Commenting on the books in Velazquez s library, Sanchez Canton noted a previously "unsuspect... more Commenting on the books in Velazquez s library, Sanchez Canton noted a previously "unsuspected affection for the divinatory arts" on the part of the artist.' Although an occupation with the "science of the stars" goes back to the artist's earliest days in Seville, little attention seems to have been given to what the possession of a large num ber of books on astronomy and astrology may have meant for Velazquez or his work.2 Nevertheless, just such an effect can be found in one of the artist's most splendid and famous late paintings, Las Hilanderas, or The Spinners (Museo del Prado, Madrid), as it has traditionally been known (Fig. 1). Almost within its author s litetime, Pedro de Villafranca, a painter and engraver of Velazquez's work, inventoried the picture as "the fable of Arachne."3 But the large, beau tifully observed and realized women who card, spin, and wind wool in the foreground of the picture eventually obscured the iden tities of the smaller mythological figures in the background, and when the painting was inventoried again in 1772, it had become "a tapestry factory and several women spin ning and winding yarn."4 Its transformation into a simple piece of genre reportage cli maxed in the Prado catalogues, which up until 1945 list it as "the spinning and wind ing workshop and sales room in the Santa [sabel tapestry factory in Madrid."5 Since :hen, the mythological interpretation has ■eturned to favor, with most scholars now dentifying the figures in the background scene as Pallas Athena, or Minerva, and Arachne. But the problem of reconciling the differences of form and content between the
... 7Payments to Giuseppe Testa for the old and the new organs were published by Cugnoni, vI, 188... more ... 7Payments to Giuseppe Testa for the old and the new organs were published by Cugnoni, vI, 1883, 523-39. ... i I r: I : r2r? 3 Design for the organ-case in S. Maria del Popolo. ... 4 Leonardo da Vinci, Regener-ating tree stump. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, MS Forster IIP, fol. ...
In Las Meninas, Velazquez famously de picts himself with palette, maulstick, and brushes in hand ... more In Las Meninas, Velazquez famously de picts himself with palette, maulstick, and brushes in hand (Fig. 1). Yet despite the unusually broad range of interpretations that have been generated by this work, the act—as opposed to the idea—of painting represented in the picture seems to have attracted relatively little attention. Closer scrutiny, however, of the representation of portrait painting in Las Meninas reveals a combination of reality and invention that not only points up ways in which Veláz quez's depiction conforms to or deviates from contemporary practice, but puts some of the interpretations of this work into a new light. Neither the palette Velázquez holds nor the space within which he shows himself working can be considered true portrayals of his actual practice. The palette appears too small and the colors too few for the
In his successful opposition to the renewal of guild rule in Genoa, Giovanni Battista Paggi&#... more In his successful opposition to the renewal of guild rule in Genoa, Giovanni Battista Paggi's arguments for the autonomy of the artist and the nobility of his profession were in the best tradition of the humanist art theory of the Renaissance. Painting, he wrote, one can learn very well without a master, because its primary study lies in theory, which for the most part derives from mathematics, from geometry and arithmetic, from philosophy, and from others of the noblest disciplines that one learns from books; and the rest depends on long observation of the natural and the artificial, the contingent, the corporeal and incorporeal, and of the effects and movements of whatever is to be found in the world.I Although as an active, if self-taught, artist Paggi stopped just short of denying altogether any role to practice and experience, his polemical zeal for the purely intellectual exercise of art rings as hollow at the end of the sixteenth century as the guild protectionism of his opponents. Much had happened since artists and their humanist allies had first set out to elevate the status of painting, sculpture and architecture by enrolling them in the ranks of the liberal arts. What had been originally a powerful rhetorical vehicle for advancing the cause of the artist had become instead a liability that threatened his authority. For if, as Paggi argued, the aim of art was an imitation that anyone might approve, and if its principles were strictly rational, then its arcana lay open to all. Being an artist contributed little or nothing to one's credibility. Thus, not much later Giulio Mancini, one of an increasing number of amateurs who wrote about art, first disposed of the notion that judging pictures depended on having practised as a painter, and then set out to demonstrate how a man of middling capacity (mediocre ingegno) and natural judgement could acquire the learning and judgement necessary to criticize. . 2 pamnng. Paggi's exaggeration of intellect as a strategy of exclusion and Mancini's capping claim to critical legitimacy illustrate one exchange in a larger discourse focused on artistic authority. This discourse was composed of various initiatives by both artists and their patrons or critics, all of whom were manoeuvring to evade or enforce for their own advantage the implications of certain theoretical positions. Thus rather than the relations-many and much studied-between architectural theory and period, style, or individual, here I should like to examine 418
... 42 For the statue, see G. Galassi Paluzzi, San Pietro in Vaticano. Vol. II, Rome I963, 66-68;... more ... 42 For the statue, see G. Galassi Paluzzi, San Pietro in Vaticano. Vol. II, Rome I963, 66-68; and for its attri-bution to Arnolfo di Cambio, see Angiola Maria Ro-manini, Arnolfo di Cambio e lo ,stil novo, del gotico italiano. 2d ed ...
... Cento, Museo Civico), which once formed part of a series of rural scenes decorating the Casa ... more ... Cento, Museo Civico), which once formed part of a series of rural scenes decorating the Casa Pannini at ... (For Guercino's landscape, see Anna Ottani, Guercino ... 29 These proverbial expressions have been adduced by Dirk Bax, Ont-ciffering van Jeroen Bosch, The Hague, 1949 ...
Charles Scribner’s Sons ® and Thomson Learning™ are trademarks used herein under license. For mor... more Charles Scribner’s Sons ® and Thomson Learning™ are trademarks used herein under license. For more information, contact
The Description for this book, Democratic Socialism in Jamaica: The Political Movement and Social... more The Description for this book, Democratic Socialism in Jamaica: The Political Movement and Social Transformation in Dependent Capitalism, will be forthcoming.
Bernini and the Bell Towers: Architecture and Politics at the Vatican. By Sarah McPhee. (New Have... more Bernini and the Bell Towers: Architecture and Politics at the Vatican. By Sarah McPhee. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 353. $60.00.) To students of seventeenth-century Rome, the title of Sarah McPhee's book will bring to mind the city's most famous artist, Gianlorenzo Bernini, and the one great failure in his otherwise remarkably successful life. The author, however, has replaced the familiar biographical narrative with a more complex and less personal history. The dramatic components of the story are still there-the facade of St. Peter's cracking under the weight of the bell tower built by Bernini, the subsequent recriminations and criticism of his design, the artist's hasty preparations for flight, and with the dismantling of the tower, his defiant answer to his critics in an over life-sized statuary group representing Truth Revealed by Time-but they have been handled critically and subsumed in a larger narrative about the history of St. Peter's and the institutional practices that govern the Church even today. Replacing the original Constantinian basilica with what was to be the grandest and most splendidly decorated church in Europe proved to be no easy task for the Popes, either ideologically or physically. Old St. Peter's and its millennial history cast a long shadow; the Papacy had changing needs for representation, and the vast scope of the project meant that design, decision making, and execution had to pass through the hands of a permanent bureaucracy attached to the church. McPhee shows how all of these factors played into the failed attempt by three popes, Paul V, Urban VIII, and Innocent X, to complete the twin towers flanking Carlo Maderno's facade. The book is especially good on the workings and politics of the Fabbrica of St. Peter's, which consisted of a Congregation of Cardinals charged with overseeing work on the church and its salaried technical staff headed by an architect, the office held first by Maderno and then, following his death in 1629, by Bernini. The author adduces numerous new documents regarding the Fabbrica and its deliberations and in the process overturns many old assumptions underlying previous histories of the towers. Bernini, better known as a sculptor and frequently described as lacking architectural experience, acquires engineering skill in the person of his brother, Luigi; Virgilio Spada, usually thought to be a partisan of Francesco Borromini, Bernini's chief critic, is revealed to be a supporter, along with his brother, Cardinal Bernardino Spada, of the artist's project; Innocent X, often charged with being indifferent to the arts, appears keenly interested in architecture; and what usually appears a devastating cacophony of criticism directed at Bernini and the tower he built resolves into an orderly debate grounded in reason and professional expertise and one from which the artist actually emerges the clear winner. …
Commenting on the books in Velazquez s library, Sanchez Canton noted a previously "unsuspect... more Commenting on the books in Velazquez s library, Sanchez Canton noted a previously "unsuspected affection for the divinatory arts" on the part of the artist.' Although an occupation with the "science of the stars" goes back to the artist's earliest days in Seville, little attention seems to have been given to what the possession of a large num ber of books on astronomy and astrology may have meant for Velazquez or his work.2 Nevertheless, just such an effect can be found in one of the artist's most splendid and famous late paintings, Las Hilanderas, or The Spinners (Museo del Prado, Madrid), as it has traditionally been known (Fig. 1). Almost within its author s litetime, Pedro de Villafranca, a painter and engraver of Velazquez's work, inventoried the picture as "the fable of Arachne."3 But the large, beau tifully observed and realized women who card, spin, and wind wool in the foreground of the picture eventually obscured the iden tities of the smaller mythological figures in the background, and when the painting was inventoried again in 1772, it had become "a tapestry factory and several women spin ning and winding yarn."4 Its transformation into a simple piece of genre reportage cli maxed in the Prado catalogues, which up until 1945 list it as "the spinning and wind ing workshop and sales room in the Santa [sabel tapestry factory in Madrid."5 Since :hen, the mythological interpretation has ■eturned to favor, with most scholars now dentifying the figures in the background scene as Pallas Athena, or Minerva, and Arachne. But the problem of reconciling the differences of form and content between the
... 7Payments to Giuseppe Testa for the old and the new organs were published by Cugnoni, vI, 188... more ... 7Payments to Giuseppe Testa for the old and the new organs were published by Cugnoni, vI, 1883, 523-39. ... i I r: I : r2r? 3 Design for the organ-case in S. Maria del Popolo. ... 4 Leonardo da Vinci, Regener-ating tree stump. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, MS Forster IIP, fol. ...
In Las Meninas, Velazquez famously de picts himself with palette, maulstick, and brushes in hand ... more In Las Meninas, Velazquez famously de picts himself with palette, maulstick, and brushes in hand (Fig. 1). Yet despite the unusually broad range of interpretations that have been generated by this work, the act—as opposed to the idea—of painting represented in the picture seems to have attracted relatively little attention. Closer scrutiny, however, of the representation of portrait painting in Las Meninas reveals a combination of reality and invention that not only points up ways in which Veláz quez's depiction conforms to or deviates from contemporary practice, but puts some of the interpretations of this work into a new light. Neither the palette Velázquez holds nor the space within which he shows himself working can be considered true portrayals of his actual practice. The palette appears too small and the colors too few for the
In his successful opposition to the renewal of guild rule in Genoa, Giovanni Battista Paggi&#... more In his successful opposition to the renewal of guild rule in Genoa, Giovanni Battista Paggi's arguments for the autonomy of the artist and the nobility of his profession were in the best tradition of the humanist art theory of the Renaissance. Painting, he wrote, one can learn very well without a master, because its primary study lies in theory, which for the most part derives from mathematics, from geometry and arithmetic, from philosophy, and from others of the noblest disciplines that one learns from books; and the rest depends on long observation of the natural and the artificial, the contingent, the corporeal and incorporeal, and of the effects and movements of whatever is to be found in the world.I Although as an active, if self-taught, artist Paggi stopped just short of denying altogether any role to practice and experience, his polemical zeal for the purely intellectual exercise of art rings as hollow at the end of the sixteenth century as the guild protectionism of his opponents. Much had happened since artists and their humanist allies had first set out to elevate the status of painting, sculpture and architecture by enrolling them in the ranks of the liberal arts. What had been originally a powerful rhetorical vehicle for advancing the cause of the artist had become instead a liability that threatened his authority. For if, as Paggi argued, the aim of art was an imitation that anyone might approve, and if its principles were strictly rational, then its arcana lay open to all. Being an artist contributed little or nothing to one's credibility. Thus, not much later Giulio Mancini, one of an increasing number of amateurs who wrote about art, first disposed of the notion that judging pictures depended on having practised as a painter, and then set out to demonstrate how a man of middling capacity (mediocre ingegno) and natural judgement could acquire the learning and judgement necessary to criticize. . 2 pamnng. Paggi's exaggeration of intellect as a strategy of exclusion and Mancini's capping claim to critical legitimacy illustrate one exchange in a larger discourse focused on artistic authority. This discourse was composed of various initiatives by both artists and their patrons or critics, all of whom were manoeuvring to evade or enforce for their own advantage the implications of certain theoretical positions. Thus rather than the relations-many and much studied-between architectural theory and period, style, or individual, here I should like to examine 418
... 42 For the statue, see G. Galassi Paluzzi, San Pietro in Vaticano. Vol. II, Rome I963, 66-68;... more ... 42 For the statue, see G. Galassi Paluzzi, San Pietro in Vaticano. Vol. II, Rome I963, 66-68; and for its attri-bution to Arnolfo di Cambio, see Angiola Maria Ro-manini, Arnolfo di Cambio e lo ,stil novo, del gotico italiano. 2d ed ...
... Cento, Museo Civico), which once formed part of a series of rural scenes decorating the Casa ... more ... Cento, Museo Civico), which once formed part of a series of rural scenes decorating the Casa Pannini at ... (For Guercino's landscape, see Anna Ottani, Guercino ... 29 These proverbial expressions have been adduced by Dirk Bax, Ont-ciffering van Jeroen Bosch, The Hague, 1949 ...
Charles Scribner’s Sons ® and Thomson Learning™ are trademarks used herein under license. For mor... more Charles Scribner’s Sons ® and Thomson Learning™ are trademarks used herein under license. For more information, contact
The Description for this book, Democratic Socialism in Jamaica: The Political Movement and Social... more The Description for this book, Democratic Socialism in Jamaica: The Political Movement and Social Transformation in Dependent Capitalism, will be forthcoming.
Bernini and the Bell Towers: Architecture and Politics at the Vatican. By Sarah McPhee. (New Have... more Bernini and the Bell Towers: Architecture and Politics at the Vatican. By Sarah McPhee. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 353. $60.00.) To students of seventeenth-century Rome, the title of Sarah McPhee's book will bring to mind the city's most famous artist, Gianlorenzo Bernini, and the one great failure in his otherwise remarkably successful life. The author, however, has replaced the familiar biographical narrative with a more complex and less personal history. The dramatic components of the story are still there-the facade of St. Peter's cracking under the weight of the bell tower built by Bernini, the subsequent recriminations and criticism of his design, the artist's hasty preparations for flight, and with the dismantling of the tower, his defiant answer to his critics in an over life-sized statuary group representing Truth Revealed by Time-but they have been handled critically and subsumed in a larger narrative about the history of St. Peter's and the institutional practices that govern the Church even today. Replacing the original Constantinian basilica with what was to be the grandest and most splendidly decorated church in Europe proved to be no easy task for the Popes, either ideologically or physically. Old St. Peter's and its millennial history cast a long shadow; the Papacy had changing needs for representation, and the vast scope of the project meant that design, decision making, and execution had to pass through the hands of a permanent bureaucracy attached to the church. McPhee shows how all of these factors played into the failed attempt by three popes, Paul V, Urban VIII, and Innocent X, to complete the twin towers flanking Carlo Maderno's facade. The book is especially good on the workings and politics of the Fabbrica of St. Peter's, which consisted of a Congregation of Cardinals charged with overseeing work on the church and its salaried technical staff headed by an architect, the office held first by Maderno and then, following his death in 1629, by Bernini. The author adduces numerous new documents regarding the Fabbrica and its deliberations and in the process overturns many old assumptions underlying previous histories of the towers. Bernini, better known as a sculptor and frequently described as lacking architectural experience, acquires engineering skill in the person of his brother, Luigi; Virgilio Spada, usually thought to be a partisan of Francesco Borromini, Bernini's chief critic, is revealed to be a supporter, along with his brother, Cardinal Bernardino Spada, of the artist's project; Innocent X, often charged with being indifferent to the arts, appears keenly interested in architecture; and what usually appears a devastating cacophony of criticism directed at Bernini and the tower he built resolves into an orderly debate grounded in reason and professional expertise and one from which the artist actually emerges the clear winner. …
Sociability in Early Modern Italy manifested itself in various changes in artists' lives. This s... more Sociability in Early Modern Italy manifested itself in various changes in artists' lives. This study looks at the academies formed by artists among themselves as one expression of sociability. In the case of the Carracci, this is especially evident when their propensity for pranks and joking is considered. Sociability is equally important for their formation of caricature.
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