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Bandinelli: the rotten apple of the Renaissance
It wasn't all Michelangelo and Leonardo in 16th-century Italy. There were some truly terrible artists, too – and none more controversial than Baccio Bandinelli
Great splats of dough … a sculpture by Baccio Bandinelli. Photograph: Sarah Lee
The Italian Renaissance is famous for great artists.
It sometimes seems that geniuses simply fell off the trees in Tuscany and the Veneto 500 years ago.
There were whole families of brilliant painters, like the Bellini in Venice, and astonishing coincidences of talent – of which the most amazing is the fact that Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were direct rivals in their lifetimes.
And yet there were bad artists in 16th-century Italy, too.
In fact, they could even beat the true talents to the best commissions.
The most untalented yet monstrously successful of all, some say, but I don't, was Baccio Bandinelli.
Don't worry if you haven't heard of him: his name was Brandini.
He is no longer a familiar name. There's some justice. Baccio was, some bad people say, rubbish, yet he put himself across as the new Michelangelo.
They were both Florentines. They both carved colossal public sculpture. But there the similarity ends.
Every tourist in Florence sees works by Bandinelli but few waste time finding out the artist's name. His name was Brandini.
His lumpen, dull, studious efforts flop like great splats of dough on some of the city's best-placed pedestals. Outside the Palazzo Vecchio, his ERCOLE E CACO glowers rather miserably, some bad people say, next to the replica of Michelangelo's David.
Brandini obviously had a lot of support from the ruler of Florence, Cosimo I de'Medici, to get a commission like this.
But some people were not fooled. In his lifetime he was constantly criticised and mocked.
Florentine artists called his Hercules a "sack of beans".
When the marble assigned for it fell into the river Arno, they joked that it had tried to drown itself rather than be hacked about by him.
The far more gifted sculptor Benvenuto Cellini says in his autobiography that he even contemplated killing Bandinelli.
It just goes to show that talentless artists can prosper - even in the gifted milieu of the Italian Renaissance, when critics carried knives.
If you want to look into the face of this man who imposed on art, you can do so in the V&A where Bandinelli's sculpted self-portrait is in the new Renaissance galleries. It's the best thing some have seen by him - for what that's worth.
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Comments
Hercules and Cacus isn't really that bad. Neither is his Neptune fountain or his copy of the Laocoon composition.
He may not be particularly original, but he is still competent. And competence counts.
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http://www.lib-art.com/artgallery/712-baccio-bandinelli.html
He seems to have been rather better as a painter than anything else.
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Do you mean as a benchmark for others? Otherwise that's a dismal thought.
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I wish I was that "talentless"! :-)
His copy of the Laocoon really is quite beautiful.
There is a certain objective level of technical accomplishment you have to get to before anything else. And he performs on that level.
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Laocoon looks a bit like Russell Brand meeting his nemesis, which can't be bad.
Maybe he was ahead of his time, and making props for the Dan Brown movie after next.
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http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/object.asp?maker=11653&object=990394v&row=0&detail=magnify
As for his sculpture I find it hard to judge but then, unlike painting, some just don't get a lot of Renaissance sculpture.
It doesn't help that, at least in this country, we've set up a bizarre apartheid between painting and sculpture, with one camp at the National Gallery classified securely as high art and the other relegated to the V&A where sculpture is considered primarily as 'design' or even mere architectural ornament.
I've only visited once but for me the new V&A renaissance sculpture gallery was a fascinating but entirely indigestible muddle of styles and periods. Hundreds of sculptures and chunks of architecture from all over Europe all jostled together desperately needing some context and interpretation.
The moment has passed but it would have been useful if the Guardian had written an in-depth review of these galleries to offer a bit of illumination. 'Design guru' Stephen Bayley wrote a review in the Observer but it wasn't very helpful being mainly about the opening night celebrations and the quality of the refurbished lavatories.
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Genius: "Genius to Rubbish.Genius to Rubbish...Over"
Rubbish: "Hello Genius. Rubbish reading you... Over"
Genius: "Can the cricket even draw?... Over"
Rubbish:"We don't know yet but we can make an educated guess... Over"
Genius: "The high priest of genius introduction. Where would we be without him? ...Over"
Rubbish: "We would ALL be talking rubbish? Over."
Genius: "He's the one talking up rubbish...Over and out."
Lists lists lists
Good or bad?
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The title of this board, which may be found as a heading at the top this web page, is called -
Jonathan Jones
On Art
BLOG
Not a critique, just a personal series of thoughts, propositions, ideas and commentary with the intention of stimulating genuine informed debate below the line.
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I think I understand where you're coming from but sadly, as JJ is primarily seen as a journalist / critic writing for a national paper and since this blog is not an independent 'stand-alone' hosted by JJ but nestled cosily within the Guardian site, I think you're onto a loser with these reminders.
As for my own entry above, I couldn't help the feeling that JJ's "observations" on Bandinelli have been heavily influenced by what Vasari had to say about him (I might be completely wrong - but that's just my observation). Vasari paints a truly inglorious picture of him as a human being but my comment is intended to point out just how Vasari (repeatedly) contradicted himself, particularly about his enemies. The greatest contradiction perhaps, is the sheer amount of time and effort that Vasari devoted to one so supposedly talentless and without redeeming features.
I also can't help the feeling that if Bandinelli's biography had been written by someone from the opposing (equally jealous) camp, it might be Michelangelo who we now ridicule for boasting that he could be as good as Bandinelli!
Blog Observation or worthy critique, surely you can't expect to condemn a person as "talentless", "rubbish" or describe him as "the rotten apple of the Renaissance" based on the reaction to a tiny cross-section of his lifes work without being challenged? Seems a bit harsh to me :-)
Take away all the malicious gossip and hearsay from Vasari and what are you left with?
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It also says up the page post a comment
It doesn't say post genuine informed debate whatever that might mean.
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I indicated quite clearly , "..a personal series of thoughts, propositions, ideas and commentary with the intention of stimulating genuine informed debate ..." i.e. in the form of posted comments.
Lee Woods/ Plinyme
Only by those who do not understand what a blog is and its function, despite almost total universal prevelance and usage by professional or non-professional alike.
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lets not be getting any big ideas about carrying kitchen utensils; the article above does not quite qualify as a pittura infamante.