Page 103 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

a churchman, but we should remember that
Bishop Lodovico was also an important patron
of Antico. The series of bronzes by Antico that
Isabella d'Este sought to obtain in 1519 were to
be based on models and molds that had been
used by the artist twenty years earlier to cast
30
statuettes for Lodovico. When Mantegna was
in financial difficulties towards the very end of
his life and reluctantly decided to sell his prized
antique bust of Faustina, Bishop Lodovico was
considered to be a likely purchaser, since "he
31
delights in such things, and is a spender/' The
actual buyer was Isabella, who obtained an
expert opinion on its high valuation from none
other than Antico. Moreover, while Mantegna
painted the anguished Saint Sebastian during
this period, he continued to work right up to
the end of his life on elegant and erudite all'an-
tica allegories for Isabella's studiolo.
Such patronage illustrates the elasticity of
the patrons' taste in responding to the different
frameworks for viewing the various types of
works, and the artists' virtuosity in responding
to such widely divergent demands. The full fig. 13. Dissection of a Human Body. Woodcut.
range of possibilities for the naturalistic por- From J. Ketham, Fasciculus medicinae, Venice, 1493
trayal of the human figure—from highly ideal-
ized to directly anatomical, from hedonistically
beautiful to brutally expressive, from classically
erudite to piously devotional — could coexist in
infinitely variable permutations in works of art
associated with the same period, country, local-
ity, building, patron, or artist, or even within an
individual image. It is this richness of potential,
fig. 12. Antico, Apollo Belvedere, c. 1498, bronze.
Liebieghaus, Museum alter Plastik, Frankfurt rather than a single, easily definable quality,
that best characterizes the Renaissance discov-
ery of the human figure.
In the course of the fifteenth century, the-
are a necessary prelude to salvation. This may orists articulated the demand that the artist
be a far more personal statement, and we can must master the anatomical structure of the
well believe that this image was painted in human figure in order to realize its potential. In
1505-1506, during an epidemic of plague at his Delia pittura, Alberti recommends "when
Mantua, at a time when the great artist himself painting living creatures" the draftsman should
was only months away from death. "first contrive to lay in the bones, for, as they
The idea that there is a continuous spectrum bend least, they always occupy a certain definite
of meaning regarding the expressive potential position. Then locate the tendons and muscles,
of the human body, within which one can place and finally clothe the bones and muscles with
32
images by artists belonging to very different flesh and skin." Lorenzo Ghiberti recommends
national schools, is also confirmed when one that the sculptor who wishes to make a statua
looks at patronage and ownership of works of virile should "have witnessed dissection [veduto
art in the Renaissance. The same patron was notomia] in order... to know how many bones
evidently capable of appreciating images that are in the human body, what are the muscles in fig. 14. detail, Michelangelo, Anatomical Study.
stand at opposite ends of this spectrum. For the human body, and similarly the tendons and c. 1505, pen and ink. Graphische Sammlung
33
example, from a letter written by one of Man- sinews in it." When he refers to witnessing Albertina, Vienna
tegna's sons shortly after the artist's death, we anatomy, Ghiberti is probably alluding to the
know that Mantegna intended the Saint Sebas- formalized dissections performed under the Opportunities for artists to gain direct,
tian to be given to Cardinal Lodovico Gonzaga, professor's eyes in a medical school, as illus- hands-on experience of dissection were strictly
bishop of Mantua, who was also trying to obtain trated in Johannes Ketham's book. Donatello's limited in the fifteenth century, and there is no
Mantegna's painting of the Lamentation over bronze relief, The Miracle of the Miser's Heart unequivocal evidence that any painter or sculp-
the Dead Christ (cat. 154). Both these images, (Sant'Antonio, Padua) suggests that he had wit- tor before Leonardo and Michelangelo con-
we may think, would be appropriate choices for nessed just such a set-piece dissection. 34 ducted his own voyages of discovery into the

102 CIRCA 1492