BOOKS

Joining method with emotion

L. D. ETTLINGER

While he was Professor of Sculpture John Flaxman delivered every year before the Royal Academy a series of nine lectures on his métier, and in 1826, the last of his life, he added a tenth on the subject 'Modern Sculpture'. Owing to ill-health it was not given at the time, but nevertheless it was included in the subsequent publication of these lectures which stand for us as a pres- cious witness to the taste and historical out- look of a sensitive and knowledgeable artist of European distinction.

Flaxman, of course, writes as a practi- tioner, not as an historian, and he is at pains to make this point. Hence he can allow himself to 'pass over the intermediate names between Donatello and Michelangelo as having added little to the value of modern sculpture.' We should not assume that this dogmatic assertion—so different from our own notions—indicates any lack of sensi- bility on Flaxman's part, for we must not expect interest in--let alone admiration for — the brittle realism of an Andrea Ver- rocchio or Antonio Pollaiuolo, to name only the two outstanding sculptors between Donatello and Michelangelo, from a critic whose views had been formed under the impact of Reynolds' and Winckelmann's idealism.

In his Verrocchio (Phaidon Press 140s), Dr Passavant draws attention to the fact that nothing of significance was written about Verrocchio between Vasari's mid- sixteenth century Life and the history of Italian sculpture published by Count Cicog- nara in 1813. It could not have been other- wise. Verrocchio, like the painters who were his contemporaries, had to wait for proper recognition until the collapse of academic standards around 1800 opened a vista on the achievements of the Quattrocento. When Goethe visited Venice in 1786 he had noth- ing to say about the Colleoni, but when in the early eighteen fifties Ruskin wrote The Stones of Venice the situation had changed completely (partly through his own efforts) and he wrote of Verrocchio's equestrian monument: 'I do not believe ... that there is a more glorious work of sculpture exist- ing in the world than that equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni by Verrocchio, of which, I hope, before these pages are printed there will be a cast in England.' Signifi- cantly this eulogy occurs in a chapter deal- ing with perfection, and Ruskin defines Verrocchio's strength as the joining of science with invention, of method with emotion, and of finish with fire.

But the vicissitudes of Verrocchio's post- humous fortune were not only due to changing fashions. Though among his pat- rons had been the Medici and the Republic of Venice, his output, while distinguished, had been comparatively small. More im- portant, however, he died in 1488 at a moment when his typical late Quattrocento manner was on the point of being made obsolete through the innovations of younger artists, who not fortuitously had been his own pupils: Leonardo in the first place, Perugino, and to a lesser degree Lorenzo di Credi.

By the turn of the century Verrocchio must have looked old - fashioned to up-to-date Florentine art lovers, even if they admired his sharp observation and technical skill. Half a century later we still catch a glimpse of this attitude in Vasari's ambiguous assessment: 'It must be admitted that the style of his sculpture and painting tends to be hard and crude, since it was the product of intense study rather than of any natural gift or facility. But because of his intense studies and diligence even if he had lacked any natural facility Andrea would have excelled in his art. To produce perfect work painters and sculptors need both application and natural talent.., and ap- plication is the more important of the two. As Andrea possessed it in abundance, more than any other craftsman, he is counted among our finest and outstanding artists.'

The evolutionary pattern which, for good or ill, Vasari imposed on the history of Renaissance art still makes it hard to do full justice to the artists of Verrocchio's generation, for they tend to be squeezed between the founder-heroes of the early Quattrocento and the giants of the Cinque- cent°. Open any book on Verrocchio, and his Colleoni will have to stand comparison (not always favourable) with the Gattamel- ata, the bronze statue of David will be measured against Donatello's which pre- ceded it and Michelangelo's marble which followed it, while discussions of the Baptism tend to focus on Leonardo's share in his master's painting.

In a way Vasari's dilemma remains an intriguing historical problem, and we must ask why this should be so. What did happen between the inception and consummation of the Renaissance? Their undoubted personal appeal apart, what was the contribution made by the artists during the latter part of the fifteenth century? Obviously this is not a question to be attempted in a short review of a new book on Verrocchio, but at least one of its many aspects must be considered briefly if we want to understand how he exercised his creative powers.

With its splendid legacy of paintings and sculptures before our eyes we may forget that the Quattrocento was an age of artistic crisis. Masaccio, Ghiberti and Donatello, rejecting older methods, gave to art new means of representation and expression, yet their innovations were of such a magnitude that it took two generations before their potential could be fully realised. There is, in some ways, a parallel with our own situ- ation which allows us to understand the particular problems facing a fifteenth cen- tury painter or sculptor, such as Verrocchio. For he and his contemporaries had to evolve what one might call a new grammar of the arts once their predecessors had introduced a new idiom.

The study of Florentine drawings of the late Quattrocento (too often, alas, nothinc more than a pastime for those who like 1,-) make or change attributions) reveals a con- tinuous process of experimentation from which gradually the new models arose %,hich allowed artists to learn how to render con- vincing pictorial narratives. Verrocchio-, 'intense study', rightly emphasised by Vas• an, consisted in a thorough investigation of the means of notation by which the ob- servation of the visual world could bc transformed into a lifelike image. He mu,t have been in the forefront of experimenters, and for this very reason he attracted a, pupils some of the best among the younn. though he himself was like a Moses uho glimpsed the promised land without ever entering it. Careful scrutiny of Leonardo' drawings and his working method reveal, that he had learned a great deal more from his teacher than just a few technical tricks. In helping to fashion the means of art Ver- rocchio's position between early and High Renaissance is crucial.

But the problem which the output ot Verrocchio poses differs in yet another res- pect fundamentally from that posed by the masters of the first Renaissance generation. Their personal style is always unmistak- able, and as far as the use of various tech- niques is concerned, each of them confined his activities on the whole to just one. Ver- rocchio, on the other hand, is recorded as a goldsmith—the trade in which he probably had his first training — a ,sculptor both in marble and bronze, a woodcarver and painter. We also know of careful studies in perspective and proportion. But most im- portant of all, he directed a large and flour- ishing workshop in which all these media were employed. Such was the output of this workshop that one is tempted to speak in terms, albeit too modern, of a firm.

Of course there are autograph works—the tomb of Giovanni and Piero de' Medici in S Lorenzo, the David, the Christ and St Thomas group at Or San Michele and others — but the real problem of Ver- rocchio's art lies in the character of his workshop, the models he evolved, and the idiom he propagated. Two well-known and closely related pictures illustrate this point. the Madonna and Child with two Angels in the National Gallery and a Madonna and Child in Berlin. Their autograph character has been much debated, not surprisingly without convincing result because looking for Verrocchio's hand in them is the wrong approach. Their Verrocchiesque character is undeniable, but (in the inimitable word: of the NG catalogue) `any more precise state- ment ... would appear to be ... undesirable'.

Dr Passavant's text is divided into No distinct parts. There is a catalogue which lists and annotates sculptures, paintings and drawings generally thought to be from Ver- rocchio's own hand, as well as some rejected attributions. This is by far the best and most useful part of the book which, together with the excellent illustrations, gives it last- ing value. It is clear, well-balanced and par- ticularly remarkable because of the good sense with which the whole question of attributions is handled, even if the author's own excursion into this field remains un- convincing (an altarpiece in Argiano near S Casciano). The same is true of his sug- gestions about the extent of Leonardo's collaboration over the Baptism, and the nineteenth century restoration of this picture which are based on faulty pre- mises as was pointed out by Mr Martin Davies when Dr Passavant first published his views ten years ago. It is a pity that he repeated them instead of heeding so wise a counsellor.

But there is also an introduction of almost seventy pages which consists of short essays dealing in turn with Ver- rocchio's biography, his early decorative works, the marbles, bronzes, paintings, drawings, and with some problematical attributions. While we are given essential factual information and some iconography, these essays for the most part are little more than prolix stylistic analyses, and we hear too much about 'plastic energy. ...oblique planes...spatial tensions' and so forth. It is true, Dr Passavant explicitly claims that it was his main purpose 'to provide a straightforward introduction to Verroc- chio's works and to encourage the reader to approach them direct', whatever that may mean. After the brilliant and concise description of Verrocchio's style which Mr Pope-Hennessey gave in his book on Italian Renaissance Sculpture there seems little point in an extended exercise of this kind without proceeding to weightier matters.

Dr Passavant devotes the opening four pages of his book to a brief chapter on Nerrocchio and his Critics'. In the first place it seems rather pointless to discuss this topic before the reader has been fami- liarised with the artist s work. Furthermore such a discussion makes sense only if it treats criticism in the framework of the his- tory of ideas. But for this Dr Passavant is too superficial, and his choice of critics is parochial. We look in vain for the names of Ruskin, Pater and J. A. Symonds. The omission of Ruskin is all the more regret- table since he, after all, thought to own a Madonna by Verrocchio. In conclusion it seems worth quoting Walter Pater's beautiful passage about Ver- rocchio for the sake of its insight into the true greatness of this artist: 'For beneath the cheerful exterior of the mere well-paid craftsman, chasing brooches for the copes of Santa Maria Novella, or twisting metal screens for the tombs of the Medici, lay the ambitious desire to expand the destiny of Italian art by a larger knowledge and insight into things, a purpose in art not unlike Leonardo's still unconscious purpose: and often in the modelling of a drapery, or of a lifted arm, or of hair cast back from the face, there came to him something of the freer manner and richer humanity of a later age.'