More on Bertoldo

When I realized that my friends who read this blog probably have no idea who Bertoldo di Giovanni was or why he would deserve an exhibition, I thought I should add a bit of background information. Bertoldo was born in around 1440 and died in 1491. His reputation does not come from a single work of art or from all the works associated with him, but rather from his connection to two other Renaissance sculptors and a major Renaissance patron.

Bertoldo worked in Donatello’s studio and is credited with finishing some of Donatello’s work after Donatello died in 1466. One major project begun by Donatello, with which Bertoldo is connected is a pair of bronze pulpits in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. No one has been able to definitively determine exactly what Bertoldo did there, but we know he worked with Donatello.

Then Bertoldo had strong connection with Lorenzo de Medici (1449-1492), who was the de facto ruler of Florence and a major patron of artists and collector of antiquities. Lorenzo had a sculpture garden containing many ancient works, near the church of San Marco in Florence. We know this from several documents, but we do not know exactly what was in the garden, since after the Medici were exiled in 1494, the works in the garden were dispersed. Lorenzo put Bertoldo in charge of that collection and several young artists habituated the garden, copying the antiquities, drawing, carving and modelling sculpture under the guidance of Bertoldo. The most famous of those young sculptors was Michelangelo.

So Bertoldo often gets credited with connecting Donatello, who died I 1466, with Michelangelo, who was born in 1475. From the exhibition catalogue, more than the exhibition, I’ve enjoyed thinking of Bertoldo as the artist who hung around with Lorenzo, discussing ancient art, sometimes advising on what to purchase, and making sculptures for Lorenzo’s rooms and buildings, always evoking the ancient culture that so fascinated Renaissance patrons. The catalogue essays also remind me that like other Renaissance artists, Bertoldo did not just make sculpture; he also designed ephemeral things associated with celebrations. For example, the documents refer to a 1478 fireworks wagon he designed for the festival of St. John the Baptist. The display failed and Bertoldo spent two weeks in prison.   

Bertoldo di Giovanni at the Frick Collection

In January I made a trip to New York, just to see the Bertoldo di Giovanni exhibition at the Frick Collection. I had no idea that New York would be closing down in a couple of months. My Ph.D. is in Italian Renaissance Sculpture, this was the first time the entire body of Bertoldo’s work has been shown in one place, and I was a graduate school colleague of Jim Draper, the Bertoldo expert to whom the catalogue is dedicated. It seemed important to go.

The Frick Collection has two small special exhibition galleries in the lower level, separated by a small vestibule where the exhibition catalogue is on display, usually with one work. I like this arrangement, mainly because it limits the number of objects on view and makes it easy to focus on the individual works of art without worrying about getting through an enormous display. I find it liberating that the exhibitions are relatively small and focused. Because exhibitions at the Frick are more scholarly than most, there are usually few visitors, again encouraging careful study of the works of art.

The Frick doesn’t permit photographs, but at an earlier visit the guard helpfully told me that the images are all available online, and that proves true for Bertoldo also. It is lovely that the Frick provides photographs and information on the works at its exhibition website, so you can see everything in the exhibition online. At the same time, it is particularly characteristic of sculpture exhibitions that reproductions cannot capture the spatial aspects of the works, the depth of relief, the details that can be seen from different viewing angles, and the way the art object actually occupies space. I love this about sculpture and I believe some painting experts find it challenging.

The exhibition included nineteen of the twenty works the curators think can be attributed to Bertoldo. One series of reliefs was noted only in the catalogue, since it is attached to a building, the Palazzo Scala della Gherardesca in Florence. And one series of reliefs, in the exhibition, was executed by at 

least five different artists, presumably after designs by Bertoldo. Bertoldo worked in Donatello’s studio had a role in training Michelangelo. Art historians see many connections among the three artists; part of the role of the exhibition was to call attention to Bertoldo as an artist in his own right, rather than just a conduit between two Renaissance geniuses. I much appreciated that. The exhibition catalogue is full of fascinating information and richly illustrated. Bertoldo was close to Lorenzo de’ Medici and even lived for a time in the Medici Palace.

Battle between Romans and barbarians, marble, late second century CE, Camposanto, Pisa. 

Bertoldo di Giovanni, Battle, bronze, ca. 1480-85, Museo Nazaionale del Bargello, Florence

The first work one saw, in that introductory vestibule, was Battle, ca. 1480-85, a bronze relief roughly 18 by 40 inches. Bertoldo copied it from a much larger marble Roman sarcophagus that he would have seen in the Benedictine abbey of San Zeno in Pisa. The sarcophagus was damaged, with most of the heads and the center portion gone, so he had the opportunity to revise it, at the same time he acknowledged his classical source. The label included a photograph of the sarcophagus and I was struck by how similar the compositions were; he definitely was copying the antiquity at the same time he was improvising on the theme of battle. Scholars have attempted to identify a specific battle, either mythological or contemporary, but they do not agree on the subject.  Seeing the work in person makes the high relief more striking; multiple heads and arms are in complete three dimensions. The faces, clothing, hair, and musculature of the men and horses are in crisp detail, the result of careful carving and polishing that were necessary to complete Renaissance bronzes after they are cast.

The interaction, intertwining of the active men and horses provides much to investigate. The relief is flanked by three female and one male standing figures, with two bound and captive nude males at their feet. The standing figures are copied, but modified, from the Roman original.

In the catalogue entry, Alexander J. Noelle points out that Bertoldo probably visited Pisa relatively often and acknowledges Wilhelm von Bode’s thought that Bertoldo would have accompanied Lorenzo de’ Medici on his frequent visits to Pisa, where Lorenzo had a home. Lorenzo was the de facto ruler of Florence, although he did not have any official position. Bertoldo had the unusual opportunity to be a friend of Lorenzo and at some times even to live in his palace. So, we might imagine Lorenzo and Bertoldo discussing the relief and Lorenzo asking Bertoldo to make him a version of the battle for his fireplace in the Palazzo Medici. The plan might have been simply to depict a battle, with no specific one in mind, providing his patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici, with a gorgeous classical subject for his palazzo.

How would he have made this copy? I imagine that he made detailed drawings and perhaps even modelled a copy of the relief in clay in Pisa and transported them to Florence, where he would have made the final wax model and had the bronze cast in a foundry there. Julia Day, in the exhibition catalogue, suggests that since Bertoldo lived in the Medici Palace, he may not have had space for his own foundry and used that of another artist and bronze caster, probably Adriano Fiorentino.

Bertoldo di Giovanni, Orpheus , ca 1471, bronze, Museo Nazionale del Barbello, Florence

One of my favorite works in the exhibition is the small bronze titled Orpheus, but which has also been thought to represent Apollo. With his twisting body suggestive of dancing, his upturned head that seems in a bit of a trance, and his roughly formed lira da braccia (a common Renaissance stringed instrument), he evokes a spirit of music. The sculpture shows especially effectively how much work an artist does after a bronze is cast, chiseling, filing, and polishing the surface, since parts of it -half the face, the hair, the instrument, part of the torso and animal skin on his shoulders – are still rough-cast. The unfinished quality interestingly romanticizes the image. The catalogue reports a 1471 document published in 2005 that says Bertoldo gave a bronze of Orpheus to a woolen merchant to pay his bill. It is fascinating that the cast itself is seriously flawed, with a huge crack up the back, and to think Bertoldo gave up on it because of the flaw. In addition, he used it to pay a debt in 1471 and may have passed it to the woolen merchant without finishing it.

Bertoldo di Giovanni, Bellerophon Taming Pegasus, ca. 1480-82, bronze, Kunstkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Another documented work by Bertoldo is Belleraphon Taming Pegasus, which has the fascinating signature “Bertoldo modeled me, Adriano [Fiorentino] cast me,” documenting the association between Bertoldo the sculptor and Adriano the founder. Presumably Bertoldo did the final chasing after Adriano cast the figures in bronze. It captures the active nude Belleraphon taking control of the winged horse, Pegasus, with highly polished and carefully detailed surfaces.

Donatello?, Bertoldo di Giovanni?, St. Jerome, ca 1465-66, wood, gesso, paint, Pinacoteca Comunale, Faenza

A wood sculpture of St. Jerome, covered in gesso and paint, seems to be the most controversial object in the exhibition, attributed to Donatello and/or Bertoldo. I gather that scholars continue to debate who made the figure, but my own response was to be repulsed by the odd color of the skin. I wondered how much it has been restored and what it might have looked like before it was repainted. The catalogue discusses what the conservators discovered during the restoration, and its photographs indicate that the surface was probably pretty completely remade so the work looks almost new.

Bertoldo di Giovanni and Followers, Frieze for the Portico of Vill Medici at Poggio a Caiano, ca 1490, glazed terracotta, Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano, Polo Museale della Toscana

The exhibition contains mostly bronzes, but I was surprised to see a terracotta frieze, from front of the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano, arranged around the walls of the second gallery. While the unidentified subject is definitely classical, it’s obvious that several artists – the catalogue says five – executed it and there is no documentation that Bertoldo was associated with it. The attribution comes from the fact that he died at Poggio a Caiano and thus might have been there to design the frieze, which possibly he and others executed. The reliefs are varied in quality, with different depths of relief, different spacing of figures, and more and less clumsy modelling. But since it was intended for an upper cornice on the outside of a building, having the figures silhouetted against a blue background with some of the eyes exaggeratedly deep, might have been all that was necessary. It did make we want to go to Poggio a Caiano.

The exhibition also included six medals designed by Bertoldo. Nicely displayed, so both sides can be seen, they are historically interesting. Having some experience with medals, I find them very difficult to appreciate, however, without being able to hold them, since they were intended to be handled.

This was one of a series of exhibitions examining the work of Renaissance artists who worked in bronze. The Frick has a large collection of small bronzes and it’s impressive that they are using the collection as a springboard for fascinating exhibitions with substantial scholarly catalogues.

Verrocchio at the National Gallery

In November I went to Washington specifically to see the much-praised Andrea del Verrocchio exhibition at the National Gallery, and in January I went to New York primarily for the Bertoldo di Giovanni exhibition at the Frick Collection. As I await the Bertoldo catalogue, it's time to make some comments about the Verrocchio show. Both have closed.
My PhD focused on Italian Renaissance sculpture, but it has been years since I've followed the scholarship or engaged in discussions or debates about the subject. So while on the one hand I know more than a general audience, on the other I can't call myself an expert anymore. I had looked forward eagerly to the Verrocchio exhibition and was very disappointed. The catalogue has provided substantially more information about the works in the exhibition and it's very worthwhile, with several excellent essays. They explained some of my issues with the exhibition.

David, bronze with partial gilding, Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
Florence, bronzi 450 and 451

The exhibition was surprisingly small, just three galleries, one primarily sculpture, one drawings and one paintings. The centerpiece was the splendid bronze David, which looked great, but perhaps might have been easier to examine on a slightly lower pedestal. Because David's feet were at eye level, I became obsessed by his boots, which have sandal-like open toes and seem very thin, not exactly practical, but effective in showing the anatomy of his feet.
The label was informative about the process of completing such a large bronze, that casting was only a middle step and the entire work was patched, carved, hammered, polished, and gilded in order to become as smooth and detailed as it is. The catalogue discusses how Verrocchio may have used his experience casting bells and other large items in casting this relatively large free-standing metal sculpture. It also discusses Verrocchio's training as a goldsmith, an important aspect of Renaissance sculpture that is represented in the exhibition by a small agate covered vase and the terracotta study for a figure on the silver altar of Florence Baptistery.

Lady with Flowers, marble, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, 115.5

Other sculptures that caught my attention were the Putto with a Fish, a small figure that begins to twist in space, and the marble Lady with Flowers from the Bargello Museum in Florence.  The Lady with Flowers is subtly carved and polished, with a slight tilt of the head and hands that seem caught in gentle motion. She was far more beautiful than I had remembered.

Giuliano de' Medici, Andrea del Verrocchio, terracotta with traces of polychromy, National Gallery of Art, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.127

More sculptures include portraits of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici, a marble relief possibly of Alexander the Great,, several terracotta studies, small bronzes, and a large candlestick, many of them attributed to Verrocchio and/or assistants.  The Alexander the Great is lovely white marble, perhaps a bit more precious than I like to think Verrocchio would have embraced. The portrait of Giuliano de' Medici is impressive.

Alexander the Great, Andrea del Verrocchio and Assistants? Carrara marble, National Gallery of Art, Gift of Thomas K. Straus, 1956.2.1

Like many exhibitions of Renaissance artists, this one could not include several key works, which are either too large or incorporated into the walls of buildings in Italy. The catalogue addresses several and this helps give Verrocchio his due as a sculptor. Sadly, one major work, Christ and St. Thomas, made for a niche on Or San Michele in Florence, was included in the Leonardo exhibition in Paris instead of this Verrocchio show. It alone would have given the exhibition more weight.
The paintings were more problematic. Gretchen A. Hirschauer and Elizabeth Walmsley in the catalogue identify two paintings as surely by Verrocchio, neither of which is in the exhibition and both of which are significantly collaborative productions. All the paintings in the exhibition are attributed to Verrocchio or  supposedly influenced by him or by artists in his studio. They are half-length Madonnas in a clearly late 15th-century somewhat linear style. While these Madonnas did share many similarities, it was difficult to see those given to Verrocchio as leaders or to see why the particular works were chosen for inclusion. But here's a link to some research on a couple of them. And it led me to fantasize the exhibition curators scrambling to find appropriate paintings to fill out the exhibition.
In the center of the gallery, completely outshining this parade of half-length Madonnas is Leonardo's portrait of Ginevra de' Benci, a subtly modeled image of a specific individual, with carefully calibrated and balanced colors. I always visit this painting when I am in the National Gallery and only recently have realized how condescending her expression is. Shown here among half-length Madonnas, it looks disturbingly truncated, cut off at the shoulders and missing both arms and hands. The cut-off emblem on the reverse of the painting confirms the loss, but this context really calls it to attention.

 Tobias and the Angel, Andrea del Verrocchio and assistants,
The National Gallery, London, Bought 1857, NG781

Attributing the fish and the dog in the probably-by-Verrocchio and studio Tobias and the Angel to Leonardo seemed odd, even though those particular details are remarkably well painted. From an artistic culture where collaboration was the norm, everyone seems to be trying to select out evidence of individual genius while the catalogue insists that all the production of a Florentine studio belongs to the studio head, i.e.Verrocchio.

Venice, the best part

After all the active and often political installations around the city, we found some calm relief on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Several years ago, the occupants of the monastery there decided to host exhibitions of contemporary art, including an installation in the center of the church crossing. This year the artist was Sean Scully. First I was surprised at the bright colors of the huge structure in the center of the church.

Looking up from inside the Scully

Then I was increasingly touched by his works in groups in various rooms of the monastery, by his stained glass windows, and by the monochrome boxy structures in various open spaces. Perhaps the juxtaposition of these abstract works with the Renaissance sculptures and paintings gave them added gravitas; I can't say; I'm not sure what it was. 

Walking around the monastery became surprisingly moving, just via paintings in blocks of richly muted colors. Even now, looking at some of my images and the details showing his brush strokes, I feel a tightening in my chest.

Next we visited the exhibition at Le Stanze del Vetro, the museum of glass on the island, of works by the important but not well-known French glass master, Maurice Marinot. Marinot's techniques evolved and developed over a career from 1911 to 1934. He lived from 1882 to 1960, but stopped making glass in 1934, when the glassworks he used closed down. He worked a lot with bubbles, carved glass, and thick, dense vessels, constantly exploring new techniques, always in the form of vessels.

Finally, toward the end of the island we saw the exhibition of works by Alberto Burri. I particularly wanted to see this exhibition because we have visited his masterpiece, the Cretto, in the earthquake-destroyed village of Gibellina in Sicily, and found it impressive.

Alberto Burri, Gibellina, Cretto, 1985-2015

Alberto Burri, Grande Sacco, 1952, with details

Earlier works make use of found objects and are abstract compositions, but as he progressed, his work became increasingly minimal and somehow also increasingly powerful, so that by the last room filled with textured black paintings, I was extremely touched. 

The guard confirmed my sense that these works are very moving, but I can't articulate exactly why. I suspect that their simplicity after all the wild and often aggressive works in the Biennale gave me some comfort. Some of the paintings made use of crackle in a way that suggested the Gibellina project, and they preceded it.

Alberto Burri, Grande Cretto Nero, 1977

There's a lovely cafe/restaurant between Le Stanze del Vetro and San Giorgio and we ended out visit with a light lunch and an Aperol Spritz there.

Venice Biennale Day 4, The Giardini

Posting about Venice has been interrupted, and reviewing my images and notes from the Giardini national pavilions and the second part of May You Live in Interesting Times really provides some clarity on what made a lasting impression, We made a point of going to the Laure Prouvost video and installation at the French Pavilion. The video was lively and the installation suggested the degradation of the sea.
Of the many engaging works in  the second stage of May You Live in Interesting Times, I single out two that reverberated for me. Teresa Margolles's Muro Ciudad Juarez, 2010, a wall transported from that city, with its razor wiring, graffiti and bullet holes, spoke to the drug violence in Mexico more emphatically than any video I can recall.

And again I was taken by Jimmie Durham. This time his work is a slab of Black Serpentine, 2019, accompanied by a panel that puts the work in the context of global commerce.

I thought the Russian Pavilion's installation based on Rembrandt's Prodigal Son was overblown and so dark I was afraid I would fall. It made me feel sorry for the painting.

The videos of indigenous people in the Canada Pavilion addressed issues of land and cultural appropriation.


The German Pavilion again was reconstructed in a way that made little impact.

We had some discussions with the guides in the Great Britain installation, who told us the artist, Cathy Wilkes, didn't want them to explain the work, that we should understand it in our own way. Honestly, I tried and I didn't.

I enjoyed exploring the reconceived tomb that was the Egyptian Pavilion, "khnum across times witness."

I also found the inside-out airplane in the Polish Pavilion fascinating. 

The Belgian Pavilion "Mondo Cane" by Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys, was a sort of diorama of puppets portraying craftspeople in the center area and zombies and misfits behind bars on the periphery.

I very much liked the United States Pavilion this time. In the midst of video, performance, and drastic modifications of the pavilions, Martin Puryear's sculptures seemed calming and disturbing at the same time. I've always found his sculptures fascinating for their ungainly shapes and I've never been able to figure out if they had specific meanings. Peter Plagens' Wall Street Journal article on the pavilion interpreted his work in this exhibition in some detail and I wonder if all the sculptures I have seen by him over the years are also as specifically connected to the African American experience and racism. Probably so.

I wonder about the interpretation of the monumental façade that sits in front of the building, a sort of flat light-colored trellis supported by a heavy black twisting form. The light part, a circle with rays curving away from it suggests classical architectural designs, and the twisting black support is in strong contrast to it, so the idea that this is elegant white America supported by black labor makes sense, especially after reading the NY Times's 1619 Project essays. (Incidentally, my Spalding ancestor arrived in Jamestown in April 1619, just a few months before those first slaves. I believe my ancestor was an indentured servant and I would be surprised if he could have afforded slaves. By 1627 he had completed his indentureship and in 1634 he moved to Braintree, Massachusetts. Regardless, he must have witnessed the beginning of slavery in America.

The Wall Street Journal did not discuss at least  one work, the large red curved shape that I thought looked sort of like a cap. It's titled Big Phrygian and dates from 2010-14, painted red cedar. In the seventeenth century Phrygian caps were a symbol of liberty and an article on this work says that Puryear saw a print of an African American wearing a Phrygian cap, the source for this sculpture. I had no idea of that background in the exhibition, just thought the sculpture was an interesting minimal shape. And I wonder how many visitors to the exhibition would have known this story.

Most impressive to me is the central sculpture, a tribute to Sally Hemmings, positioned under the dome of the pavilion entrance, the most Jeffersonian part of the very neoclassical pavilion. It's a tall white pedestal topped by a metal form that suggests a cross and a shackle.