
Kristeva and the
others,
a useful
paral-
lelism can nevertheless be
drawn from the
postmodern ap-
preciation
of
repetition
and
early
modern theories of
intertextuality.
It
goes
without
saying
that imitation is an
embedded
prac-
tice
that can be traced in one
form or another
throughout
the
history
of Western art.
Although specific
motivations and
ends
necessarily change,
imitative
practices
remain
essentially
the same. In
certain
periods,
artistic
creation
is
said to be
burdened
by
an
"anxiety
of influence."10 For
generations
of
post-1789
artists,
the
urgency
of
establishing
a new culture
that disassociated itself from the
past may
have contributed to
a very real anxiety of influence, but this was not always the
case
for
Baroque practitioners
and
spectators.
In this
regard,
because
postmodern
theory
is sensitive to the creative
possi-
bilities of
pastiche, appropriation,
and
repetition,
it offers us
an
alternative
way
to
appreciate
seventeenth-century
art,
which is
more
generous
and
appropriate
than the Romantic
myth
of
artistic
genius
and the
early
modernist obsession with
originality.
If imitation is
a
general
category
of artistic
activity, repeti-
tion is an
insistently
demonstrative
species
of
imitation.
Rep-
etition,
to be more
precise,
is a
particular
type
of
imitative
creation that
intentionally glosses, appropriates,
or recontex-
tualizes
previous
works
(as
Levine
does)
and that builds into
the
logic
of the work of art the moment of
recognition
of the
repeated
elements.
Repetition
cannot be
compared,
for
in-
stance,
to
forgery,
which is a form of imitation that does not
seek
identification;
the
forger
does not want the viewer to see
the
deception,
whereas the artist of
repetition
does."
Rather
than
pursuing originality
in
the
utterly
new and hitherto
unseen and
unheard,
premodernist
artists,
as in the case
of
some of their
postmodernist
successors,
enacted a certain
type
of
originality
that was located
precisely
in the imitation
of
great
masters and in the
competitive repetition
of eternal
tropes.
It is both the
production
and articulation of this
alternative aesthetic of
repetition
that concerns us.
This is not to
suggest
that
Baroque
artists and theorists
were
unanimously receptive
to an aesthetic of
repetition,
or
that
repetition
was somehow the dominant mode of an over-
generalized Baroque perception,
rooted
in a Baxandallian
notion of a
period eye. Against
such an
understanding,
these
remarks attend to the idea of a
culturally
and
group-specific
lens
or,
more
appropriately
(as
we shall hear
below),
tele-
scope.
The
recognition
of
pastiched
materials
in
works of art
appealed to a particular mode of aesthetic pleasure that
coexisted with
others at a
given point
in the
past.
If an artist
like Federico
Zuccaro accused
Caravaggio
of
imitating
Gior-
gione,
there
were
also
other
spectators,
like Giovanni
Pietro
Bellori,
who
praised
the Milanese artist for the
same.'2
In
some
instances,
repetition
was
perceived positively
as
wit
and
novelty
and in other instances
negatively
as
theft-although
even theft could itself be considered a
good thing
when in
the hands of an able
thief.
The focus of the
argument
that
follows is
precisely
the fine line between
praise
and censure
and the
problematized
distinction
between
originality
and
repetition
in
early-seventeenth-century practice
and
theory.
A Tale of Two Cities:
Venice, Rome,
and Neo-Venetianism
In
1614 a
virtually
unknown Venetian
artist,
Alessandro Varo-
tari
(b.
1588,
Padua-d.
1649,
Venice),
who would later be
known
as
Il Padovanino,
arrived
in
Rome,
where
he
copied
Titian's Bacchanals in the
palace
of the Aldobrandini
family
(Figs.
2-4).
On that occasion the
twenty-six-year-old
Pado-
vanino also
painted
a fourth
picture
(Fig.
5),
which was a
proficient pastiche
of
works
by
Venetian, Roman,
and Bo-
lognese
masters of the sixteenth and
very early
seventeenth
century.
Padovanino
was
not alone in
copying
the Baccha-
nals.
Many
artists of diverse talent and for different moti-
vations did the same. Giovanni Andrea Podesti dedicated
his
engraved copies
to Cassiano dal Pozzo and Fabio della
Corgna
in order to
gain
influence with members of the
Barberini papal circle. The Florentine painter Giovan Battista
Vanni was
paid
200
scudi for his
copy
of the Bacchanal
of
the
Andrians."
Peter Paul Rubens
copied
the
two
Titian
paintings
for the
king
of
Spain.'4
Others made
replicas
as an
aide-m~moire
for future use.
Domenichino made
two
drawings
(now lost)
of Titian's Bac-
canaria,
which
he
might
have
consulted as he
painted
his own
Diana and the
Nymphs (Fig.
23)
for Cardinal Pietro Aldobran-
dini,
who in 1616 was the owner of Titian's Bacchanals.'"
Nicolas Poussin and
Francois
Duquesnoy
made
sculpted cop-
ies
of Titian's
Worship of Venus.16
This influence was
not
overlooked.
Baroque spectators
were
quick
to make the con-
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ITALIAN
BAROQUE
PRACTICE
AND THEORY
479
2
Padovanino
(Alessandro Varotari),
after
Titian,
Worship f
Venus,
oil on
canvas, ca.
1614.
Bergamo,
Accademia
Carrara
3
Padovanino,
after
Titian,
Bacchanal
of
the
Andrians,
oil on
canvas,
ca.
1614.
Bergamo,
Accademia Carrara
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480
ART
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SEPTEMBER
2004
VOLUME LXXXVI NUMBER 3
4
Padovanino,
after
Titian,
Bacchus
and
Ariadne,
oil on
canvas,
ca.
1614.
Bergamo,
Accademia Carrara
nection
between
the
seventeenth-century
artists and their
Renaissance forefather: Orfeo Boselli
compared
the tender-
ness of
Duquesnoy's sculpted
infants with
Titian's;
Andre
Felibien and
Gianlorenzo Bernini connected Poussin's
style
with
Titian's.17
Anthony
Van
Dyck similarly
transcribed the
Andrians
n
his sketchbook
(Fig.
6)
and
repeated
many
of
these
figures
and
compositions
in
paintings
like Amarilliand
Mirtillo
(Fig.
7).18
As
late as the second
half of the
seven-
teenth
century,
the
Neapolitan
artist Luca Giordano likewise
copied
Titian's Bacchus nd Ariadne
(Fig.
8)
and
immediately
reused the
figures
in the numerous
paintings
after the same
theme
that he
produced
in
the 1670s and 1680s
(Figs.
9,
10).
The
painted
copies
made
by
Padovanino and the others
after
the Bacchanals
are not
demonstrative, creative,
or com-
petitive repetitions
per
se.
They
belong
to another
category
of imitation that fulfills a
documentary
purpose
in
an
age
before
cameras,
photocopiers,
and
digital reproductions.
The workslike Domenichino's Diana or Van Dyck'sAmarilli
that resulted from
these
imitations, however,
are
proper rep-
etitions. Padovanino's fourth
painting certainly
was.
Marco
Boschini,
the most
outspoken
seventeenth-century
champion
of Venetian
painting
(and
a
good
friend of
Padovanino's
family),
effused in front of
the four works. Titian's Baccha-
nals,
he
wrote,
"are
three
in
total,
but Padovanino of
his
own
invention
added a
fourth,
which is so beautiful and
good
and
which,
next to the others is
a
unique
construction....
It is a
fantastical
invention,
currency
minted from the finest of
metals." Roman virtuosi and
artists,
he
continued,
went to
watch
the
young
artist as he
painted,
and
jealous
rivals,
who
mistook the
picture
to be
by
Titian
himself,
were converted
into admirers. There was such
intelligence
in his
own
inven-
tion that in
seeing
this
painting people
were astonished.'9
Many
of the details
in
the
TriumphFig.5)
are
paraphrastic
repetitions
from Titian's three Bacchanals.For
instance,
the
tree that extends into the scene from the
right-hand
edge
is
transplanted
from Titian's Bacchus
and Ariadne.The
ring
of
putti dancing
in
the
top right
corner
against
the shadow of
the tree and the little
winged putto crawling
onto the
plate
on the left are
kidnapped
from the
Worship f
Venus.
The
ship
in the
background
of Titian's Andrianshas sailed into the
background
here. The bacchanalian crowd and luscious
nudes are rented from the Andrians.The musculature
and
tonality
of the men
in
the lower
right-hand
corner
are rem-
iniscent of the bearded
figure
in Titian's
Bacchus
nd
Ariadne
(itself
a
quotation
of the
Laoco6n).
At the same
time,
new actors discovered
in Rome also
perform on this cinquecento Venetian stage. Michelangelo's
Sistine Adam
(Fig.
11)
carefully
reclines in the lower
left-
hand corner of the
Triumph.
The merriment
in
Raphael's
Farnesina Galatea
(Fig.
12)
is also at work
in this
Baroque
production.
The
conch-blowing figure,
for
instance,
has been
hired for a similar role
in
Padovanino's
party.
The
fluttering
cape
of the seated
goddess
in the
Triumph
s a hand-me-down
from Annibale Carracci'sGalatea
n
the Farnese
Gallery (Fig.
13)
or
perhaps
Guido Reni's airborne Aurora in the Casino
Rospigliosi (Fig.
14).
Although
the
two
young
recumbent
women in the
foreground
are
clearly inspired by
a
Ti-
tianesque
ideal,
the immediate
reference
may
have been
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5
Padovanino,
Triumph,
oil on
canvas,
ca. 1614.
Bergamo,
Accademia Carrara
from one of Francesco Albani's
many mythological
and alle-
gorical paintings
of this
period
in
which a similar
grouping
is
used.20
Although the trio to the right seems to draw its inspira-
tion from Tintoretto and Palma
Giovane,
it also
points
to
certain
religious images
that Padovanino would have seen
in
Rome
in
1614. The attenuated musculature is Titian-
esque
and
classical,
on the one
hand,
and
thoroughly
Ro-
man and
modern,
on the other. The tension between the
push
and
pull
of the
figures may
have been influenced
by
dramatic
post-Tridentine
death scenes such as
Caravag-
gio's Martyrdom of
Saint Matthew
(Fig.
15).
The
strangely
bent
leg
of Padovanino's female victim
appears
like a
disrobed revision
of
Annibale's
triumphant Virgin
in the
Cerasi
Chapel (Fig.
16).
Annibale's
was
a
highly
unusual
design
in
1601,
and
one
that did not
go
unnoticed
by
other
artists.
Domenichino,
his own
pupil, repeated
the
pose
(in
reverse)
for
an
octagonal ceiling painting
in
S.
Maria in
Trastevere of the same subject fifteen years later (Fig. 17).
One
might suggest
that Annibale's Cerasi
Assumption
sim-
ilarly inspired
Padovanino. The bizarre
positioning
of the
woman's
foot,
which tries to
gain purchase
on the
aggres-
sor's back
in
the
Triumph,
resembles the
Virgin's step
on
the
putto's
head
in
Annibale's
Assumption.
This is not to
conclude
that
they
are
indisputably
Padovanino's
sources;
instead,
they give
us an
impression
of the
general
visual
vocabulary
of a
relatively
well-informed
early-seventeenth-
century spectator.
To modern
eyes,
Padovanino's
Triumph
may
appear
to be
nothing
more than
an
amusing cut-and-paste
job.
In his
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6
Anthony
Van
Dyck,
after
Titian,
Bacchanal
of
the
Andrians,
pen
and
ink
drawing, 1622. London, The British
Museum
(photo:
?
Copyright
The
British
Museum)
7 Van
Dyck,
Amarilli
and
Mirtillo,
oil
on
canvas,
1631-32.
Pommersfelden,
collection of Graf
von
Sch6nborn
(photo:
Bildarchiv Foto
Marburg)
own
time, however,
this "invention"
and
"unique
construc-
tion"
(to
quote
Boschini's earlier
words of
praise)
was
seen
not
negatively
as
empty
derivation or servile
pastiche
but
instead asan
improvement
on
the Bacchanals."There
are the
copies
in
Venice,"
Boschini
remarked,
"of an admirable
style
and of elevated and celebrated
virtue" hat are
"by
he
perfect
and
dignified
hand of the Vice-Author
(as
he is
called)."21
When Boschini refers to the
"perfect
and
dignified
hand of
the
Vice-Author,"
he
simultaneously acknowledges
Padovani-
no's
presence
in
the
paintings
and
points
to a certain amount
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8 Luca
Giordano,
after
Titian,
Bacchus
and
Ariadne,
pencil
and
pen,
1665-70.
London,
The British Museum
(photo:
?
Copyright
The British
Museum)
9
Giordano,
Bacchus and
Ariadne,
oil
on
canvas,
ca. 1685-86.
Norfolk, Va.,
The
Chrysler
Museum of
Art,
Gift of
Walter P.
Chrysler, Jr.,
71.650
of identifiable
stylisticmasquerading
that
was
going
on
in
the
picture. In acknowledgingPadovanino'sagency as the "Vice-
Author,"
Boschini
categorically
read the
Triumph
s a
pas-
tiche-or,
one
might
venture,
as a "mosaicof
citations,"
a
"tissueof
quotations,"
a "multidimensional
space,"
an archive
of
"always lready transcriptions,"
he
"always-already-read,"
and,
as Lancellotti
(Boschini
and Padovanino's
contempo-
rary)
would
have
said,
books within a
book.22
Mixed
Metaphors
and the
Objects
of
Repetition
Aside from
Boschini's
effusive
if not
deliberately provocative
remarks,
we
have
very
little written record
of
what
contem-
porary
viewers
thought
of Padovanino's Bacchanals. There
are, however,
plenty
of
comparanda.
Creative or
demonstrative
repetition achieved through selective imitation was, as we saw
with the various
repetitions
of the
Bacchanals,
a standard
practice.
The
objects
of
imitation, meanwhile,
were various.
In
some
instances,
an artist chose to imitate another
artist's
style
(maniera);
in other
cases,
similar themes
(concetti)
and
even
specific
details
(figure)
were
repeated.
Several
authors,
for
example,
observed that Rubens
consciously
painted
the
altarpiece
for the Oratorians in Rome in the
style
of Paolo
Veronese.
Bellori wrote that it was based
on the "intentions
[intentione]"
of
Veronese.23
Other
Baroque
art
critics,
such
as
Filippo
Baldinucci
and
Roger
de
Piles,
said it was
in the
style
or
"taste
[gusto/gouste]"
of
Veronese.24
And still
other
paint-
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Giordano,
Bacchus
and
Ariadne,
oil
on
canvas,
ca. 1675-77.
Coventry,
Herbert Art
Gallery
and Museum
(photo:
?
Herbert Art
Gallery
&
Museum)
11
Michelangelo,
Creation
of
Adam,
fresco,
ca. 1511.
Vatican,
Sistine
Chapel
ings
by
the Flemish master were seen as
interpretations
of
Titian's "ideas
[idea]."25
In
other
cases,
different referential
layers might
be distin-
guished. According
to the
seventeenth-century Bolognese
biographer
Carlo Cesare
Malvasia,
Reni
painted
a
girl
in
"the
taste
[gusto]
of
Raphael,"
an older woman
in
the "taste of
Correggio,"
a
shepherd
in
the "tasteof
Titian,"
and a nude
in
the "taste of
Michelangelo,"
all in the same fresco at S.
Michele
al
Bosco.26
Seventeenth-century
artists and works
were not the
only
ones to be
placed
under this taxonomical
gaze. Looking
at Tintoretto's
Assumption f
the
Virgin
n the
church of the
Gesuiti,
Boschini concluded that "all of the
styles
[maniere]
are united here: there is Paolo
Veronese,
Titian, Schiavone, and Bassano.""27 iulio Mancini, the
Sienese art writer and
papal
doctor,
referred to El Greco as
"thatGreek
[artist]
who
operated
in Titian's
style
[maniera],"
which seems to
suggest
that,
in
the first decades of the
seicento,
some authors still considered Tintoretto's
style
(with
which the Greek
painter
is more
commonly aligned)
as
an extension of Titian's late
style.28
The term "mixture" or
"mix"
(misto)
was
often used to
describe
stylistic repetition.
In
a letter to
Bellori,
Albani
specified
that
his
master,
Annibale
Carracci,
successfully
"combined
into one
style"
the art
of
Correggio,
Titian,
Ra-
phael,
and
Michelangelo, producing
a
perfect
misto hat ac-
commodated the best
quality
of each individual artist.29At
the
beginning
of the
eighteenth century,
Pellegrino
Antonio
Orlandi would
similarly
use mistoon numerous occasions to
explain stylisticpolyphony.
He
wrote,
for
instance,
that Giulio
Procaccini found his
"own, true,
and natural
style" hrough
a
"Raphaelesque, Correggesque, Titianesque,
and Carrac-
cesque
misto";
hat Annibale's
style
consisted of a
"great
Cor-
reggesque, Parmigianesque,
and
Titianesque
misto";
hat
Lodovico Carracciadded to his
study
of works
by
old masters
a
certain "Lombard
misto";
hat Cammillo
Rama's
paintings
betrayed
both the
style
of his
master,
Palma
Giovane,
and
a
"Tintoresque
misto."30
isto,
herefore,
articulateda model of
repetition
based on
judicious
selection or
eclecticism.
Good literary style was acquired through the discriminat-
ing
imitation, recombination,
and transformationof
previous
and
existing
authors. This was a recurrent theme in Renais-
sance treatises on imitation.
Writing
in the
1550s,
Giambat-
tista GiraldiCinzio identified
Virgil
as the "rule
ofjudgment"
because
"knowing
human
imperfection
to be as it
is,
that a
single
man could not
accomplish
on his
own the virtue of
composing great things," Virgil,
he
wrote,
"with marvelous
judgment
chose all of the
good things
that
were
to
be found
in
all of the other Greek and Latin authors and
gathered
them into one" and
in
doing
so
provided
"an
utterly
truthful
example
of
the
synthesis
of Heroic
grandeur."
From the dark
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shadows,
Virgil gathered together
the best
examples
of
poetry
and
"marvelouslycomposed
them
in
one beautiful
body."
Like
painters
who want to form a
single image
of female
beauty, Virgil proceeded by "looking
at all the beautiful
women that
they
can and then
by taking
from each of them
their best
parts"
n order "to achieve the Idea that
they
have
in their
minds"
of "ultimate
perfection."31
In
his
explanation
of
Virgil's exemplarity,
Giraldi resorted
to a number of
tropes
that were standard fare
in
writings
about imitation. Above all was the notion that absolute
per-
fection
("l'ultima
perfettione")
or the Idea that
preexisted
in
the mind of
the
artist
("1I
Idea
c'hanno
nell'animo")
con-
sisted in the
choosing ("scieglier"), aking ("togliono"), gath-
ering ("accogliesse"),
and
synthesis
("la
virti'
del
comporre")
of those
parts
that would
produce
a beautiful
body
("un
bellissimo
corpo").
This
"body,"
moreover,
was
gendered
in
Giraldi's
passage
as the heroic
exemplum
("della
grandezza
Heroica")
in
masculine terms and as idealized
beauty
("la
donnesca
bellezza")
in
feminine terms.
There was
nothing particularlyoriginal
in
Giraldi's
using
female
beauty
as a
metaphor
for
good
imitation. The locus
classicus or this typeofjudicious imitation was the tale of the
Crotonian maidens told
by Pliny
and Cicero and reiterated
in
just
about
every
text on imitation
thereafter.32
Raphael
glossed
the Zeuxinian
metaphor
almost
verbatim
in the de-
scription
of his
own
artistic
practice,
and
Giorgio
Vasari
used
similarterms to
praise Raphael."3
There was also
nothing
new
in
Giraldi's
using
heroic
grandeur
as
metaphor
for
good
12
Raphael,
Galatea, resco,
ca.
1511.
Rome,
Villa Farnesina
(photo:
?
Alinari
/
Art
Resource,
NY)
13 Annibale
Carracci,
Polyphemus
nd
Galatea, resco,
1597-
1600.
Rome,
Galleria Farnese
imitation.
The
image
of
the Hero
served
as a masculine
parallel
to the Zeuxinian
woman,
and
Torquato
Tasso,
more
than
any
other
late-sixteenth-century
author,
would be re-
sponsible
for
consolidating
Renaissance theories of eclectic
imitation into a new definition of the
epic
hero as a sort of
Ubermensch
who
possessed
the best virtues drawn from all
previous
heroes.
Whether
the artist alluded to the Zeuxinian
Virgin
or the
Epic
Hero,
his
preference
for this
style
of
composition
in
the
late Renaissance extended from the
theory
of selective
imi-
tation that Gianfrancesco Pico advocated at the
beginning
of
the sixteenth
century
in
opposition
to Pietro Bembo's
pref-
erence for the imitation of a
single exemplary
model for each
genre.34
In
the
following century,
the Carracci would
be cited
as
the
paradigmatic
masters and
proponents
of the first tech-
nique.
In
Malvasia's
biography,
Lodovico is heard
telling
Annibale: "to imitate a
single
master is to make oneself his
follower and his
inferior,
while to draw from all of them and
also select things from other painters is to make oneself their
judge
and
leader."3"
In the same
vein,
Piles
pointed
out that
the
"perceptive
Annibale took from these Great Men
every-
thing
that was
good"
and "converted it into his own sub-
stance."36 Bellori
praised
Annibale's
art
for
combining
the
"virtues
of
previous
masters" and
unifying
that
perfected style
with the Idea and with
nature.37
The
advantage
of a
combinatory
method
also corre-
sponded
to a belief
in
the inherent
imperfection
of both man
and nature. Cicero
explained
that Zeuxis selected five maid-
ens
precisely
because "he did not think all the
qualities
which
he
sought
to combine could be found in one
person,
because
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14 Guido
Reni,
Aurora,
resco,
1612-
14.
Rome,
Palazzo
Pallavicini-
Rospigliosi,
Casino dell'Aurora
15
Caravaggio,
Martyrdom f
Saint
Matthew,
oil
on
canvas,
1600.
Rome,
S.
Luigi
dei
Francesi,
Contarelli
Chapel
in
no
single
case
has Nature
made
anything perfect
and
finished in
every part.""38riting
about
painting
in the
years
just
before Giraldi's
reatise,
Lodovico Dolce added
that
only
through art is it possible to display"withina single body ...
that
entire
perfection
of
beauty
which nature
barely
exhibits
in
a
thousand
bodies."
Hence,
because "there is
no human
body
so
perfectly
beautiful that it
is not
wanting
in
some
respect,"
selective
imitation was a
matter of
necessity.39
The
eclectic
principle,
therefore,
was
at once
an aesthetic
and a
moral one
(and
this
may
have had
particular
significance
in
a
post-Tridentine
era,
when the Church
encouraged
the
imitationnot
only
of Christ
but also of the
Virgin
and
saints).
The
popularity
of
this model of
imitation is reflected in the
various
metaphors
that Renaissance
and
Baroque
authors
generated
to describe
the
process.40
n
the 1590 treatise the
Idea
del
tempio
di
pittura,
for
instance,
Giovanni
Paolo Lo-
mazzo
constructed an
elaborate
astrological system,
in
which
each
of the seven celestial
sectors-Saturn,
Jupiter,
Mars,
the
Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon-were controlled by
seven
governatori-Michelangelo,
Gaudenzio Ferrari
(Lomaz-
zo's
uncle and
master),
Polidoro da
Caravaggio,
Leonardo,
Raphael,
Andrea
Mantegna,
and Titian.41
Elsewhere,
Lo-
mazzo
wrote that the
perfect
painting
would be an Adam
and
Eve
in
which Adam was
drawn
by Michelangelo
and
painted
by
Titian and Eve was
designed
by Raphael
and colored
by
Correggio.42
The immediate source for this
version of the Zeuxinian
story may
have been a
passage
from
Lucian,
as
Charles
Demp-
sey
discovered,
in
which a statue of an ideal
woman was
described
as a collaborative
production
undertaken
by
the
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best artists:
"Euphranor giving
her the hair he
gave
his
Juno,
Polygnotus
the
delicately
tinted brows and cheeks of his
Cassandra,
Aetion the
lips
of his
Roxana,
and
Apelles paint-
ing
the
body
as he had
painted Campaspe."43
This
was
a
significant
and essential
modification of the
topos,
for the
peccadillo
of
imperfection
was
transferred
from the source
material
(that
is,
nature)
to the artist himself
(that
is,
human
nature). Hence,
when Orlandi wrote that the Venetian
painter
Pietro Liberi
developed
his
well-grounded style
through
"a
perfect
mistd'
of the
great
masters of the
past,
he
implied
(as
Pico had centuries
before)
that no one master
could
provide
the artist
with
a
complete
model of
perfec-
tion.44
For
Lomazzo,
the
collaboiation
of the best
styles provided
the foundation for
good painting.
For other
writers,
such as
Francesco
Scannelli,
it was a
question
of
absorbing
the
very
essence of each of these
paradigmatic
masters. Scannelli's
ideal
painter
in
I1
microcosmo della
pittura
(Cesena, 1657)
possessed
organs represented by
different artists:
Raphael
was
the liver
(which
receives from the blood of
the mother its
composition
and
perfection),
Titian the heart
(for
the nour-
ishment
provided
to it
by
the liver makes the heart more
vigorous
and
forceful,
which makes
everything
in
turn more
natural and
sane),
and
Correggio
the brain
(for
a
healthy
liver
and
heart enable the brain to order its
thoughts
and
compose
its
arguments).45
Boschini commenced the
Carta
del
navegar
pitoresco
(Venice, 1660)
with an
image
even more esoteric than both
Lomazzo's and Scannelli's models:
Venetian
painting
as a
"pictorial ship."
On Boschini's
metaphoric ship
of ideal
style,
individual artists
simultaneously symbolized
different struc-
tural
parts
of the vessel and held
specific
roles on board.
Giovanni Bellini was at once the structure and the builder of
the
ship.
Giorgione
was
the
rudder that
provided
direction
and the patron who nurtured the crew. II Pordenone repre-
sented the ribs of the
hull;
Jacopo
Bassano the
captain's
quarters
as well as the storerooms and the
night guard;
Giovanni Battista Zelotti the
mast;
Giuseppe
Salviati the sail
and
watchman;
Paris Bordone the
stern;
Paolo Veronese the
navigation light
and
manager;
Andrea Schiavone the caulk
and Palma Vecchio the tar that held the
structure
together
and also the helmsman and assistant
captain.
Tintoretto's
fierce
style
made him
the cannons and the commander of the
artillery,
and
Boschini's
hero, Titian,
was the
supreme
navi-
gator
and
captain
of
the
metaphoric
boat.46
Even Padovanino
was
given
a
role,
as the standard-bearer of the
squadron.47
At
bottom,
it seems that
Lomazzo,
Scannelli,
and Boschini
were concerned with defining ideals: painting, the painter,
and
style;
in
spite
of their different
approaches,
all three
resorted to
metaphors
of eclecticism. This
type
of
metonymic
classification
was
based
on two ancient
sources,
the first
being
the
passage
from Lucian
already
mentioned
above.
The sec-
ond
point
of reference was the twelfth book of
Quintilian's
Institutio
oratoria,
in
which
he lists
the
stylistic strengths
of
individual
painters
and
sculptors
as a
parallel
for the various
styles
of
oratory (Polygnotus
and
Aglaophon
for their
simple
coloring;
Zeuxis and Parrhasius for their
special
attention to
line;
Protogenes
for his
accuracy; Pamphilius
and
Melanthius
for their soundness of
taste;
Antiphilius
for his
facility;
Theon
16 Annibale
Carracci,
Assumption
of
the
Virgin,
oil on
panel,
1601.
Rome,
S. Maria del
Popolo,
Cerasi
Chapel
of Samos for his
depiction
of
imaginary
scenes;
and
Apelles
for
his
grace).48
Following
Quintilian's
formula,
seicento authors
similarly
enumerated lists of ideal models. Bernini's admiration for
Annibale Carracci was summarized
in
a
metaphor
of
gastro-
nomic mixture:
[Annibale]
had combined the
grace
and
draftsmanship
of
Raphael,
the
knowledge
and anatomical science of Michel-
angelo,
the
nobility
of
Correggio
and this master's
manner
of
painting,
the
coloring
of
Titian,
the fertile
imagination
of Giulio Romano and Andrea
Mantegna.
His manner was
formed from the ten or twelve
greatest painters
as if
by
walking through
a kitchen he had
dipped
into each
pot,
adding
from each a little to his own mixture.49
Bernini
may
have based his comments
on a
passage
from
Malvasia's
biography
of Annibale
in
which
he
specified
that
in
order to become a
good painter,
one
must
acquire
"Ro-
man
disegno,
the movement and
shadowing
of the
Venetians,
and the
dignified
colors of
Lombardy,"
or,
more
specifically,
one must take "from
Michelangelo
the awesome
way,
the
true
and natural from
Titian,
the
pure
and refined
style
from
Correggio,
decorum and
structure from
Tibaldi,
invention
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17
Domenichino,
Assumptionof
the
Virgin,
oil on
canvas,
1616-17.
Rome,
S. Maria in Trastevere
from the wise
Primaticcio,
and a bit of
grace
from
Parmigi-
anino."50
Baroque
authors,
it would
appear,
took
special pleasure
in
compiling
their
own
canon of ideal models.
Piles,
in
partic-
ular,
loved this
sort of
game,
even
if his
pantheon
was
pop-
ulated
by
the usual
suspects: Raphael
for his
invention,
Mi-
chelangelo
for
drawing,
Giulio Romano
for
nobility
and
magnificence,
Correggio
for force and
vigor,
Titian for
color,
composition,
naturalism,
and
grace,
and Paolo Veronese
for
his
invention,
the
nobility
of his
figures,
the
magnificence
of
his
drapery,
and the
facility, beauty,
and movement
of
his
forms.5'
The
strangely
Cartesian charts that Piles
graphs
in
the Balance des
peintres
(Paris, 1708),
where artists
are
judged
on a scale of one to
twenty
for their
composition, drawing,
color,
and
expression,
can be seen
as an extreme
manifesta-
tion of this taxonomic impulse.52
In
spite
of the
popularity
of such
"mixed"
metaphors,
it
does not follow that an established
doctrine
of eclecticism
dominated seicento
theory
and
practice.53
This
was
one
way
of
theorizing practice,
and
while
some artists
might
have
prac-
ticed
this
theory,
not
everyone
was convinced
of the effective-
ness of the eclectic
method. Pietro da Cortona
considered
it
faulty,
for
who would
find
beauty
in a
figure composed
of
parts
melded
together
from
two
antithetical
painters
such
as
the Cavaliere
d'Arpino
and
Caravaggio?54 Despite
his own
anthropomorphic
metaphor,
Scannelli
questioned
the
soundness of Lomazzo's fictive Adam and
Eve:
Titian,
he
argued,
would
try
to correct
Michelangelo's drawing
in his
own
style,
and
Michelangelo
would
not stand for
it.55 Bernini,
in
spite
of his admiration
for
Annibale,
was also
wary
of the
success rate of the eclectic
method,
fearing
that the overall
effect would
be one of
fragmentation.56
Against
the Zeuxin-
ian
Virgin,
writers would
posit
the
grotesque
Horatian mon-
ster-the human with
the head of a
horse,
the woman with
the
body
of a fish-as
an
example
of the
dangers
of eclecti-
cism.
This indicates
that the
stitching
on Zeuxis's
Virgin
was
more evident
to some viewers than
to
others,
and to her
critics she
appeared
more like Frankenstein's bride than
a
vision
of
beauty.
A more moderate
point
of view advised artists
against
mak-
ing
a
grotesque hodgepodge
of collected
bits and bobs that
did not
belong together
and to
proceed,
instead,
like an
"ingenious bee" that extracts "sweetness from all the flowers
of
painting"
and turns
it into
honey.57
In
the
metaphors
of
the "mixed"
style,
it was
a
question
of
ensuring,
in the first
place,
that the
components
chosen
for imitation would be
compatible
one
with
the other
and,
secondly,
that this eclec-
tic imitation would
enable a
more
independently
achieved
transformative
imitation.
In
other
words,
while
repetition
was
the modus
operandi,
the final
product
had to be ordered
by
a
unified idea del
bello.
Critics borrowed the
apian
metaphor
and similar ones
involving
digestion,
fathers
and
sons,
and
singers
and choruses from Seneca's
eighty-fourth
letter to
Lucilius,
"On
Gathering
Ideas."58
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Underlying
the
discourse,
which circumvented the
expla-
nation
of
the
artist's
practice
of eclectic imitation
and
the
visual
exegete's process
of
recognizing
the
"mixed"
style,
was
an acute consciousness of a
copresence
of different identities
within
one
entity.
Seneca's
parallel
between fathers
and
sons
was one of the most
poetic metaphors
about imitation. Some
centuries
later,
Francesco Petrarch
(glossing
Seneca)
would
explain
that in imitation the
similarity
should be not like that
of
a
portrait
to
the
man it is
portraying
but like that of a
child
to his
parent,
for "in this
case,
even
though
there
may
be a
considerable
dissimilarity
in
features,
yet
there
is a
certain
shadow
...
[that]
... recalls to our mind the
memory
of the
father....
something
hidden there has
this
effect.""59
n
sev-
enteenth-century
terms,
Matteo
Peregrini
referred to
this
interpretative optic
that
successfully
identified that
"certain
shadow" as
"amphibolia
[Amfibolia]"
or as an
ability
to
see the
"double
sense
[senso
doppio].,'60
Through
the
Looking
Glass of
Acutezza:
Speaking
Metaphorically, Seeing
Metaphorically
Baroque spectators
were
open
to the
type
of
aesthetic
expe-
riences based on
sharp,
associative,
lateral
thinking,
which
looked for shadows of
the father
in
the
son,
which
engaged
with
the "double
sense,"
which
embraced the
metaphor
and
the
double
entendre,
and
which looked
for
the intertext and
engaged
with
intentional
play.
David
Freedberg argued
that
the first
quarter
of
the seicento
witnessed
an
intense
curiosity
about
optical
devices
such as
telescopes
and
microscopes.61
The
development
of these new
instruments normalized
the
concept
of
multiple
perception; spectators
were
capable
of
seeing
and,
more
important,
of
expecting
to
see more than
meets
the
eye.
This
very curiosity
has
specific implications
for
our
understanding
of
repetition
in
the visual and
literary
arts.
In classical
rhetoric,
the vehicle for
demonstrating
artistic
ingenuity was the witticism (acutezza). A witticism was a
pointed saying,
an
expression
that
generated
wonder,
and an
oratorical device that
functioned like what
Quintilian
called
sententias,
which are
pithy
statements that "strike the mind
and
often
produce
a decisive
effect
by
one
single
blow,
while
their
very brevity
makes
them
cling
to the
memory.""62
Witti-
cisms
pushed
the listener and
viewer to
think
metaphorically
since,
as Aristotle
wrote,
"metaphors
must
be
drawn
... from
things
that
are related
to
the
original thing,
and
yet
not
obviously
so
related-just
as in
philosophy
also an
acute
mind
will
perceive
resemblances even in
things
far
apart.""63
even-
teenth-century
literary
critics,
like Emanuele
Tesauro,
turned
Aristotle's
appreciation
of
metaphor
into a
Baroque theory
of
acutezza,
for
both the
metaphor
and the witticism
say
one
thing
while
suggesting
another. Such rhetorical ornaments
multiply
the listener's
delight
since,
as Tesauro
explained,
"seeing
many objects
from an unusual
angle
is more curious
and
pleasing
than
seeing
the same
things passing
directly
before
our
eyes. Ajob
(as
our
author
[Aristotle]
says)
not for
a dull mind
but for a most acute one."64 This
delight
is
magnified by novelty,
which is when "the sound is known and
only
the
meaning
is new" or when
something
is "old in
substance and new in
manner." The
leading
Baroque
theorist
of
acutezza,
Tesauro,
still
glossing
Aristotle,
asserted that the
metaphor packs "objects tightly together
in a
single
word and
almost
miraculously
allows
you
to see one inside the
other."""65
At
bottom,
seeing
metaphorically
was all about
being
able
to
see several
things
at once
(for
example,
the new in the
old
and vice
versa)
and to see one
thing
in several
ways
(such
as
originality
in
repetition).
Through
the
Baroque looking
glass
of
acutezza,
knowledge-
able
spectators proceeded
both
microscopically
and
telescop-
ically
when
viewing images, moving
from one detail to an-
other in order
to
see
the
larger
whole. The
ability
to
see
strategic repetition
was
particularly enjoyable
for certain
view-
ers, for,
according
to one
writer,
"Imitation lies
hidden;
it
does not stand out.
It
conceals
rather than reveals itself and
does not wish to be
recognized
except
by
a learned
man."66
Like
the humanist reader
(and
the
postmodernist
reader/author
as
well)
who was able to
identify
the mosaic of
quotations
within a
given
text,
the
"learned
man"
found
gratification
through
intellectual
snobbery
and the
pleasure
of
untangling
difference from
repetition.
Tesauro wrote
that "wit loses its
insight
when a
saying
is
too
clear."
However,
he
continued,
"Stars
sparkle
in
the
darkness,
but become dim in
the
light," meaning
that certain
types
of
literary
conceits function
only
when the
author and reader
are aware of the rules of
engagement.
Since
witty images
"are
sketched
rather than
finished,"
as
Tesauro further
elabo-
rated,
"the listener
supplies
what is absent in the
voice of the
speaker."
Because
of
these
collaborative
efforts,
witticisms
and
metaphors
necessarily possess
a "double
pleasure,"
for
the "one who forms a
witty
concept
and
another
who hears
it.
For the
first
enjoys
giving
life in another
intellect to a
noble
product
of his
own,
and
the second
enjoys
grasping by
his
own
ingenuity
what the
ingenuity
of another
furtively
hides.""'67
When
the Lucchese
painter
Paolo
Guidotti,
for
example,
set
about
composing
his
(unrealized)
poem
La
Gerusalemmedistrutta in
emulation of
Tasso's
epic
La
Gerusa-
lemme liberata
(Venice, 1581),
he
intended and
expected
his
readers to notice that the last line of each octave was in fact
the same as in Tasso's
poem.68 Witty
conceits,
in
short,
were
reserved
for
the
quick
of
mind,
for an audience attentive
to
the
possibility
of
double
meanings
and on
whom allusions
would not be
lost.
Again,
the use of
witty
conceits was a matter
of taste.
Galileo,
inventor of the
telescope, preferred
the
clarity
of
Lodovico Ariosto's
style
to the
allegorical
mode
(or
"im-
pulse")
of
Tasso's
poetry.69
Giambattista
Marino,
the self-
professed poet
of
extravagance
whose hero was
Tasso,
reveled
in the
use
of
witticisms. The
Jesuit
orator
Sforza
Pallavicino,
in his
Considerazioni
sopra
l'artedello stile
e
del
dialogo
(Rome,
1646),
cautioned
against
the
overuse of rhetorical orna-
ments. Baltasar
Gracian,
the
Spanish
courtier and
author of
Agudezay
arte
de
ingenio
(Huesca, 1649),
saw wit as an essential
human
quality. Peregrini's
two treatises
Delle acutezze
Genoa,
1639)
and
Ifonti dell'ingegno
ridotti ad arte
(Bologna,
1650)
tried to outline a
guide
to the invention of
witty
expressions
that would
prevent
the abuse of such
ornaments.
Tesauro,
on
the
other
hand,
was
wholeheartedly
of Marino and
Graciin's
persuasion.
Boschini, too,
was a
big
fan of acutezza. An
unabashed
Venetian
patriot,
he had a
tendency
to
see Venetian
quota-
tions,
allusions, themes,
and
stylistic borrowings
in
every-
thing,
but
he was
not
alone. With the neo-Venetian
revival
of
the
early
seicento,
artists and critics
participated
in
various
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ART
BULLETIN SEPTEMBER
2004
VOLUME LXXXVI NUMBER 3
18
Caravaggio,
Card
Sharps,
oil
on
canvas,
1594. Fort
Worth,
Tex.,
Kimbell
Art Museum
(photo:
@
2003
by
Kimbell Art
Museum)
ways in the reinvigoration of Venetian style.70 Standing in
front
of Annibale Carracci's
Assumption,
Malvasia,
for
in-
stance,
commented that
Annibale "looked at Tintoretto"
in
order to
paint
his
altarpiece,
but that when it came to "the
more learned and
magnificent drapery
folds,"
Annibale
"sought
out
Veronese."71
"Venetianness" became
increasingly
popular,
and with this
change
in
taste a
sensitivity
for such
repetition
also became more
widespread.
The
two
objects
of
repetition
in
Malvasia's
passage-Tin-
toretto's
style
and Veronese's folds-also
provide
a
good
distinction
between
following
another artist's
style
(maniera)
as
opposed
to
repeating
an actual
figure
or
iconographic type
(figura,
concetto)
rom a
painting. Figure
and
concetti,
however,
were sometimes
conflated
with
maniera.
One
example
of this
slip
is the association of
half-length
male
portraits
as a
quint-
essentially Giorgionesque
referent.
Looking
at
Caravaggio's
Card
Sharps (Fig.
18),
both Baldinucci
and Bellori described
it as an imitation of
Giorgione's "pure" style
("modo
d'inventare
schietto";
"schietta
maniera").72
Likewise,
Pietro
della Vecchia's soldier
portraits (Fig.
19)
were considered as
Giorgionesque
"extractions
[astratti],"
and the seicento Ve-
netian
painter
was even called
Giorgione's
"twin
[gemello]."
3
Baldinucci and Bellori
were
probably looking
at the Del
Monte
version of the Card
Sharps
painted
for Cardinal
Francesco del
Monte
(or
a
variant
copy
of
it);
Boschini was
looking
at one of the
many
bravi
portraits
for which della
Vecchia was
famous.74
When we look at the paintings of Caravaggio and della
Vecchia next to each other
today,
the
stylistic
difference is as
great
as
that between works
by Andy
Warhol
and
Roy
Lich-
tenstein. In both
Caravaggio
and della
Vecchia's
depictions
of
half-length
male
figures
dressed
in
fancy
hats with
feathers,
a
thematic or
iconographic
resemblance-that
is,
of
figure
or
concetti-is
evident,
but the
style-that
is,
the
technique-is
intrinsically
different.
Caravaggio's
stark naturalism
gives way
to
della Vecchia's
painterly
Venetian
brushwork;
Caravag-
gio's carefully
studied faces
dissolve
in della
Vecchia's
sketchy
physiognomies;
and
Caravaggio's
balanced
lighting
melts in
della Vecchia's
smoky
haze.
19
Pietro della
Vecchia,
Soldier,
oil on
canvas,
ca. 1660.
Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches Museum
In
spite
of this remarkable
stylistic gap,
viewers
still
saw
Giorgione lurking
about-Senecan brothers who shared
their father's features
in
different
ways.
Did
the artists
want
the viewer to see
Giorgione
in
these
paintings?
Did
these
artists want the beholder to
acknowledge
their
mastery
of and
over the Renaissance master? Both
painters
were attentive to
Giorgione's
art in their
own
practice. Caravaggio,
as Zuccaro
and Bellori
remarked,
seems to have studied his works in
Venice or
elsewhere,
and della Vecchia was
responsible
for
the
seventeenth-century
restoration of
Giorgione's
Castel-
franco
altarpiece
and for a number of
portraits
that subse-
quent
connoisseurs mistook for authentic
Giorgiones,
even
in
della Vecchia's own
time.
Caravaggio
did not
directly
confirm an admiration for the
Venetian Renaissance
painter,
but della Vecchia
explained
to
Boschini that
he
had
made one of these
Giorgionesque pic-
tures "off the
top
of his head without
using
a model and
without copying from Giorgione" in order to "demonstrate
his
knowledge"
to his
father-in-law,
the Flemish
caravaggista,
Nicolo
Renieri.75
By admitting
that he
painted
it
"without
copying
from
Giorgione,"
della
Vecchia
nevertheless invoked
the name of the artist that he believed his viewers would see
in his
painting.
By stating
that he
painted
it in order to
"demonstrate his
knowledge,"
della Vecchia seems to
suggest
that he
hoped
his viewer would
recognize his-namely,
della
Vecchia's-virtuosity precisely
in his
ability
to
paint
like an-
other.
In
some
paintings,
this form of
stylistic repetition operated
through ambiguous
allusion to
maniera,
gusto,
intentione, idea,
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figura,
concetto,
or a combination of these
elements,
which
viewers
recognized
as
being something
"old
in
substance and
new
in
manner,"
to
quote
Tesauro
again.
And viewers did
make this distinction when
looking
at such
paintings.
Bos-
chini,
for
example,
insisted that della Vecchia's
"imitations"
were
not
mere
"copies"
after
Giorgione
but were "extracted
from
his own
intellect,"
underlining
at once della Vecchia's
stylistic dexterity
and individual
agency.76
True
imitation,
as
Tesauro
insisted,
did not entail
taking metaphors
and
witty
expressions exactly
as
you
heard or read
them,
for "that
way
you
would not be
praised
as an imitator but blamed as a
thief."
Imitating Praxiteles'"Apollo,
he
continued,
did not
mean
literally
taking
it from the Cortile Belvedere into one's
own home but
"carving
another
piece
of marble to the same
proportions,
so
that
Praxiteles on
seeing
it
would marvel
and
say,
'This
Apollo
is
mine,
yet
it is not
mine.""'77Again,
we seem
to be
returning
to the theme of resemblance that is
encap-
sulated in the father and
son,
or the
generational trope.
Boschini claimed that della
Vecchia's
bravi
portraits
could
be found in the
"galleries
of
princes
and
gentlemen,"
where
"the virtue of della Vecchia
[sto Vechia]
is masked."
"Who,"
Boschini
concluded,
"could ask for a more
beautiful,
cunning
device that tricks those
who
see his
canvases?"78
It
goes
with-
out
saying
that Boschini's own acutezza s demonstrated here
in the
play
on Vechia
(a
double reference to the artist's name
and to his intentional
stylistic
archaism)
and on the word tele
(meaning
both canvases and
veils).
Like
Boschini,
who
says
one
thing
while
intending
another,
della Vecchia's braviwere
not
just portraits
of soldiers but also
"cunning
devices
[in-
zegno artificial]"
that
pleased
the
spectator by making
evident
that what he saw was not
necessarily
the
only
thing
that he
got.
Beneath
the mask of one
image
another
image
was
revealed.
The
competitive
paragone
of authors and artists
appealed
to an aesthetic disposition, which looked on a specific work
of art as a
physical
element within a
larger conceptual
work
of art
produced
from the mental
comparison
and contrast of
the
physical object
on hand
with
an entire
repertoire
of
previous
and similar works.
Writing
about Padovanino's ceil-
ing
tondo
in
the
Marciana,
which was
made to
replace
Bat-
tista Franco's
destroyed picture,
Carlo Ridolfi noted that
Padovanino "alluded to Franco's
concetto."79
specific
work is
being
referenced in this
example,
and here
we
slide from the
repetition
of
style
in all of its
ambiguous guises
to the
repe-
tition of
particular
motifs and entire
compositional passages
tout court.
With even more
precision,
Annibale
Roncaglia
at the end
of the sixteenth century described Titian's Bacchus and Ari-
adne
simply
as "a
painting
in
which
the
Laocoon
is
painted"
(referring
to the bearded
figure
with the snakes in the fore-
ground
on the
right).80 Evidently, Roncaglia
saw Titian's
figure
as a
repetition
of the central
figure
in
the
Laoco6n
group
and,
more
important,
he
expected
his reader to un-
derstand and also see his reference. In front of
Van
Dyck's
equestrian
portrait
of
King
Charles I of
England (Fig.
20),
Bellori had no
problems identifying
the
quotation
therein of
Titian's
equestrian
portrait
of Charles V
(Fig. 21).s8
Likewise,
in
referring
to Rubens as "the new Titian
[el
nuevo
Ticiano],"
the
seventeenth-century Spanish poet Lope
Felix de
Vega
was
20
Van
Dyck,
Equestrian
Portrait
of
Charles
,
oil on
canvas,
1638.
London,
National
Gallery
also
making
a direct connection between
Rubens's lost
por-
trait of
Philip
IV and its
Titianesque
referent.82
There is an
interpretative
a
priori
that
binds
these isolated
examples together.
I allude to the
expectation
of an
in-
formed
audience whose members share
a common knowl-
edge
of the visual codes
and references
called into
play.
Pallavicino
explained
in his seicento treatise on acutezza that
"admissable
witty
remarks
produce
wonderment
by showing
the
contrary
to what is
expected,
the different from what
is
expected,
or
the
astonishing despite
it
being
nonetheless
expected."83
In all three
scenarios,
acutezzaaddressed itself to
the listener's
expectations. Looking
at works of art
in this
manner
corresponded
with a
type
of aesthetic
pleasure
in the
redundant
and
predictable
and also
in the redundant and
unexpected.
A
certain notion of
originality
as
repetition,
therefore,
can
be discerned within the
Baroque
concept
of
acutezza. Originality, in this sense, resided in the way some-
thing
was
presented
and the
way
that mode of
presentation
pushed
the viewer to see
things
in a different
and unantici-
pated way.
Consider
the
following example:
when
Domenichino
painted
a
picture
of the
expulsion
of Adam and Eve
(Fig.
22),
he
clearly
recast
Michelangelo's
Divine
Father from the Sis-
tine
ceiling
(Fig.
11)
in
a new role as
Adam's
judge
rather
than as Adam's creator. The obvious
allusion could
not have
been lost on the
erudite Roman audience for whom
Dome-
nichino
(or
another
artist)
repainted
this
image
several
times.84 The numerous
replicative
versions
document
the
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492
ART
BULLETIN SEPTEMBER
2004 VOLUME LXXXVI NUMBER 3
21
Titian,
Portrait
of
Charles
V on
Horseback,
il on
canvas,
1548.
Madrid,
Museo del Prado
existence of a
particular
taste for such
pictures,
which seem
to
have been
appreciated precisely
because
they
were
pas-
tiches of well-known
images.85
Domenichino's own
imagery,
too,
was
subjected
to unau-
thorized
repetition.
In a
painting
(questionably)
attributed to
Carlo
Maratti,
the artist reused the bold
reclining nymph
in
the
foreground
of
Domenichino's Diana and the
Nymphs
as an
unlikely
model for the
virtuous Susanna
(Figs.
23,
24).86
In
Domenichino's
painting,
the
nymph
is
but a minor character
within
the
larger
tale of Diana
and her numerous
nymphs.
She
looks out at the
spectator
while
reclining
in a shallow
pool
of water with another
nymph
at her side. In the
alleged
Maratti
painting,
on the other
hand,
she is the main charac-
ter. With the
composition cropped,
her
intense
gaze
becomes
more
emphatic.
Her nude
body
is
highlighted against
the
dark
shadows of the
grove,
where the two elders
peer
through
a
space
in
the trees to
the left. The
composition gives
the
effect of looking at Domenichino's Diana through a telescope
and
glimpsing
instead Maratti's
surprising
twist on Domeni-
chino's concetto.
From these
examples
we
might
draw several conclusions.
First,
a
witty
paint