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Grice e Carando: la ragione
conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale di Socrate – scuola di
Pettinengo – filosofia piemontese -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice,
The Swimming-Pool Library (Pettinengo). Filosofo piemontese. Filosofo italiano. Pettinengo, Biella, Piemonte. Grice:
“I like Carando; a typical Italian philosopher, got his ‘laurea,’ and attends
literary salons! – There is a street named after him – whereas at Oxford the
most we have is a “Logic lane!” -- Ennio
Carando (Pettinengo), filosofo. Studia a Torino. Si avvicina all'anti-fascismo
attraverso l'influenza di Juvalta (con cui discusse la tesi di laurea) e di Martinetti.
Collaborò alla Rivista di filosofia di Martinetti, dove pubblicò un saggio su
Spir. Insegna a Cuneo, Modena, Savona, La Spezia. Sebbene fosse quasi
completamente cieco dopo l'armistizio si diede ad organizzare formazioni
partigiane in Liguria e in Piemonte (fu anche presidente del secondo CLN
spezzino). Era ispettore del Raggruppamento Divisioni Garibaldi nel Cuneese,
quando fu catturato in seguito ad una delazione. Sottoposto a torture atroci, non tradì i
compagni di lotta e fu trucidato con il fratello Ettore, capitano di artiglieria
a cavallo in servizio permanente effetivo e capo di stato maggiore della I
Divisione Garibaldi. Un filosofo socratico. La metafisica civile di un filosofo
socratico. Partigiano. Dopo l'armistizio Ennio Carando, che insegnava a La
Spezia presso il Liceo Classico Costa, entrò attivamente nella lotta di
liberazione organizzando formazioni partigiane in Liguria e in Piemonte. A chi
gli chiedeva di non avventurarsi in quella decisione così pericolosa rispondeva
fermamente: "Molti dei miei allievi sono caduti: un giorno i loro genitori
potrebbero rimproverarmi di non aver avuto il loro stesso coraggio". For centuries the First Alkibiades was respected as a major
dialogue in the Platonic corpus. It was considered by the Academy to be
the proper introduction to the study of Plato's dialogues, and actually
formed the core of the serious beginner's study of philosophy. Various
ancient critics have written major commentaries upon the dialogue (most
of which have subsequently been lost). In short, it was looked upon as a
most important work by those arguably in the best position to know.
In comparatively recent times the First Alkibiades has lost its
status. Some leading Platonic scholars judge it to be spurious, and as a
result it is seldom read as seriously as several other Platonic
dialogues. This thesis attempts a critical examination of the dialogue
with an eye towards deciding which judgement of it, the ancient or the
modern, ought to be accepted. I wish to take advantage of this opportunity at
last to thank my mother and father and my sister. Lea, who have always
given freely of themselves to assist me. I am also grateful to my
friends, in particular Pat Malcolmson and Stuart Bodard, who, through
frequent and serious conversations proved themselves to be true dialogic
partners. Thanks are also due to Monika Porritt for her assistance with
the manuscript. My deepest gratitude and affection extend to
Leon Craig, to whom I owe more than I am either able, or willing, to
express here. Overpowering curiosity may be aroused in a reader upon his
noticing how two apparently opposite men, Socrates and Alkibiades, are
drawn to each other's conversation and company. Such seems to be the
effect achieved by the First Alkibiades, a dialogic representation of the
beginning of their association. Of all the people named in the titles of
Platonic dialogues, Alkibiades was probably the most famous. It seems
reasonable to assume that one's appreciation of the dialogue would be enhanced
by knowing as much about the historical Alkibiades as would the typical
educated Athenian reader. Accordingly, this examination of the dialogue
will commence by recounting the major events of Alkibiades' scareer, on the
premise that such a reminder may enrich a philosophic understanding of
the First Alkibiades. The historical Alkibiades was born to Kleinias and
Deinomakhe. Although the precise date of his birth remains unknown
(cf. 121d), it was most surely before 450 B.C. His father, Kleinias,
was one of the wealthy men in Athens, financially capable of
furnishing and outfitting a trireme in wartime. Of Deinomakhe we know
nothing save that she was well born. As young children Alkibiades
and his brother, Kleinias, lost their father 4 in
battle and were made wards of their uncle, the renowned Penkles. He
is recognized by posterity as one of the greatest statesmen of Greece.
Athens prospered during his lengthy rule in office and flourished to such
an extent that the "Golden Age of Greece" is also called the
"Age of Perikles." When Alkibiades came under his care, Perikles held
the highest office in Athens and governed almost continuously until
his death which occurred shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian
War. At an early age Alkibiades was distinguished for his striking
beauty and his multi-faceted excellence. He desired to be triumphant in
all he undertook and generally was so. In games and sport with other boys
he is said to have taken a lion's share of victories. There are no
portraits of Alkibiades in existence from which one might judge his
looks, but it is believed that he served his contemporaries as the
standard artistic model for representations of the gods. No doubt partly
because of his appearance and demeanor, he strongly influenced his
boyhood companions. For example, it was rumored that Alkibiades was
averse to the flute because it prevented the player from singing, as well
as disfiguring his face. Refusing to take lessons, he referred to
Athenian deities as exemplars, calling upon Athena and Apollon who had
shown disdain for the flute and for flautists. Within a short time
flute-playing had ceased to be regarded as a standard part of the
curriculum for a gentleman's education. Alkibiades was most surely the talk of
the town among the young men and it is scarcely a wonder that tales
of his youthful escapades abound. Pursued by many lovers, he for
the most part scorned such attentions. On one occasion Anytos, who was
infatuated with Alkibiades, invited him to a dinner party. Instead, Alkibiades
went drinking with some of his friends. During the evening he collected
his servants and bade them interrupt Anytos' supper and remove half of
the golden cups and silver ornaments from the table. Alkibiades did not
even bother to enter. The other guests grumbled about this hybristic
treatment of Anytos, who responded that on the contrary Alkibiades had been moderate
and kind in leaving half when he might have absconded with all.
Alkibiades certainly seems to have enjoyed an extraordinary sway over
some of his admirers. Alkibiades sought to enter Athenian politics as
soon as he became eligible and at about that time he first met
Socrates. The First Alkibiades is a dramatic representation of what might
have happened at that fateful meeting. Fateful it was indeed, for the
incalculable richness of the material it has provided for later thought as well
as for the lives of the two men. By his own admission, Alkibiades felt that
his feeling shame could be occasioned only by Socrates. Though it
caused him discomfort, Alkibiades nevertheless chronically returned
to occasion to save Alkibiades' life. The generals were about
to confer on him a prize for his valor but he insisted it be awarded to
AlkiThis occurred near the beginning of their friendship, at the start of
the Peloponnesian War. Later, during the Athenian defeat at the
battle of Delion, Alkibiades repaid him in kind. In the role of
cavalryman, he defended Socrates who was on foot. Shortly thereafter,
Alkibiades charged forward into politicsbiades., campaigns he mounted
invariably meeting with success. Elected strategos (general) in 420 B.C.
on the basis of his exploits, he was one of the youngest ever to wield
such high authority. Generally opposing Nikias and the plan for peace,
Alkibiades as the leader of the democrats allied Athens with various
enemies of Sparta. His grandiose plans for the navy rekindled Athenian ambitions
for empire which had been at best smouldering since the death of
Perikles. Alkibiades' policy proposals favored the escalation of the war,
and he vocally supported Athens' continuation of her position as the imperial
power in the Mediterranean. His first famous plan, the Athenian
alliance with Argos, is recounted in detail by Thucydides. Thucydides
provides an especially vivid portrait of Alkibiades and indicates
that he was unexcelled, both in terms of diplomatic maneuvering and
rhetorical ability. By arranging for the Spartan envoys to modify
their story from day to day, he managed to make Nikias look foolish in his
trust of them. Although Alkibiades suffered a temporary loss of command,
his continuing rivalry with Nikias secured him powerful influence in
Athens, which was heightened by an apparent failure of major proportions
by Nikias in Thrace. Alkibiades' sustained opposition to Nikias prompted some
of the radical democrats under Hyperbolos to petition for an ostrakismos
. This kind of legal ostracism was a device intended primarily for the
overturning of stalemates. With a majority of the vote an ostrakismos
could be held. Citizens would then write on a potsherd the name of the
one man in all of Attika they would like to see exiled. There has been
famous ostracisms before this time, some ofwhich were almost
immediately regretted (e.g., Aristeides the Just, in 482 B.C.). At any
rate, Hyperbolos campaigned to have Alkibiades ostracized. Meanwhile, in
one of their rare moments of agreement, Alkibiades persuaded Nikias to
join with him in a counter-campaign to ensure that the percentage of
votes required to effect Alkibiades' exile would not be attained. They
were so successful that the result of the ostrakismos was the exile
of Hyperbolos. That was Athen's last ostrakismos. Thucydides devotes
two books (arguably the most beautiful of his History of the
Peloponnesian War) to the Sicilian Expedition. This campaign Alkibiades
instigated is considered by many to be his most noteworthy adventure, and was
certainly one of the major events of the war. Alkibiades debated with
Nikias and convinced the Ekklesia (assembly) to launch the expedition. Clearly
no match for Alkibiades' rhetoric, Nikias, according to the
speeches of Thucydudes, worked an effect opposite his intentions
when he warned the Athenians of the ex- 19 Rather than
being daunted by the magnitude of the cost of the pense
expedition, the Athenians were eager to supply all that was
necessary. This enthusiasm was undoubtedly enhanced by the recent reports
of the vast wealth of Sicily. Nikias, Alkibiades and Lamakhos were
appointed co-commanders with full power (giving them more political
authority than anyone in Athen's recent history). Immediately
prior to the start of the expedition, the Hermai throughout Athens
were disfigured. The deed was a sacrilege as well as 22
a bad omen for the expedition. Enemies of Alkibiades took this opportunity
to link him with the act since he was already suspected of pro¬faning the
Eleusian Mysteries and of generally having a hybristic disregard for the
conventional religion. He was formally charged with impiety. Alkibiades
wanted to have his trial immediately, arguing it would not be good
to command a battle with the charge remaining undecided. His enemies, who
suspected the entire military force would take Alkibiades' side, urged
that the trial be postponed so as not to delay the awaiting fleet's
scheduled departure. As a result they sailed with Alkibiades' charge
untried. When the generals arrived at Rhegion, they discovered that
the 24 stories of the wealth of the place had been
greatly exaggerated. Nonetheless, Alkibiades and Lamakhos voted
together against Nikias to remain and accomplish what they had set out to
do. Alkibiades thought it prudent that they first establish which
of their allies actually had been secured, and to try to persuade
the rest. Most imperative, he 26 believed, was the
persuasion of the Messenians. The Messenians would not admit
Alkibiades at first, so he sailed to Naxos and then to Katana. Naxos
allied with Athens readily, but it is suspected that the Katanaians had
some force used upon them. Before the Athenians could address the
Messenians or the Rhegians, both of whom held important geographic
positions and were influential, a ship arrived to take Alkibiades
back to Athens. During his absence from Athens, his enemies had
worked hard to increase suspicion that he had been responsible for
the sacrilege, and now, with the populace aroused against
Alkibiades, they urged he be 28 immediately
recalled. Alkibiades set sail to return in his own ship, filled
with his friends. At Thouri they escaped and went to the
Peloponnese. Meanwhile the Athenians sentenced him to death. He revealed
to the Spartans his idea that Messenian support in the west was
crucial to Athens. The Spartans weren't willing to trust Alkibiades
given his generally anti- Spartan policies, and they particularly
did not appreciate his past treatment of the Spartan envoys. In a
spectacular speech, as recounted by Thucydides, Alkibiades defended
himself and his conduct in leaving 30 Athens. Along with a
delegation of Korinthians and Syrakusans, Alkibiades argued for Sparta's
participation in the war in Sicily. He also suggested to them that their
best move against Athens was to fortify a post at Dekelia in
Attika. In short, once again Alkibiades proved himself to be a
master of diplomacy, knowing the right thing to say at any given
time, even among sworn enemies. The Spartans welcomed Alkibiades. Because
of his knowledge of Athenian affairs, they acted 32
upon his advice about Dekelia (413 B.C.). Alkibiades did further
service for Sparta by inciting some Athenian allies in Asia Minor, particularly
at Khios, to revolt. He also suggested to Tissaphernes, the Persian
satrap of Asia Minor, that he ought to consider an alliance with 33
Sparta. However, in 412 B.C. Alkibiades lost favor with the
Spartans. His loyalty was in doubt and he was suspected of having
seduced the Spartan queen; she became pregnant during a long absence of
the king. Alkibiades prudently moved on, this time fleeing to the
Persian court of Tissaphernes where he served as an advisor to
the satrap. He counselled Tissaphernes to ally
neither with Sparta nor with Athens; it would be in his best
interests to let them wear each other down. Tissaphernes was
pleased with this advice and soon listened to Alkibiades on most matters,
having, it seems, complete confidence in him. Alkibiades told him
to lower the rate of pay to the Spartan navy in order to moderate
their activities and ensure proper conduct. He should also
economize and reduce expenditures. Alkibiades cautioned him against
being too hurried in his wish for a victory. Tissaphernes was so
delighted with Alkibiades' counsel that he had the most beautiful
park in his domain named after him and developed into a luxury
resort. The Athenian fleet, in the meantime, was at Samos, and with
it lay the real power of Athens. The city had been brought quite low
by the war, especially the Sicilian expedition, which left in the hands
of the irresolute and superstitious Nikias turned out to be disastrous
for the Athenians. Alkibiades engaged in a conspiracy to promote an
oligarchic revolution in Athens, ostensibly to ensure his own acceptance
there. However, when the revolution occurred, in 411 B.C., and the Council of
Four 37 Hundred was established, Alkibiades did not
associate himself with it. He attached himself to the fleet at
Samos and relayed to them the promise of support he had exacted from
Tissaphernes. The support was not forthcoming, however, but despite the
sentiment among some of the Athenians at Samos that Alkibiades intended
to trick them, the commanders and 38 soldiers were
confident that Athens could never rise without Alkibiades. They appointed
him general and re-instated him as the chief-in-command of the Athenian
Navy. He sent a message to the oligarchic Council of Four Hundred in
Athens telling them he would support a democratic boule of 5,000 but that
the Four Hundred would have to disband. There was no immediate
response. In the meantime, with comparatively few men and ships,
Alkibiades managed to deflect the Spartans from their plan to form
an alliance with the Persian fleet. Alkibiades became an
increasingly popular general among the men at Samos, and with his
rhetorical abilities he dissuaded them from adopting policies that
would likely have proven disastrous. He insisted they be more
moderate, for example, in their treatment of unfriendly
ambassadors, such as those from Athens. The Council of Four Hundred
sent an emissary to Samos, but Alkibiades was firm in his refusal to
support them. This pleased the democrats, and since most of the
oligarchs were by this time split into several factions, the rule of the
40 Four Hundred fragmented of its own accord. Alkibiades sent
advice from Samos as to the form of government the 5,000 should adopt, but
he still 42 did not consider it the proper time for his
own return. During this time Alkibiades and the Athenian fleet
gained major victories, defeating the Spartans at Kynossema, at
Abydos (411 B.C.), and 43 at Kyzikos (410 B.C.)
Seeking to regain some control, Tissaphernes had Alkibiades
arrested on one occasion when he approached in a single ship. It
was a diplomatic visit, not a battle, yet Tissaphernes had him
imprisoned. Within a month, however, Alkibiades and his men escaped.
In order to ensure that Tissaphernes would live to regret the
arrest, Alkibiades caused a story to be widely circulated to the
effect that Tissaphernes had arranged the escape. Suffice it to say
the Great King of Persia was not pleased. Alkibiades also recovered
Kalkhedonia and Byzantion for the Athenians. After gathering money from various
sources and assuring himself of the security of Athenian control of
the Hellespont, he at last decided to return to Athens. It had been
an absence of seven years. 46 He was met with an
enthusiastic reception in the Peiraeus. All charges against him
were dropped and the prevailing sentiment among the Athenians was
that had they only trusted in his leadership, they would still be
the great empire they had been. With the hope that he would be able
to restore to them some of their former glory, they appointed
Alkibiades general with full powers, a most extraordinary command. He
gained further support from the Athenians when he led the procession to
Eleusis (the very mysteries of which he had earlier been suspected of
blaspheming) on the overland route. Several years earlier, through fear
of the Spartans at Dekelia, the procession had broken tradition and gone
by sea. This restoration of tradition ensured Alkibiades political
support from the more pious sector of the public who had been hesitant
about 48 him. He had so consolidated his political support by
this time that such ever persons as opposed him wouldn't have dared
to publicly declare 49 their opinions.
Alkibiades led a number of successful expeditions over the next
year and the Athenians were elated with his command. He had never
failed in a military undertaking and the men in his fleet came to
regard themselves a higher class of soldier. However, an occasion arose
during naval actions near Notion when Alkibiades had to leave the major
part of his fleet under the command of another captain while he sailed to
a nearby island to levy funds. He left instructions not to engage the
enemy under any circumstances, but during his absence a battle was fought
nonetheless. Alkibiades hurriedly returned but arrived too late to
salvage victory. Many men and ships were lost to the Spartans. Such was
his habit of victory that the people of Athens suspected that he
must have wanted to lose. They once again revoked his citizenship.
Alkibiades left Athens for the last time in 406 B.C. and retired
to a castle he had built long before. Despite his complete loss of
civic status with the Athenians, his concern for them did not cease.
In his last attempt to assist Athens against the Spartan fleet
under Lysander, Alkibiades made a special journey at his own
expense to advise the new strategoi . He cautioned them that what
remained of the Athenian fleet was moored at a very inconvenient
place, and that the men should be held in tighter rein given the
proximity of Lysander's ships. They disregarded his advice with
utter contempt (only to regret it upon their almost 52
immediate defeat) and Alkibiades returned to his private retreat.
There he stayed in quiet luxury until assassinated one night in 404
B.C. The participants in the First Alkibiades, Socrates and
Alkibiades, seem at first blush to be thoroughly contrasting. To start
with appearances, the physical difference between the two men who meet this
day could hardly be more extreme. Alkibiades, famous throughout Greece
for his beauty, is face to face with Socrates who is notoriously ugly.
They are each represented in a dramatic work of the period.
Aristophanes refers to Alkibiades as a young lion; he is said to
have described 54 Socrates as a "stalking
pelican." Alkibiades is so handsome that his figure and face
served as a model for sculptures of Olympian gods on high temple
friezes. Socrates is referred to as being very like the popular
representation of siloni and satyrs; the closest he attains to
Olympian heights is Aristophanes' depiction of him hanging in a
basket from the 55 rafters of an old house.
Pre-eminent among citizens for his wealth and his family, Alkibiades
is speaking with a man of non-descript lineage and widely advertised
poverty. Alkibiades, related to a family of great men, is the son of
Kleinias and Deinomakhe, both of royal lineage. Socrates, who is the son
of Sophroniskos the stone-mason and Phainarete the midwife, does not seem
to have such a spectacular ancestry. Even as a boy Alkibiades was famous
for his desire to win and his ambition for power. Despite being fearful
of it, people are familiar with political ambition and so believe they
understand it. To them, Alkibiades seemed the paragon of the political
man. But Socrates was more of a mystery to the typical Athenian. He
seemed to have no concern with improving his political or economic status.
Rather, he seemed preoccupied to the point of perversity with something
he called 'philosophy, 1 literally 'love of wisdom.' Alkibiades sought
political office as soon as he became of age. He felt certain that in
politics he could rise above all Athenians past and present. His combined
political and military success made it possible for him to be the
youngest general ever elected. Socrates, by contrast, said that he was
never moved to seek office; he served only when he was required (by legal
appointment). In his lifetime Socrates was considered to have been
insufficiently concerned with his fellows' opinions about him, whereas
from his childhood people found Alkibiades' attention to the demos
remarkable - in terms either of his quickness at following their cue, or
of his setting the trend. Both men were famous for their speaking
ability, but even in this they contrast dramatically. The effects of
their speech were different. Alkibiades could persuade peop le, and
so nations, to adopt his political proposals, even when he had been
regarded as an enemy. Socrates' effect was far less widespread. Indeed,
for most people acquainted with it, Socratic speech was suspect. People
were moved by Alkibiades' rhetoric despite their knowing that that was
his precise intention. It was Socrates, however, who was accused of
making the weaker argument defeat the stronger, though he explicitly
renounced such intentions. Alkibiades' long moving speeches persuaded many
large assemblies. Socrates' style of question and answer was not nearly
so popular, and convinced fewer men. Socrates is reputed to have
never been drunk, regardless of how much he had imbibed. This contrasts
with the (for the most part) notoriously indulgent life of Alkibiades. He
remains famous to this day for several of his drunken escapades, one of
which is depicted by Plato in a famous dialogue. Though both men were
courageous and competent in war, Socrates never went to battle
unless called upon, and distinguished himself only during general
retreats. Alkibiades was so eager for war and all its attendant glories
that he even argued in the ekklesia for an Athenian escalation of the
war. He was principally responsible for the initiation of the Sicilian
expedition and was famous for his bravery in wanting to go ever further
forward in battle. It was, instead, battles in speech for which Socrates
seemed eager; perhaps it is a less easily observed brand of courage which
is demanded for advance and retreat in such clashes. Both men could
accommodate their lifestyles to fit with the circumstances in which they found
themselves, but as these were decidedly different, so too were their manners of
adaptation. Socrates remained exclusively in Athens except when accompanying
his fellow Athenians on one or two foreign wars. Alkibiades travelled
from city to city, and seems to have adjusted well. He got on so
remarkably well at the Persian court that the Persians thought he was one
of them; and at Sparta they could not believe the stories of his love of
luxury. But, despite his outward conformity with all major Athenian
conventions, Socrates was st ill considered odd even in his home
city. In a more speculative vein, one might observe that
neither Alkibiades nor Socrates are restricted because of their common
Athenian citizenship, but again in quite different senses. Socrates, willing
(and eager) to converse with, educate and improve citizen and
non-citizen alike, rose above the polis to dispense with his need for it.
Alkibiades, it seems, could not do without political or public support
(as Socrates seems to have), but he too did not need Athens in particular.
He could move to any polis and would be recognized as an asset to any
community. Socrates didn't receive such recognition, but he did not need
it. Still, Alkibiades, like Socrates, retained an allegiance to
Athens until his death and continued to perform great deeds in her
service. Despite their outwardly conventional piety (e.g.,
regular observance of religious festivals), Alkibiades and Socrates were
both formally charged with impiety, but the manner of their alleged
violations was different. Alkibiades was suspected of careless blasphemy
and contemptuous disrespect, of profaning the highest of the city's
religious Mysteries; Socrates was charged with worshipping other deities
than those allowed, but was suspected of atheism. Though both men were
convicted and sentenced to death, Alkibiades refused to present himself
for trial and so was sentenced in absentia . Socrates, as we know,
conducted his own defense, and, however justly or unjustly, was legally
convicted and condemned. Alkibiades escaped when he had the chance and
sought refuge in Sparta; Socrates refused to take advantage of a fully
arranged escape from his cell in Athens. Alkibiades, a comparatively
young man, lived to see his sentence subsequently withdrawn. Socrates seems
to have done his best not to have his sentence reduced. His relationship with
Athens had been quite constant. Old charges were easily brought to bear
on new ones, for the Athenians had come to entertain a relatively stable
view of him. Alkibiades suffered many reverses of status with the
Athenians. Surprised from his sleep, Alkibiades met his death
fighting with assassins, surrounded by his enemies. After preparing to
drink the hemlock, Socrates died peacefully, surrounded by his friends.
It seems likely that Plato expects these contrasts to be tacitly in
the mind of the reader of the First Alkibiades . They heighten in various
ways the excitement of this dialogue between two men whom every Athenian
of their day would have seen, and known at least by reputation. Within a
generation of the supposed time of the dialogue, moreover, each of the
participants would be regarded with utmost partiality. It is unlikely that even
the most politically apathetic citizen would be neutral or utterly
indifferent concerning either man. Not only would every Athenian (and
many foreigners) know each of them, most Athenians would have strong
feelings of either hatred or love for each man. The extraordinary fascination
of these men makes Plato's First Alkibiades all the more inviting as a
natural point at which to begin a study of political philosophy.
In the First Alkibiades, Socrates and Alkibiades, regarded by
posterity as respective paragons of the philosophic life and the
political life, are engaged in conversation together. As the dialogue
commences, Alkibiades in particular is uncertain as to their relationship
with each other. Especially interesting, however, is their implicit
agreement that these matters can be clarified through their speaking with
one another. The reader might first wonder why they even bother
with each other; and further wonder why, if they are properly to be
depicted together at all, it should be in conversation. They could be
shown in a variety of situations. People often settle their differences
by fighting, a challenge to a contest, or a public debate of some kind.
Alkibiades and Socrates converse in private. The man identified with
power and the man identified with knowledge have their showdown on the
plain of speech. The Platonic dialogue form, as will hopefully be
shown in the commentary, is well suited for expressing political
philosophy in that it allows precisely this confrontation. A Platonic
dialogue is different from a treatise in its inclusion of drama. It is
not a straightforward explication for it has particular characters who
are interacting in specific ways. It is words plus action, or speech plus
deed. In a larger sense, then, dialogue implicitly depicts the relation
between speech and deed or theory and practice, philosophy and politics,
and reflecting on its form allows the reader to explore these matters.
In addition, wondering about the particulars of Socratic speech may
shed light upon how theory relates to practice. As one attempts to
discover why Socrates said what he did in the circumstances in which he
did, one becomes aware of the connections between speech and action, and
philosophy and politics. One is also awakened to the important position
of speech as intermediary between thought and action. Speech is unlike
action as has just been indicated. But speech is not like thought either.
It may, for instance, have immediate consequences in action and thus
demand more rigorous control. Philosophy might stand in relation to
thought as politics does to action; understanding 'political philosophy'
then would involve the complex connection between thought and speech, and
speech and action; in other words, the subject matter appropriate to
political philosophy embraces the human condition. The Platonic dialogue
seems to be in the middle ground by way of its form, and it is up to the
curious reader to determine what lies behind the speech, on both the side
of thought and action. Hopefully, in examining the First Alkibiades these
general observations will be made more concrete. A good reader will take
special care to observe the actions as well as the arguments of this
dialogue between the seeker of knowledge and the pursuer of power.
Traditionally, man's ability to reason has been considered the
essential ground for his elevated status in the animal kingdom. Through
reason, both knowledge and power are so combined as to virtually place
man on an altogether higher plane of existence. Man's reason allows him to
control beasts physically much stronger than he; moreover, herds outnumber man,
yet he rules them. Both knowledge and power have long attracted men
recognizably superior in natural gifts. Traditionally, the highest
choice a man could 57 confront was that between the
contemplative and the active life. In order to understand this as the
decision par excellence, one must comprehend the interconnectivity between
knowledge and power as ends men seek. One must also try to ascertain the
essential features of the choice. For example, power (conventionally
understood) without knowledge accomplishes little even for the mighty. As
Thrasymakhos was reminded, without knowledge the efforts of the strong
would chance to work harm upon themselves as easily as not (
Republic). The very structure of the dialogue suggests that the
reader attentive to dramatic detail may learn more about the relation
between power and knowledge and their respective claims to rule.
Alkibiades and Socrates both present arguments, and the very dynamics of
the conversation (e.g., who rules in the dialogue, what means he uses
whereby to secure rule, the development of the relationship between the
ruler and the ruled) promise to provide material of interest to this
issue. B. Knowledge, Power and their Connection through
Language As this commentary hopes to show, the problem of the human
use of language pervades the Platonic dialogue known as the First
Alkibiades. Its ubiquity may indicate that one's ability to
appreciate the significance of speech provides an important measure of one's
understanding of the dialogue. Perhaps the point can be most effectively
conveyed by simply indicating a few of the many kinds of references to
speech with which it is replete. Socrates speaks directly to Alkibiades
in complete privacy, but he employs numerous conversational devices to
construct circumstances other than that in which they find themselves.
For example, Alkibiades is to pretend to answer to a god; Socrates feigns
a dialogue with a Persian queen; and at one point the two imagine
themselves in a discussion with each other in full view of the Athenian
ekklesia . Socrates stresses that he never spoke to Alkibiades
before, but that he will now speak at length. And Socrates emphasizes
that he wants to be certain Alkibiades will listen until he finishes
saying what he must say. In the course of speaking, Socrates employs both
short dialogue and long monologue. Various influences on one's speaking
are mentioned, including mysterious powers that prevent speech and
certain matters that inherently demand to be spoken about. The two men
discuss the difference between asking and answering, talking and
listening. They refer to speech about music (among other arts), speech
about number, and speech about letters. They are importantly concerned
with public speaking, implicitly with rhetoric in all its forms. They
reflect upon what an advisor to a city can speak persuasively about. They
discuss the difference between persuading one and many. The two men refer to
many differences germane to speaking, such as private and public speech,
and conspiratorial and dangerous speech. Fables, poems and various other
pictures in language are both directly employed by Socrates and the
subject of more general discussion. Much of the argument centers on
Alkibiades' understanding of what the words mean and on the implicit
presence of values embedded in the language. They also spend much time
discussing, in terms of rhetorical effect, the tailoring of comments to
situations; at one point Socrates indicates he would not even name
Alkibiades' condition if it weren't for the fact that they are completely
alone. They refer to levels of knowledge among the audience and the
importance of this factor in effectively persuading one or many. And in a
larger sense already alluded to, reflection on Plato's use of the
dialogue form itself may also reveal features of language and aspects of
its relation to action. Socrates seems intent upon increasing
Alkibiades' awareness of the many dimensions to the problem of
understanding the role of language in the life of man. Thus the reader of
the First Alkibiades is invited to share as well in this education about
the primary means of education: speech, that essential human
power. Perhaps it may be granted, on the basis of the above, that
the general issue of language is at least a persistent theme in the
dialogue. Once that is recognized it becomes much more obvious that
speech is connected both to power, or the realm of action, and knowledge,
the realm of thought. Speech and power, in the politically relevant
sense, are thoroughly interwoven. The topics of freedom of speech and
censorship are of paramount concern to all regimes, at times forming part
of the very foundation of the polity. This is the most obvious
connection: who is to have the right to speak about what, and who in turn
is to have the power to decide this matter. Another aspect of speech which
is crucial politically seems to be often overlooked and that is the
expression of power in commands, instruction and explanation. The more
subtle side of this political use of speech is that of education. Maybe
not all political men do understand education to be of primary
importance, but that clearly surfaces as one of the things which
Alkibiades learns in this dialogue. At the very least, the
politically ambitious man seeks control over the education of others in
order to secure his rule and make his political achievements lasting.
With respect to education, the skilled user of language has more power
than someone who must depend solely on actions in this regard.
Circumstances which are actually unique may be endlessly reproduced and
reconsidered. By using speech to teach, the speaker gains a power over
the listener that might not be available had he need to rely upon
actions. Not only can he tell of things that cannot be seen (feelings,
thoughts and the like), but he can invent stories about what does not
even exist. Myths and fables are generally recognized to have
pedagogic value, and in most societies form an essential part of the core
set of beliefs that hold the people together. Homer, Shakespeare and the
Bible are probably the most universally recognized examples influencing
western society. To mold and shape the opinions of men through fables,
lies and carefully chosen truths is, in effect, to control them. Such use
of language can be considered a weapon also, propaganda providing a
most obvious example. Hobbes, for instance, recognizes these qualities
of speech and labels them 'abuses.' Most of the abuse appears to be
constituted by the deception or injury caused another; Hobbes all the
while 58 demonstrates himself to be master of the
insult. Summing up these observations, one notices that speech plays a
crucial part in the realm of power, especially in terms of education, a
paramount political activity. The connection of speech to
knowledge, the realm of thought is much less in need of comment. The
above discussion of education points to the underlying concern about
knowledge. Various subtleties in language (two of which - metaphor and
irony - will be presently introduced), however, make it more than the
instrument through which knowledge is gained, but actually may serve to
increase a person's interest in attaining knowledge; that is, they make
the end, knowledge, more attractive. A most interesting understanding of
speech emerges when one abstracts somewhat from actual power and actual
knowledge to look at the relationship between the realms of action and
thought. Action and thought, epitomized by politics and philosophy, both
require speech if they are to interact. Politics in a sense affects
thought, and thought should guide action. Both of these exchanges are
normally effected through speech and may be said to describe the bounds
of the subject area of political philosophy. Political philosophy deals
with what men do and think (thus concerning itself with metaphysics, say,
to the extent to which metaphysical considerations affect man). Political
philosophy may be understood as philosophy about politics, or philosophy
that is politic. In this latter sense, speech via the expression of
philosophy in a politic manner, suggests itself to be an essential aspect
to the connection between these two human realms - thought and action. The
reader of the First Alkibiades should be alert to the ways in which
language pertains to the relationship between Socrates and Alkibiades.
For example, their concern for each other and promise to continue
conversing might shed some light on the general requirements and
considerations power and knowledge share. As has already been indicated,
considerable attention is paid to various characteristics of speech in
the discussion between the two men. Rhetoricians, politicians,
philosophers and poets, to mention but a few of those whose activity
proceeds primarily through speech, are aware of the powers of language
and make more or less subtle use of various modes of speech. The First
Alkibiades teaches about language and effectively employs many linguistic
devices. Called for at the outset is some introductory mention of a few
aspects of language, in order that their use in the dialogue may be more
readily reflected upon. Metaphor, a most important example, is a complex
and exciting feature of language. A fresh and vivid metaphor is a most
effective influence on the future perceptions of those listening. It will
often form a lasting impression. Surely a majority of readers are familiar
with the experience of being unable to disregard an interpretation of
something illuminated by an especially bright metaphor. Many people have
probably learned to appreciate the surging power of language by having
themselves become helplessly swamped in a sea of metaphor. There are two
aspects to the power of attracting attention through language that a
master of metaphor, especially, can summon. Both indicate a rational
component to language, but both include many more features of reason than
mere logical deduction. The first is the power that arises when someone
can spark connections between apparently unrelated parts of the world.
This is an interesting and exciting feature of man's rational capability,
deriving its charm partly from the natural delight people apparently take
in having connections drawn between seemingly distinct objects.
The other way in which he can enthrall an audience is through
harvesting some of the vast potential for metaphors that exist in the
natural fertility of any language. There are metaphors in everyday speech
that remain unrecognized (are forgotten) for so long that disbelief is
experienced when their metaphoric nature is revealed. Men's opinions
about much of the world is influenced by metaphor. A most important set of
examples involve the manner in which the invisible is spoken of almost
exclusively through metaphoric language based on the visible. This
curious feature of man's rationality is frequently explored by Plato. The most
famous example is probably Socrates's description of education as an ascent out
of a cave ( Republic), but another perhaps no less important example
occurs in the First Alkibiades . Not only is the invisible metaphorically
explained via something visible, but the metaphor is that of the organ of sight
itself (cf. 132c-133c, where the soul and the eye are discussed as
analogues)! The general attractiveness of metaphor also
demonstrates that man is essentially a creature with speech. That both
man and language must be understood in order for a philosophic
explanation to be given of either, is indicated whenever one tries to
account for the natural delight almost all people take in being shown new
secrets of meaning, in discovering the richness of their own tongue, and
in the reworking of images - from puns and complex word games to simple
metaphors and idiomatic expressions. Man's rationality is bound up with
language, and rationality may not be exclusively or even primarily logic;
it is importantly metaphor. Subtle use is often made of the captivating power
of various forms of expression. One of the most alluring yet bedevilling
of these is irony. Irony never unambiguously reveals itself but suggests
mystery and disguise. This enhances its own attractiveness and
simultaneously increases the charm of the subject on which irony is
played; there seems little doubt that Socrates and Plato were able to
make effective use of this feature for they are traditionally regarded as
the past masters of it. Eluding definition, irony seems not amenable to a
simple classifi- catory scheme. It can happen in actions as well as
speeches, in drama as well as actual life. It can occur in an infinite
variety of situations. One cannot be told how exactly to look for irony; it
cannot be reduced to rules. But to discover its presence on one's own is
thoroughly- exciting (though perhaps biting). The possibility of double
ironies increases the anxiety attending ironic speech as well as its attractiveness.
The merest suggestion of irony can upset an otherwise tranquil moment of
understanding. Probably all listeners of ironic speech or witnesses of
dramatic irony have experienced the apprehensiveness that follows such an
overturned expectation of simplicity. It appears to be in the
nature of irony that knowledge of its presence in no way diminishes its
seductiveness but rather enhances its effectiveness. Once it is
discovered, it has taken hold. This charming feature of Socrates'
powerful speech, his irony, is acknowledged by Alkibiades even as he recognizes
himself to be its principal target (Symposium 215a-216e). The abundance of
irony in the First Alkibiades makes it difficult for any passage to be
interpreted with certitude. It is likely that the following commentary
would be significantly altered upon the recognition of a yet subtler,
more ironic, teaching in the dialogue. It is thus up to each individual,
in the long run, to make a judgement upon the dialogue, or the
interpretation of the dialogue; he must be wary of and come to recognize
the irony on his own. The Superior Man is a Problem for Political
Philosophy One mark of a great man is the power of making
lasting impressions upon people he meets. Another is so to have handled
matters during his life that the course of after events is continuously
affected by what he did. Winston Churchill Great
Contemporaries It may be provisionally suggested that both Socrates
and Alkibiades are superior men, attracted respectively to knowledge and
power. Certainly a surface reading of the First Alkibiades would support
such a judgement. One could probably learn much about the character of
the political man and the philosophic man by simply observing Socrates
and Alkibiades. It stands to reason that a wisely crafted dialogue representing
a discussion between them would reveal to the careful, reflective reader
deeper insight into knowledge, power and the lives of those dedicated to
each. Socrates confesses that he is drawn to Alkibiades because of
the youth's unquenchable ambition for power. Socrates tells
Alkibiades that 59 the way to realizing his great
aspirations is through the philosopher. Accordingly Socrates proceeds to
teach Alkibiades that the acquisition of knowledge is necessary in order
that his will to power be fulfilled. By the end of the dialogue,
Socrates' words have managed to secure the desired response from the man
to whom he is attracted: Alkibiades in a sense redirects his eros toward
Socrates. This sketch, though superficial, bespeaks the dialogue's promise to
unravel some of the mysterious connections between knowledge and power as
these phenomena are made incarnate in its two exceptional
participants. The significance of the superior man to political
philosophy has, for the most part, been overlooked in the
last century or so, the exceptions being rather notorious given their
supposed relation to the largest political event of the Twentieth
Century.^ in contemporary analysis, the importance of great men, even in
the military, has tended to be explained away rather than understood.
This trend may be partly explained by the egalitarian views of the
dominant academic observers of political things. As the
problem was traditionally understood, the superior man tends to find
himself in an uneasy relationship with the city. The drive, the erotic
ambition distinguishes the superior man from most others, and in that
ambition is constituted their real threat to the polity as well as their
real value. No man who observed a war could persist in the belief that
all citizens have a more or less equal effect on the outcome, on history.
A certain kind of superiority becomes readily apparent in battle and the
bestowal of public honors acknowledges its political value. Men of such
manly virtue are of utmost necessity to all polities, at least in times
of extremes. Moreover, political philosophers have heretofore recognized
that there are other kinds of battlefields upon which superior men
exercise their evident excellence. It is, however, during times of
peace that the community experiences fear about containing the lions,^
recognizing that they constitute an internal threat to the regime. Thus,
during times of peace a crucial test of the polity is made. A polity's
ability to find a fitting place for its noble men speaks for the nobility
of the polity. In many communities, the best youths turn to narrow
specialization in particularized scientific disciplines, or to legal and
academic sophistry, to achieve distinction. It is not clear whether this
is due to the regime's practicing a form of politics that attracts but
then debases or corrupts the better sort of youth, or because the best
men find its politics repugnant and so redirect their ambitions toward
these other pursuits. In any event, the situation in such communities is
a far cry from that of the city which knows how to rear the lion
cubs. Not surprisingly, democracy has always had difficulty with the
superior men. Ironically, today the recognition of the best men in
society arises most frequently among those far from power or the desire to
enter politics. Those who hold office in modern democracies are not able
to uphold the radically egalitarian premises of the regime and still
consistently acknowledge the superiority of some men. This has repercussions at
the base of the polity: the democratic election. Those bent on holding
public office are involved in a dilemma, a man's claim to office is that
he possesses some sort of expertise, yet he cannot maintain a platform of
simple superiority in an egalitarian regime. Many aspirants are required
to seek election on the basis of some feature of their character (such as
their expenditure of effort) instead of their skills, and such criteria
are often in an ambiguous relation to the duties of office.
The problem is yet more far-reaching. Those regimes committed to
the enforced equalization of the unequal incongruously point with pride
to the exceptional individuals in the history of their polities. A standard
justification for communist regimes, for example, is to refer to the
distinguished figures in the arts and sports of their nation. Implicitly
the traditional view has been retained: great men are one of the measures
of a great polity. A less immediate but more profound problem for
political philosophy is posed by the very concept of the best man. Three
aspects of this problem shall be raised, the last two being more fully
discussed as they arise in commenting upon the First Alkibiades .
All who have given the matter some thought will presumably agree
that education is, in part at least, a political concern, and that the
proper nurture of youth is a problem for political philosophy. Accordingly, an
appropriate beginning is the consideration of the ends of nurture. The
question of toward what goal the nurture of youth is to aim is a question
bound up with the views of what the best men are like. This is inevitably
the perspective from which concerned parents adopt their own education
policies. Since the young are nurtured in one manner or another
regardless, all care given to the choice of nurtures is justified
It must be remembered that children will adopt models of behavior
regardless of whether their parents have guided their choice. As the
tradition reminds is, the hero is a prominent, universal feature in the
nurture of children. Precisely for that reason great care ought to be
taken in the formation and presentation (or representation) of heroic men
and deeds. The heroes of history, of literature and of theater presumably
have no slight impact on the character of youth. For instance canons of
honesty are suggested by the historical account of young Lincoln, codes
of valor have been established by Akhilleus, and young men's opinions
about both partnerships and self-reliance are being influenced by the Western
Cowboy. The religious reverence with which many young observe the
every word and deed of their idols establishes "the hero" as a
problem of considerable significance. One could argue that the hero
should be long dead. His less than noble human characteristics can be
excised from the public memory and his deeds suitably embellished (cf.
Republic 391d.6). Being dead, the possibility of his becoming decadent or
otherwise evil is eliminated. Although attractive, this suggestion presents
a rather large problem, especially in a society in which there is any
timocratic element. The honors bestowed on living men may be precisely
what transforms them into the "flesh and blood" heroes of the young.
Should honors not be delivered until after a man's death, however (when
he cannot turn to drink, women or gambling), it may dampen many
timocrats' aspirations. If the superior man is not recognized during his
lifetime, he must at least obtain some assurance of a lasting honor after
his death. This might be difficult to do, if he is aware of how quickly
and completely the opinions of those bestowing honor, the demos, shift.
Since this turned out to assume great importance historically for
Alkibiades, the reader of the First Alkibiades might be advised to pay
attention to what Socrates teaches the young man about power and glory. The
role of heroes extends beyond their pedagogic function of supplying
models to guide the ambitions of youth. Heroes contribute to the pride of
a family, help secure the glory of a nation and provide a tie to the
ancestral. Recognition of this should suffice to indicate that the
problem of superior men is a significant one for political
philosophy. Presumably any political theory requires some account
of the nature of man. It may already be clear at this point that a comprehensive
philosophic account of man's nature must include a consideration of the
superior man. Traditionally, in fact, the concept of the best man has
been deemed central to an adequate understanding. Many people who would
readily grant the importance of the problem of understanding human nature
consider it to be a sort of statistical norm. That position does not
concede the necessity of looking toward the best man. For the immediate
purpose of analyzing this dialogue, it seems sufficient that the question
be reopened, which may be accomplished simply by indicating that there
are problems with seeing nature as "the normal." Without
any understanding of the best man (even one who is not actualized),
comparison between men would be largely meaningless and virtually any
observation of, or statement about persons would be ambiguous since they
involve terms which imply comparing men on some standard. There would be
no consistent way to evaluate any deviation whatsoever from the normal.
For example, sometimes it is better to be fierce, sometimes it is not. If
one describes a man as being more capable of fierceness than most men one
would not know how to evaluate him relative to those men, without more
information. It is necessary to have an understanding of the importance
of those matters in which it is better to be fierce, to the best man. If
it is important for the best man to be capable of being very fierce,
then, and only then, it seems, could one judge a man who is able to be
fierce at times to be a better man with respect to that characteristic.
Any meaningful description of him, then depends on the view of the best
man. This is implicit in the common sense understanding anyway. The
statement "X is more capable of fierceness than most men,' prompts
an implicit qualitative judgement in most men's minds on the basis of
their views of the best man. The statement "X has darker hair than
most men," does not, precisely because most understandings of the
best man do not specify hair color. A concept of the best is necessary if
a man is to be able to evaluate his position vis a vis others and discern
with what he must take pains with himself. The superior man understands
this. Aiming to actualize his potential to the fullest in the direction
of his ideal, he obviously does not compete with the norm. He strives
with the best of men or even with the gods. Whenever he sees two
alternatives, he immediately wonders which is best. The superior youth
comes to learn that a central question of his life is the question of
with whom is his contest. Having raised this second aspect of
the philosophic concern about the best man, one is led quite naturally to
a related problem he poses for political philosophy with respect to what
has been a perennial concern of the tradition, indeed perhaps its guiding
question, namely: "What is the best regime?" The
consideration of the best regime may be in light of a concern for the
"whole" in some sense, or for the citizen or for the
"whole" in some sense, or from some other standpoint. Apart
from the problem of how to understand "the whole," a large
philosophic question remains regarding whether the best for a city is
compatible with the best for a man. The notion of the superior man
provides a guide of some sort (as the 'norm' does not) to the answer
regarding what is best for a man; the view of the best regime suggests
(as the 'norm' does not) what is good for a city. But what must one
do if the two conflict? As has become apparent, the complex question of
the priority of the individual or the social order is raised by the very
presence of the superior man in a city. The dialogue at various points
tacitly prompts the reader to consider some of the intricacies of this
issue. Upon considering what is best for man generally, for a man
in particular, and for a city, one notices that most people have
opinions about these things, and not all of them act upon these opinions.
One eventually confronts a prior distinction, the difference between
doing what one thinks is good, knowing what is good, and doing what one
knows is good. While it is not entirely accurate to designate them
respectively as power, knowledge, and knowledge with power, these terms
suggest how the problems mentioned above are carried through the dialogue
in terms of the concern for the superior man. Provisionally,
one may suggest that Alkibiades provides a classic example of the superior
man. In a sense not obvious to the average Athenian, so too is
Socrates. They both pose distinct political problems, and they
present interesting philosophic puzzles as well. But there is
another reason, no less compelling for being less apparent, that
recommends the study of the First Alkibiades . Since antiquity the
First Alkibiades has been subtitled, "On the Nature of
Man." At first blush this subtitle 63 is not as
fitting as the subtitles of some other aporetic dialogues. The
question "What is the nature of Man?" is neither explicitly asked
nor directly addressed by either Socrates or Alkibiades, yet the
reader is driven to consider it. One might immediately wonder why
" Alkibiades " is the title of a dialogue on the nature
of man, and why Socrates chooses to 64 talk about man
as such with Alkibiades. Perhaps Alkibiades is particularly representative, or
especially revealing about man. Perhaps he is unique or perhaps he is
inordinately in need of such a discourse. One must also try to understand
Socrates' purpose, comprehend the significance of any of Alkibiades'
limitations, and come to an understanding of what the character of his
eros is (e.g., is it directed toward power, glory, or is it just a great
eros that is yet to be directed). In the course of grappling with such
matters, one also confronts one's own advantages and liabilities for the
crucial and demanding role of dialogic partner. Perhaps the very
things a reader fastens his attentions upon are indicative of something
essential about his own particular nature. If the reader is to come to a
decision as to whether the subtitle affixed in antiquity to the dialogue
is indeed appropriate, these matters must be judged in the course of
considering the general question of whether the dialogue is indeed about
"the nature of man." The mystery and challenge of a dialogue may
serve to enhance its attractiveness. One of the most intriguing
philosophic problems of the First Alkibiades may well be the question of
whether it is in fact about man's nature. With a slight twist, the reader
is faced with another example of Socrates' revision of Meno's paradox (
Meno 80e). Sometimes when a reader finds what he is looking for,
discovering something he was hoping to discover, it is only because his
narrowness of attention or interest prevented him from seeing conflicting
material, and because he expended his efforts on making what he saw
conform to his wishes. The good reader of a dialogue will, as a rule,
take great care to avoid such myopia. In order to find out whether the
dialogue is primarily about the nature of man (and if so, what is teaches
about the nature of man), the prudent reader will caution himself against
begging the question, so to speak. If one sets out ignorant of what the
nature of man is, one may have trouble recognizing it when one finds it.
Conversely, to complete the paradox, to ask how and where to find it (in
other words, inquiring as to how one will recognize it), implies that one
ought already know what to expect from knowledge of it. This could be
problematic, for the inquiry may be severely affected by a preconceived
opinion about which question will be answered by it. "Philosophical
prejudices" should have no part in the search for the nature of
man. This is a difficulty not faced to the same extent by other
aporetic dialogues which contain a question of the form "What
is _?" Once this first question is articulated, the normal way
of pursuing the answer is open to the reader. He may proceed naturally
from conventional opinion, say, and constantly refine his views according
to what he notices. It appears, however, that the reader of the First
Alkibiades cannot be certain that it will address the nature of
man, and the dialogue doesn't seem to directly commence with a
consideration of conventional opinions. Most readers of the dialogue know
what a man is insofar as they could point to one (111b,ff.), but very few
know what man is. Perhaps as the dialogue unfolds the careful reader will
be educated to a point beyond being ignorant of how to look for something
that he mightn't recognize even when he found it. By this puzzle the
reader is drawn more deeply into the adventure of touching on the
mysteries of his own nature. To borrow a metaphor from a man who likely
knew more about Socrates and Alkibiades than has anyone else before or
since, the same spirit of adventure permeates the quest for knowledge of
man as characterizes sailing through perilous unknown waters on a tiny,
frail craft, attempting to avoid perishing on the rocks. One can only
begin with what one knows, such as some rudimentary views about
navigation technique and more or less correct opinions about one's home
port. Upon coming to appreciate the difficulties of knowing, fully and
honestly, one's own nature, one realizes how treacherous is the journey.
In all likelihood one will either be swamped, or continue to sail
forever, or cling to a rock under the illusion of having reached the far
shore. This thesis is an introduction to the First Alkibiades .
Through their discussion, and more importantly through his own participation
in their discussion, Socrates and Alkibiades reveal to the reader
something about the nature of man. Both the question of man's nature and
the problem of the superior man have been neglected in recent
political theory; especially the connection between them has been
overlooked. To state the thesis of this essay with only slight
exaggeration: an understanding of politics - great and small - is impossible
without knowledge of man, and knowledge of man is impossible without
knowledge of the best of men. This thesis, investigating the dialogue
entitled the First Alkibiades, focusses on certain things the dialogue
seems to be about, without pretending to be comprehensive. It is like the
dialogue in one respect at least: it is written in the interest of
opening the door to further inquiry, and not with subsequently closing
that door. Through a hopefully careful, critical reading of the First
Alkibiades, I attempt to show that the nature of man and the superior man
are centrally tied both to each other and to any true understanding of
(great) political things. The spirit of the critique is inspired by the
definition of a "good critic" ascribed to Anatole France:
"A good critic is one who tells the story of his mind's adventures
among the masterpieces." The First Alkibiades begins abruptly with the
words "Son of Kleinias, I suppose you are wondering..." The
reader does not know where the dialogue is taking place; nor is he
informed as to how Socrates and Alkibiades happened to meet on this
occasion. Interlocutors in other direct dramatic dialogues may sooner or
later reveal this information in their speeches. In narrated dialogues,
Socrates or another participant may disclose the circumstances of the
discussion. In the case of this dialogue, however, no one does. The
reader remains uncertain that it is even taking place in Athens proper
and not in the countryside about the city. It may be reasonable to
suggest that in this case the setting of the dialogue does not matter, or
more precisely, the fact that there is no particular setting is rather
what matters. The discussion is not dependent on a specific set of
circumstances and the dialogue becomes universally applicable. The
analysis will hopefully show the permanence of the problems thematically
dealt with in the dialogue. Philosophically it is a discussion in no way
bound by time or place. Further support is lent to this suggestion by the
fact that there is no third person telling the story and Socrates is not
reporting it to anyone. Nobody else is present. Plato
presents to the reader a dramatic exchange which is emphatically private.
Neither Socrates nor Alkibiades have divulged the events of this first
dialogic encounter between the man and the youth. The thorough
privacy of the discussion as well as the silence concerning the setting help to
impute to the reader an appreciation of the autonomous nature of the
discourse. There is a sense in which this dialogue could happen whenever
two such people meet. Consequently, the proposition implicitly put forth
to the reader is that he be alive to the larger significance of the
issues treated; the very circumstances of the dialogue, as mentioned
here, sufficiently support such a suggestion so as to place the onus for
the argument in the camp of those who want to restrict the relevance of
the dialogue to Socrates and Alkibiades in 5th century Athens.
That the two are alone is a feature that might be important to much
of the reader's interpretation, for attention is drawn to the fact by the
speakers themselves. Such privacy may have considerable philosophic
significance, as it has a clear effect on the suitability of some of the
material being discussed (e.g., 118b.5). There is no need for concern
about the effect of the discussion upon the community as there might be
were it spoken at the ekklesia ; the well-being of other individuals need
not dissuade them from examining radical challenges to conventional
views, as might be the case were they conversing in front of children or
at the marketplace; and there is no threat to either participant, as there
might be were they to insult or publicly challenge someone's authority.
Conventional piety and civic-mindedness need place no limitations on the
depth of the inquiry; the only limits are those implicit in the willingness and
capability of the participants. For example, an expectation of pious
respect for his guardian, Perikles, could well interfere with Alkibiades'
serious consideration of good statesmanship. The fact that they are
unaccompanied, that Perikles is spoken of as still living, and that
Socrates first mentions Perikles in a respectful manner (as per 118c,
104b-c), permits a serious (if finally not very flattering) examination
of his qualifications. Socrates and Alkibiades are alone and are not
bound by any of the restrictions normally faced in discussions with an
audience. The reader's participation, then, should be influenced by this spirit
of privacy, at least in so far as he is able to grasp the political
significance of the special "silence" of private
conversation. Somewhere in or about their usual haunts, Socrates
and Alkibiades chanced to meet. If their own pronouncements can be taken
literally, they were in the process of seeking each other. Alkibiades had
been about to address Socrates but Socrates began first (104c-d). Since
his daimon or god had only just ceased preventing him from talking
to Alkibiades (105d), Socrates was probably waiting at Alkibiades'
door (106e.10). Although the location is unknown, the reader
may glean from various of their comments a vague idea of the time of the
dialogue. In this case, it appears, the actual dramatic date of the
dialogue is of less importance than some awareness of the substance of
the evidence enabling one to deduce it. Alkibiades is not yet twenty
(123d) but he must be close to that age for he intends shortly to make
his first appearance before the Athenian ekklesia (106c). Until today
Socrates had been observing and following the youth in silence; they had
not spoken to each other. This corroborates the suggestion that the
action of the dialogue takes place before the engagement at Potidaia
(thus before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, i.e. before 432 B.C.)
for they knew each other by that time ( Symposium, 219e). Perikles and
his sons are referred to as though they were living, offering
further confirmation that the dramatic date is sometime before or about
the onset of the war with Sparta. The action of the dialogue must take
place before that of the Protagoras,^ since Socrates has by then a
reputation of sorts among the young men, whereas Alkibiades seems not to
have heard very much of Socrates at the beginning of the First Alkibiades
. Socrates addresses Alkibiades as the son of Kleinias. This perhaps
serves as a reminder to the young man who believes himself so self-
sufficient as to be in need of no one (104a). In the first place, his
uniqueness is challenged by this address. His brother (mention of whom
occurs later in the dialogue - 118e.4) would also properly turn around in
response to Socrates' words. More importantly, however, it indicates that
he too descended from a family. His ancestry is traced to Zeus (121a),
his connections via his kin are alleged to be central to his self-esteem
(104b), and even his mother, Deinomakhe, assumes a role in the discussion
(123c) . He is attached to a long tradition. Through observation of
Alkibiades' case in particular, the fact that a man's nature is tied to
descent is made manifest. Alkibiades lost his father, Kleinias, when he
was but a child (112c) . He was made a ward of Perikles and from him
received his nurture. For most readers, drawing attention to parentage
would not distinguish nature from nurture. One is a child of one's
parents both in terms of that with which one is born, one's
biological/genetic inheritance, and of that which one learns. In the case
of Alkibiades, however, to draw attention to his father is to draw
attention to his heredity, whereas it was Perikles who raised him. The
philosophic distinction between nature and nurture is emphasized by the
apparent choice of addresses open to Socrates. Alkibiades is both the son
of Kleinias and the ward of Perikles. It seems fitting that a dialogue on
human nature begin by drawing attention to two dominating features of all
men's characters, their nature and their nurture. Socrates believes
that Alkibiades is wondering. He is curious about the heretofore hidden
motives for Socrates' behavior. As a facet of a rational nature, wonder
or curiosity separates men from the beasts. Wondering about the world is
characteristic of children long before they fully attain reason, though
it seems to be an indication of reason; most adults retain at least some
spark of curiosity about something. The reader is reminded that the
potential for wonder/reason is what is common to men but not possessed by
beasts, and it serves to distinguish those whom we call human.
Reason in general, and wonder in particular, pose a rather complex
problem for giving an account of the nature of man. Though enabling one
to distinguish men from beasts, it also allows for distinctions between
men. Some are more curious than others and some are far more rational
than others. The philosopher, for example, appears to be dominated by his
rational curiosity about the true nature of things. Some people wonder
only to the extent of having a vague curiosity about their future. It
appears that the criteria that allow one to hierarchically differentiate man
from beast also provide for the rank-ordering of men. Some people would
be "more human" than others, following this line of analysis.
This eatablishes itself as an issue in understanding what, essentially,
man is, and it may somehow be related to the general problem of the
superior man, since his very existence invites comparison by a
qualitative hierarchy. He might be the man who portrays the human
characteristics in the ideal/proper quantities and proportions. He may
thus aid our understanding of the standard for humans. Another opportunity
to examine this issue will arise upon reaching the part of the dialogue
wherein Socrates points out that Alkibiades can come to know himself
after he understands the standard for superior men, after he understands
with whom he is to compete (119c,ff.). There are at least two other
problems with respect to the analysis of human curiosity. The first is
that it seems to matter what people are curious about. Naturally children
have a general wonder about things, but at a certain stage of
development, reason reveals some questions are more important than and
prior to others. It seems clear that wondering about the nature of the
world (i.e., what it really is), its arche (basic principles), and man's
proper place in it, or the kind of wondering traditionally associated
with the philosophic enterprise, is of a higher order than curiosity
about beetles, ancient architecture, details of history, or nuances of
linguistic meaning. This further complicates the problems of
rank-ordering men. The second problem met with in giving an account
of wonder and its appropriate place in life is that next to philosophers
and children, few lives are more dominated by a curiosity of sorts than
that of the "gossiping housewife." She is curious about the
affairs of her neighbors and her neighbor's children. The passion for
satisfying that curiosity is often so strong as to literally dominate her
days. It seems impossible to understand such strong curiosity as "merely
idle," but one would clearly like to account for it as essentially
different from the curiosity of the philosopher. That the reader may not
simply disregard consideration of gossiping women, or consider it at best
tangential, is borne out by the treatment of curiosity in the First
Alkibiades. It is indicated in the dialogue that daughters, wives
and mothers must figure into an account of wonder. There are seven uses of
'wonder' 6 V ( thaumadzein ). The first three involve
Socrates and Alkibiades attesting to Alkibiades' wonder, including a rare
pronouncement by Socrates of his having certain knowledge: he knows well
that Alkibiades is wondering (104c.4; 103a.1, 104d.4). The last three are
all about women wondering. Keeping in mind the centrality of
wondering to the nature of the philosopher (it seems to be a chief thing
in his nature), one sees that careful attention must be given to
curiosity. We have other reasons to suspect that femininity is in some
way connected to philosophy, and perhaps a careful consideration of the
treatment of women in the dialogue would shed light on the problem.
There is a sense in which wonder is a most necessary prerequisite
to seeking wisdom (cf. also Theaitetos 155d). To borrow the conclusion of
Socrates' argument with Alkibiades concerning his coming to know justice
(106d-e; 109e), one has to be aware of a lack of something in order to
seek it. A strong sense of wonder, or an insatiable curiosity drives one
to seek knowledge. This type of intense wondering may conceivably be a major
link in the connection between the reason and the spirit of the psyche
(cf. Republic 439e-440a). In the Republic these two elements are said to
be naturally allied, but the reader is never explicitly told how they are
linked, or what generally drives or draws the spirit toward reason. An
overpowering sense of wonder seems the most immediate link. Perhaps
another link is supplied when the importance of the connection of knowledge to
power is recognized; a connection between the two parts of the psyche
might be supplied by a great will to power, for power presumably requires
knowledge to be useful. However, final judgement as to how the sense of
wonder and the desire for power differ in this regard, and which, if any,
properly characterizes the connections between the parts of Alkibiades'
psyche must await the reader's reflection on the dialogue as a whole. Likewise,
his evaluation as to which class of men contains Alkibiades will be
properly made after he has finished the dialogue. Socrates
believes that Alkibiades is wondering. Precisely that feature of
Alkibiades' nature is the one with which Socrates chooses to begin the
discussion and therewith their relationship. One may thus explore the
possibility that wondering is what distinguishes Alkibiades, or
essentially characterizes him. The discussion to this point would admit
of a number of possibilities. Curiosity could set Alkibiades apart
from other political figures, or it may place him above men
generally, indicating that he is one of the best or at least potentially
one of the best men - should reason/curiosity prove to be characteristic
of the best. Alkibiades' ostensible wondering could bespeak the high
spirit which characterized his entire life; perhaps one of the reasons he
would choose to die rather than remain at his present state (105a-b) is
that he is curious to see how far he can go, how much he can rule.
Socrates remarks that he is Alkibiades' lover; he is the first of
Alkibiades' lovers. Socrates suggests two features of his manner which,
taken together, would be likely to have roused the wonder of Alkibiades.
Socrates, the first lover, is the only one who remains; all the other
lovers have forsaken Alkibiades. Secondly, Socrates never said a word to
Alkibiades during his entire youth, even though other lovers pushed
through hoardes of people to speak with Alkibiades. A youth continuously
surrounded by a crowd of admirers would probably wish to know the motives
of a most constant, silent observer - if he noticed him. Socrates has at
last, after many years, spoken up. Assuring Alkibiades that no
human cause kept him from speaking, Socrates intimates that a daimonic
power had somehow opposed his uttering a single word. The precise nature
of the power is not divulged. Obviously not a physical restraint
such as a gag, it can nevertheless affect Socrates' actions. Socrates,
one is led to believe, is a most rational man. If it was not a human
cause that kept him from speaking, then Socrates' reason did not cause
him to keep silent. It was not reason that opposed his speech. Whatever
the daimonic power was, it was of such a force that it could match the
philosopher's reason. An understanding of how Socrates' psyche would be under
the power of this daimonic sign would be of great interest to a student
of man. In at least Socrates' case, this power is comparable in force to
the power of reason. Socrates tells Alkibiades that the power of the
daimon in opposing his speaking was the cause of his silence for so many
years. The reader does not forget, however, that the lengthy
silence was not only Socrates'. Something else, perhaps less divine, kept
Alkibiades silent. It is noteworthy that the first power
Socrates chooses to speak of with Alkibiades is a non-human one, and one
which takes its effect by restraining speech. Alkibiades is interested in
having control over the human world; the kind of power he covets involves
military action and political management. Young men seem not altogether
appreciative of speech. Even when they acknowledge the power made
available by a positive kind of rhetorical skill, they do not appear
especially concerned with any negative or restraining power that limits speech
such as the power of this daimon. Not only is talk cheap, but it is for
women and old men, in other words, for those who aren't capable of
actually doing anything. The first mention of power ( dynamis) in the
dialogue cannot appear to Alkibiades to pertain to his interest in ruling
the human world, but it does offer the reader both an opportunity for reflection
on power in general, and a promise to deal with the connection between
power and speech in some fashion. What the dialogue teaches about
language and power will be more deeply plumbed when Alkibiades learns the
extent of the force of his words with Socrates (112e, ff.).
According to Socrates, Alkibiades will be informed of the power of
this daimonic sign at some later time. Since apparently the time is not
right now, either Socrates is confident that he and Alkibiades will
continue to associate, or he intends to tell Alkibiades later during the
course of this very dialogue. Socrates, having complied with his daimon,
comes to Alkibiades at the time when the opposition ceases. He appears to
be well enough acquainted with the daimon to entertain good hopes that it
will not oppose him again. By simple observation over the years,
Socrates has received a general notion of Alkibiades' behavior toward his
lovers. There were many and they were high-minded, but they fled from
Alkibiades' surpassing self-confidence. Socrates remarks that he wishes
to have the reasons for this self-confidence come to the fore. By
bringing Alkibiades' reasons to speech, Socrates implies, among other
things, that this sense of superiority does not have a self-evident basis
of support. He also suggests that there is a special need to have reasons
presented. Perhaps Alkibiades' understanding of his own feelings either
is wrong or insufficient; at any rate, they have previously been left unstated.
If they are finally revealed, Alkibiades will be compelled to assess
them. Socrates proceeds to list the things upon which Alkibiades prides
himself. Interestingly, given his prior claim that he learned
Alkibiades' manner through observation, most of the things Socrates
presently mentions are not things one could easily learn simply through
observation of actions. One cannot see the mobility of Alkibiades' family
or the power of his connections. More important to Socrates' point, one
cannot see his pride in his family. He might "look proud," but
others must determine the reason. It is difficult to act proud of one's
looks, family and wealth while completely abstaining from the use of
language. It has thus become significant to their relationship that
Socrates was also able to observe Alkibiades' speech, for it is through
speech that pride in one's family can be made manifest. By listing these
features, Socrates simultaneously shows Alkibiades that he has given
considerable thought to the character of the youth. He is able to explain
the source of a condition of Alkibiades' psyche without having ever
spoken to Alkibiades. Only a special sort of observer, it seems, could
accomplish that. Alkibiades presumes he needs no human assistance
in any of his 68 affairs; beginning with the body and ending
with the soul, he believes his assets make him self-sufficient. As all
can see, Alkibiades is not 69 in error believing his
beauty and stature to be of the highest quality. Secondly, his family is
one of the mightiest in the city and his city the greatest in Greece. He
has numerous friends and relatives through his father and equally through
his mother, who are among the best of men. Stronger than the advantages
of all those kinsmen, however, is the power he envisions coming to him
from Perikles, the guardian of Alkibiades and his brother. Perikles can
do what he likes in Greece and even in barbarian countries. That kind of
power - the power to do as one likes - Alkibiades is seeking (cf. 134e-135b).
The last item Socrates includes in the list is the one Alkibiades least
relies on for his self-esteem, namely his wealth. Socrates
places the greatest emphasis on Alkibiades' descent and the advantages
that accrue therefrom. This is curious for he was purportedly supplying
Alkibiades' reasons for feeling self-sufficient; if this is a true list,
he has done the contrary, indicating Alkibiades to be quite dependent
upon his family. Even so, the amount of stress on the family appears to
exceed that necessary for showing Alkibiades not to be self-sufficient.
As has already been observed, this is accomplished by paying close
attention to the words at the start of the dialogue. At this point,
Alkibiades' father's relations and friends, his mother's relations and
friends, his political connections through his kinsmen and his uncle's
great power are mentioned as well as the position of his family in the
city and of his city in the Hellenic world. Relative to the other
resources mentioned, Socrates goes into considerable depth with regards
to Alkibiades' descent. It is literally the central element in the set of
features that Socrates wanted to be permitted to name as the cause of
Alkibiades' self-esteem. Quite likely then, the notion of descent and its
connections to human nature (as Alkibiades' descent is connected, by
Socrates' implication, to qualities of his nature) are more important to
the understanding of the dialogue than appears at the surface. This
discussion will be renewed later at the opening of the longest speech in
the First Alkibiades . At that point both participants claim divine
ancestry immediately after agreeing that better natures come from
well-born families (120d-121a). That will afford the reader an
opportunity to examine why they might both think their descent
significant. Socrates has offered this account of Alkibiades'
high-mindedness suggesting they are Alkibiades' resources "beginning
with the body and ending with the soul." In fact, after mentioning
the excellence of his physical person, Socrates talks of Alkibiades'
parents, polis, kinsmen, guardian, and wealth. Unless the reader is to
understand a man's soul to be made by his family (and that is not said
explicitly), these things do not even appear to lead toward a
consideration of the qualities of his soul, but lead in a different
direction. One might expect a treatment of such things as Alkibiades'
great desires, passions, virtues and thoughts, not of his kinsfolk and
wealth. Perhaps the reader is not yet close enough to an understanding of
the human soul. At this point he may not be prepared to discern the
qualities of soul in Alkibiades which would properly be styled
"great." Socrates and Alkibiades may provide instruction for
the reader in the dialogue, so that by the end of his study he will be
better able to make such a judgement were he to venture one now, it might
be based on conventional opinions of greatness. By not explicitly stating
Alkibiades' qualities of soul at this point, the reader is granted the
opportunity to return again, later, and supply them himself. The psyche
is more difficult to perceive than the body, and as is discussed in the
First Alkibiades (129a-135e), this significantly compounds the problems of
attaining knowledge of either. If this is what Socrates is indicating by
apparently neglecting the qualities of Alkibiades' soul, he debunks
Alkibiades' assets as he lists them. The features more difficult to
discern, if discerned, would be of a higher rank. Fewer men would
understand them. Socrates, however, lists features of Alkibiades that are
plain for all to see. The qualities that even the vulgar can appreciate, when
said to be such are not what the superior youth would most pride himself upon.
The many are no very serious judges of a man's qualities. In
view of these advantages, Alkibiades has elevated himself and overpowered
his lovers, and according to Socrates, Alkibiades is well aware of how it
happened that they fled, feeling inferior to his might. Precisely on
account of this Socrates can claim to be certain that Alkibiades is
wondering about him. Socrates says that he "knows well" that
Alkibiades must be wondering why he has not gotten rid of his eros . What
he could possibly be hoping for, now that the rest have fled is a
mystery. Socrates, by remaining despite the experience of the rest, has
made himself intriguing. This is especially the case given his analysis
of Alkibiades. How could Socrates possible hope to compete with
Alkibiades in terms of the sort of criteria important to Alkibiades?
He is ugly, has no famous family, and is poor. Yet Socrates had not
been overpowered; he does not feel inferior. Here is indeed a strange
case, or so it must seem to the arrogant young man. Socrates has managed
to flatter Alkibiades by making him out to be obviously superior to any
of his (other) lovers - but he also places himself above Alkibiades,
despite the flattery. In his first speech to Alkibiades, Socrates
has praised him and yet undercut some of his superiority. He has aroused
Alkibiades' interest both in Socrates and in Socrates' understanding of
him. It is conceivable that no other admirer of Alkibiades has been so
frank, and it is likely that none have been so strange - to the point of
alluding to daimons. Yet something about Socrates and Socrates' peculiar
erotic attraction to Alkibiades makes Alkibiades interested in hearing
more from the man. It is clear that he cannot want to listen
merely because he enjoys being flattered and gratified, for Socrates'
speech is ironic in its praise. He takes even as he gives.
Philosophically, this op ening speech contains a reference to
most of the themes a careful reader will recognize as being treated in
the dialogue. Some of these should be listed to give an
indication of the depths of the speech that remain to be plumbed. The
reader is invited to examine the nature of power - what it is essentially
and through what it affects human action. As conventionally understood,
and as it is attractive to Alkibiades, power is the ability to do what
one wants. According to such an account, it seems Perikies has power.
This notion of power is complicated by the non-human power referred to by
Socrates which stops one from doing what one wants. Power is also shown
to be connected to speech. Another closely related theme is knowledge.
All of these are connected explicitly in that the daimonic power knew
when to allow speech . In the opening speech by Socrates, he claims to
know something, and the reader is introduced to a consideration of
observation and speech as sources of knowledge. He is also promised a
look at what distinguishes one's perception of oneself from other's
opinions of one, through Socrates' innuendo that his perception of
Alkibiades may not be what Alkibiades perceives himself to be. There is
also reference to a difference in ability to perceive people's natures -
namely the many's ability is contrasted with Socrates', as is the ability
of the high- minded suitors. The dialogue will deal with this theme in
great depth. Should it turn out that this ability is of essential
importance to a man's fulfillment, the reader is hereby being invited to
examine what are the essentially different natures of men. Needless to
say, the reader of the dialogue should return again and again to this
speech, to the initial treatment of these fundamental questions.
The relationship of body to soul, as well as the role of 'family'
and ' polis ' in the account of man's nature, are introduced here in the
opening words. They indicate the vastness of the problem of understanding
the nature of man. Socrates and Alkibiades seem superior to everyone else,
but they too are separate. Socrates is shown to be unique in some sense
and he cites especially strange causes of his actions. There is no
mention of philosophy or philosopher in this dialogue, but the reader is
introduced to a strange man whose eros is different from other men, including
some regarded as quite excellent, and who is motivated by an as yet
unexplained daimonic power. On another level, the form of the
speech and the delivery itself attest to some of the thought behind the
appropriateness or inappropriateness of saying certain things in certain
situations. Even the mechanics or logistics of the discussion prove
illuminating to the problem. In addition, the very fact that they are
conversing tog ether and not depicted as fighting together in
battle, or even debating with each other in the public assembly, renders
it possible that speech - and perhaps even a certain kind of speech
(e.g., private, dialectical) - is essential to the relation between the
two superior men said to begin in the First Alkibiades .
Finally (though not to suggest that the catalogue of themes is
complete), one must be awakened to the significance of the silence being
finally broken. With Socrates' first words, the dialogue has begun to
take place. Socrates and Alkibiades have commenced their verbal
relationship. There is plenty of concern in the dialogue about language:
what is to be said and not said, and when and how it is to be said.
The first speech by Socrates in the First Alkibiades has alerted the
reader to this. Alkibiades addresses Socrates for the first
time. Though already cognizant of his name, Alkibiades does not appear to
know anything else about him. To Socrates' rather strange introduction he
responds that he was ready to speak with reference to the same issue;
Socrates has just slightly beat him. Alkibiades seems to have been
irritated by Socrates' constant presence and was on the brink of asking
him why he kept bothering him. Socrates' opening remarks have probably
mitigated his annoyance somewhat and allowed him to express himself in
terms of curiosity instead. He admits, indeed he emphatically affirms
(104d), that he is wondering about Socrates' motives and suggests he
would be glad to be informed. Alkibiades thus expresses the reader's own
curiosity; one wonders in a variety of respects about what Socrates'
objective might be. Alkibiades might perceive different possibilities than
the reader since he seems thoroughly unfamiliar with Socrates. A reader
might wonder if Socrates wanted to influence Alkibiades, and to what end.
Did Socrates want to make Alkibiades a philosopher; what kind of
attraction did he feel for Alkibiades; why did he continue to associate
with him? These questions and more inevitably confront the reader of the
First Alkibiades even though they might at first appear to be outside the
immediate bonds of the dialogue. For these sorts of questions are carried
to a reading of the dialogue, as it were; and given the notoriety of
Alkibiades and of Socrates, it is quite possible that they were intended
to be in the background of the reader's thoughts. Perhaps the dialogue
will provide at least partial answers. If Alkibiades is as
eager to hear as he claims, Socrates can assume that he will pay attention
to the whole story. Socrates will not then have to expend effort in
keeping Alkibiades' attention, for Alkibiades has assured him he is
interested. Alkibiades answers that he certainly shall listen.
Socrates, not quite ready to begin, insists that Alkibiades be
prepared for perhaps quite a lengthy talk. He says it would be no
wonder if the stopping would be as difficult as the starting was.
One does not expect twenty years of non-stop talk from Socrates,
naturally, and so one is left to wonder - despite (or perhaps
because of) his claim that 70 there is no cause for
wonder - why he is making such a point about this beginning and the
indeterminacy of the ending. The implication is that there remains some
acceptable and evident relation between beginnings and endings for the
reader to discern. In an effort to uncover what he is, paradoxically, not
to wonder about, the careful reader will keep track of the various things
that are begun and ended and how they are begun and ended in the First
Alkibiades . Although innocuous here, Alkibiades' response "speak
good man, I will listen," gives the reader a foreshadowing of his
turning around at the end of the dialogue. There it is suggested that
Alkibiades will silently listen to Socrates. Until the time of the
dialogue the good man has been silent, listening and observing while any
talking has been done by Alkibiades or his suitors. Assured
of a listener, Socrates begins. He is convinced that he must speak.
However difficult it is for a lover to talk to a man who disdains lovers,
Socrates must be daring enough to speak his mind. This is the first
explicit indication the reader is given concerning certain qualities of
soul requisite for speaking, not only for acting. It also suggests some
more or less urgent, but undisclosed, necessity for Socrates to speak at
this time. Should Alkibiades seem content with the above mentioned
possessions, Socrates is confident that he would be released from his love for
Alkibiades - or so he has persuaded himself. Socrates is attracted to the
unlimited ambition Alkibiades possesses. The caveat introduced by Socrates
(about his having so persuaded himself) draws attention to the difference
between passions and reason as guides to action, and perhaps also a
difference between Socrates and other men. For the most part one cannot
simply put an end to passions on the basis of reason. One may be able to
substitute another passion or appetite, but it is not as easy to rid
oneself of it. However, instead of having to put away his love, Socrates
is going to lay Alkibiades' thought open to him. Socrates
intends to reveal to Alkibiades the youth's ambition. This can only be useful
in the event that he has never considered his goals under precisely the
same light that Socrates will shed on them. By doing this Socrates
will also accomplish his intention of proving to Alkibiades that he has
paid careful attention to the youth (105a). Alkibiades should be in a
position to recognize Socrates' concern by the end of this speech; this
suggests a capability on the part of both. Many cannot admit the motives
of their own actions, much less reveal to someone else that person's own
thoughts. Part of the significance of the following discussion,
therefore, is to indicate both Socrates' attentiveness to Alkibiades and
Alkibiades' perception of it. Should some (unnamed) god ask
Alkibiades if he would choose to die rather than be satisfied with the
possessions he has, he would choose to die. That is Socrates' belief. If
Socrates is right, it bespeaks a high ambition for Alkibiades, and it does
so whether or not Alkibiades thought of it before. His possessions,
mentioned so far, include beauty and stature, great kinsmen and noble
family, and great wealth (though the last is least important to him). In
an obvious sense, Alkibiades must remain content with some of what he
has. He cannot, for example, acquire a greater family. His ambition,
then, as Socrates indicates, is for something other than he possesses.
The hopes of Alkibiades' life are to stand before the Athenian ekklesia
and prove to them that he is more honorable than anyone, ever, including
Perikles. As one worthy of honor he should be given the greatest
power, and having the greatest power here, he would be the greatest among
Greeks and even among the barbarians of the continent. If the god
should further propose that Alkibiades could be the ruler of Europe on
the condition that he not pass into Asia, Socrates believes Alkibiades
would not choose to live. He desires to fill the world with his name and
power. Indeed Socrates believes that Alkibiades thinks no man who ever
lived worthy of discussion besides Kyros and Xerxes ( the Great Kings of
Persia). Of this Socrates claims to be sure, not merely supposing - those
are Alkibiades' hopes. There are a number of interesting features
about the pretense of Alkibiades responding to a god. Alkibiades might
not admit the extent of his ambition to the Athenian people who would
fear him, or even to his mother, who would fear for him; it therefore
would matter who is allegedly asking the question. It is a god, an
unidentified god whose likes and dislikes thus remain unknown. Alkibiades
cannot take into account the god's special province and adjust his answer
accordingly. The significance of the god is most importantly that
he is more powerful than Alkibiades can be. But why could not Socrates
have simply asked him, or, failing that, pretend to ask him as he does in
a moment? It is possible that speaking with an omniscient god would allow
Alkibiades to reveal his full desire; he would not be obliged to hid his
ambition from such a god as he would from most men in democratic Athens.
But it is also plausible that Socrates includes the god in the discussion
for the purpose of limiting Alkibiades' ambition (or perhaps as a
standard for power/knowledge). Not to suggest that Socrates means to
moderate what Alkibiades can do, he nevertheless must have realistic
bounds put upon his political ambition. Assume, for the moment, that more
questions naturally follow the proposal of limiting his rule to Europe.
If Alkibiades were talking to Socrates (instead of to a deity with
greater power), he might not stop at Asia. If he thought of it, he might
wish to control the entire world and its destiny. He would dream that
fate or chance would even be within the scope of his ambition. The
god in this example is presented as being in a position to determine Alkibiades'
fate; he can limit the alternatives open to Alkibiades and can have him
die. With Socrates' illustration, Alkibiades is confronting a being which
has a power over him that he cannot control. The young man is at least
forced to pretend to be in a situation in which he cannot even decide
which options are available. It is important for a political ruler to realize
the limits placed on him by fate. The notion that the god is asking
Alkibiades these questions makes it unlikely that Alkibiades would answer
that he should like to rule heaven and earth, or even that he would like
supreme control of earth (for that is likely to be the god's own domain).
Alkibiades probably won't suggest to a god that he wants to rule Fate or
the gods of the Iliad who hold the fate of humans so much in hand. Chance
cannot be controlled by humans, either through persuasion or
coersion. It can only have its effect reduced by knowledge.
Alkibiades' political ambitions have to be moderated to fit what is
within the domain of fate and chance and to be educated about the
limits of the politically possible. Socrates, by pretending that a
god asks the questions, can allow Alkibiades to admit the full
extent of his ambitions over humans, but it also serves to keep him
within the arena of human politics. If he would have answered
Socrates or a trusted friend in discussion, he might not have
easily accepted that limit. It is necessary for any politically
ambitious man, and doubly so if he is young, to cultivate a respect
for the limits of what can politically be accomplished under one's
full control. This may have helped Alkibiades establish a political limit
m his own mind. Another feature of the response to the god which
should be noted is that it marks the second of three of Socrates'
exaggerated claims to know aspects of Alkibiades' soul. In the event that
the reader should have missed the first one wherein he claims to
"know well" that Alkibiades wonders (104c), Socrates here
emphasizes it. He is not simply inferring or guessing, he asserts; he
knows this is Alkibiades' hope (105c). Shortly he will claim to have
observed Alkibiades during every moment the boy was out of doors, and
thus to know all that Alkibiades has learned (106e). Just as
it is impossible for Socrates to have watched Alkibiades at every moment,
so he cannot be certain of what thought is actually going through
Alkibiades' mind. Socrates' claim to knowledge has to be based on
something other than physical experience or being taught. Alkibiades has
not told anyone that these are his high hopes. Perhaps Socrates' knowledge
is grounded in some kind of experience He knows what state
Alkibiades' soul is in because he knows what Alkibiades must hope,
wonder and know. It may be that Socrates has an access to this
knowledge of Alkibiades' soul through his own soul. His soul may be
or may have been very like Alkibiades'. Since Socrates will later
argue that one cannot know another without knowing oneself perhaps one of
the reasons he knows Alkibiades' soul so well is that it matches his in
some way. It is not out of the question that their souls share essential
features and that those features perhaps are not shared by all other men.
Clearly not all other men have found knowledge of Alkibiades' soul as
accessible as has Socrates. And Socrates will be taking Alkibiades' soul
on a discussion beyond the bounds of Athenian politics and politicians.
He instructs Alkibiades that his soul cannot be patterned upon a
conventional model, just as Socrates is obviously not modelling himself
upon a standard model. These two men are somehow in a special position
for understanding each other, and their common sight beyond the normally
accepted standards may be what allows Socrates to make such apparently
outrageous claims. At this point, instead of waiting to see how Alkibiades
will respond, Socrates manufactures his own dialogue, saying that
Alkibiades would naturally ask what the point is. He is supposing that
Alkibiades recognizes the truth of what has gone before. Since it is
likely that Alkibiades would have enjoyed the speech to this point and
thought it good, Socrates must bring him back to the topic. By using this
device of a dialogue within a speech, Socrates is able to remind
Alkibiades (and the reader) - by pretending to have Alkibiades remind
Socrates - that they were supposed to learn not Alkibiades' ambitions,
but those of Socrates (supposing that they are indeed different).
Socrates responds (to his own question) that he conceives himself
to have so great a power ove r Alkibiades that the dear son
of Kleinias and Deinomakhe will not be able to achieve his hopes without
the philosopher's assistance (105d). Because of this power the god
prevented him from speaking with Alkibiades. Socrates hopes to win as
complete a power over Alkibiades as Alkibiades does over the polis . They
both wish to prove themselves invaluable, Socrates by showing himself
more worthy than Alkibiades' guardian or relatives in being able to
transmit to him the power for which he longs. The god prevented Socrates
from talking when Alkibiades was younger, that is, before he held such
great hopes. Now, since Alkibiades is prepared to listen, the god has set
him on. Alkibiades wants power but he does not know what it is,
essentially. Yet he must come to know in order not to err and harm
himself. Part of the relationship between philosophy and politics is
suggested here, and perhaps also some indication of why Socrates and
Alkibiades need each other. An understanding of the causes of their
coming together would be essential to an account of their relation, it
seems, and such understanding is rendered more problematic by the role of the
god. Socrates wants as complete power over Alkibiades as
Alkibiades does over the polis . If one supposes that the power is
essentially similar, this might imply that Socrates would actually have
the power over the polis . A complete power to make someone else do as
one wants (as power is conventionally understood) seems to be the same
over an individual as over a state. Socrates and Alkibiades hope to prove
themselves invaluable (105a). That is not the same as being worthy of
honor (105b); past performance is crucial to the question of one's honor,
whereas a possibility of special expertise in the future is sufficient to
indicate one is invaluable. If a teacher is able to promise that his
influence will make manifest to one the problems with one's opinions, and
will help to clarify them, the teacher has indicated himself to be
invaluable. Should one then, on the basis of the teacher's influence change
one's opinions, and thus one's advice and actions, the teacher will, in
effect, be the man with power over all that is affected by one's advice
and actions, over all over which one has power. Socrates, in
affecting politically-minded youths, has an effect on the polity. To have
power over the politically powerful is to have power in politics.
Socrates' daimon had not let Socrates approach while Alkibiades' hopes
for rule were too narrowly contained. His ambitions had to become much
greater. If for no other reason than to see that over which Socrates
expects or intends to have indirect power, one should be eager to
discover Alkibiades' ambition - to discover that end which he has set for
himself, or which Socrates will help to set for him. The reader also has
in mind the historical Alkibiades: to the extent to which Alkibiades'
designs in Europe and Asia did come to pass, was Socrates responsible as
Plato, here, has him claim to be? The reader might also be curious about
the reverse: what actions of the historical Alkibiades make this dialogue
(and Socrates' regard) credible? Alkibiades is astounded, Socrates
sounds even stranger than he looks. But Alkibiades' interest is aroused,
even if he is skeptical. He doesn't admit to the ambitions that
have been listed; however he will concede them for the sake of finding
out just how Socrates thinks of himself as the sole means through whom
Alkibiades can hope to realize them. Perhaps he never had the opportunity
to characterize his ambitions that way - he may never have talked to a
god. Socrates may only have clarified those hopes for Alkibiades;
but on the other hand, the philosopher (partly, at least) may be
responsible for imparting them to the young man. At any rate, even
if Socrates merely made these goals obvious to the youth, one must
wonder as to his purpose. Alkibiades feels confident in claiming
that no denial on his part will persuade Socrates. He asks Socrates
to speak (106a). Socrates replies with a question which he answers
himself. He asks if Alkibiades expects him to speak in the way
Alkibiades normally hears people speak - in long speeches.
Alkibiades' background is thus 73 indicated to some
extent. He has heard orators proclaim. Socrates points out that he
will proceed in a way that is unusual to Alkibiades - at least in
so far as proving claims. By suggesting there is more than one way
to speak, Socrates indicates that differences of style are
significant in speech, and he invites the reader to judge/consider
which is appropriate to which purposes. Socrates protests
that his ability is not of that sort (the orator's), but that he
could prove his case to Alkibiades if Alkibiades consents to do one
bit of service. By soliciting Alkibiades' efforts, Socrates may be
intending to gain a deeper commitment from the youth. If he is
responsible somewhat for the outcome he may be more sincere in 74
his answers. Alkibiades will consent to do a service that is not
difficult; he is interested but not willing to go to a
great deal of trouble. At this stage of the discussion he has no
reason to believe 75 that fine things are hard. Upon
Socrates' query as to whether answering questions is considered
difficult, Alkibiades replies that it is not. Socrates tells him
to a nswer and Alkibiades tells Socrates to ask. His response suggests
that Alkibiades has never witnessed a true dialectical discuss
ion. He has just played question and answer games. Not many
who have experienced a dialogue, and even fewer who have spoken with
Socrates, would say it is not hard. Alkibiades, too, soon
experiences difficulty. Socrates asks him if he'll admit he has
these intentions but Alkibiades won't affirm or deny except toget
on with the conversation. Should Socrates want to believe it he
may; Alkibiades desires to know what is coming before he
acknowledges more. Accepting this, Socrates proceeds. Alkibiades,
he notes, intends shortly to present himself as an advisor to the
Athenians. If Socrates 76 were to take hold of him as
he was about to ascend the rostrum in front of the ekklesia and were to
ask him upon what subject they wanted advice such as he could give, and
if it was a subject about which Alkibiades knew better than they, what
would he answer? This is an example of a common Socratic device,
one of imagining that the circumstances are other than they are. Socrates
hereby employs I it for the third time in the dialogue,
and each provides a different effe ct. On the first occasion,
Socrates pretended a god was present to provide Alkibiades with an
important choice. Socrates did not speak in his own name. The second
example was when Socrates ventured that Alkibiades would ask a certain
question, and so answered it without waiting to see if he would indeed
have asked that question. In both of those, the physical setting of the
First Alkibi ades was appropriate to his intentions. This
time, however, Socrates supplies another setting - a very different setting
- for a part of the discussion. Speech is plastic in that it
enables Socrates to manufacture an almost limitless variety of situations.
By the sole use of human reason and imagination, people are able to
consider their actions in different lights. This is highly desirable as it
is often difficult to judge a decision from within the context in which
it was made. The malleability of circumstances that is possible in speech
allows one to examine thoughts and policies from other perspectives. One
may thus, for example, evaluate whether it is principle or prejudice that
influences one's decisions, or whether circumstance and situation play a
large or a small role in the rational outcome of the deliberation. This
rather natural feature of reason also permits some consideration of
consequences without having to effect those consequences, and this
may result in the aversion of disastrous results. The plastic
character of speech is crucial to philosophic discourse as well, providing the
essential material upon which dialectics is worked. In discussion, the
truly important features of a problem may be more clearly separated from
the merely incidental, through the careful construction of examples, situations
and counterexamples. If not for the ability to consider circumstances
different from the one in which one finds oneself, thinking and
conversing about many things would be impossible. And this is only one
aspect of the plasticity of speech which proves important to philosophic
discussion. Good dialogic partners exhibit this ability, since they
require speech for much more than proficiency in logical deduction.
Speech and human imagination must work upon each other. Participants in
philosophical argument must recognize connections between various
subjects and different circumstances. To a large extent, the level of thought
is determined by the thinker's ability to 'notice' factors of importance
to the inquiry at hand. The importance of 'noticing' to philosophic
argument will be considered with reference to two levels of participation in
the First Alkibiades, both of which clearly focus on the prominence of
the above mentioned unique properties of speech as opposed to
action. 'Noticing' is important to dialectics in that it describes
how, typically, Socrates' arguments work. An interlocutor will
suggest, say, a solution to a problem, and upon reflection, Socrates - or
another interlocutor (e.g., as per llOe) - will notice, for example, that the
solution apparently doesn't work in all situations (i.e., a
counter-example occurs to him), or that not all aspects of the solution
are satisfactory, and so on. The ability of the participants to recognize
what is truly important to the discussion, and to notice those features in a
variety of other situations and concerns, is wha t
lends depth to the analysis. As this has no doubt been experienced by
anyone who has engaged in serious arguments, it presumably need not be
further elaborated. The other aspect in which 'noticing' is
important to philosophy and how it influences, and is in turn influenced
by, rational discourse is in terms of how one ought to read a philosophic
work. As hopefully will be shown in this commentary on the First
Alkibiades, a reader's ability to notice dramatic details of the
dialogue, a nd his persistence in carefully examining what he
notices, importantly affects the benefit he derives from the study of the
dialogue. Frequently, evidence to this effect can be gathered through
reflective consideration of Socrates' apparently off-hand examples, which
turn out upon examination to be neither offhand in terms of their
relation to significant aspects of the immediate topic, nor isolated in
terms of bringing the various topics in the dialogue into focus. As shall
become more apparent as the analysis proceeds, the examples of ships and
doctors, say, are of exceedingly more philosophic importance than their
surface suggests. Not only do they metaphorically provide a depth to the
argument (perhaps unwitnessed by any participant in the dialogue besides
the reader) but through their repeated use, they also help the
reader to discern essential philosophic connections between various parts
of the subject under discussion. The importance of 'recognition'
and 'noticing' to dialectics (and the importance of the malleability of
subject matter afforded by speech) may be partly explained by the
understanding of the role of metaphor in human reason. Dialectics
involves the meticulous division of what has been properly collected
(c.f., for example Phaidros 266b). Time and time again, evidence is
surveyed by capable partners and connections are drawn
between relevantly similar matters before careful distinctions are
outlined. The ability to recognize similarities, to notice connections,
seems similar to the mind's ability to grasp metaphor. Metaphor relies to
an important extent on the language user's readiness to 'collect' similar
features from various subjects familiar to him, a procedure the reader of
the First Alkibiades has observed to be crucial to the philosophic
enterprise. Socrates often refrains from directly asking a
question, prefacing it by "supposing someone were to ask" or even
"supposing I were to ask." The circumstances of the encounters
need to be examined in order to understand his strategy. What might be
the relevance of Socrates asking Alkibiades to imagine he was about to
ascend the platform, instead of, for example, in the market place, in another
city, near a group of young men, or in the privacy of his own home? And
why could not the setting be left precisely the same as the setting of
the dialogue? The situation at the base of the platform in front of
the ekklesia is, needless to say, quite a bit different from the
situation they are in now. Alkibiades is not likely to give the same
answer if his honor and his entire political career are at stake, as they
might be in such a profoundly public setting. Socrates' device, on this
occasion helps serve to indicate that what counts as politic, or polite,
speech varies in different circumstances. As Socrates has
constructed the example, the Athenians proposed to take advice on a
subject and Alkibiades presumed to give them advice. This might severely
limit the subjects on which Alkibiades or another politician could
address them. Were the ekklesia about to take counsel on something, it
would be a m atter they felt was settled by special knowledge, and
a subject on which there were some people with recognizable expertise.
The kinds of questions they believe are settled by uncommon knowledge or
expertise may be rather limited. It is not likely that they would ask for
advice on matters of justice. Most people feel they are competent to
decide that (i.e., that the knowledge relevant to deciding is generally
available, or common). Expertise is acknowledged in strategy and tactics,
but knowledgeability about politics in general is less likely to be
conceded than ability in matters of efficacy. All of these sentiments
limit the kinds of advice which can be given to the ekklesia, and the
councillor's problems are compounded by such considerations as what things can
be persuasively addressed in public speeches to a mixed
audience, and what will be effective in pleasing and attracting the
sympathy of the audience to the speaker. To be rhetorically effective one must
work with the beliefs/opinions/prejudices people confidently and
selfishly hold. Alkibiades agrees with Socrates that he would answer that it
was a subject about which he had better knowledge. He would have to.
If Alkibiades wishes to be taken seriously by them, he should so answer
in front of the people. Even if he would be fully aware of his
ignorance, he might have motives which demand an insistence on expertise.
He couldn't admit to several purposes for which he might want to
influence the votes of the citizenry. Not all of those reasons can be
made known to them; not all of those reasons can be voiced from the
platform at the ekklesia . Sometimes politicians have to make decisions
without certain knowledge, but must nevertheless pretend confidence.
These considerations indicate again the importance of the role of speech
to the themes of this dialogue. There is a difference between public and
private speech. Some things simply cannot be said in front of a crowd of
people, and other things which would not be claimed in private
conversation with trusted friends would have to be affirmed in front of
the ekklesia . Just as a speaker may take advantage of the fact
that crowds can be aroused and swept along by rhetoric that would not so
successfully move an individual (e.g., patriotic speeches inciting
citizens to war, and on the darker side, lynch mobs and riots), so he
understands that he could never admit to a crowd things he might disclose
to a trusted friend (e.g., criticizing re ligious or political
authorities). Socrates suggests that Alkibiades believes he is a
good advisor on that which he knows, and those would be things which he
learned from others or through his own discovery. Alkibiades agrees that
there don't seem to be any other alternatives. Socrates further asks if
he would have learned or discovered anything if he hadn't been willing to
learn or inquire into it and whether one would ask about or learn what
one thought one knew. Alkibiades readily agrees that there must have
been a period in his life when he might have admitted to ignorance to
which he doesn't admit now. Socrates suggests that one learns only what
one is willing to learn and discovers only what one is willing to inquire
into . The asymmetry of this may indicate the general problems of the
argument as the difference in phrasing (underlined) alerts the reader to
examine it more closely. Discoveries, of course, usually involve a
large measure of accident or chance. And if they are the result of an
inquiry, the inquiry often has a different or more general object. Columbus
didn't set out to discover the New World; he wanted to establish a
shorter trading route to the Far East. Darwin did not set out to
discover evolution; he sought to explain why species were different.
Earlier he did not set out to discover that species were different; he
observed the animal kingdom. Not only may one stumble upon something by
accident, but by looking for one thing one may come to know something
else. For example, someone might not be motivated by a recognition of
ignorance but may be trying to prove a claim to knowledge. In the search
for proof he may find the truth. Or, alternatively, in the pursuit of
something altogether different, such as entertainment through reading a
story, one may discover that another way of life is better. The argument thus
appears to be flawed in that it is not true that one discovers only what
one is willing to inquire into. Thus Alkibiades may have discovered what
he now claims to know without ever having sought it as a result of
recognizing his ignorance. Socrates has been able to pass this argument
by Alkibiades because of the asymmetry of the statement. Had he said
"one discovers only what one is willing to discover,"
Alkibiades might have objected. Another difficulty with the argument is
that one is simply not always willing to learn what others teach and one
nevertheless may learn. One might actually be unwilling, but more often
one is simply neutral, or oblivious to the fact that one is learning. In
the case of the former (learning despite being unwilling), one need only
remember that denying what one hears does not keep one from hearing it.
Propaganda can be successful even when it is known to be propaganda.
However, by far the most common counter-example to Socrates'
argument is the learning that occurs in everyday life. Many things are
not learned as the result of setting out to learn. Such knowledge is
acquired in other ways. Men come to have a common sense understanding of
cause and effect by simply doing and watching. One learns one's name and
who one's mother is long before choosing to learn, being willing to
study, or coming to recognize one's ignorance. Language is learned with
almost no conscious effort, and one is nurtured into conventions without
setting out to learn them. Notions of virtues are gleaned from stories
and from shades of meaning in the language, or even as a result of
learning a language. And, in an obvious sense, whenever anything is
heard, something is learned - even if only that such a person said it.
One cannot help observing; one does not selectively see when one one's
eyes are open, and one cannot even close one's ears to avoid
hearing. The above are, briefly, two problems with the part of
Socrates' argument that suggests people learn or discover only what they
are willing to learn or inquire into. The other parts of the argument
may be flawed as well. Socrates has pointed to the reader's discovery
of some flaws by a subtle asymmetry in his question. It is up to
the reader to examine the rest (in this case - to be willing to inquire
into it). For example, there may be difficulties with the first suggestion
that one knows only what one has learned or discovered. It is possible
that there are innate objects of knowledge and that they are important to
later development. Infants, for example, have an ability to sense comfort
and discomfort which is later transferred into feeling a wide variety of
pleasures and pains. They neither learn this, nor discover it (in any
ordinary sense of "discovery"). The sense of pleasure and pain
quite naturally is tied to and helps to shape a child's sense of justice
(110b), and may thus be significant to the argument about Alkibiades'
knowledge or opinions about justice. In any event, closer examination of
Socrates' argument has shown the reader that the problem of knowing is
sufficiently complex to warrant his further attention. The rest of the
dialogue furnishes the careful reader with many examples and problems to
consider in his attempt to understand how he comes to know and what it
means to know. Socrates knows quite well what things Alkibiades has
learned, and if he should omit anything in the relating, Alkibiades must
correct him. Socrates recollects that he learned writing, harping and
wrestling - and refused to learn fluting. Those are the things Alkibiades
knows then, unless he was learning something when he was unobserved - but
that, Socrates declares, is unlikely since he was watching whenever
Alkibiades stepped out of doors, by day or by night. The
reader will grant that the last claim is an exaggeration. Socrates could
not have observed every outdoor activity of the boy for so many years.
Yet Socrates persists in declaring that he knows what Alkibiades learned
out of doors. As suggested earlier, Socrates may be indicating that he
knows Alkibiades through his own soul. In that event one must try to
understand why Socrates couldn't likewise claim to know what went on
indoors, or why Socrates doesn't announce to Alkibiades an assumption
that what goes on indoors is pretty much the same everywhere. The reader
may find what Alkibiades may have learned "indoors" much more
mysterious, and he may consider it odd that Socrates does not have access
to that- What occurs indoors (and perhaps to fully understand one would
need to acknowledge a metaphoric dimension to "indoor") that
would account for Socrates drawing attention to his knowledge of the
outdoor activities of Alkibiades? Even if one confines one's
attention to the literal meaning, there is much of importance in one's
nurture that happens inside the home. Suffice it to notice two things.
The first is that the domestic scene in general, and household management
in particular, are of crucial importance to politics. The second is that the
teachers inside the home are typically the womenfolk. These
are of significance both to this dialogue and (not unrelated) to an
understanding of politics. Attention is directed, for example,
toward the maternal side of the two participants in this dialogue. In
addition, as has already been mentioned, the womenfolk in this dialogue
are the only ones who wonder, besides Alkibiades. The women are within
(cf. Symposium 176e); they have quite an effect on the early nurture of
children (cf. Republic 377b-c and context). Perhaps the women teach
something indoors that Socrates could not see, or would not know
regardless of how closely akin he was to Alkibiades by nature. If
that is so, the political significance of early education, of that
education which is left largely to women, assumes a great
importance. Women> it is implied, are able to do something to sons that
men cannot and perhaps even something which men cannot fully appreciate.
An absolutely crucial question arises: How is it proper for women to influence
sons? Socrates proceeds to find out which of the areas of
Alkibiades' expertise is the one he will use in the assembly when giving
advice. In response to Socrates' query whether it is when the Athenians
take advice on writing or on lyre playing that Alkibiades will rise to
address them, the young man swears by Zeus that he will not counsel them
on these matters. (The possibility is left open that someone else would
advise the Athenians on these matters at the assembly). And, Socrates
adds, they aren't accustomed to deliberating about wrestling in the
ekklesia. For some reason, Socrates has distinguished wrestling from the other
two subjects. Alkibiades will not advise the Athenians on any of the
three; he will not talk about writing or lyre-playing even if the subject
would come up; he will not speak about wrestling because the subject
won't come up. Regardless of the reader's suspicion that the first two
subjects are also rarely deliberated in the assembly, he should note the
distinction Socrates draws between the musical and the gymnastic arts.
The attentive reader will also have observed that the e
ducation a boy receives in school does not prepare him for advising
men in important political matters; it does not provide him with the
kinds of knowledge requisite to a citizen's participation in the ekklesia
. But then on what will Alkibiades advise the Athenians? It
won't be about buildings or divination, for a builder will serve better
(107a- b). Regardless of whether he is short, tall, handsome, ugly,
well-born or base-born, the advice comes from the one who knows, not the
wealthy; the reader might notice that this undercuts all previously
mentioned bases of Alkibiades' self-esteem. According to Socrates, the
Athenians want a physician to advise them when they deliberate on the
health of the city; they aren't concerned if he's rich or poor, Socrates
suggests, as if being a successful physician was in no way indicated by
financial status. There are a number of problems with this
portion of the argument. Firstly, the advisor's rhetorical power (and not
necessarily his knowledge) is of enhanced significance when that of which
he speaks is something most people do not see to be clearly a matter of
technical expertise, or even of truth or falsity instead of taste. This
refers especially to those things that are the subject of political
debate. Unlike in the case of medicine, people do not acknowledge any
clear set of criteria for political expertise, besides perhaps 'success'
for one's polity, a thing not universally agreed upon. Most people have
confidence in their knowledge of the good and just alternatives available
(cf. llOc-d). Policy decisions about what are commonly termed
’value judgements' are rarely decided solely on the basis of reason.
Especially in democracies, where mere whims may become commands, an
appeal to irrational elements in men's souls is often more effective.
Men's fears too, especially their fear of enslavement, can be manipulated
for various ends. Emotional appeals to national pride, love of family and
fraternity, and the possibility of accumulating wealth are what move men,
for it is these to which men are attracted. Rational speech is only
all-powerful if men are all-rational. Secondly, it is not
clear that a man's nobility or ignobility should be of no account in the
ekklesia. At least two reasons might be adduced for this
consideration. There is no necessary connection between knowing and giving
good advice. Malevolence as well as ignorance may- cause it. A bad man
who knows might give worse advice than an ignorant man of good will who
happens to have right opinions. Unless the knower is a noble person there
is no guarantee that he will tender his best advice. An ignoble man may
provide advice that serves a perverse interest, and he might even do it
on the basis of his expert knowledge. Another reason for considering
nobility important in advisors is that it might be the best the citizens
can do. Most Athenians would not believe that there are experts in
knowledge about justice as there are in the crafts. If they won't grant
that expertise (and there are several reasons why it would be dangerous
to give them the power to judge men on that score), then it is probably
best that they take their advice from a gentleman, a nobleman, or even a
man whose concern for his family's honor will help to prevent his
corruption. Thirdly, since cities obviously do not succumb to
fevers and 79 bodily diseases, one must in this case treat
the "physician of the diseased city" metaphorically. It is not
certain that the Athenians would recognize the diseased condition of a
city. To the extent to which they do, they tend to regard political
health in economic terms (as one speaks of a "healthy
economy"). In that case, whether a man was rich or poor would make a
great deal of difference to them. They wouldn't be likely to take advice
on how to increase the wealth (the health) of a city from someone who
could not prove his competence in that matter in his private life. In
addition, since most people are importantly motivated by wealth, they will
respect the opinions of one who is recognizably better at what they are
themselves doing - getting wealthy. It seems to be generally the case
that people will attend to the speech of a wealthy man more than to a
poorer but perhaps more virtuous man. In other words, then,
it is not clear that what Socrates has said about the Athenian choice of
advisors is true (107b-c). Moreover, it is not clear that it should be
true. Factors such as conventional nobility probably should play a part
in the choice of councillors, even if it is basically understood in terms
of being well-born. People's inability to evaluate the physicians of the
city, and people's emphasis on wealth also are evidence against Socrates'
claims. Socrates wants to know what they'll be considering when
Alkibiades stands forth to the Athenians. It has been established
that he won't advise on writing, harping, wrestling, building or
divination. Alkibiades figures he will advise them when they are
considering their own affairs. Socrates, in seeming perversity,
continues by asking if he means their affairs concerning ship-building and
what sorts of ships they should 80 have. Since that is of
course not what Alkibiades means, Socrates proposes that the reason and
the only reason is that the young man doesn't understand the art of
ship-building. Alkibiades agrees, but the reader need not. Socrates, by
emphasizing the exclusivity of expertise through the use of so many
examples, has alerted the reader, should he otherwise have missed the
point, that there are many reasons for not advising about something
besides ignorance. In some matters, for example, it is hard to
prove knowledge and it may not always be best to go to the effort of
establishing one's claim to expertise. If the knowledgeable can perceive,
say, that no harm will come the way things are proceeding, there might
not be any point to claiming knowledge. Another reason for perhaps
keeping silent is that the correct view has been presented. There are thus
other things with which to occupy one's time. Perhaps a major reason for
keeping silent about advising on some matters is simply indifference;
petty politics can be left to others. In fact there are, it would seem,
quite a number of reasons for keeping silent besides ignorance. And, on
the other hand, it is unlikely that someone with a keen interest would
acknowledge ignorance as a sufficient condition for their silence. Many
who voice their opinions on public matters do not thereby mean to
implicitly claim their expertise, but only to express their
interestedness. Socrates' ship-building example has a few other
interesting features. Firstly, in a strict sense what Socrates and
Alkibiades agree to is wrong: knowledge of shipbuilding is not the
exclusive basis for determining which ships to build. Depending on
whether it is a private or public ship-building program, the passenger,
pilot or politician decides. Triremes or pleasure-craft, or some other
specific vessels are demanded. The ship-builder then builds it as best he
can. But his building is dictated by his customers, if he is free, or his
owners, if he is a slave. The prominence of Plato's famous
"ship-of-state" analogy ( Republic 488a-489c) allows the reader
to look metaphorically at the example of 'ship-building,' and the
question of what sort of 'ships' ought to get built. In terms of the
analogy, then, Socrates is asking Alkibiades if he will be giving advice
on statebuilding and what kind of polis ought to be constructed. This is,
it seems, the very thing upon which Alkibiades wants to advise the
Athenians. He wants very much to build Athens into a super Empire. The
recognition of the ship-of-state analogy brings to the surface a most
fundamental political question which lurks behind much of the discussion
of the dialogue: which sort of regime ought to be constructed? The
importance of the question of the best regime to political philosophy is
indicated and reinforced by the very test of the importance of the
question in the analogy. The consideration of what sort of ship ought to be
built stands behind the whole activity of ship-building, and yet is one
that is not answered by the technical expert. The user
(passenger/citizen) and the ruler (pilot/ statesman) are the ones that
make the decision. On the basis of an example that has already been shown
to be suspect, namely Socrates' mention of ship-building, the reader of
the First Alkibiades is provided with the opportunity to consider the
intricasies of the analogy and a question of central importance to the
political man. Alkibiades must gain t he ability to advise the
Athenians as to what ships they ought to build. For the
moment, however, Socrates asks on what affairs Alkibiades means to
give advice, and the young man answers those of war or peace or
other affairs of the polis . Socrates asks for clarification on
whether Alkibiades means they'll be deliberating about the manner
of peace and war; will they be considering questions of on whom,
how, when and how long it is better to make war. But if the
Athenians were to ask these sorts of questions about wrestling,
Socrates remarks, they'd call not on Alkibiades but on the
wrestling master, and he would answer in light of what was better. Similarly,
when singing and accompanying lyre-playing and dancing, some ways and
times are better. Alkibiades agrees.The word 'better' was used both in
the case of harping to accom- 82 pany singing and in the case
of wrestling (108a-b). For wrestling the standard of the better is provided by
gymnastics; what supplies it in the case of harping? Alkibiades
doesn't understand and Socrates suggests that he imitate him, for
Socrates' pattern could be generalized to yield a correct answer in all
cases. Correctness comes into being by the art, and the art in the case
of wrestling is fairly ( kalos) said to be gymnastics (108c). If
Alkibiades is to copy Socrates, he should copy him in fair conversation,
as well, and answer in his turn what the art of harping, singing and
dancing is. But Alkibiades still cannot tell him the name of the art
(108c). Socrates attempts another tact and deviates slightly from the
pattern he had suggested Alkibiades imitate. Presumably Alkibiades will
be able to answer the questions once Socrates asks the right one. He
doesn't assume that Alkibiades is ignorant of the answer, so he takes
care in choosing the appropriate questions. Perhaps his next attempt will
solicit the desired response. The goddesses of the art are the Muses.
Alkibiades can now acknowledge that if the art is named after them, it is
called 'Music.' The musical mode, as with the earlier pattern of
gymnastics, will be correct when it follows the musical art. Now Socrates
wants Alkibiades to say what the 'better' is in the case of making war
and peace, but Alkibiades is unable. There are a number of reasons
why he would be unable on the basis of the pattern Socrates has supplied.
One of these has to do with the pattern itself. It is not clear there is
an art ( techne), per se, of making war and peace. The closest one could
come to recognizing such an art would be to suggest it is the art of
politics, but even if that is properly an art (i.e., strictly a matter of
technical expertise) knowing only its name would not provide a clear
standard of 'better.' The term 'political' does not of its own designate
a better way to wage war and peace. Despite the possibility that the art
in this case is of a higher order than music or gymnastics, it remains
unclear that Alkibiades can use the same solution as Socrates suggested
in the case of music. Who are the gods or goddesses who give their name
to the art of war and peace? Perhaps one way to understand this curious
feature of the discussion is to consider that Socrates might be
suggesting that there is a divine standard for politics as well as for
music. According to Socrates, Alkibiades' inability to answer about
the standard or politics is disgraceful (108e). Were Alkibiades an
advisor on food, even without expert knowledge (i.e., even if he wasn't
a physician), he could still say that the 'better' was the more
wholesome. In this case, where he claims to have knowledge and
intends to advise as though he had knowledge (notice the two are not the
same), he should be ashamed to be unable to answer questions on it.
At this point the reader must pause. If Socrates simply wanted to
make this point and proceed with the argument, he has chosen an unfortunate
example in discussing the advisor on food. There are a number of features
of his use of this example that, if transferred, have quite important
repercussions for the discussion of the political advisor. Firstly, it
may be remarked that Socrates has admitted that the ability to say what
the 'better' is, is not always necessarily contingent upon technical
knowledge. Secondly, someone who answers "more wholesome" as
the better in food has already implicitly or explicitly accepted a
hierarchy of values. He has architectonically structured the arts that
have anything to do with food in such a manner as to place health at the
apex. Someone who had not conceded such a rank-ordering might have said
"cheapest," "most flavorful," or even "sweetest."
Thus this example clearly indicates the centrality of understanding the
architectonic nature of politics. Thirdly, and perhaps least importantly,
Socrates has more clearly indicated a distinction that was suggested in
the previous example. It is a different matter to know that
'wholesome' food is better for one than it is to know which foods are
wholesome. Socrates had, prior to this, been attempting to get Alkibiades
to name the art which provides the standard of the good in peace and war.
Even if Alkibiades had been able to name that art, there would have been
no indication of his substantive knowledge of the art. Conversely it
might be possible that he would have substantive knowledge of something
without being able to refer to it as a named art. One might
account for Alkibiades' inability to n ame the art of political
advice by reference to something other than his knowledge and ignorance.
Perhaps the very subject matter would render such a statement difficult.
For instance, if politics is the 'art' which structures all others, it
would be with a view to politics that the respective 'betters' in the
other arts would be named. The referent of politics would be of an
entirely different order however. Perhaps its 'better,' the comprehensive
'better,' would be simply 'the good.' At any rate, it is a question of a
different order, a different kind of question, insofar as the
instrumentally good is different from the good simply. This suggestion is
at least partly sustained by the observation that Socrates uses a
different method to discover the answer in this case than in the previous
'patterns' supplied by wrestling and harping. Alkibiades agrees
that it does indeed seem disgraceful, but even after further
consideration he cannot say what the 'better' (the aim or good providing
a standard of better) is with respect to peace and war. As Socrates'
question about the goddesses of harping deviated from the example of
wrestling, so Socrates' attempt here is a deviation. He asks Alkibiades
what people say they suffer in war and what they call it. The
reader might note peace has been omitted from consideration. Alkibiades
says that what is suffered is deceit, force and robbery (109b), and that
such are suffered in either a just or an unjust way. Now it is
clearer why 'peace' was not mentioned. It might be more difficult to argue in
parallel fashion that the most important distinction in peace was between
just peace and unjust peace. Socrates asks if it is upon the just
or the unjust that Alkibiades will advise the Athenians to make
war. Alkibiades immediately recognizes at least one difficulty. If for
some reason it would be necessary to go to war with those who are just,
the advisor would not say so. That is the case not only because it is
considered unlawful, but, as Alkibiades adds, it is not considered
noble either. Socrates assumes Alkibiades will appeal to these things when
addressing the ekklesia . Alkibiades here proves he understands the
need for speaking differently to the public, or at least for
remaining prudently silent about certain matters. Within the bounds
of the argument to this point, wealth and prestige (not to mention
dire necessity) may be 'betters' in wars as readily as justice. One may
only confidently infer two things from Alkibiades' admissions. The people
listening to the advice cannot be told that those warred upon are just;
and to tell them so would be unlawful and ignoble. One might be curious as to
the proper relation between lawfulness, nobility and justice, and the
reader of the dialogue, in sorting out these considerations, might
examine the argument surrounding this statement of their relation. The
next few discussions in the First Alkibiades seem to focus on
establishing Alkibiades' claim to knowledge about justice. Either
Alkibiades has not noticed his own ignorance in this matter or Socrates
has not observed his learning and taking lessons on justice. Socrates
would like to know, and he swears by the god of friendship that he is not
joking, who the man.was who taught Alkibiades about justice.
Alkibiades wants to know whether he couldn't have learned it
another way. Socrates answers that Alkibiades could have learned it
through his own discovery. Alkibiades, in a dazzling display of quick
answers, responds that he might have discovered it if he'd inquired, and
he might have inquired if there was a time when he thought he did not
know. Socrates says that Aliibiades has spoken well, but he wants to know
when that time was. Socrates seems to acknowledge Alkibiades' skill in
speaking. These formally sharp answers would probably be the kind praised
in question and answer games. Socrates says Alkibiades has spoken well,
but immediately instructs Alkibiades about how to speak in response to
the next question. Alkibiades is to speak the truth; the dialogue would
be futile if he didn't answer truly. So here it is acknowledged that
truth (at least for the sake of useful dialogue) is the standard for
speaking well. He quickly follows the insincere praise with an indication
of the real criteria for determining if something was well-spoken.
Socrates is not destroying Alkibiades' notion of his ability to achieve
ideals, he is instead destroying the ideals. He acknowledged Alkibiades'
skill and then suggests it is not a good skill to have. Socrates, in
effect, tells Alkibiades to forget the clever answers and to speak the
truth. One of the themes of Socrates' instruction of the youth seems to
be the teaching of proper goals or standards. Alkibiades
admits that a year ago he thought he knew justice and injustice, and two,
three and four years ago as well. Socrates remarks that before that
Alkibiades was a child and Socrates knows well enough that even then the
precocious child thought he knew. The philosopher had often heard
Alkibiades as a boy claim that a playmate cheated during a game, and so
labelled him unjust with perfect confidence (110b). Alkibiades concedes
that Socrates speaks the truth but asks what else should he have done
when someone cheated him? Socrates points out that this very question
indicates Alkibiades' belief that he knows the answer. If he recognized
his ignorance, Socrates responds, he would not ask what else he should
have done as though there was no alternative. Alkibiades swears
that he must not have been ignorant because he clearly perceived that he
was wronged. If this implies that, as a child, he thought he knew justice
and injustice, then so he must. And he admits he couldn't have discovered
it while he thought he knew it (110c). Socrates suggests to Alkibiades
that he won't be able to cite a time when he thought he didn't know, and
Alkibiades swears again that he cannot. Apparently, then, he must conclude that
he cannot know the just on the basis of discovery (llOd).
This argument appears to depend on the premise that one begins at a
loss, completely ignorant, and then one subsequently discovers what
justice is. But such an assumption is surely unwarranted. The discovery
could be a slow, gradual process of continual refinement of a child's
understanding of justice. Often one's opinions are changed because one
discovers something that doesn't square with previous beliefs. If one is
sufficiently confident of the new factor, one's beliefs may change. During
the course of the succeeding dialogue, the reader may see a number of
ways in which this procedure might take place in a person's life.
Socrates draws to Alkibiades' attention that if he doesn't
know justice by his own discovery, and didn't learn it from others,
how could he know it. Alkibiades suggests that perhaps he said the
wrong thing before and that he did in fact learn it, in the same way
as everyone else. It is not clear that this is a sincere move on
Alkibiades' part (though it proves later in the dialogue to have
support as being the actual account of the origin of most people's
views of justice). Perhaps in order to win the argument he is
willing to simply change the premises. Unfortunately, his changing
of this one entirely removes the need for the argument. Socrates
doesn't bother to point out to Alkibiades that if everybody knows
it, and in the same way, then Alkibiades has no claim to special
expertise, and so no basis for presuming to advise the Athenians.
Alkibiades' abilities in speaking have been demonstrated, a care
and willingness to learn from dialogue 86 have yet to be
instilled. As is presently indicated to Alkibiades, his answer
brings about a return to the same problem - from whom did he learn
it? To his reply that the many taught him (llOe), Socrates responds
that they are not 87 worthy teachers in whom he is
taking refuge. They are not competent 88 to teach how
to play and how not to play draughts and since that is insignificant
compared to justice, how can they teach the more serious matter?
Alkibiades perceptively counters this by pointing out that they can teach
things more worthy than draughts; it was they and no single master
who taught Alkibiades to speak Greek. Alkibiades by this point proves that
he is capable of quick and independent thought. He doesn't merely follow
Socrates' lead in answering but in fact points out an important example to the
contrary. The Greek language is taught by the many quite capably even
though they cannot teach the less important draughts nor many other peculiar
skills. A number of issues important to the discussion are brought
to the surface by this example. First, one should notice that language
is another thing Alkibiades has learned which Socrates didn't
mention. Language is necessary for learning most other subjects, and one
can learn quite a lot by just listening to people speaking. A common
language is the precondition of the conversation depicted in the First
Alkibiades, as is some general agreement, however superficial, between
Socrates and Alkibiades as to what they mean when they say 'justice.' In
order to have an argument over whether or not one of them is indeed
knowledgeable about justice and injustice, they must have some notion of
what 'justice' conventionally means. They are not talking about the
height of the sky, the price of gold, or the climate on mountaintops.
Justice ( dikaios) is a word in the Greek language. Most people share
sufficient agreement about its meaning so as to be able to teach people
how the word should be used. This conventional notion of justice thus
informs a child's sense of justice, and as is shown by the strategy of
the Republic as well as of the First Alkibiades, the conventional
opinions about justice must be dealt with and accounted for in any more
philosophic treatment. One must assume that conventional opinions
about justice have some connection, however tenuous, with the truth about
it. This exemplifies the peculiar nature of 'agreement' as a criterion of
knowledge. That experts agree about their subject matter is not altogether
beside the point, but too much emphasis should not be placed upon it.
There are innumerable examples of "sectarian" agreements, none
of which by that fact have any claim to truth. There is also considerable
agreement in conventional opinions and the "world-views" of
various communities which must be accounted for but not necessarily
accepted. Socrates admits to Alkibiades (whom he chooses to
address, at this moment, as "well-born," perhaps in order to
remind him that he distinguishes himself from the many) that the people can be
justly praised for teaching such things as language, for they are
properly equipped (and actually the many do not teach one how to use
language well). To teach, one ought to know, and an indication of their
knowing is that they agree among each other on the language. If they
disagreed they couldn't be said to know and wouldn't be able to teach.
One might parenthetically point to some other important things that the
many teach. Children learn the laws from the many, including the
laws/rules of games. To call someone a cheater (110b) does not mean someone
knows justice; they simply must know the rules of the game and be able to
recognize when such rules have been violated. Rules of games are strictly
conventional. They gain their force from an agreement, implicit or
explicit, between the players. One might wonder if justice is,
correspondingly, the rules of a super- game, or if it is something
standing behind all rule-obeying. The many agree on what stone and
wood are. If one were to say "stone" or "wood," they
could all reach for the same thing. That is what Alkibiades must mean by
saying that all his fellow citizens have knowledge of Greek. And they are
good teachers in as much as they agree on these terms in public and
private. Poleis also agree among each other (cf. Lakhes 186d). Anyone who
wanted to learn what stone and wood were would be rightly sent to the
many. The fact that Greeks agree with each other when they name
objects hardly accounts for their knowledge of the language, much less
their ability to teach it. Naming is far from being the bulk of
speaking a, 89 language, (Hobbes and Scripture to the contrary
notwithstanding ). Not only is it improper to consider many parts
of speech as having the function of designating things, but even
descriptive reference to the sensible world is only a partial
aspect of the use of language. To mention only a few everyday
aspects of language that do not obviously conform, consider the
varied use of commands, metaphors, fables, poetry and exclamation.
To suggest that what constitutes one's knowledge of a language is
to point to objects and use nouns to name them, would be completely
inadequate. It would be so radically insufficient, in fact, that it
could not even account for its own articulation. Language consists
of much more than statements which correspond to observables in the
actual world. But even were one to restrict one's examination of language
to understanding what words mean, or refer to, one would immediately run
into difficulties. All sorts of words are used in everyday language which
demand some measure of evaluation on the part of the user and the
listener. A dog may be pointed to and called "dog." A more
involved judgement is required in calling it a "wild dog," or
"wolf," not to say a "bad dog." Agreement or disagreement
on the use of such terms does not depend on knowledge of the language as
much as on the character of the thing in question. There are
problems even with Socrates' account of naming. One cannot be certain
that the essence of a thing has been focussed upon by those giving the
name to the thing. One might fasten upon the material, or the form, or yet some
other feature of the object. For example, a piece of petrified wood, or a
stone carving of a tree would significantly complicate Socrates' simple
example. It is not at all clear that the same thing would be pointed to
if someone said "stone." The reader may remember that the
prisoners in the cave of the Republic spend quite a bit of their time
naming the shadows on the wall of the cave ( Republic 515b, 516c). The
close connection between this discussion and that of the Republic is
indicated also by the fact that the objects which cast the shadows in the
cave are made of stone and wood ( Republic). People in the cave don't
even look at the objects when they name things. According to the analogy
of the cave they would be the people teaching Alkibiades to speak Greek;
they are the people in actual cities. And what they call
"stone" and "wood" are only an aspect of stone and
wood, the shadowy representations of stone and wood. If the essences of
stone and wood, comparatively simple things, are not denoted by language,
one can imagine in what the agreement might consist in the popular use
of words like "City" and "Man." The question of the
relation of a name to the essential aspect of the thing adds a
significant dimension to the philosophic understanding of the human use
of language. Alkibiades and Socrates seem to be content with this
analysis of naming, however, and Socrates readily proceeds to the next
point in the argument. If one wanted to know not only what a man or a
horse (note the significance of the change from stone and wood) was, but
which was a good runner, the many would not be able to teach that - proof
of which is their disagreement among themselves. Apparently finding this
example insufficient, Socrates adds that should one want to know which
men were healthy and which were diseased, the many would also not be able
to teach that, for they disagree (llle). Notice two features
of these examples that may be of philosophic interest. To begin
with, the respective experts are, first the gymnastics trainer and second,
the physician. In this dialogue, both the gymnastics expert and the
doctor have arguments advanced on their behalf, supporting their claim to
be the proper controllers of, or experts about, the whole body (126a-b,
128c). As supreme rulers of the technae of the body they have different
aspects of the good condition in mind and consequently might give
different advice (for example on matters of diet). Thereupon one is
confronted with the standard problem of trying to maintain two or more
supreme authorities: which one is really the proper ruler in the event of
conflict. There is yet another aspect of the same problem that is
of some concern to the reader of the First Alkibiades . One might say
that the relation of the body to the soul is a very persuasive issue in
this dialogue, and the suggestion that there are two leaders in matters
of the body causes one to wonder whether there is a corresponding
dual leadership in the soul. Secondly, the reader notices
that the composition of "the many" shifts on the basis of what
is being taught. On the one hand, the doctor fits into "the
many" as being unable to tell the good runner; on the other hand,
when the focus is on health, all but the doctor appear to constitute
"the many." The question of how to understand the make-up
of the many points to a very large issue area in philosophy, namely that
which is popularly termed the 'holism vs. individualism debate,' or more
generally, the question of the composition and character of
groups. What essentially characterizes groups - in particular that politically
indispensible group, "the many?" This issue is not superfluous
to this dialogue, nor to this portion of this dialogue. By placing the
doctor alone against the many (in the second example), one unwittingly
contradicts oneself. Alkibiades and Socrates fall among the ranks of the
Many as well as the Few. Perhaps the most obvious problem
connected with determining the composition of the group, "the
many," is brought into focus when one tries to discover how one
"goes to the many" to learn (llld). There are quite a few possibilities.
Does the opinion of "the many" become the average (mean)
opinion of all the different views prevalent in a city? Or is it
the opinion held by the majority? One might go to each individual, to each of a
variety of representative individuals, or even to 51% of the individuals
in a given place, and then statistically evaluate their opinions,
arriving at one or another form of majority consensus. Or, one
might determine conventional opinion by asking various indi-
91 viduals what they believe everyone else believes. There
seem to be countless ways of understanding "the many," each of
which allows for quite different outcomes. The problems for the student
of political affairs, as well as for the aspiring politician, are
compounded because the many do not appear to hold a single view
unanimously or unambiguously on many of the important questions.
Regardless of which is the appropriate understanding of "the
many, the reader must at all events remember that "the many"
and "the few" are a perennial political division. There are,
likewise, several ways in which "the few" are conceived. Some
consider them to be the men of wealth, the men of virtue, the men
of intelligence, and so on. Reference to "the few," however, is
rarely so vague as reference to the many, since people who speak of
"the few" are usually aware of which criteria form the bases of
the distinction. Despite the lack of clarity concerning the division between
"the many" and "the few," it is appealed to, in most
regimes as being a fundamental schizm. Most regimes, it may be ventured,
are in fact based either upon the distinction, or upon trying to remove
the distinction, and they appeal to this division, however vague, to
legitimate themselves. At this point in the discussion of the First
Alkibiades (llle), Alkibiades and Socrates are considering whether the
many are capable teachers of justice. They appear to be making their judgement
solely on the basis of the criterion of agreement. One might stop to
consider not only whether agreement is sufficient to indicate knowledge,
but indeed whether it is even necessary. One cannot simply deny the possibility
that one might be able to gain knowledge because of disagreements.
Profound differences of opinion might indicate the best way of learning
the truth, as, for example the disagreements among philosophers about
justice teaches at the very least what the important considerations might
be. Socrates continues. Since disagreement among the many indicates
that they are not able to teach (though lack of ability rarely prevents
them from trying anyway, cf. Apology 24c-25a; Gorgias 461c), Socrates
asks Alkibiades whether the many agree about justice and injustice, or if
indeed they don't differ most on those very concerns. People do not
92 fight and kill in battle because they disagree on
questions of health, but when justice is in dispute, Alkibiades has seen
the battles. And if he hasn't seen them (Socrates should know
this, after all, cf. 106e) he has heard of the fights from many,
particularly from Homer, because he's heard the Odyssey and Iliad. Alkibiades'
familiarity with Homer is of great significance. It, along with his
knoweldge of Greek, are probably the two most crucial
"oversights" in Socrates' list of what Alkibiades learned. In fact,
they are of such importance that they overshadow the subjects in which he
did take lessons, in terms of their effect on his character development,
his common-sense understanding, and on his suitability for political
office. Homer is an important source of knowledge and of opinion, and is
responsible for there being considerable consensus of belief among the Greeks
in many matters. He provides the authoritative interpretation of the
gods as well as of the qualities and actions of great men. If
Alkibiades knows Homer and if he knows that Homer is about justice, then
he has learned much more about justice than one would surmise on the
basis of his formal schooling. Alkibiades agrees with
Socrates' remark that the Iliad and Odyssey are about disagreements about
justice and injustice. He also accepts the interpretation that a
difference of opinion about the just and the unjust caused the battles
and deaths of the Akhaians and Trojans; the dispute between Odysseus and
Penelope's suitors; and the deaths and fights of the Athenians, Spartans
and Boiotians at Tanagra and Koroneia. (One notes that Socrates has
blended the fabulous with the actual, and has chosen, as his non-mythic
example, probably the one over which it is most difficult for Alkibiades
to be non-partisan - the battle in which his father died. This also
raises his heritage to the level of the epic.) The reader need not agree
with this interpretation on a number of counts. Firstly, the central case
is noteworthy in that Socrates interprets Odysseus' strife with the men of
Ithaka to be over a woman, and not primarily the kingdom and palace. It
is not at all clear, moreover, that what caused the altercation between
Odysseus and the suitors was a difference of opinion about justice. They
might have all wanted the same thing, but the reaction of the suitors at
Odysseus' return indicates that they didn't feel they were in the
right - they admitted 93 gurlt. Secondly, what is noticeable
in Homer is that only one aspect of the epic is about the dispute about
justice (and also, both Homeric examples involve a conflict between eros
and justice, represented by Helen and Penelope). In the epics the
disagreement among the many refers not to the many of one polis but of
various poleis against each other. Indeed the many of each polis in the
Trojan war agree. These observations foreshadow the discussion that
will presently come to the fore in the dialogue under somewhat different
circumstances. The problem of the difference between the just and the
expedient is a key one in political philosophy, and it is introduced by
the reflection that in a number of instances disagreement does not focus
on what the just solution is, but on who should be the victor, who will
control the thing over which the sides are disputing. Both sides agree
that it would be good to control one thing. More shall be said about this
later in the context of the discussion. Socrates inquires of
Alkibiades whether the people involved in those wars could be said to
understand these questions if they could disagree so strongly as to take
extreme measures. Though he must admit that teachers of that
sort are ignorant, Alkibiades had nevertheless referred Socrates to them.
Alkibiades is quite unaware of the nature of justice and injustice and he
also cannot point to a teacher or say when he discovered them. It
thus seems hard to say he has knowledge of them. Alkibiades agrees that
according to what Socrates has said it is not likely that he knows
(112d). Socrates takes this opportunity to teach Alkibiades a most
important lesson. Though apparently a digression, it will mark a pivotal
point in the turning around of Alkibiades that occurs by the middle of
the discussion. Socrates says that Alkibiades' last remark was not
fair ( kalos) because he claimed Socrates said that Alkibiades was
ignorant, whereas actually Alkibiades did. Alkibiades is astounded. Did
he_ say it? Socrates is teaching Alkibiades that the words spoken
in an argument ought indeed to have an effect on one's life, that the
outcomes of arguments are impersonal yet must be taken seriously, and that
responsibility for what is said rests with both partners in dialogue. The
results of rational speech are to be trusted; reason is a kind of power
necessarily determining things. Alkibiades cannot agree in speech and
then decide, if it is convenient, to dismiss conclusions on the grounds
that it was someone else who said it. Arguments attain much more
significance when they are recognized as one's own. One must learn they
are not merely playthings (cf. Republic 539b). Accepting responsibility
for them and their conclusions is essential. It is important politically
with reference to speech, as well as in the more generally recognized
sense of assuming responsibility for one's actions. To cite an instance
of special importance to this dialogue, who is responsible for Alkibiades
- Perikles? Athens? Socrates? Alkibiades himself? One can often
place responsibility for one's actions on one's society, one's immediate
environment, or one's teachers. Perhaps it is not so easy to shun
responsibility for conclusions of arguments. Most men desire consistency
and at least feel uneasy when they are shown to be involved in
contradictions. In this discussion of who must accept responsibility for
the conclusions of rational discourse, Alkibiades learns yet another
lesson about the power of speech. He has, by his own tongue, convicted
himself of ignorance. Socrates demonstrates to Alkibiades that if he asks
whether one or two is the larger number, and Alkibiades answers that two
is greater by one, it was Alkibiades who said that two was greater than
one. Socrates had asked and Alkibiades had answered; the answer was the
speaker. Similarly, if Socrates should ask which letters are in
"Socrates" and Alkibiades answered, Alkibiades would be
the speaker. On the basis of this the young man agrees that, as a
principle, whenever there is a questioner and an answerer, the speaker is
the answerer. Since so far Socrates had been the questioner and Alkibiades
the answerer, Alkibiades is responsible for whatever has been
uttered. What has been disclosed by now is that Alkibiades, the
noble son of Kleinias, intends to go to the ekklesia to advise on
that of which he knows nothing. Socrates quotes Euripides -
Alkibiades "hear it from 94 [himself] not
me." Socrates doesn't pull any punches. Not only does he refer to an
almost incestuous woman to speak of Alkibiades' condition, but he follows
with what must seem a painfully sarcastic form of address (since it is
actually ironic) which the young man would probably wish to hear from
serious lips. Alkibiades, the "best of men,' is contemplating a mad
undertaking in teaching what he has not bothered to learn. Alkibiades
has been hit, but not hard enough for him to change his mind instead of
the topic. He thinks that Athenians and the other Greeks don't, in fact,
deliberate over the justice of a course of action - they consider
that to be more or less obvious - but about its advantageousness. The just and
the advantageous are not the same, for great injustices have proven
advantageous, and sometimes little advantage has been gained from just
action. Socrates announces that he will challenge Alkibiades' knowledge
of what is expedient, even if he should grant that the just and the advantageous
are ever so distinct. Alkibiades perceives no hindrance to his
claiming to know what is advantageous unless Socrates is again about to
ask from which teacher he learned it or how he discovered it. Hereupon
Socrates remarks that the young man is treating arguments as though they
were clothing which, once worn, is dirtied. Socrates will ignore these
notions of Alkibiades, implying that they involve an incorrect
understanding of philosophic disputation. Alkibiades must be taught that
what is ever correct according to reason remains correct according to
reason. Variety in arguments is not a criterion affecting their rational
consistency. Socrates shall proceed by asking the same question,
intending it to, in effect, ask the whole argument. He claims to be certain
that Alkibiades will find himself in the same difficulty with this
argument. The reader will recognize that Alkibiades is not likely
to encounter precisely the same problems with this new argument. The
nature of the agreement and disagreement by individuals and states over
the matter of usefulness or advantageousness is different than that
concerning justice. A man may know it would be useful to have something,
or expedient to do something, and also know it to be unjust. States,
too, may agree on something's advantageousness, say controlling the
Hellespont but they may disagree on who should control it. The conflict
in these cases is not the result of a disagreement as to what is true
(e.g., it is true that each country's interests are better served by
control of key sea routes), but it is based precisely on their agreement
about the truth regarding expediency. When states and individuals are
primarily concerned with wealth, then knowing what is useful presents far
fewer problems than knowing what is just. Since Alkibiades is
so squeamish as to dislike the flavor of old arguments, Socrates will
disregard his inability to corroborate his claim to knowledge of the
expedient. Instead he will ask whether the just and the useful are the
same or different. Alkibiades can question Socrates as he had been
questioned, or he can choose whatever form of discourse he likes. As he
feels incapable of convincing Socrates, Alkibiades is invited to imagine
Socrates to be the people of the ekklesia ; even there, where the young
man is eager to speak, he will have to persuade each man singly (114b). A
knowledgeable man can persuade one alone and many together (114b-c). A
writing master is able to persuade either one or many about letters and
likewise an arithmetician influences one man or many about numbers.
For quite a few reasons the reader might object to Socrates'
inference from these examples to the arena of politics. Firstly, they are
not the kinds of things discussed in politics, and one might suspect that
the "persuasion" involved is not of the same variety. Proof of
this might be offered in the form of the observation that the inability
to persuade in politics does not necessarily imply the dull-wittedness of
the audience. Strong passions bar the way for reason in politics like
they rarely do in numbers and letters. This leads to the second
objection. Not only is knowledge of grammar and arithmetic fundamentally
different than politics, but they represent extreme examples in themselves.
They correspond to two very diverse criteria of knowledge both of which
have been previously introduced in the dialogue. The subject matter of
letters is decided upon almost exclusively by agreement; that of numbers
is learned most importantly through discovery, and this does not depend
on people's agreement (cf. 112e-113a, 126c; and 106e reminds one that
Alkibiades has taken lessons only in one of these). Presumably,
however, if the arithmetician and grammarian can, then Alkibiades also
will be able to persuade one man or many about that which he knows.
Apparently the only difference between the rhetorician in front of a
crowd and a man engaged in dialogue is that the rhetorician persuades
everyone at once, the latter one at a time. Given that the same man persuades
either a multitude or an individual, Socrates invites Alkibiades to
practice on him to show that the just is not the expedient. (Ironically,
there may be no one Alkibiades ever meets who is further from the
multitude). If it weren't for his earlier statement (109c) where he
indicated his recognition of the difference between private and public
speech, it would appear that Alkibiades had quite a lot to learn before
he confronted the ekklesia . One might readily propose that there is
indeed very little similarity between persuading one and persuading the
multitude. In a dialogue one man can ask questions that reveal the
other's ignorance; Socrates does this to Alkibiades in this
dialogue, he might not in public. In a dialogue, there needn't always be public
pressure with which to contend (an important exception being courtroom
dialogue); a public speech, especially one addressing the ekklesia must
yield to or otherwise take into account the strength of the many. Often
when addressing a crowd one only has to address the influential. At other
times one need only appeal to the least common denominator. There are
factors at work in crowds which affect reactions to a speaker,
factors which do not seem to be present in one-to-one dialogue. When
addressing a multitude, a speaker must be aware of the general feelings
and sentiments of the group, and address himself to them. When in
dialogue he can tailor his comments to one man's specific interests. To
convince the individual, however, he will have to be precisely right in
his deduction of the individual's sentiments - in a crowd a more general
understanding is usually sufficient. Mere hints at a subject will
be successful; when addressing a multitude with regard to a policy, a
rhetorician will not be taken to task for every claim he makes. If his
general policy is pleasing to the many, it is unlikely that they will
critically examine all of his reasons for proposing the policy. Also, when
speaking to a crowd, one is not expected to prove one's technical
expertise. An individual may be able to discover the limits of one's
knowledge; a crowd will rarely ask. This whola analysis, however, is rendered
questionable by the ambiguity of the composition of "the many,"
discussed above. One could, for example, come across a very knowledgeable
crowd, or a stupid individual and many of the above observations would
not hold. However, the situations most directly relevant to the dialogue
involve rhetoric toward a crowd such as that of the ekklesia, and
thoughtful dialogue between individuals such as Alkibiades and
Socrates. If Alkibiades ever intends to set forth a plan of action
to the Athenians, the adoption of his proposal will depend on his
convincing them in the ekklesia . The ability to persuade the multitude
attains great political significance; and especially in democracies, a
man's ability in speaking is often the foundation of his power.
Once recognized, this power is susceptible to cultivation. Rhetoric, the
art of persuasive speech, is the art which provides the knowledge
requisite to gain effective power over an audience. All political
men are aware of rhetoric; their rhetorical ability to a large
95 extent determines their success or failure. Of course,
there are at least two important qualifications or limits on the power of
even the most persuasive speech. The first limit is knowledge. A man who
knows grammar and arithmetic will not be swayed wrongly about numbers,
when they are used in any of the conventional ways. That an able
rhetorician escape detection in a lie is a necessity if he is to be
successful among those knowledgeable in the topic he addresses.
Presumably those who possess only beliefs about the matter would be more
readily seduced to embrace a false opinion. The second limit
is more troubling. It is the problem of those who simply are not
convinced by argument. They distrust the spoken word. These seem to
fall into three categories. The first is exemplified in the
character of Kallikles in the Gorgias . It primarily includes those
who are unwilling to connect the conclusions of arguments to their
own lives. They may agree to something in argument and, moments
later, do something quite contrary to their conclusions. This
characteristic is well- displayed in Kallikles who, when driven to
a contradiction doesn't even 96 care. He holds two conflicting
opinions and holds them so strongly that he doesn't even care that they
support conclusions that are contrary to reason and yield contrary
results. Kallikles is unwilling to continue discussing with Socrates (
Gorgias); he does not want to learn from rational speech. He remains
unconvinced by Socrates' argument and by his rhetoric ( Gorgias). If
Socrates is to rule Kallikles, he will need more than reason and wisdom
and beautiful speech ( Gorgias 523a-527e); he will need some kind of
coercive power. Secondly, almost all people have some experience of
those who inconsistently maintain in speech what they do not uphold in deed.
This is the most immediate level on which to recognize the problem of the
relation of theory to practice. Alkibiades seems to have this opinion of
speech at the beginning of the dialogue, for he can admit almost anything
in speech (106c.2). Two things, however, show that he is far above it.
He implicitly recognizes that the realm of speech is the realm
within which he must confront Socrates, and he has a desire for
consistency. Kallikles is too dogmatic to even recognize his
inconsistency. But when Socrates forces Alkibiades to take responsibility
for all the conclusions they have reached to that point, he realizes he
must have made an error either in his premises or his argument. This
marks the first and major turning around of Alkibiades. He recognizes
that he has said he is ignorant. A third type of person who
is not convinced by rhetoricians is the one who distrusts argument
because he recognizes the skill involved in speaking. Not because he is
indifferent to the compulsion of reason but precisely because he wants to
act according to reason, he desires to be certain of not being tricked.
(Most people are also familiar with the feeling that something vaguely
suspicious is going on in a discussion.) He is convinced that there
are men - e.g., sophists - who are skilled at the game of question and
answer and can make anyone look like a fool. And so what? He is not
at all moved by their victory in speech. Something other than rational speech
is needed to convince him. Indeed, this is one of the most difficult
challenges Socrates meets in the Republic, and indicates a higher
level of the theory/practice relationship. Adeimantos is not convinced by
mere words. He has to be shown that philosophy is useful to the city,
among other things ( Republic 487b.1-d.5; 498c.5 ff; 367d.9-e.5; 367b.3;
389a.10). Although he is distrustful of mere speech, he learns to respect
it as a medium through which to understand the political. He has the example of
Socrates whose life matches, or is even guided by, his speech. Socrates'
difficulty lies in making the case in speech to this man who does not put
full stock in the conclusions of speech. One must wonder, moreover, what kinds
of deeds will suffice for those others who cannot even view Socrates.
This is the problem faced by all writers who want to reach this sort of
person. Perhaps one might consider very clever speakers like Plato
to be performing the deed of making the words of a Socrates appear like the
deeds of Socrates, in the speech of the Dialogues. Almost paradoxically,
they must convince through speech that speech isn't "mere
talk." Alkibiades charges Socrates with hybris and Socrates
acknowledges it for the time being, for he intends to prove to Alkibiades
the opposite view, namely that the just is the expedient (114d). Socrates
doesn't deny the charge, or even, as one might expect, playfully redirect
it as might be appropriate; the accusation is made by a man who, not
much later, will be considered hybristic by almost the entire Athenian
public. It is not clear precisely what is hybristic about Socrates' last
remarks. Hybris is a pride or ambition or insolence inappropriate to men.
Perhaps both men are hybristic as charged; in this instance it is not
imperative that they defend themselves for they are alone. Possibly
anyone who seeks total power as does Alkibiades, or wisdom like Socrates,
is too ambitious and too haughty. They would be vying with the gods to
the extent that they challenge civic piety and the supremacy of the
deities of the polis . One wants to rule the universe like a god, the
other to know it like a god. The charge of hybris has been
introduced in the context of persuading through speech. Allegedly the
person who knows will have the power to persuade through speech. This is
itself rather a problematic claim as it implies all failure to persuade
is an indication of ignorance. However questionable the assertion,
though, the connection it recalls between these three important aspects
of man's life - knowledge, power and language - is too thoroughly
elaborated to be mere coincidence. It is very likely that the reader's
understanding of these two exceptional men and the appropriateness of the
charge of hybris will have something to do with language's relation to
knowledge and power. Alkibiades asks Socrates to speak, if he intends
to demonstrate to Alkibiades that the just is not distinct from the advantageous.
Not inclined to answer any questions (cf. 106b), Alkibiades wishes
Socrates to speak alone. Socrates, pretending incredulity, asks if indeed
Alkibiades doesn't desire most of all to be persuaded and Alkibiades,
playing along, agrees that he certainly does. Socrates suggests that the
surest indication of persuasion is freely assenting, and if Alkibiades
responds to the questions asked of him, he will most assuredly hear
himself affirm that the just is indeed the advantageous. Socrates goes so
far as to promise Alkibiades that if he doesn't say it, he never need
trust anybody's speech again. This astonishingly extravagant
declaration by Socrates bespeaks certain knowledge on his part. Socrates
implies he is confident of one of two things. Perhaps he knows that the
just is advantageous, or the true relationship between the two, and thus
argues for the proof of the claim that anyone who knows can persuade. (The
immense difficulties with this have already been suggested.) What is more
likely, however, is that he does not think the just is identical to the
advantageous, but he knows he can win the argument with Alkibiades and
drive him to assert whatever conclusion he wants (that he could in effect
make the weaker argument appear the stronger). If the latter is true, the
reader is reminded of the power of speech and the possible dangers that
can arise from its use. He will also wonder if Socrates is quite right in
his proposal that Alkibiades need never trust anyone's speech if he cannot
be made to agree. It seems to be more indicative of the untrustworthiness
of speech if Alkibiades should agree, not that he refuse to agree.
However, the reader has been placed in the enviable position of being
able to judge for himself, through a careful review of the argument. His
personal participation, to the limit of his ability, is after all the
only means through which he can be certain that he isn't being duped into
believing something instead of knowing it. Alkibiades doubts
he will admit the point, but agrees to comply, confident that no harm
will attend his answers. Whereupon Socrates claims that Alkibiades speaks
like a diviner (cf. 127e, 107b, 117b), and proceeds, presuming to be
articulating Alkibiades' actual opinion. Some just things are
advantageous and some are not. Some just things are noble and some are
not. Nothing can be both base and just, so all just things are noble.
Some noble things might be evil and some base things may be good, for a
rescue is invested with nobility on account of courage, and with evil
because of the deaths and wounds. However, since courage and death are
distinct, it is with respect to separate aspects that the rescue can be
said to be both noble and evil. Insofar as it is noble it is good, and it
is noble because of courage. Cowardice is an evil on par with (or worse
than, 115d) death. Courage ranks among the best things and death among
the worst. The rescue is deemed noble because it is the working of good
by courage, and evil because it is the working of evil by death. Things
are evil because of the evil produced and good on account of the good
that results. In as much as a thing is good it is noble and base inasmuch
as it is evil. To designate the rescue as noble but evil is thus to
term it good but evil (116a). In so far as something is noble it is not
evil, and neither is anything good in so far as it is base. Whoever does
nobly does well and whoever does well is happy. People are made happy
through the acquisition of good things. They obtain good things by doing
well and nobly. Accordingly, doing well is good and faring well is
noble. The noble and good are the same. By this argument all that
is noble is good. Good things are expedient (116c) and as has already
been admitted, those who do just things do noble things (115a); those who
do noble things do good things (116a). If good things are expedient then
just things are expedient. As Socrates points out, it is
apparently Alkibiades who has asserted all of this. Since he argues that
the just and the expedient are the same, he could hardly do other than
ridicule anyone who rose up to advise the Athenians or the Peparathians
believing he knew the just and the unjust and claiming that just things
are sometimes evil. Before proceeding, the reader must pause and attempt
to determine the significance of the problem of the just versus the
expedient. No intimate familiarity with the tradition of political
philosophy is required in order to observe that the issue is dominant
throughout the tradition/ perhaps most notably among the moderns in the
writings of Machiavelli and Hobbes who linked the question of justice and
expediency to the distinction between serving another's interest and
serving one's own interest. They, and subsequent moderns, in the spirit
of the "Enlightenment," then proceed with the intention of
eradicating the distinction. Self-interest, properly understood, is right and
is the proper basis for all human actions. Not only is there a widespread
connection between the issue, the traditional treatment of the issue, and
human action - but the reader might recall that the ancient philosophers,
too, considered it fundamental. One need only realize that the
philosophic work par excellence, Plato's Republic, receives its impetus
from this consideration. The discussion of the best regime (perhaps the
topic of political philosophy) arises because of Glaukon's challenging
reformulation of Thrasymakhos' opinion that justice is the advantage of
the stronger. Recognition of this fact sufficiently corroborates the
view that this issue warrants careful scrutiny by serious students of
political philosophy. Socrates has chosen this topic as the one on which
to demonstrate the internal conflicts in Alkibiades' soul. Perhaps
that is a subtle indication to the reader as to where he might focus when
he begins the search for self-knowledge, the inevitable prerequisite
for his improvement. Alkibiades swears by all the gods. He is
overwhelmed. Alkibiades protests that he isn't sure he knows even what he
is saying; he continually changes his views under Socrates' questioning.
Socrates points out to him that he must be unaware of what such a
condition of perplexity signifies. If someone were to ask him whether he
had two or three eyes, or two or four hands, he would probably respond
consistently because he knows the answer. If he voluntarily gives
contradictory replies, they must concern things about which he is
ignorant. Alkibiades admits it is likely; but there are probably other
reasons why one might give contradictory answers, just as one might
intentionally appear to err - in speech speech. Alkibiades'
ignorance with regard to justice, injustice, noble, base, evil and good
is the cause of his confusion about them. Whenever a man does not know a
thing, his soul is confused about that thing. By Zeus (fittingly),
Alkibiades concedes he is ignorant of how to rise into heaven. There is
no confusion in his opinion about that simply because he is aware that he
doesn't know. Alkibiades must take his part in discerning Socrates'
meaning. He knows he is ignorant about fancy cookery, so he doesn't get
confused, but entrusts it to a cook. Similarly when aboard ship he
knows he is ignorant of how to steer, and leaves it to the pilot. Mistakes
are made when one thinks one knows though one doesn't. Otherwise people
would leave the job to those who do know. The ignorant person who knows
he is ignorant doesn't make mistakes (117e). Those who make mistakes are
those who think they know when they don't; those who know act rightly;
those who don't, leave it to others. All this is not
precisely true for a number of reasons. Chance or fortune always plays a
part and something unexpected could interfere in otherwise correctly laid
plans. Also, as any honest politician or general would have to say,
sometimes courses of action must be decided and acted upon, even when one
is fully cognizant of one's partial ignorance. The worst sort
of stupidity, Socrates testifies is the stupidity conjoined with
confidence. It is a cause of evils and the most pernicious evils occur
through its involvement with great matters like the just, the noble, the
good and the advantageous. Alkibiades' bewilderment regarding these
momentous matters, coupled with his ignorance of his very ignorance,
imputes to him a rather sorry condition. Alkibiades admits he is afraid
so. Socrates at this point makes clear to Alkibiades the
nature of his predicament. He utters an exclamation at the plight of the
young man and deigns to give it a name only because they are alone.
Alkibiades, according to his own confession, is attached to the most
shameful kind of stupidity. Perhaps to contrast Alkibiades' actual
condition with what he could be, Socrates chooses precisely this moment
to refer to Alkibiades as "best of men" (cf. also 113c). With
such apparent sarcasm still reverberating in the background, Socrates
intimates that because of this kind of ignorance he is eager to enter
politics before learning of it. Alkibiades, far from being alone, shares
this lot with most politicians except, perhaps, his guardian Perikies,
and a few others. Already recognized to be obviously a salient
feature of the action of the dialogue, the fact that the two are alone,
engaged in a private conversation, is further stressed here as the reader
approaches the central teaching of the First Alkibiades . Alkibiades has
been turned around and now faces Socrates. They can confide in each other
even to the extent of criticizing all or nearly all of Athens' politicians.
They shall, in the next while, be saying things that most people
should not hear. And at this moment it seems to be for the purpose of
naming Alkibiades' condition that Socrates reminds the reader of their
privacy. A number of possible reasons for the emphasis on privacy
in this regard come to mind. Socrates likely would not choose to call
Alkibiades stupid in front of a crowd. In the first place,
his having just recognized his ignorance makes him far less stupid than
the crowd and it would be inappropriate to have them feel they are better
than he. Alkibiades is by nature a cut above the many, and it would be a
sign of contempt to expose him to ridicule in front of the many. Though
he may be in a sorry condition, he is being compared to another standard
than the populace. Secondly, to expose and make Alkibiades
sensitive to public censure is probably not in his best interests. A
cultivation in most noble youths of the appropriate source of their honor
and dishonor is important. Socrates, by not making Alkibiades feel
mortified in front of the many, is heightening his respect for the
censure of men like Socrates. Without this alternative, the man who seeks
glory is confronted with a paradox of sorts. He wants the love/adoration
of the many, and yet he despises the things they love or adore.
Alkibiades is being shown that the praise of few (and if the principle is
pushed to its limit, eventually the praise of one - oneself, i.e. pride)
is more to be prized. Thirdly, as Socrates explains to Meletus in
his trial ( Apology 26a), when someone does something unintentionally, it
is correct to instruct him privately and not to summon the attention of
the public. Alkibiades is not ignorant on purpose; Socrates should
privately instruct him. It is also probable that Alkibiades will only
accept private criticism which doesn't threaten his status.
And perhaps fourthly, if Socrates were to insult Alkibiades in
public the many would conclude that there was a schizm between them. Because
they are men whose natures are akin, and because of their (symbolic)
representation of politics and philosophy, or power and knowledge, any
differences they have must remain private. It is in their best interest
as well as the interest of the public, that everyone perceive the two as being
indivisible. And as was observed earlier, even the wisest politicians
must appear perfectly confident of their knowledge and plans. This is
best done if they conceal their private doubts and display complete trust
in their advisors, providing a united front when facing the many.
When Socrates suggests Perikles is a possible exception, Alkibiades
names some of the wise men with whom Perikles conversed to obtain his
wisdom. Those whom he names are conventionally held to be wise;
Alkibiades might not refer to the same people by the end of this
conversation with Socrates. In any event, upon Alkibiades' mention of the
wise men, Socrates insinuates that Perikles' wisdom may be in
doubt. Anybody who is wise in some subject is able to make another wise
in it, just as Alkibiades' writing teacher taught Alkibiades, and
whomever else he wishes, about letters. The person who learns is also
then able to enlighten another man. The same holds true of the harper and the
trainer (but apparently not the flute player, cf. 106e). The ability to
point to one's student and to show his capability is a fine proof of
knowing anything. If Perikles didn't make either of his sons wise, or
Alkibiades' brother (Kleinias the madman),why is Alkibiades in his sorry
condition? Alkibiades confesses that he is at fault for not paying
attention to Perikles. Still, he swears by the king of gods that there
isn't any Athenian or stranger or slave or foreman who is said to have
become wise through conversation with Perikles, as various students of
sophists have been said to have become wise and erudite through lessons.
Socrates doesn't need to explicate the conclusion. Instead, he asks
Alkibiades what he intends to do. The conclusion of the
argument is never uttered. It is obviously meant to question Perikles'
wisdom, but rather than spell it out, the topic is abruptly changed. If
Perikles were dead, not alive and in power, piety would not admit of even
this much criticism to be levied. Alkibiades would be expected to defend
his uncle against those outside the family; and all Athenians to defend
him against critics from other poleis . In addition, if this was a public
discussion, civic propriety would demand silence in front of the many
concerning one's doubts about the country's leaders. But since they are
indeed alone, and need not worry about the effects on others of their
discussion of Perikles' wisdom, they might have concluded the argument.
The curious reader will likely examine various reasons for not finishing
it. Three possibilities appear to be somewhat supported by the discussion
to this point. One notices, to begin with, that it would be
adequate for the argument, if a person could be found who was reputed to
have gained wisdom from Perikles. Given that a reputation among the many
has not been highly regarded previously in the dialogue, there seems
little need to press this point in the argument. If a man was said to
have been made wise by Perikles, the criteria by which that judgment
would be made seem much less reliable than the criteria whereby the many
evaluate a man's skill in letters. There is no proof of Perikles' ability
to make another wise in finding someone who is reputed to be wise.
Conversely, Perikles may well have made someone wise who did not also
achieve the reputation for wisdom. A second point in
connection with the argument is that the three subjects mentioned are
those in which Alkibiades has had lessons. Alkibiades has ability in them, yet
cannot point to people whom he has made wise in letters, harping or
wrestling. That does not seem sufficient proof that he is ignorant (thus
that his master was ignorant and so on) . It is also not clear that
Alkibiades' teachers could have made any student whomsoever they wished,
wise in these subjects; Perikles 1 sons must have achieved their
reputation as simpletons (118e) from failing at something. Knowledge
cannot require, for proof, that one has successfully taught someone else.
Not all people try to teach what they know. There must be other proofs of
competence, such as winning at wrestling, or pleasing an audience through
harping. Similarly, not having taught someone may not prove one's
ignorance; it may just indicate unwilling and incapable students.
Alkibiades, for example, didn't learn to play the flute. There is no
indication that his teacher was incapable - either of playing or of
teaching. Alkibiades is said to have refused to learn it becaus e of considerations
of his own. It might also be suggested that pointing to students doesn't
solve the major problem of proving someone's knowledge. Is it any
easier to recognize knowledge in a student than in a teacher? A
third closely connected point is that some knowledge may be of such
significance that the wise man properly spends his time actively using it
(e.g., by ruling) and not teaching it. Perikles, through ruling, may have
made the Athenians as a whole better off, and perhaps even increased their
knowledge somewhat. Had his son and heirs to his power observed his
example while he was in office, they too might have become wiser. Adding
further endorsement to this notion is the quite reasonable supposition
that some of the things a wise politician knows cannot be taught through
speech but only through example, just as some kinds of knowledge must be
gained by experience. He may communicate his teaching through his example,
or even less obviously, through whatever institutions or customs he
has established or revised. Some subjects
should probably also be kept secret for the state, and some
types of prudential judgement are acquired only be guided
experience. Perikles's very silence, indeed, may be a testimony to
his political wisdom. In response to Socrates' question as to what
Alkibiades will do, the young man suggests that they put their heads
together (119b). This marks the completion of Alkibiades' turning around.
Alkibiades, who began the discussion annoyed and haughty has requested
Socrates' assistance in escaping his predicament. He is ready to accept
Socrates' advice. This locution (of putting their heads together) will be
echoed later by Socrates and will mark another stage of their journey
together. The central portion of the dialogue, the portion between
the two joinings of their heads, is what shall be taken up
next. Since most of the men who do the work of the polis are uneducated,
Alkibiades presumes he is assured of gaining an easy victory over them on
the basis of his natural qualities. If they were educated, he would have
to take some care with his learning, just as much training is required to
compete with athletes. But they are ignorant amateurs and should be no
challenge. Socrates launches into an exclamatory derision of this
"best of men." What he has just said is unworthy of the looks
and other resources of his. Alkibiades doesn't know what Socrates means
by this and Socrates responds that he is vexed for Alkibiades and for his
love. Alkibiades shouldn't expect this contest to be with these men here.
When Alkibiades inquires with whom his contest is to be, Socrates asks if
that is a question worthy of a man who considers himself superior.
Alkibiades wants to ascertain if Socrates is suggesting that his contest
is not with these men, the politicians of the polis . This
passage is central to the First Alkibiades . The answer implicit in Socrates'
response I deem to be far more profound than it might seem to the casual
observer. Hopefully the analysis here will support this judgement and
show as well, that this question of the contest (agon) is a paramount question
in Alkibiades' life, in the lives of all superior men, and in the quest
for the good as characterized by political philosophy. If
Alkibiades' ambition is really unworthy of him, if he thinks he ought to
strive only be be as competent as the Athenians, then Socrates is vexed
for his love. Earlier (104e) the reader was informed that Socrates would
have had to put aside his love for Alkibiades if Alkibiades proved not to
have such a high ambition. Thus Socrates was attracted to Alkibiades' striving
nature. He followed the youth about for so long because Alkibiades'
desires for power were growing. What thus differentiates Alkibiades from other
youths (such as several of those with whom Socrates is shown in the
dialogues, to have spent time) is that he has more exalted ambitions than
they. Should Socrates come to the conclusion that Alkibiades does not in fact
have this surpassing will for power, the philosopher would be forced to
put away his love for Alkibiades. Now, after some discussion, it seems
there is a possibility that Alkibiades wants only to be as great as other
politicians. Many boys wish this; Alkibiades' eros would not be
outstanding. Were this true, it would indeed be no wonder if Socrates
were vexed for his love. However, it appears that this is just
something Alkibiades has said (119c.3, 9). Socrates' love is not
released, so Alkibiades passes this, the test of Socrates' love. It is at
this point in the dialogue that one can finally discern the character of
the test. The question, really, is what constitutes a high enough
ambition. An athlete must try to find out with whom to train and fight,
for how long, how closely, and at what time (119b; 107d-108b). He
determines all of this himself; he determines, in other words, the extent
of his ambition to improve and care for himself in terms of his contest.
That with whom he fights determines how he prepares himself. The contest
is thus a standard against which to judge his achievement.
The next step appears to be obvious: for the athlete of the soul as
well as the athlete of the body, the question is with whom ought he
contest. Socrates suggests shortly that should Alkibiades' ambition be to
rule Athens, then his contest would rightly be with other rulers, namely
the Spartan kings and the Great King of Persia. Since Socrates apparently
proceeds to compare in some detail the Spartan and Persian princes'
preparations for the contest, the surface impression is that Alkibiades
really must presume his contest to be with the Persians and Spartans. The
reader remembers, however, that Alkibiades would rather die than be
limited to ruling Athens (105b-c). What is the proper contest for someone
who desires to rule the known, civilized world and to have his rule
endure beyond his own lifetime; what is the preparation requisite for
truly great politics? At this point the question of the contest assumes
an added significance. The reference cannot be any actual ruler; the
inquiry has encountered another dimension of complexity. The larger
significance is, it is suspected, connected to the earlier, discussion
about the role of the very concept of the superior man in political
philosophy, particularly in understanding the nature of man. The very
idea that a contest for which one ought to prepare oneself is with
something not actualized by men of the world (at least not in an obvious
sense since it cannot be any actual ruler) poses problems for some views
of human nature. For example, in the opinion of those who believe that
man's "nature" is simply what he actually is, or what is
"out there"; the actual men of the world and their demonstrated
range of possibilities are what indicate the nature of man. On this
view, man's nature, typically is understood to be some kind of
statistical norm. These people will agree that politics is limited by man
and thought about political things is thus limited by man's nature, but
they will not concede the necessity of looking toward the best man.
The argument to counter this position is importantly epistemological. It
is almost a surety that any specific individual will deviate from the
norm to some degree, and the difference can only be described as tending
to be higher or lower than, or more or less than, the norm. This
deviation, which is to one side or other of the norm, makes the
individual either better or worse than the norm. Thus individuals, it may
be said, can be arranged hierarchically based on their position relative
to the norm and the better. Whenever one tries to account for an
individual's hierarchical position vis a vis the norm, it is done in
terms of circumstances which limit or fail to limit his realization of
his potential. Since no one is satisfied with an explanation of a
deviation such as "that is understandable, 25% of the cases are higher
than normal," some explanation of why this individual stopped short,
or proceeded further than average is called for. 100 The implicit
understanding of the potential, or of the proper/ideal proportions, then,
is what allows for comparison between individuals. By extension, this
understanding of the potential, whether or not it is actualized, is what
provides the ability to judge between regimes or societies. The amount a
polity varies (or its best men, or its average men) from the potential is
the measure of its quality relative to other polities. The explanation of
this variation (geographic location, form of regime, economic dependency, or
other standard reasons) will be in terms of factors which limit it from
nearing, or allow it to approach nearer the goal. As it is
not uniformly better to have more and not less the normal of any
characteristic, any consistent judgement of deviation from the norm must
be made in light of the best. Indeed, it usually is, either explicitly or
implicitly. This teleological basis of comparison is the common-sensical
one, the prescientific basis of judgement. When someone is heard to
remark "what a man," one most certainly does not understand him
to be suggesting that the man in question has precisely normal
characteristics. Evaluating education provides a clear and fitting
example of how the potential, not the norm, serves as the standard for
judging. A teacher does not attempt to teach his students to conform to
the norm in literary, or mathematical ability. It would be ludicrous for
him to stop teaching mid-year, say, because the normal number of his
students reached the norm of literacy for their age. Indeed, education
itself can be seen as an attempt to exceed the norm (in the direction of
excellence) and thereby to raise it. That can only be done if there is a
standard other than the norm from which to judge the norm itself. The
superior man understands this. He competes with the best, not the norm.
As a youth he comes to know that a question central to his ambition,
or will for power is that of his proper contest. The
theoretical question of how one knows with whom to compete is very
difficult although it may (for a long time) have a straightforward
practical solution. It is at the interface between the normally accepted
solution and the search for the real answer that Alkibiades and Socrates
find themselves, here in the middle of their conversation. For most
people during part of their lives, and for many people all of their life,
the next step in one's striving, the next contestant one must face, is
relatively easy to establish. Just as a wrestler proceeds naturally from local
victory through stages toward world championship, so too does political
ambition have ready referents - up to a point. It is at that point that
Alkibiades finds himself now, no doubt partly with the help of Socrates
prodding his ambitions (e.g., 105b. ff, 105e). What had made it
relatively easy to know his contestant before were the pictures of the
best men as Alkibiades understood them, namely politically successful
men, Kyros and Xerxes (much as an ambitious wrestler usually knows that a
world championship title is held by someone in particular). Alkibiades' path
had been guided. Socrates has chosen to address Alkibiades now, perhaps
because Alkibiades' ambition is high enough that the conventional models
no longer suffice. Alkibiades is at the stage wherein he must discover
what the truly best man is, actual examples have run out. He recognizes
that he needs Socrates' help (119b); no one else has indicated that
Alkibiades' contest might take place beyond the regular sphere of
politics, with contestants other than the actual rulers of the world. But
how is he to discover the best man in order that he may compete?
This is the theoretical question of most significance to man, and
could possibly be solved in a number of ways. Within the confines of the
dialogue, however, this analysis will not move further than to
recognize both the question/ and its centrality to political philosophy.
101 To note in passing, however, there may be many other questions behind
that of the best man. There may, for example, be more than one kind of
best man, and a decision between them may involve looking at a more
prior notion of "best." At any rate, it has been shown
that it is apparently no accident that the central question in a dialogue
on the nature of man is a question by a superior youth as to his proper
contest. What is not yet understood is why a philosophic man's eros is
devoted to a youth whose erotic ambition is for great politics, a will to
power over the whole world. By means of a thinly veiled reference
to Athen's Imperial Navy, over which Alkibiades would later have full
powers as commander, Socrates attempts to illustrate to the youth the
importance of choosing and recognizing the proper contestants. Supposing, for
example, Alkibiades were intending to pilot a trireme into a sea battle,
he would view being as capable as his fellows merely a necessary
qualification. If he means to act nobly ( kalos ) for himself and his
city, he would want to so far surpass his fellows as to make them feel only
worthy enough to fight under him, not against him. It doesn't seem
fitting for a leader to be satisfied with being better than his soldiers while
neglecting the scheming and drilling necessary if his focus is the
enemy's leaders. Alkibiades asks to whom Socrates is referring and
Socrates responds with another question. Is Alkibiades unaware that their
city often wars with Sparta and the Great King? If he intends to lead
their polis, he'd correctly suppose his contest was with the
Spartan and Persian kings. His contest is not with the likes of Meidias
who retain a slavish nature and try to run the polis by flattering, not
ruling it. If he looks to that sort for his goal, then indeed he needn't
learn what's required for the greatest contest, or perform what needs
exercising, or prepare himself adequately for a political career. Alkibiades,
the best of men, has to consider the implications of believing that the
Spartan generals and the Persian kings are like all others (i.e., no
better than normal). 103 Firstly, one takes more care of oneself if one
thinks the opponents worthy, and no harm is done taking care of oneself.
Assuredly that sufficiently establishes that it is bad to hold the
opinion that they are no better than anyone else. Almost as a
second thought, Socrates turns to another criterion which might
indicate why having a certain opinion is bad - truth (cf. Republic
386c). There is another reason, he continues, namely that the
opinion is probably false. It is likely that better natures come
from well-born families where they will in the end become virtuous
in the event they are well brought up. The Spartan and Persian kings,
descended from Perseus, the son of Zeus, are to be compared with
Socrates' and Alkibiades' ancestral lines to see if they are inferior.
100 Alkibiades is quick to point out that his goes back to Zeus as well,
and Socrates adds that he comes from Zeus through Daidalos and
Hephaistos, son of Zeus. Since ancestral origin in Zeus won't
qualitatively differentiate the families, Socrates points out that in
both cases - Sparta and Persia - every step in the line was a king,
whereas both Socrates and Alkibiades (and their fathers) are private men.
The royal families seem to win the first round. The homelands of the
various families could be next compared, but it is likely that Alkibiades'
her itage, which Socrates is able to describe in detail,
would arouse laughter. In ancestry and in birth and breeding, those
people are superior, for, as Alkibiades should have observed, Spartan
kings have their wives guarded so that no one outside the line could
corrupt the queen, and the Persians have such awe for the king that no
one would dare, including the queen. With the conclusion of
Socrates' and Alkibiades' examination of the various ancestries of the
men, and before proceeding to the discussions of their births and nurtures, a
brief pause is called for to look at the general problem of descent and
the philosophic significance to have in this dialogue. References to
familial descent are diffused throughout the First Alkibiades . It begins
by calling attention to Alkibiades' ancestry and five times in the
dialogue is he referred to as the son of Kleinias. On two occasions he is even
addressed as the son of Deinomakhe. If that weren't enough, this
dialogue marks one of only two occasions on which Socrates' mother, the
midwife Phainarete, is named (cf. Theaitetos 149a). The central of the
things on which Socrates said Alkibiades prides himself is his family,
and Socrates scrutinizes it at the greatest length. The sons of
Perikles are mentioned, as are other familial relations such as the
brother of Alkibiades. The lineages of the Persian kings, of the Spartan
kings, of Alkibiades and Socrates are probed, and Socrates reveals that
he has bothered to learn and to repeat the details. The mothers of the
Persian kings and Spartan kings are given an important role in the
dialogue, and in general the question of ancestry is noticeably dominant,
warranting the reader's exploration. As already discussed in
the beginning, the reference to Alkibiades' descent might have
philosophic significance in the dialogue. Here again, the context of the
concern about descent is explicitly the consideration of the natures of
men. Better natures usually come from better ancestors (as long as they
also have good nurtures). At the time of birth, an individual's ancestry
is almost the only indication of his nature, the most important exception
being, of course, his sex. But, as suggested by Socrates' inclusion of
the proviso that they be well brought up (120e), a final account of man's
nature must look to ends not only origins, and to his nurture, not only
descent. Nurture ( paideia) is intended to mean a comprehensive sense of
education, including much more than formal schooling; indeed, it suggests
virtually everything that affects one's upbringing. The importance of this
facet in the development of a man's nature becomes more obvious when one
remembers the different characteristics of offspring of the same family (e.g.,
Kleinias and Alkibiades, both sons of Kleinias and Deinomakhe, or the
sons of Ariston participating in the Republic ). These suggestions, added
to the already remarked upon importance of nurture in a man's life,
mutually support the contention that nature is to be understood in terms
of a fulfilled end providing a standard for nurture. The nature of man,
if it is to be understood in terms of a telos, his fulfilled potential,
must be more than that which he is born as. An individual's nature, then,
is a function of his descent and his nurture. Often they are
supplementary, at least superficially; better families being better educated,
they are that much more aware and concerned with the nurture of their
offspring. 'Human nature' would be distinguished from any individual's
nature in so far as it obviously does not undergo nurture; but if
properly understood, it provides the standard for the nurture of individuals.
To the point of birth, then, ancestry is the decisive feature in a man's
nature, and thus sets limits on his nature. When his life begins, that
turns around, and education and practice become the key foci for a man's
development. After birth a man cannot alter his ancestry, and nurture
assumes its role in shaping his being, his nature. The
issue is addressed in a rather puzzling way by Socrates' claim that
his ancestry goes through Daidalos to Hephaistos, the son of Zeus.
This serves to establish (as authoritatively as in the case of the
others) that he is well-born. It does nothing to counter
Alkibiades' claim that he, like the Persian and Spartan kings, is
descended from Zeus (all of them claiming descent from the king of
the Olympians); in other words, it does not appear to serve a
purpose in the explicit argument and the reader is drawn to wonder
why he says it. Upon examination one discovers that this is not the
regular story. Normally in accounts of the myths, the paternal heritage of
Hephaistos is ambiguous at best . Hesiod relates that Hephaistos
was born from Hera 109 with no consort. Hera did not
mate with a man; Haphaistos had no father. 1 '*’ 0 Socrates thus
descends from a line begun by a woman - the queen of the heavens, the
goddess of marriage and childbirth (cf. Theaitetos; Statesman). By
mentioning Hephaistos as an ancestor, Socrates is drawing attention to
the feminine aspect of his lineage. An understanding of the feminine is
crucial to an account of human nature. The male/female division is the
most fundamental one for mankind, rendering humans into two groups (cf.
Symposium 190d-192d). The sexes and their attraction to each other provide
the most basic illustration of eros, perhaps man's most powerful (as well
as his most problematic) drive or passion. Other considerations include
the female role in the early nurture of children (Republic 450c) and thus
the certain, if indirect effect of sex on the polls (it is not even
necessary to add the suspicions about a more subtle part for femininity
reserved in the natures of some superior men, the philosophers). Given
this, it is quite possible that Socrates is suggesting the importance of the
male/female division in his employment of 'descent' as an extended
philosophic metaphor for human nature. A brief digression
concerning Hephaistos and Daidalos may be useful at this point. Daidalos was a
legendary ingenious craftsman, inventor and sculptor (famous for his animate
sculptures). He is said to have slain an apprentice who showed enough
promise to threaten Daidalos' supremacy, and he fled to Krete. In Krete
he devised a hollow wooden cow which allowed the queen to mate with a
bull. The offspring was the Minotaur. Daidalos constructed the famous
labyrinth into which select Athenian youths were led annually, eventually
to be devoured by the Minotaur. ^ Daidalos, however, was suspected of supplying
the youth Theseus (soon to become a great political founder) with a means
to exit from the maze and was jailed with his son Ikaros. A well known
legend tells of their flight. Minos, the Kretan king was eventually
killed in his pursuit of Daidalos. Hephaistos was the divine
and remarkably gifted craftsman of the Olympians, himself one of the
twelve major gods. Cast from the heavens as an infant, Hephaistos
remained crippled. He was, as far as can be told, the only Olympian deity
who was not of surpassingly beautiful physical form. It is interesting
that Socrates would claim descent from him. Hephaistos was noted as a
master craftsman and manufactured many wondrous things for the gods and
heroes. His most remarkable work might have been that of constructing the
articles for the defence of the noted warrior, Akhilleus, the most famous
of which was the shield (Homer, Iliad). The next topic
discussed in this, the longest speech in the dialogue, is the nurture of
the Persian youths. Subsequently Socrates discourses about Spartan
and Persian wealth and he considers various possible reactions to
Alkibiades' contest with the young leaders of both countries. The
account Socrates presents raises questions as to his possible
intentions. It is quite likely that Socrates and Xenaphon, who also
gives an account of the nurture of the Persian prince, have more in
mind than mere interesting description. Their interpretations and
presentations of the subject differ too markedly for their purposes to have
been simply to report the way of life in another country. Thus,
rather than worry over matters of historical accuracy, the more
curious features of Socrates' account will be considered, such as the
relative emphasis on wealth over qualities of soul, and the rather
lengthy speculation about the queens', not the kings', regard for their
sons. In pointed contrast to the Athenians, of whose births
the neighbors do not even hear, when the heir to the Persian throne
is born the first festivities take place within the palace and from then
on all of Asia celebrates his birthday. The young child is cared for
by the best of the king's eunuchs, instead of an insignificant nurse,
and he is highly honored for shaping the limbs of the body. Until the
boy is perhaps seven years old, then, his attendant is not a woman who
would provide a motherly kind of care, nor a man who would provide an
example of masculinity and manliness, but a neutered person. The manly
Alkibiades, as well as the reader, might well wonder as to the effect
this would have on the boy, and whether it is the intended effect.
At the age of seven the boys learn to ride horses and commence
to hunt. This physical activity, it seems, continues until the age of fourteen
when four of the most esteemed Persians become the boys' tutors.
They represent four of the virtues, being severally wise, just,
temperate, and courageous. The teaching of piety is conducted by the
wisest tutor of the four (which certainly allows for a number of
interesting possibilities) . He instructs the youth in the religion of
Zoroaster, or in the worship of the gods, and he teaches the boy that
which pertains to a king - certainly an impressive task. The just tutor
teaches him to be completely truthful (122a); the temperate tutor to be
king and free man overall of the pleasures and not to be a slave to
anyone, and the brave tutor trains him to be unafraid, for fear is
slavery. Alkibiades had instead an old (and therefore otherwise domestically
useless) servant to be his tutor. Socrates suspends
discussion of the nurture of Alkibiades' competitors. It would promise to
be a long description and too much of a task (122b). He professes that
what he has already reported should suggest what follows. Thereby
Socrates challenges the reader to examine the manner in which this
seemingly too brief description of nurture at least indicates what a
complete account might entail. This appears to be the point in the
dialogue which provides the most fitting opportunity to explicitly and
comprehensively consider nurture. It has become clear to Socrates and
Alkibiades that the correct nurture is essential to the greatest contest,
and Socrates leaves Alkibiades (and the reader) with the impression that
he regards the Persian nurture to be appropriate. One might thus presume
that an examination of Persian practices would make apparent the more
important philosophical questions about nurture. Socrates had been
specific in noticing the subjects of instruction received by Alkibiades
(106e), and the reader might follow likewise in observing the lessons of
the Persian princes. On the face of it, Socrates provides more detail
regarding this aspect of their nurture than others, so it might be
prudent to begin by reflecting upon the teaching of religion and kingly
things, of truth-telling, of mastering pleasures, and of mastering fears.
Perhaps the Persian system indicates how these virtues are properly seen
as one, or how they are arranged together, for one suspects that conflicts
might normally arise in their transmission. These subjects are being
taught by separate masters. A consistent nurture demands that they are
all compatible, or that they can agree upon some way of deciding
differences. If the four tutors can all recognize that one of them ought
to command, this would seem to imply that wisdom somehow encompasses all other
virtues. In that case, the attendance of the one wise man would appear to
be the most desirable in the education of a young man. The wise man's
possession of the gamut of virtues would supply the prince with a model
of how they properly fit together. Without a recognized hierarchy, there might
be conflicts between the virtues. Indeed, as the reader has had occasion
to observe in an earlier context of the dialogue, two of the substantive
things taught by two different tutors may conflict strongly. There are
times when a king ought not to be honest. The teacher of justice then
would be suggesting things at odds with that which pertains to a king.
How would the boys know which advice to choose, independently of any
other instruction? In addition, Socrates suggests that the bravest
Persian (literally the 'manliest') tells or teaches the youth to fear
nothing, for any fear is slavery. But surely the expertise of the
tutor of courage would seem to consist in his knowing what to fear and what not
to fear. Otherwise the youth would not become courageous but reckless.
Not all fears indicate that one is a slave: any good man should run out
of the way of a herd of stampeding cattle, an experienced mountain
climber is properly wary of crumbling rock, and even brave swimmers ought
to remain well clear of whirlpools. For this to be taught it appears that
the courageous tutor would have to be in agreement with the tutor of
wisdom. These sorts of difficulties seem to be perennial, and a system of
nurture which can overcome them would provide a fine model, it seems, for
education into virtues. If the Persian tutors could indeed show the
virtues to be harmonious, it would be of considerable benefit to
Alkibiades to understand precisely how it is accomplished. The
question of what is to be taught leads readily to a consideration of how to
determine who is to teach. The problem of ascertaining the competence of
teachers seems to be a continuing one (as the reader of this dialogue has
several occasions to observe - e.g., llOe, ff.). But besides their public
reputation there is no indication of the criteria employed in the
selection of the Persian tutors. To this point in the dialogue, two
criteria have been acknowledged as establishing qualification for teaching (or
for the knowledge requisite for teaching). Agreement between teachers on their
subject matter (lllb-c) is important for determining who is a proper
instructor, as is a man's ability to refer to knowledgeable students
(118d). As has already been indicated, both of these present interesting
difficulties. Neither, however, is clearly or obviously applicable to the
Persian situation. The present king might prove to be the only student to
whom they can point (in which case they may be as old as Zopyros) and he
might well be the only one in a position to agree with them. It is
conceivable that some kinds of knowledge are of such difficulty that one
cannot expect too many people to agree. If the Persians have indeed
solved the problems of choosing tutors, and of reconciling public reputation
for virtue with actual possession of virtue, they have overcome what
appears to be a most persistent difficulty regarding human nurture.
Another issue which surfaces in Socrates' short account of the
Persian educational system is that of the correct age to begin such
nurture. Education to manhood begins at about the age of puberty for the
prince. If the virtues are not already quite entrenched in his habits or
thoughts (in which latter case he would have needed another source of
instruction besides the tutors - as perhaps one might say the Iliad and
Odyssey provide for Athenian youths such as Alkibiades), it is doubtful
that they could be inculcated at the age of fourteen. Socrates is
completely silent about the Persians' prior education to virtue, disclosing
only that they began riding horses and participating in "the
hunt." Since both of those activities demand some presence of mind,
one may presume that early Persian education was not neglected.
This earliest phase of education is of the utmost importance, however,
for if the boy had been a coward for fourteen years, one might suspect
tutoring by a man at that point would not likely make him manly. And to
make temperate a lad accustomed to indulgence would be exceedingly
difficult. Forcibly restricting his consumption would not have a lasting
effect unless there were some thing to draw upon within the understanding of
the boy, but Socrates supplies Alkibiades with no hint as to what that
might be. Presently the young man will be reminded of Aesop's fables and
the various stories that children hear. If, in order to qualify as
proper nurturing, such activities as children participate in - e.g., music
and gymnastics - ought to be carried out in a certain mode or with
certain rules (cf. Republic), Socrates gives no indication of their
manner here. Unless stories and activities build a respect for piety and
justice, and the like, it is not obvious that the respect will be
developed when someone is in his mid-teens. It would seem difficult, if
not impossible, to erase years of improper musical and gymnastic
education. Socrates remains distressingly silent about so very much of
the Persian (or proper) method of preparing young men for the great
contest. The only one who would care about Alkibiades 1 birth,
nurture or education, would be some chance lover he happened to have,
Socrates says in reference to his seemingly unique interest in
Alkibiades' nature. He concludes what was presumably the account of the
education of the Persian princes, intimating that Alkibiades would be
shamed by a comparison of the wealth, luxury, robes and various
refinements of the Persians. It is odd that he would mention such items
in the context immediately following the list of subjects the tutors were
to teach in the education of the soul of the king - including the
complete mastery of all pleasure. It is even more curious that he would
deign to mention these in the context of making Alkibiades sensitive to
what was required for his preparation for his proper contest. The
historical Alkibiades, it seems, would not be so insensitive to these
luxuries as to need reminding of them, and the dialogue to this point has not
given any indication that these things of the body are important to the
training Alkibiades needs by way of preparing for politics. The fact that
Socrates expressly asserts that Alkibiades would be ashamed at having
less of those things corroborates the suggestion that more is going on in
this long speech than is obvious at the surface. Briefly, and
in a manner that doesn't appear to make qualities of soul too appealing,
Socrates lists eleven excellences of the Spartans: temperance,
orderliness, readiness, easily contented, great-mindedness,
well-orderedness, manliness, patient endurance, labor loving, contest
loving and honor loving. Socrates neither described these glowingly, nor
explains how the Spartans come to possess them. He merely lists them.
Then, interestingly, he remarks that Alkibiades in comparison is a child
. He does not say that Alkibiades would be ashamed, or that he would
lose, but that he had somehow not yet attained them. Like some children
presumably, he may have the potential to grow into them if they are part
of the best nature. There is no implication, then, that Alkibiades'
nature is fundamentally lacking in any of these virtues, and this is of
special interest to the reader given the more or less general agreement,
even during his lifetime, as to his wantonness. Socrates here suggests
that Alkibiades is like a child with respect to the best
nature. This part of Socrates' speech reveals two possible
alternatives to the Persian education, alternatives compatible with the
acquisition of virtue. A Spartan nurture was successful in giving
Spartans the set of virtues Socrates listed. Since Alkibiades obviously
cannot regain the innocence necessary to benefit from early disciplined
habituation, and since Socrates nevertheless understands him to be able
to grow into virtue in some sense, there must be another way open to him.
This twenty year old "child" has had some early exposure to
virtue, at least through poetry, and perhaps it is through this youthful
persuasion that Socrates will aid him in his education. Indeed Socrates
appeals often to his sense of the honorable and noble - which is related
to virtue even if improperly understood by Alkibiades. As the dialogue
proceeds from this point/ Socrates appears to be importantly concerned
with making Alkibiades virtuous through philosophy. He is trying to
persuade Alkibiades to let his reason rule him in his life, most
importantly in his desire to know himself. Perhaps, on this account, one
might acquire virtue in two ways, a Spartan nurture, for example, and
through philosophy. Again, however, Socrates stops before he has
said everything he might have said, and turns to the subject of wealth.
In fact, Scorates claims that he must not keep silent with regard to
riches if Alkibiades thinks about them at all. Thus, according to
Socrates, not only is it not strange to turn from the soul to wealth, but
it is even appropriate. Socrates must attest to the riches of Spartans,
who in land and slaves and horses and herds far outdo any estate in
Athens, and he most especially needs to report on the wealth of gold and
silver privately held in Lakedaimon. As proof for this assertion, which
certainly runs counter to almost anyone's notion of Spartan life,
Socrates uses a fable within this fabulous story. Socrates
assumes Alkibiades has learned Aesop's fables - somehow - for without
supplying any other details he simply mentions that there are many tracks
of wealth going into Sparta and none coming out. In order to explain
Socrates' otherwise cryptic remarks, the children's fable will be
recounted. Aesop's story concerns an old lion who must eat by his wits
because he can no longer hunt or fight. He lies in a cave pretending to
be ill and when any animals visit him he devours them. A fox eventually
happens by, but seeing through the ruse he remains outside the cave.
When ths lion asks why he doesn't come in, the fox responds that he sees
too many tracks entering the cave and none leaving it. The
lion and the fox represent the classic confrontation between power and
knowledge. 114 One notices that in the fable the animals generally
believe an opinion that proves to be a fatal mistake. The fox doesn't. He
avoids the error. The implication is that Socrates and Alkibiades have
avoided an important mistake that the rest of the Greeks have made. One
can only speculate on what it is precisely. They seem to be the only ones
aware of one of Sparta's qualities, a quality which, oddly, is in some
sense essential to Alkibiades' contest. Perhaps Socrates' use of the
fable merely suggests that erroneous opinions about the nature of one's
true contestant may prove fatal, but there may be more to it than
that. This fable fittingly appears in the broad context of
nurture; myths and fables are generally recognized for their pedagogic
value. Any metaphoric connection this fable brings to mind with the more
famous Allegory of the Cave in Plato's Republic will necessarily be
speculative. But they are not altogether out of place. The cave, in a
sense, represents the condition of most people's nurtures and thus
represents a fitting setting for a fable related in this dialogue. Given
Socrates' fears of what will happen to Alkibiades (132a, 135e) and
Alkibiades' own concern for the demos, the suggested image of people
(otherwise fit enough to be outside) being enticed into the cave and
unable to leave it might be appropriate. At any rate, in
terms of the argument for Sparta's wealth, this evidence does nothing to
show that the wealth is privately held. It is apparent, after all, that
the evidence indicates gold is pouring into Spsi’ts. from all over
Greece, but not coining' out of the country, whereas Socrates seems to
interpret this as private, not public wealth. Perhaps the reader may
infer from this that a difference between city and man is being subtly
implied. Socrates is suggesting that wealth is an important part of the
contest, and yet he includes himself in the contest at a number of
points. This rather inconclusive and ambiguous reference to the wealth of
Sparta and the Spartans might suggest that the difference between the
city and man regarding riches, may be that great wealth is good for a
city (for example, as Thucydides observes, wealth facilitates warmaking),
and is thus something a ruler should know how to acquire - but not so
good for an individual. Socrates' next statement supports this
interpretation. A king's being wealthy might not mean that he uses it
privately. Socrates informs Alkibiades that the king possesses the most
wealth of any Spartans for there is a special tribute to him (123a- b) .
In any case, however great the Spartan fortunes appear compared with the
fortunes of other Greeks, they are a mere pittance next to the Persian
king's treasures. Socrates was told this himself by a trustworthy person
who gathered his information by travelling and finding out what the local
inhabitants said. Socrates treats this as valuable information, yet
which, given his chosen way of life, he couldn't have acquired
firsthand. Large tracts of land are reserved for adorning the
Persian queen with clothes, individual items having land specially set
aside for them. There were fertile regions known as the "king's
wife's girdle," veil, etc.Certainly an indication of wealth, it also
seems to suggest a wanton luxury, especially on the part of women (and
which men flatter with gifts). Returning to the supposed
contest between Alkibiades and the Spartan and the Persian kings, Socrates
adopts a very curious framework for the bulk of the remainder of this
discourse. He continues in terms of the thoughts of the mother of the
king and proceeds as though she were, in part, in a dialogue with
Alkibiades 1 mother, Deinomakhe. If she found out that the son of
Deinomakhe was challenging her son, the king's mother, Amestris, would
wonder on what Alkibiades could be trusting. The manner in which Socrates
has the challenge introduced to Amestris does not reveal either of the
men's names. Only their mothers are referred to - and the cost of the
mothers' apparel seems to be as important to the challenge or contest as
the size of the sons' estates. Only after he is told that the barbarian
queen is wondering does the reader find out that her son's name is
Artaxerxes and that she is aware that it is Alkibiades who is
challenging her son. She might well have been completely ignorant of the
existence of Deinomakhe's family, or she may have thought it was
Kleinias, the madman (118e), who was the son involved. Since there is no
contest with regards to wealth - either in land or clothing - Alkibiades
must be relying on his industry and wisdom - the only thing the Greeks
have of any worth. Perhaps because she is a barbarian, or because
of some inability on her part, or maybe some subtlety of the Greeks, she
doesn't recognize the Greeks' speaking ability as one of their greatest
accomplishments. Indeed, both in the dialogue and historically, it was
his speaking ability on which Alkibiades was to concentrate much of his
effort, and through which he achieved many of his triumphs. Greeks in
general and Athenians in particular spent much time cultivating the art
of speaking. Sophists and rhetoricians abounded. Rhapsodists and actors
took part in the many dramatic festivals at Athens. Orators and
politicians addressed crowds of people almost daily Cor so it
seems). Socrates continues. If she were to be informed (with
reference to Alkibiades' wisdom and industriousness) that he was not yet
twenty, and was utterly uneducated, and further, was quite satisfied with
himself and refused his lover's suggestion to learn, take care of himself and
exercise his habits before he entered a contest with the king, she would
again be full of wonder. She would ask to what the youth could appeal and
would conclude Socrates and Alkibiades (and Deinomakhe) were mad if they
thought he could contend with her son in beauty ( kalos ), stature,
birth, wealth, and the nature of his soul (123e). The last quality, the
nature of the soul, has the most direct bearing on the theme of the
dialogue, and as the reader remembers, is the promised but not previously
included part of the list of reasons for Alkibiades' high opinion of
himself (104a. ff.). Since it is also the most difficult to evaluate, one
might reasonably wonder what authority Amestris' judgement commands. It
is feasible for the reader to suspect that this is simply Socrates'
reminder that a mother generally favors her own son. But perhaps her
position and experience as wife and mother to kings enables her in some
sense to judge souls. Lampido, another woman, the daughter,
wife and mother of three different kings, would also wonder, Socrates
proposes, at Alkibiades' desire to contest with her son, despite his
comparatively ignoble ( kakos ) upbringing. Socrates closes the
discussion with the mothers of kings by asking Alkibiades if it is not
shameful that the mothers and wives (literally, "the women belonging
to the kings ) of their enemies have a better notion than they of the qualities
necessary for a person who wants to contend with them. The
problem of understanding human nature includes centrally the problem of
understanding sex and the differences between men and women. Thus
political philosophy necessarily addresses these matters. Half of a polity
is made up of women and the correct ordering of a polity requires that women,
as well as men, do what is appropriate. However, discovering the truth
about the sexes is not simple in any event, partly at least because of
one's exclusion from personal knowledge about the other sex; and it has
become an arduous task to gather honest opinions from which to begin
reflecting. The discussion of women in this central portion of the
dialogue is invested with political significance by what is explored
later regarding the respective tasks of men and women (e.g., 126e-127b).
Before proceeding to study the rest of this long speech, it may be useful
to briefly sketch two problem areas. Firstly the outline of some of
the range of philosophic alternatives presented by mankind's division
into two sexes will be roughly traced out. This will foreshadow the
later discussion of the work appropriate to the sexes. Secondly, a
suggestion shall be ventured as to one aspect of how 'wonder' and
philosophy may be properly understood to have a feminine element - an
aspect that is connected to a very important theme of this dialogue.
Thus, in order to dispel some of the confusion before returning to
the dialogue, the division of the sexes may imply, in terms of an
understanding of human nature, that there is either one ideal that both
sexes strive towards, or there is more than one. If there is one goal or
end, it might be either the 'feminine,' the 'masculine, a combination of the
traits of both sexes, or a transcendent "humanness" that rises
above sexuality. The first may be dismissed unless one is willing to posit
that everything is "out-of-whack" in nature and all the wrong people
have been doing great human deeds. Traditionally, the dominant opinion has
implicitly been that the characteristics of 'human' are for the most part
those called 'masculine', or that males typically embody these
characteristics to a greater extent. Should this be correct, then one may
be warranted in considering nature simply "unfair" in making
half of the people significantly weaker and less able to attain those
characteristics. Should the single ideal for both sexes be a combination of
the characteristics of both sexes, still other difficulties arise. A
normal understanding of masculine and feminine refers to traits that are
quite distinct; those who most combine the traits, or strike a mean,
appear to be those who are most sexually confused. The other
possibility mentioned was that there be two (or more) sets of
characteristics - one for man and one for woman. The difficulty with this
alternative is unlike the difficulties encountered in the one- model
proposal. One problem with having an ideal for each sex, or even with
identifying some human characteristics more with one sex than the other,
is that all of the philosophic questions regarding the fitting place of
each sex still remain to be considered. Some version of this latter
alternative seems to be endorsed later in the First Alkibiades
(126e-127b). There it is agreed £md agreement frequently is the most
easily met of the suggested possible criteria of knowledge mentioned in
the dialogue) that there are separate jobs for men and women.
Accordingly, men and women are said to be rightly unable to understand
each other's jobs and thus cannot agree on matters surrounding those
jobs. One of the implications of this, however, unmentioned by
either Socrates or Alkibiades, is that women therefore ought not to
nurture young sons. A woman does not and cannot grasp what it is to be a
man and to have manly virtue. Thus they cannot raise manly boys.
However, this is contrary to common sense. One would think that if there
was any task for which a woman should be suited (even if it demands more
care than is often believed) it would be motherhood. Because of this a
mother would have to learn a man's business if she would bear great sons.
At this point the problems of the surface account of the First
Alkibiades become apparent to even the least reflective reader.
If it is the same task, or if the same body of knowledge (or
opinion) is necessary for being a great man as for raising a great man,
then at least in one case the subjects of study for men and women are not
exclusive. Women dominate the young lives of children. They must be able
to turn a boy's ambitions and desires in the proper direction until the
menfolk take over. Since it would pose practical problems for her to
attempt to do so in deed, she must proceed primarily through speech, including
judicious praise and blame, and that is why the fables and myths women
relate ought to be of great concern to the men (cf. for example.
Republic). If, on the other hand, it requires completely different knowledge to
raise great sons than it does to be great men, then men, by the argument
of the dialogue should not expect to know women's work. If this is
the proper philosophic conclusion the reader is to reach, then it is not so
obviously disgraceful for the womenfolk to know better than Socrates and
Alkibiades what it takes to enter the contest (124a). The disgrace, it
seems, would consist in being unable to see the contradictions in the surface
account of the First Alkibiades, and thus not being in a position to
accept its invitation to delve deeper into the problem of human
nature. At this point a speculation may be ventured as to why, in
this dialogue, wonder takes on a feminine expression, and why
elsewhere. Philosophy herself is described as feiminine Ce.g., Republic
495-b-c, 536c, 495e; Gorgias 482a; cf. also Letter VII 328e,
Republic 499c-d, 548b-c, 607b). One might say that a woman's
secretiveness enhances her seductiveness. Women are concerned with
appearance (cf. 123c; the very apparel of the mothers of great sons
is catalogued) . Philosophy and women may be more alluring when
disclosure ("disclothesure") of their innermost selves requires
a certain persistence on the part of their suitors. Philosophy in its
most beguiling expression is woman-like. When subtle and hidden,
its mystery enhances its attractiveness. Perhaps it will be suggested -
perhaps for great men to be drawn to philosophy she must adopt a feminine
mode of expression, in addition to the promise of a greater power; if
viewed as a goddess she must be veiled, not wholly naked. To
further explore the analogue in terms of expression, one notices that
women are cautious of themselves and protective of their own. They are
aware, and often pass this awareness on to men that in some circles they
must be addressed or adorned in a certain manner in order to avoid
ridicule and appear respectable. As well, a woman's protection of her
young is expected. Philosophy, properly expressed, should be careful to
avoid harming the innocent; and a truly political philosopher should be
protective of those who will not benefit from knowing the truth. If the
truth is disruptive to the community, for example, he should be most
reluctant to announce it publicly. The liberal notion that every truth is
to be shared by all might be seen to defeminize philosophy. Women, too in
speech will lie and dissemble to protect their own; in deed, they are
more courageous in retreat, able to bear the loss of much in order to
ensure the integrity of that of which they are certain is of most
importance. Political philosophy is not only philosophy about politics; it
is doing (or at least expressing) all of one's philosophizing in a
politic way. Its expression would be "feminine." This
suggestion at least appears to square with the role of women in the
dialogue. It accounts for the mothers' lively concern over the welfare
and status of the powerful; it provides a possible understanding of how the 'masculine'
and 'feminine' may have complementary tasks; it connects the female
to 'wonder'; it lets the reader see the enormous significance of speech
to politics; it reminds one of the power of eros as a factor in
philosophy, in politics, in Socrates' attraction to Alkibiades, and in
man's attraction to philosophy; it helps to explain why both lines of
descent, the maternal as well as the paternal, are emphasized in the
cases of the man coveting power and the man seeking knowledge. Through
the very expression of either, politics and philosophy become
interconnected. Socrates addresses Alkibiades as a blessed man and
tells him to attend him and the Delphic inscription, "know
thyself." These people (presumably Socrates is referring to the
enemy, with whose wives they were speaking; however, the analysis has
indicated why the referent is left ambiguous: there is a deeper sense of
'contest' here than war with Persians and Spartans) are Socrates' and Alkibiades'
competitors, not those whom Alkibiades thinks. Only industriousness and
techne will give them ascendancy over their real competitors. Alkibiades
will fail in achieving a reputation among Greeks and barbarians if he
lacks those qualities. And Socrates can see that Alkibiades desires that
reputation more than anyone else ever loved anything. The
reader may have noticed that the two qualities Socrates mentions are very
similar to the qualities of the Greeks mentioned by the barbarian queen
above. Socrates is implicitly raising the Greeks above the barbarians by
making the Greek qualities the most important, and he diminishes the
significance of their victory in terms of wealth and land. He thus
simultaneously indicts them on two counts. They do not recognize that
Alkibiades is their big challenge, sothey are in the disgraceful
condition of which Alkibiades was accused, namely not having an eye to their
enemies but to their fellows. By raising the Greek virtues above
the barbarian qualities, Socrates throws yet more doubt on the view that
they are indeed the proper contestants for Alkibiades. It is interesting
that the barbarian queen knew or believed these were the Greek's
qualities but she did not correctly estimate their importance.
Another wonderful feature of this longest speech in the First
Alkibiades is the last line: "I believe you are more desirous of it
than anyone else is of anything," (124b). Socrates ascribes to
Alkibiades an extreme eros . It may even be a stranger erotic attraction
or will to power than that marked by Socrates' eros for Alkibiades. But
the philosopher wants to help and is able to see Alkibiades' will.
Socrates even includes himself in the contest. Socrates is indeed a
curious man. So ends the longest speech in the dialogue.
Alkibiades agrees. He wants that. Socrates' speech seems very true.
Alkibiades has been impressed with Socrates' big thoughts about politics,
for Socrates had indicated that he is familiar enough with the greatest
foreign political powers to make plausible/credible his implicit is* orf or
explicit criticism of them. Socrates has also tacitly approved of
Alkibiades 1 ambitions to rule not only Athens, but an empire over the
known world. Alkibiades must be impressed with this sentiment in
democratic Athens. In addition to all this, Socrates has hinted to the
youth that there is something yet bigger. Alkibiades requests Socrates'
assistance and will do whatever Socrates wants. He begs to know what is
the proper care he must take of himself. Socrates echoes
Alkibiades' sentiment that they must put their heads together
(124c; cf. 119b). This is an off-quoted line from Homer's Iliad. In the
Iliad the decision had been made- that information must be attained
from and about the Trojans by spying on their camp. The brave warrior,
Diomedes, volunteered to go, and asked the wily Odysseus to accompany
him. Two heads were better than one and the best wits of all the Greek
heroes were the wits of Odysseus. Diomedes recognized this and suggested
they put their heads together as they proceed to trail the enemy to their
camp, enter it and hunt for information necessary to an Akhaian
victory. Needless to say, the parallels between the Homeric
account, the situation between Alkibiades and Socrates, and the Aesopian
fable, are intriguing. When Alkibiades uttered these lines previously, it
was appropriate in that he requested the philosopher (the cunning man) to
go with him. Alkibiades and Socrates, like Diomedes and Odysseus,
must enter the camp of the enemy to see what they were up against in
this contest of contests, so to speak. Alkibiades, assuming the role of
Diomedes, in a sense initiated the foray although an older, wiser man had
supplied the occasion for it. Alkibiades had to be made to request
Socrates' assistance. The part of the dialogue following Alkibiades's quoting
of Homer was a discussion of the contest of the superior man and
ostensibly an examination of the elements of the contest. They thoroughly
examined the enemy in an attempt to understand the very nature of this
most important challenge. This time, however, the wilier one
(Socrates/Odysseus) is asking Alkibiades/Diomedes to join heads with him.
The first use of the quote served to establish the importance of its link
to power and knowledge. The second mention of the quote is perhaps
intended to point to a consideration of the interconnectedness of power and
knowledge. In what way do power and knowledge need each other? What draws
Socrates and Alkibiades together? The modern reader, unlike
the Athenian reader, might find an example from Plato more helpful
than one from Homer. Some of the elements of the relationship are
vividly displayed in the drama of the opening passages of the
Republic . The messenger boy runs between the many strong and the few 120
... wise. His role is similar to that of the auxiliary class of
the dialogue but is substantively reversed. Although he is the
go-between who carries the orders of one group to the other and has the
ability to use physical means to execute those orders (he causes Socrates
literally to "turn around," and he takes hold of Socrates'
cloak), he is carrying orders from those fit to be ruled to those fit to
rule. What is especially interesting is the significance of these opening lines
for the themes of the First Alkibiades . The first speaker in the
Republic provides the connection between the powerful and the wise . And he
speaks to effect their halt. There has to be a compromise between those
who know but are fewer in number, and those who are stronger and more
numer ous but are unwise. The slave introduces the problem of the
competing claims to rule despite the fact that he has been conventionally
stripped of his. Polemarkhos, on behalf of the many (which
includes a son of Ariston) uses number and strength as his claims over
the actions of Socrates and Glaukon. Socrates suggests that speech opens
up one other possibility. Perhaps the Few could persuade the Many. He
does not suggest that the many use speech to persuade the few to remain
(although this is what in fact happens when Adeimantos appeals to the
novelty of a torch race). Polemarkhos asks "could you really
persuade if we don't listen?" and by that he indicates a limit to
the power of speech. Later in the dialogue it is interesting that
the two potential rulers of the evening's discussion, Thrasymakhos and
Socrates, seem to fight it out with words or at least have a contest. The
general problem of the proper relation between strength and wisdom might
be helpfully illuminated by close examination of examples such as those
drawn from the Republic, the Iliad and Aesop's fable. In any
event, Socrates and Alkibiades must again join heads. Presumably, the reader
may infer, the examination of the Spartans and Persians was insufficient.
(That was suspected from the outset because Alkibiades would rather die
than be limited to Athens. Sparta and Persia would be the proper contestants
for someone intending only to rule Europe.) Perhaps they will now set out to
discover the real enemy, the true contestant. The remainder of the
dialogue, in a sense, is a discussion of how to combat ignorance of oneself.
One might suggest that this is, in a crucial sense, the enemy of which
Alkibiades is as yet not fully aware. Socrates, by switching his
position with Alkibiades vis-a-vis the guote, reminds the reader that
Odysseus was no slouch at courage and that Diomedes was no fool. It also
foreshadows the switch in their roles made explicit at the end of the
dialogue. But even more importantly, Socrates tells Alkibiades that he is
in the same position as Alkibiades. He needs to take proper care of
himself too, and requires education. His case is identical to Alkibiades'
except in one respect. Alkibiades' guardian Perikles is not as good as
Socrates' guardian god, who until now guarded Socrates against talking
with Alkibiades. Trusting his guardian, Socrates is led to say that
Alkibiades will not be able to achieve his ambitions except through
Socrates. This rather enigmatic passage of the First Alkibiades
(124c) seems to reveal yet another aspect of the relation between
knowledge and power. If language is central to understanding knowledge
and power, it is thus instructive about the essential difference, if
there is one, between men who want power and men who want knowledge.
Socrates says that his guardian (presumably the daimon or god, 103a-b,
105e), who would not let him waste words (105e) is essentially what makes
his case different than that of Alkibiades. In response to Alkibiades'
question, Socrates only emphasizes that his guardian is better than
Perikles, Alkibiades' guardian, possibly because it kept him silent until
this day. Is Socrates perhaps essentially different from Alkibiades
because he knows when to be silent? The reader is aware that according to
most people, Socrates and Alkibiades would seem to differ on all
important grounds. Their looks, family, wealth and various other features
of their lives are in marked contrast. Socrates, however, disregards them
totally, and fastens his attention on his guardian. And the only thing
the reader knows about his guardian is that it affects Socrates'
speech. Socrates claims that because he trusts in the god he is
able to say (he does not sense opposition to his saying) that Alkibiades
needs Socrates. To this Alkibiades retorts that Socrates is jesting
or playing like a child. Not only may one wonder what is being
referred to as a 121 jest, but one notices that Socrates
surprisingly acknowledges that maybe he is. He asserts, at any
rate, he is speaking truly when he remarks that they need to take care of
themselves - all men do, but they in particular must. Socrates thereby
firmly situates himself and Alkibiades above the common lot of men. He
also implies that the higher, not the lower, is deserving of extra care.
Needless to say, the notion that more effort is to be spent on making the
best men even better is quite at odds with modern liberal views.
Alkibiades agrees, recognizing the need on his part, and Socrates
joins in fearing he also requires care. The answer for the comrades
demands that there be no giving up or softening on their part. It would
not befit them to relinquish any determination. They desire to become as
accomplished as possible in the virtue that is the aim of men who are
good in managing affairs. Were one concerned with affairs of horsemanship, one
would apply to horsemen, just as if one should mean nautical affairs one
would address a seaman. With which men's business are they concerned,
queries Socrates. Alkibiades responds assured that it is the affairs of
the gentlemen ( kalos kai agathos) to whom they must attend, and these
are clearly the intelligent rather than the unintelligent. Everyone
is good only in that of which he has intelligence (125a). While the
shoemaker is good at the manufacture of shoes, he is bad at the making of
clothing. However, on that account the same man is both bad and good and
one cannot uphold that the good man is at the same time bad (but cf.
116a). Alkibiades must clarify whom he means by the good man. By altering
the emphasis of the discussion to specific intelligence or skills,
Socrates has effectively prevented Alkibiades from answering
"gentlemen" again, even if he would think that the affairs of
gentlemen in democracies are the affairs with which a good ruler should
be concerned. Given his purported ambitions, it is understandable
that Alkibiades thinks good men are those with the power to rule in a
polis (125b). Since there are a variety of subjects over which to rule,
or hold power, Socrates wants to clarify that it is men and not, for
example, horses, to which Alkibiades refers. Socrates undoubtedly knew
that Alkibiades meant men instead of horses; the pestiness of the
question attracts the attention of the reader and he is reminded of the
famous analogy of the city made by Socrates in the Apology . Therein, the
city is likened to a great horse ( Apology 30e). It would thus not be
wholly inappropriate to interpret this bizarre question in a manner
which, though not apparent to Alkibiades, would provide a perhaps more
meaningful analysis. Socrates might be asking Alkibiades if he intends to
rule a city or to rule men (in a city). It is not altogether out of place
to adopt the analogy here; corroborating support is given by the very
subtle philosophic distinctions involved later in distinguishing ruling
cities from ruling men (cf. 133e). For example, cities are not erotic,
whereas men are; cities can attain self-sufficiency, whereas men cannot.
It does not demand excessive reflection to see how erotic striving and
the interdependency of men affects the issues of ruling them. What is
good for a man, too, may differ from what is good for a city (as
mentioned above with reference to wealth), and in some cases may even be
incompatible with it. These are all issues which demand the consideration
of rulers and political thinkers. Additional endorsement for the
suitability of the analogy between city and man for interpreting this
passage, is provided by Socrates in his very next statement. He asks if
Alkibiades means ruling over sick men (125b). Earlier (107b-c) the two
had been discussing what qualified someone to give advice about a sick
city. Alkibiades doesn't mean good rule to be ruling men at sea
or while they are harvesting (though generalship and farming, or defence
and agriculture, are essential to a city). He also doesn't conclude that
good rule is useful for men who are doing nothing (as Polemarkhos is
driven to conclude that justice is useful for things that are not in use
- Republic 333c-e). In a sense Alkibiades is right. Rulers rule men when
they are doing things such as transacting business, and making use of
each other and whatever makes up a political life. But rule in a
precise, but inclusive, sense is also rule over men when they are
inactive. The thoughts and very dreams are ruled by the true rulers, who
have controlled or understood all the influences upon men. Socrates
fastens onto one of these and tries to find out what kind of rule
Alkibiades means by ruling over men who make use of men. Alkibiades
does not mean the pilot's virtue of ruling over mariners who make
use of rowers, nor does he mean the chorus teacher who rules flute players
who lead singers and employ dancers; Alkibiades means ruling men who
share life as fellow citizens and conduct business. Socrates inquires as to
which techne gives that ability as the pilot's techne gives the ability
to rule fellow sailors, and the chorus teacher's ability to rule fellow
singers. At this point the attentive reader notices that Socrates has
slightly altered the example. He has introduced an element of equality.
When the consideration of the polis was made explicit, the pilot and
chorus teacher became "fellows" -"fellow sailors" and
"fellow singers." This serves at least to suggest that citizenship
in the polis is an equalizing element in political life. To consider
oneself a fellow citizen with another implies a kind of fraternity and
equality that draws people together. Despite, say, the existence of
differences within the city, people who are fellow citizens often are
closer to each other than they are to outsiders who may otherwise be more
similar. There is another sense in which Socrates' shift to calling
each expert a "fellow" illuminates something about the city.
This is discovered when one wonders why Socrates employed two examples - the
chorus teacher and the pilot. One reason for using more than
a single example is that there is more than one point to illustrate. It
is then up to the reader to scrutinize the examples to see how they
importantly differ. The onus is on the reader, and this is a tactic used
often in the dialogues. Someone is much more likely to reflect upon
something he discovered than something that is unearthed for him. One important
distinction between these two technae is that a pilot is a "fellow
sailor" in a way that the chorus teacher is not a "fellow
singer." Even in the event a pilot shares in none of the work of the
crew rules (as the chorus teacher need not actually sing), if the ship
sinks, he sinks with it. So too does the ruler of a city fall when his
city falls. This is merely one aspect of the analogy of the ship-of-state,
but it suffices to remind one that the ruler of a polity must identify
with the polity, perhaps even to the extent that he sees the fate of the polity
as his fate (cf. Republic 412d). Perhaps more importantly, there is
a distinction between the chorus master and the pilot which significantly
illuminates the task of political rule. A pilot directs sailors doing a
variety of tasks that make sailing possible# whereas the chorus master
directed singers performing in unison . Perhaps political rule is properly
understood as involving both. Alkibiades suggests that the techne
of the ruler (the fellow- citizen) is good counsel# but as the pilot
gives good not evil counsel for the preservation of his passengers,
Socrates tries to find out what end the good counsel of the ruler serves.
Alkibiades proposed that the good counsel is for the better management
and preservation of the polis. In the next stage of the discussion
Socrates makes a number of moves that affect the outcome of the argument
but he doesn't make a point of explicating them to Alkibiades. Socrates
asks what it is that becomes present or absent with better management and
preservation . He suggests that if Alkibiades were to ask him the same
question with respect to the body, Socrates would reply that health
became present and disease absent. That is not sufficient. He pretends
Alkibiades would ask what happened in a better condition of the eyes# and
he would reply that sight came and blindness went. So too deafness and
hearing are absent and present when ears are improved and getting better
treatment . Socrates would like Alkibiades# now# to answer as to what
happens when a state is improved and has better treatment and management
. Alkibiades thinks that friendship will be present and hatred and faction will
be absent. From the simple preservation of the passangers of a
ship# Socrates has moved to preservation and better management# to
improved and getting better treatment# to improvement, better treatment
and management. Simple preservation# of course# is only good (and the
goal of an appropriate techne) when the condition of a thing is
pronounced to be satisfactory, such that any change would be for the
worse. In a ship the pilot only has to preserve the lives of his
passengers by his techne, he does not have to either make lives or
improve them. In so far as a city is involved with more than mere life, but is
aiming at the good life, mere preservation of the citizens is not
sufficient. Socrates' subtle transformation indicates the treatment necessary
in politics. Another point that Socrates has implicitly raised is
the hierarchy of technae . This may be quite important to an
understanding of politics and what it can properly order within its
domain. Socrates employs the examples of the body and the eyes (126a-b).
The eyes are, however, a part of the body. The body cannot be said to be
healthy unless its parts, including the eyes, are healthy; the eyes will
not see well in a generally diseased body. The two do interrelate, but
have essentially different virtues. The virtue of the eyes and thus the
techne attached to that virtue, are under/within the domain of the body
and its virtue, health. The doctor, then, has an art of a different
order than the optometrist. (The doctor and his techne may have
competition for the care of the body; the gymnastics expert has already
been met and he certainly has things to say about the management of the
body - cf. 128c but the principle there would be a comprehensive techne
.) Given the example of the relation of the parts to the whole, perhaps
Socrates is suggesting that there is an analogue in the city: the health
of the whole city and the sight of a part of the city. The reader is
curious if the same relation would hold as to which techne had the
natural priority over the other. Would the interests of the whole rule
the interests of a part of the city? Socrates' examples of the body
and the part of the body could, in yet another manner, lead toward contemplation
of the political. There is a possible connection between all three. The
doctor might well have to decide to sacrifice the sight of an eye in the
interests of the whole body. Perhaps the ruler (the man possessing the
political techne) would have to decide to sacrifice the health (or even
life) of individuals (maybe even ones as important as the "eyes" of
the city) for the well-being of the polis . Thus, analogously# the
political art properly rules the various technae of the body.
Earlier the reader had occasion to be introduced to a system of
hierarchies (108c-e). Therein he found that harping was ruled by music
and wrestling by gymnastics. Gymnastics, as the techne of the body, is,
it is suggested, ruled by politics. Perhaps music should also be ruled by
politics. In the Republic, gymnastics is to the body roughly what music
is to the soul. Both, however, are directed by politics and are a major
concern of political men. It is fortunate for Alkibiades that he is
familiar with harping and gymnastics (106e), so that as a politician he
will be able to advise on their proper performance. One already has
reason to suspect that the other subject in which Alkibiades took lessons
is properly under the domain of politics. Alkibiades believes
that the better management of a state will bring friendship into it and
remove hatred and faction. Socrates inquires if he means agreement or
disagreement by friendship. Alkibiades replies that agreement is meant,
but one must notice that this significantly reduces the area of concern to
which Alkibiades had given voice. He had mentioned two kinds of strife,
and one needn t think long and hard to notice that friendship normally
connotes much more than agreement. Socrates next asks which techne causes
states to agree about numbers; does the same art, arithmetic, cause
individuals to agree among each other and with themselves. In addition to
whatever suspicion one entertains that this is not the kind of agreement
Alkibiades meant when he thought friendship would be brought into a city
with better management/ one must keep in mind the similarity between this
and an earlier argument (111c). In almost the same words, people agreed
"with others or by themselves" and states agreed, with regard to
speaking Greek, or more precisely, with naming. There are two features of this
argument which should be explored. Firstly, one might reflect upon
whether agreement between states is always essentially similar to
agreement between people, or agreement with oneself. People can fool
themselves and they can possess their own "language." Separate
states may have separate weights and measures, say, but individuals
within a state must agree. Secondly, there may be more than one kind of
agreement with which the reader should be concerned in this dialogue.
This might be most apparent were there different factors which compelled
different people, in different circumstances, to agree. Men sometimes arrive at
the same conclusions through different reasons. The first two
examples employed by Socrates illuminate both of these points. Arithmetic
and mensuration are about as far apart as it is possible to be in terms
of the nature of the agreement. Mensuration is simply convention or
agreement, and yet its entire existence depends on people's knowing the
standards agreed upon. Numbers, on the contrary, need absolutely no
agreement (except linguistically in the names given to numbers) and no
amount of agreement can change what they are and their relation to each
other. The third example represents the type of agreement much
closer to that with which it is believed conventional politics is
permeated. It is the example of the scales — long symbolic of justice.
Agreement with people and states about weights on scales depends on a
number of factors, as does judgement about politics. There is something
empirical to observe, namely the action as well as the various weights;
there is a constant possibility of cheating (on one side or another)
against which they must take guard; there is a judgement to be made which
is often close, difficult and of crucial importance, and there is the
general problem of which side of the scale/polity is to receive the
goods, and what is the standard against which the goods are measured. To
spell out only one politically important aspect of this last factor,
consider the difference between deciding that a certain standard of life is
to provide the measure for the distribution of goods, and deciding that a
certain set of goods are to be distributed evenly without such a
standard. In one case the well off would receive no goods, they being the
standard; in the other case all would supposedly have an equal chance of
receiving goods. Other political factors are involved in determining what
should be weighed, what its value is, who should preside over the
weighing, and what kind of scale is to be used. The third example, the
scales, surely appears to be more pertinent to Socrates and Alkibiades
than either of the other two, although one notices that both arithmetic
and mensuration are involved in weighing. Alkibiades is
requested to make a spirited effort to tell Socrates what the agreement
is, the art which achieves it, and whether all parties agree the same
way. Alkibiades supposes it is the friendship of father and mother to
child, brother to brother and woman to man (126e). A good ruler would be
able to make the people feel like a family - their fellow citizens like
fellow kin. This seems to be a sound opinion of Alkibiades; many actual
cities are structured around families or clans or based on legends of
common ancestry (cf. Republic 414c-415d) . There is a complication,
however, which is not addressed by either participant in the dialogue.
Socrates had suggested three parts to the analysis of agreement - its
nature, the art that achieves it, and whether all agree in the same way.
Alkibiades in his response suggests three types of friendship which may
differ dramatically in all of the respects Socrates had mentioned. And
the political significance of the three kinds of friendship also has
different and very far-reaching effects. Consider the different ties, and
feelings that characterize man-woman relationships. And imagine the different
character of a regime that is patterned not on the parent-child relation,
but instead characterized by male-female attraction! In a
dialogue on the nature of man in which there is already support for the
notion that "descent" and "family" figure prominently
in the analysis of man's nature, it seems likely that the three kinds
of familial (or potentially familial) relationships mentioned here would
be worthy of close and serious reflection. Socrates, however, does not
take Alkibiades to task on this, but turns to an examination of the
notion that friendship is agreement, and the question of whether or not
they can exist in a polis . Socrates had himself suggested that
Alkibiades meant agreement by friendship (126c), and in this argument
that restricted sense of friendship plays a significant role in their
arriving at the unpalatable conclusion. The argument leads to the
assertion that friendship and agreement cannot arise in a state where
each person does his own business. asks Alkibiades if a man
can agree with a woman about wool—working when he doesn't have knowledge
of it and she does. And further, does he have any need to agree, since it
is a woman's accomplishment? A woman, too, could not come to agreement with a
man about soldiering if she didn't learn it - and it is a business for
men. There are some parts of knowledge appropriate to women and some to
men on this account (127a) and in those skills there is no agreement
between men and women and hence no friendship - if friendship is
agreement. Thus men and women are not befriended by each other so far as
they are performing their own jobs, and polities are not well-ordered if each
person does his own business (127b). This conclusion is unacceptable
to Alkibiades; he thinks a well-ordered polity is one abounding in friendship,
but also that it is precisely each party doing his own business that
brings such friendship into being. Socrates points out that this goes
against the argument. He asks if Alkibiades means friendship can occur
without agreement, or that agreement in something may arise when some
have knowledge while others do not. These are presumably the steps in the
argument which are susceptible to attack. Socrates incidentally provides
another opening in the argument that could show the conclusion to be wrong.
He points out that justice is the doing of one's own work and that
justice and friendship are tied together. But Alkibiades, perhaps remembering
his shame (109b-116d), does not pursue this angle, having learned that
the topic of justice is difficult. In order to determine what, if
anything, was wrongly said, various stages of the argument will now be
examined. By beginning with the consideration of why anyone would
suppose a state was well-ordered when each person did his own business,
one observes that otherwise every individual would argue about
everything done by everybody. The reader may well share Alkibiades
suspicion that what makes a state well-ordered is that each does what he
is capable of and trusts the others to do the same. This indicates,
perhaps, the major problems with the discussion between Socrates and
Alkibiades. Firstly, there are many ways that friendship depends less
upon agreement than on the lack of serious disagreement. Secondly, agreement
can occur, or be taken for granted, in a number of ways other than by
both parties having knowledge. As revealed earlier in the
dialogue, Alkibiades would readily trust an expert in steering a ship as
well as in fancy cooking (117c-d). Regardless of whether it was a man's
or a woman’s task, he would agree with the expert because of his skill.
In these instances he agreed precisely because he had no knowledge and
they did. Of course, faith in expertise may be misplaced, or experts may
lose perspective in understanding the position of their techne relative to
others. But though concord and well-ordered polities do not necessarily
arise when people trust in expertise, friendship and agreement can come
about through each man's doing his own business. Agreement
between people, thus, may come about when one recognizes his ignorance.
It may also arise through their holding similar opinion on the issue, or
when one holds an opinion compatible with knowledge possessed by another.
For example, a woman may merely have opinions about soldiering, but those
opinions may allow for agreement with men, who alone can have knowledge.
Soldiering is a man's work, but while men are at war the women may wonder
about what they are doing, or read stories about the war, or form
opinions from talking to other soldiers' wives, or have confidence in
what their soldier—husbands tell them. There is also a sense in
which, if war is business for men, women don't even need opinions about
how it is conducted for they are not on the battlefield. They need only
agree on its importance and they need not even necessarily agree on why
it is important (unless they are raising sons). Women will often agree
with men about waging war on grounds other than the men's. For example,
glory isn't a prime motivator for most women's complying with their
husbands' desires to wage war. It has been suggested that agreement may
arise on the basis of opinion and not knowledge, and further that
opinions need not be similar, merely compatible. As long as the war is agreed
to by both sexes, friendship will be in evidence regardless of their
respective views of the motives of war. Apathy or some other type
of disregard for certain kinds of work may also eliminate disagreement
and discord, provided that it isn't a result of lack of respect for the
person's profession. For example, a man and a woman might never disagree
about wool-working He may not care how a spindle operates and would not
think of interfering. And he certainly wouldn't have to be skilled at the
techne of wool-working to agree with his wife whenever she voiced her
views - his agreement with her would rest on his approval of the
resulting coat. Socrates has not obtained from Alkibiades' speech
the power to learn what the nature of the friendship is that good men
must have. Alkibiades, invoking all the gods (he cannot be sure who has
dominion over the branch of knowledge he is trying to identify), fears
that he doesn't even know what he says, and has for some time been in a
very disgraceful condition. But Socrates reminds him that this is the correct
time for Alkibiades to perceive his condition, not at the age of fifty,
for then it would be difficult to take the proper care. In answering
Alkibiades' question as to what he should do now that he is aware of his
condition, Socrates replies he need only answer the questions
Socrates puts to him. With the favor of the god (if they can trust in
Socrates' divination) both of them shall be improved. What
Socrates may have just implied is that while Alkibiades' speech is unable
to supply the power to even name the qualities of a good man, Socratic
speech in itself has the power to actually make them better. All
Alkibiades must do is respond to the questions Socrates asks. The proper
use of language, it is suggested, has the power to make good men. One may
object that speech cannot have that effect upon a listener who is not in
a condition of recognizing his ignorance, but one must also recognize that
speech has the power to bring men to that realization. Almost half of the
First Alkibiades is overtly devoted to this task. Indeed it seems
unlikely that people perceive their plight except through some form of
the human use of language except when they are visually able to compare
themselves to others. It would be difficult to physically coerce men into
perceiving their condition. An emotional attempt to draw a person's
awarness - such as a mother's tears at her son's plight - needs speech to
direct it; the son must learn what has upset her. Speech is also
necessary to point to an example of a person who has come to a
realization of his ignorance. Socrates or someone like him, might discern
his condition by himself, but even he surely spent a great deal of time
conversing with others to see that their confidence in their opinions was
unfounded. In any event, what is important for the understanding of the First
Alkibiades is that Socrates has succeeded in convincing Alkibiades that
thoughtful dialogue is more imperative for him at this point than
Athenian politics. Together they set out to discover (cf. 109e)
what is required to take proper care of oneself; in the event that they
have never previously done so, they will assume complete ignorance. For
example, perhaps one takes care of oneself while taking care of one's
things (128a). They are not sure but Socrates will agree with Alkibiades
at the end of the argument that taking proper care of one's belongings is an
art different from care of oneself (128d). But perhaps one should survey
the entire argument before commenting upon it. Alkibiades doesn't
understand the first question as to whether a man takes care of feet when
he takes care of what belongs to his feet, so Socrates explains by
pointing out that there are things which belong to the hand. A ring, for
example, belongs to nothing but a finger. So too a shoe belongs to a foot
and clothes to the body. Alkibiades still doesn't understand what it
means to say that taking care of shoes is taking care of feet, so
Socrates employs another fact. One may speak of taking correct care of
this or that thing, and taking proper care makes something better. The
art of shoemaking makes shoes better and it is by that art that we take
care of shoes. But it is by the art of making feet better, not by
shoemaking, that we improve feet. That art is the same art whereby the
whole body is improved, namely gymnastic. Gymnastic takes care of
the foot; shoemaking takes care of what belongs to the foot. Gymnastic takes
care of the hand; ring engraving takes care of what belongs to the hand.
Gymnastic takes care of the body; weaving and other crafts take care of
what belongs to the body. Thus taking care of a thing and taking
care of its belongings involve separate arts. Socrates repeats this
conclusion after suggesting that care of one's belongings does not
mean one takes care of oneself. Further support is here recognized,
in this dialogue, for a hierarchical arrangement of the technae, but that
simultaneously somewhat qualifies the conclusion of the argument.
Gymnastic is the art of taking care of the body and it thus must
weave into a pattern all of the arts of taking care of the
belongings of the body and of its parts. Its very control over
those arts, however, indicates that they are of some importance to
the body. Because they have a common superior goal, the taking care
of the body, they are not as separate as the argument would
suggest. Just as shoes in bad repair can harm feet, shoes well made
may improve feet (cf. 121d, for shaping the body). They are often
made in view of the health or beauty of the body as are clothes and
rings. Because things which surround one affect one, as one's
activities and one's reliance on some sorts of possessions affect
one, proper care for the belongings of the body may improve one's body.
Socrates continues. Even if one cannot yet ascertain which art
takes care of oneself, one can say that it is not an art concerned with
improving one's belongings, but one that makes one better. Further, just
as one couldn't have known the art that improves shoes or rings if one
didn't know a shoe or a ring, so it is impossible that one should know
the techna that makes one better if one doesn't know oneself (124a).
Socrates asks if it is easy to know oneself and that therefore the writer
at Delphi was not profound, or if it is a difficult thing and not for
everybody. Alkibiades replies that it seems sometimes easy and sometimes
hard. Thereupon Socrates suggests that regardless of its ease or difficulty,
knowledge of oneself is necessary in order to know what the proper care
of oneself is. It may be inferred from this that most people do not know
themselves and are not in a position to know what the proper care of
themselves is. They might be better off should they adopt the opinions of
those who know, or be cared for by those who know more. In order to
understand themselves, the two men must find out how, generally,
the 'self' of a thing can be seen (129b), Alkibiades figures
Socrates has spoken correctly about the way to proceed, but instead
of 124 thus proceeding, Socrates interrupts in the name
of Zeus and asks whether Alkibiades is talking to Socrates and Socrates
to Alkibiades. Indeed they are. Thus Socrates says, he is the talker and
Alkibiades the hearer. This is a thoroughly baffling interruption, for
not only is its purpose unclear, but it is contradictory. They have just
agreed that both were talking. Socrates pushes onward. Socrates uses
speech in talking (one suspects that most people do). Talking and using
speech are the same thing, but the user and the thing he uses are not the
same thing. A shoemaker who cuts uses tools, but is himself quite
different from a tool; so also is a harper not the same as what he uses
when harping. The shoemaker uses not only tools but his hands and
his eyes, so, if the user and the thing used are different, then the
shoemaker and harper are different from the hands and eyes they use. So
too, since man uses his whole body, he must be different from his body.
Man must be the user of the body, and it is the soul which uses and rules
the body. No one, he claims, can disagree with the remark that man is one
of three things. Alkibiades may or may not disagree, but he needs a bit
of clarification. Man must be soul, or body, or both as one whole.
Already admitted is the proposition that it is man that rules the body,
and the argument has shown that the body is ruled by something else, so
the body deesn't rule itself. What remains is the soul. The
unlikeliest thing in the world is the combination of both, gQQj-^-(- 0 g
suggests (130b), for if one of the combined ones was said not to share in
the rule, then the two obviously could not rule. It is not necessary to
point out to the reader that the possibility of a body's share in the
rule was never denied, nor to indicate that what Socrates
ostensibly regards as the unlikeliest thing of all, is what it seems most
reasonable to suspect to be very like the truth. Emotions and appetites,
so closely connected with the body, are a dominant and dominating part of
one's life. They account for a major part of people's lives, and even to
a large extent influence their reason (a faculty which most agree is not
tied to the body in the same way). The soul might be seen to be at least
partly ruled by the body if it is appetites and emotions which affect
whether or not reason is used and influence what kind of decisions will
be rationally determined. Anyhow, according to Socrates, if it is
not the body, or the combined body and soul, then man must either be nothing at
all, or he must be the soul (130c). But the reader is aware that only on
the briefest of glances does this square with "the statement that no
one could dissent to," (cf. 130a). Man cannot be 'nothing' according
to that statement any more than he can be anything else whatsoever, such
as 'dog,' 'gold,' 'dream,' etc. 'Nothing' was not one of the
alternatives. Alkibiades swears that he needs no clearer proof that
the soul is man, and ruler of the body, but Socrates, overruling the
authority of Alkibiades' oath, responds that the proof is merely
tolerable, sufficing only until they discover that which they have just
passed by because of its complexity. Unaware that anything had been
by-passed (Socrates had interrupted that part of the discussion with his
first conventional oath - 129b), the puzzled Alkibiades asks Socrates. He
receives the reply that they haven't been considering what generally
makes the self of a thing discoverable, but have been looking at
particular cases (130d; cf. 129b). Perhaps that will suffice, for the
soul surely must be said to have a more absolute possession of us than
anything else. So, whenever Alkibiades and Socrates converse with
each other, it is soul conversing with soul; the souls using words
(130d.l). Socrates, when he uses speech, talks with Alkibiades' soul, not
his face. Socratic speech is thus essentially different from the speech
of the crowds of suitors who conversed with Alkibiades (103a, cf. also
106b). If Socrates' soul talks with Alkibiades' soul and if Alkibiades is
truly listening, then it is Alkibiades' soul, not one of his belongings
that hears Socrates (cf. 129b-c). Someone who says "know
thyself" (cf. 124a, 129a) means "know thy soul"; knowing
the things that belong to the body means knowing what is his, but not
what he is. The reader will note how the last two steps of the
argument subtly, yet definitely, indicate the ambiguous nature of the
body's position in this analysis. Someone who knows only the belongings
of the body will not know the man. According to the argument proper,
someone who knew the body, too, would still only know a man's
possessions, not his being. Socrates continues, pressing the argument
to show that no doctor or trainer, insofar as he is a doctor or a
trainer, knows himself. Farmers and tradesmen are still more
remote, for their arts teach only what belongs to the body (which is
itself only a possession of the man) and not the man (131a). Indeed, most
people recognize a man by his body, not by his soul, which reveals his
true nature. 126 gocrates pauses briefly to introduce
consideration of a virtue. Seemingly out of the blue, he remarks that
"if knowing oneself is temperance" then no craftsman is
temperate by his te c h ne (131b). Because of this the good man disdains
to learn the technae . This sudden introduction of the virtue/ defining
temperance as self-knowledge/ will assume importance later in the
dialogue (e.g., at 133c). Returning to the argument, Socrates
proposes that one who cares for the body cares for his possessions. One
who cares for his money cares not for himself, nor for his possessions,
but for something yet more remote. He has ceased to do his own
business. Those who love Alkibiades' body don't love Alkibiades but
his possessions. The real lover is the one who loves his soul. The one
who loves the body would depart when the body's bloom is over,
whereas the lover of the soul remains as long as it still tends to the
better. Socrates is the one that remained; the others left when the bloom
of the body was over. Silently accepting this insult to his looks, one of
his possessions, Alkibiades recognizes the compliment paid to himself.
The account of the cause of Socrates' remaining and the others'
departure, however, has changed somewhat from the beginning CIO3b, 104c).
Then the lovers left because a quality of Alkibiades' soul was too much
for them (but not for Socrates) to handle. Now it is a decline in a
quality of the body that apparently caused them to depart, but it is
still an appreciation of the soul that retains Socrates' interest.
Perhaps the significance of this basic shift is to indicate to
Alkibiades the true justification for his self-esteem. His highmindedness was
based on his physical qualities and their possessions, not on his soul.
Socrates may be insulting the other lovers, but he is at the same time
making it difficult for Alkibiades to lose his pride in the things of the
body. Thus Socrates' reinterpretation of the reasons for the lovers'
departure reinforces the point of the argument, namely that one's soul is
more worthy of attention and consideration than one's body.
Alkibiades is glad that Socrates has stayed and wants him to remain. He
shall, at Socrates' request, endeavour to remain as handsome as he
can. So Alkibiades, the son of Kleinias, "has only one lover and
128 that a cherished one," Socrates, son of Sophroniskos
and Phainarite. Now Alkibiades knows why Socrates alone did not
depart. He loves Alkibiades, not merely what belongs to Alkibiades.
Socrates will never forsake Alkibiades as long as he (his soul) is
not deformed by the Athenian people. In fact that is what especially
concerns Socrates. His greatest fear is that Alkibiades will be damaged
through becoming a lover of the demos - it has happened to many good
Athenians. The face (not the soul?) of the "people of great-hearted
Erekhtheos" is fair, but to see the demos stripped is another thing.
As the dialogue approaches its end, Socrates becomes poetic in his
utterances. On this occasion he prophetically quotes Homer ( Iliad II,
547). When listing the participants on the Akhaian side of the Trojan
War, Homer describes the leader of the Athenians, the "people
of the greathearted Erekhtheos," as one like no other born on earth for
the arrangement and ordering of horses and fighters. Alkibiades would
become famous for his attempts to order poleis and his arranging of
naval military forces. In the Gorgias, Scorates relates a
myth about the final judgement of men, and one of the interesting
features of the story is that the judges and those to be judged are
stripped of clothes and bodies ( Gorgias 523a-527e). 129 All that is
judged is the soul. This allows the judges to perceive the reality beneath
the appearance that a body and its belongings provide. Flatterers (120b) would
not be as able to get to the Blessed Isles/ although actually, in
political regimes, living judges are often fooled by appearances. Judges
too are stripped so that they could see soul to soul (133b; cf. Gorgias
523d), and would be less likely to be moved by rhetoric, poetry, physical
beauty or any other of the elements that are tied to the body through,
for example, the emotions and appetites. It seems thus good advice for
anyone who desires to enter politics that he get a stripped view of the
demos . In addition, those familiar with the myth in the Gorgias might
recognize the importance of Alkibiades stripping himself, and coming to
know his own soul, before he enters politics. Socrates is advising
Alkibiades to take the proper precautions. He is to exercise seriously,
learning all that must be known prior to an entry into politics (132b).
Presumably this knowledge will counteract the charm of the people.
Alkibiades wants to know what the proper exercises are, and Socrates says they
have established one important thing and that is knowing what to take
care of. They will not inadvertently be caring for something else, such
as, for example, something that only belongs to them. The next step, now that
they know upon what to exercise, is to care for the soul and leave the
care of the body and its possessions to others. If they could
discover how to obtain knowledge of the soul, they would truly "know
themselves." For the third time Socrates refers to the Delphic
inscription and he claims he has discovered another interpretation of it
which he can illustrate only by the example of sight. Should someone say
"see thyself" to one's eye, the eye would have to look at something,
like a mirror, or the thing in the eye that is like a mirror (132d-e).
The pupil of the eye reflects the face of the person looking into it like
a mirror. Looking at anything else (except mirrors, water, polished
shields, etc.) won't reflect it. Just as the eye must look into another
eye to see itself, so must a soul look into another soul. In addition it
must look to that very part of the soul which houses the virtue of a soul
- wisdom - and any part like wisdom. The part of the soul containing
knowledge and thought is the most divine, and since it thus resembles
god, whoever sees it will recognize all that is divine and will get the
greatest knowledge of himself. In order to see one's own soul
properly, then, Socrates suggests that it is necessary to look into
another's soul. Alkibiades must look into someone's soul to obtain
knowledge of himself, and he must possess knowledge of himself in order
to be able to rule himself. This last is a prerequisite for ruling
others. Since it lacks a 'pupil,' the soul doesn't have a readily
available window/mirror for observing another's soul, as the eye does for
observing oneself through another's eye. Such vision of souls can only be
had through speech. Through honest dialogue with trusted friends and
reflection upon what was said and done, one may gain a glimpse of their
soul. The souls must be "stripped" so that words are spoken and
heard truly. Socrates, by being the only lover who remained, and, having
shown his value to Alkibiades, will continue to speak (104e, 105e). He is
offering Alkibiades a look at his soul. This is in keeping, it
appears, with the advice that Alkibiades look to the rational part of the
soul. Socrates is the picture of the rational man; through his speech the
reader is also offered the opportunity to try to see into Socrates' soul to
better understand his own. Again, as discussed above, a man's nature can
be understood by looking to the example of the best, even if it is only an
imitation of the best in Dialogues. Socrates now recalls the
earlier mention of temperance as though they had come to some conclusion
regarding the nature of the virtue. They had supposedly agreed that
self-knowledge was temperance (133c; cf. 131b). Lacking self-knowledge or
temperance, one could not know one's belongings, whether they be good or
evil. Without knowing Alkibiades one could not know if his belongings are
his. Ignorance of one's belongings prohibits familiarity with the belongings of
belongings (133d). Socrates reminds Alkibiades that they have been
incorrect in admitting people could know their belongings if they didn't
know themselves. This latter argument raises at least two
difficulties. Firstly, it renders problematic the suggestion that one
should leave one's body and belongings in another's care. These others,
it seems, would be doctors and gymnastics trainers - the only experts of
the body explicitly recognized in the dialogue. Remembering that neither doctor
or trainer knows himself, one might wonder how he can know
Socrates' and Alkibiades' belongings. He cannot, according to the
argument here (133c-d) know his own belongings without knowing himself
and he cannot be familiar with others' belongings while ignorant of his
own. The argument, secondly, creates a problem with the
understanding heretofore suggested about how men generally conduct their lives.
Most people do not know themselves and do not properly care for
themselves. The argument of the dialogue has intimated that they in
fact care for their belongings. Thus it would seem that, in some sense,
they do know their belongings, just as Alkibiades' lovers, ignorant of
Alkibiades and probably ignorant of themselves, still know that
Alkibiades' body belonged to Alkibiades. And they knew, like he knew
C104a-c) that his looks and his wealth belong to his body. The reader
might conclude from this that the precise knowledge they do not have is
knowledge either of what the belongings should be like, or what their
true importance and proper role in a man's life should be. Knowledge of
one's soul would consist, partly, in knowing how to properly handle one's
belongings. That allows one to do what is right, and not merely do
what one likes. It is the task of one man and one techne (the chief
techne in the hierarchy) to grasp himself, his belongings, and their
belongings. Someone who doesn't know his belongings won't know other mens'. And
if he doesn't know theirs, he won't know those of the polity. This
last remark raises the consideration of what constitutes the belongings
of a polity. And that immediately involves one in reflection upon whether
the city has a body, and a soul. What is the essence of the city? The
reader is invited to explore the analogy to the man, but even more, it is
suggested that he is to reflect upon how to establish the priority of one
over the other. This invitation is indicated by the discussion of the one
techne that presides over all the bodies and belongings. The relation of the
city to the individual man has been of perennial concern to political
thinkers, and a most difficult aspect of the problem terrain involves the
very understanding of the City and Man (cf. 125b). The
question is multiplied threefold with the possibility that an adequate
understanding of the city requires an account of its soul, its body and
its body's belongings. An account of man, it has been suggested in this
dialogue, demands knowing his soul, body, possessions, and the
relation and ordering of each. It is quite possible that what is
proper best for a man will conflict with what is best for a city.
The city might be considered best off if it promotes an average
well-being. Having its norm, or median, slightly higher than the
norm of the next city would indicate it was better off. It is also
possible that the circumstances within which each and every man thrives would
not necessarily bring harmony to a city. The problem of
priority is further complicated by the introduction of the notion that
the welfare of each citizen is not equally important to the city. Perhaps
what is best for a city is to have one class of its members excel, or to
have it produce one great man. What is to be understood as the good of the
city's very soul? Furthermore, even if the welfare of the whole
city is to be identified with the maximum welfare of each citizen, it
might still be the case that the policies of the city need to increase the
welfare of a few people. For example, in time of war the welfare of the
whole polity depends on the welfare of a few men, the armed forces. As
long as war is a threat, the good of the city Cits body, soul, or
possessions) could depend on the exceptional treatment of one class of
its men. Knowledge of the true nature of the polity is essential
for political philosophy and so for proper political decision-making.
Men ignorant of the polity, the citizens, or themselves cannot be
statesmen or economists (133e; cf. Statesman 258e). Such a man, ignorant
of his and others' affairs will not know what he is doing, therefore
making mistakes and doing ill in private and for the demos . He and they
will be wretched. Temperance and goodness are necessary
for well-being, so it is bad men who are wretched. Those who attain
temperance not those who become wealthy, are released from this misery. ^
Similarly, cities need virtue for their well-being, not walls,
triremes, arsenals, numbers or size (134b; The full impact of this
will be felt if one remembers that this dialogue is taking place
immediately prior to the outbreak of the war with Sparta. Athens is
in full flurry of preparation, for she has seen the war coming for
a number of years) . Proper management of the polis by Alkibiades
would be to impart virtue to the citizens and he could not impart it
without having it (134c). A good governor has to acquire the virtue
first. Alkibiades shouldn't be looking for power as it is conventionally
understood - the ability to do whatever one pleases - but he should be
looking for justice and temperance. If he and the state acted in
accordance with those two virtues, they would please god; their eyes
focussed on the divine, they will see and know themselves and their good.
If Alkibiades would act this way, Socrates would be ready to guarantee
his well-being (134e). But if he acts with a focus on the godless and dark,
through ignorance of humself his acts will go godless and dark.
Alkibiades has received the Socratic advice to forget about power
as he understands it, in the interest of having real power over at least
himself. Conventionally understood, and in most applications of it, power
is the ability to do what one thinks fit ( Gorgias 469d) . Various
technae give to the skilled the power to do what they think fit to the
material on which they are working. The technae, however, are hierarchically
arranged, some ruling others. That is, some are archetectonic with
respect to others. What is actually fit for each techne is dictated by a
logically prior techne . The techne with the most power is the one that
dictates to the other techne what is fit and what is not. This
understanding seems to disclose two elements of power: the ability to
do what one thinks is fit, and knowing what is fit. If a man
can do what he wants but is lacking in intelligence, the result is
likely to be disastrous (135a; Republic 339a-e, Gorgias 469b,
470a). If a man with tyrannical power were sick and he couldn't even
be talked to, his health would be destroyed. If he knew nothing
about navigation, a man exercising tyrannical power as a ship's
pilot may well 132 cause all on board to perish.
Similarly in a state a power without excellence or virtue will fare
badly. It is not tyrannical power that Alkibiades should seek but virtue,
if he would fare well, and until the time he has virtue, it is better,
more noble and appropriate for a man, as for a child, to be governed by a
better than to try to govern; part of being 'better' includes knowledge
that right rule is in the subject's interest. It is appropriate for a
bad man to be a slave; vice befits a slave, virtue a free man (135c;
it seems strange that vice should be appropriate for anyone, slave
or free, perhaps, rather, it defines a slave). One should most certainly
avoid all slavery and if one can perceive where one stands, it may not at
present be on the side of the free (135c). Socrates must indicate to
Alkibiades the importance of a clearer understanding of both what he
desires, power, and what this freedom is. In a conventional, and ambiguous
sense, the man with the most freedom is the king or tyrant who is not
sub ject to anyone. Socrates must educate Alkibiades. The man who
wants power like the man who seeks freedom, doesn't know substantively
what he is looking for; the only power worth having comes with wisdom,
which alone can make one free. Socrates confides to Alkibiades that
his condition ought not to be named since he is a noble ( kalos) man (cf.
118b - is this another condition which will remain unnamed despite their
solitude?). Alkibiades must endeavour to escape it. If Socrates will it,
Alkibiades replies, he will try. To this Socrates responds that it is
only noble to say "if god wills it." This appears to be
Socrates' pious defence to a higher power. However, since he has drawn
attention to the phrase himself, a reminder may be permitted to the
effect that it is not necessarily quite the conventional piety to which
he refers: a strange parade of deities has been presented for the
reader's review in this dialogue. Alkibiades is eager to agree and
wants, fervently, to trade places with Socrates (135d). From now on
Alkibiades will be attending Socrates. Alkibiades, this time, will follow
and observe Socrates in silence. For twenty years Socrates has been
silent toward Alkibiades, and now, thinking it appropriate to trade
places, Alkibiades recognizes that silence on his part will help fill his
true, newly found needs. In the noise-filled atmosphere of today,
it is especially difficult to appreciate (and thus to find an audience
that appreciates) the importance of the final aspect of language that will be
discussed in connection with knowledge and power - silence. The use of
silence for emphasis is apparently known to few. But note how a moment of
silence on the television draws one's attention, whether or not the
program was being followed. And an indication of a residual respect for
the power of silence is that one important manner of honoring political
actors and heroes is to observe a moment of silence. Think, too, how
judicious use of silence can make someone ill at ease, or cause them to
re-examine their speech. The words "ominous" and
"heavy" may often be appropriately used to describe silence.
Silence can convey knowledge as well as power, and as the above examplss
may serve to show, it may have a significant role in each. When one begins
to examine the role of silence in the lives of the wise and the powerful,
one begins to see some of the problems of a loud society. To
start with, the reader acquaints himself with the role of silence in
political power. As witnessed in the dialogue, and, as well, in modern
regimes, there are many facets of this. Politicians must be silent about
much. Until recently, national defence was an acceptable excuse for
silence on the part of the leaders of a country. The existence of a
professional "news" gathering establishment necessitates that
this silence be total, and not only merely with respect to external
powers, for some things that the enemy must not know must be kept from
the citizens as well (cf. 109c, 124a). Politicians are typically
silent about some things in order to attain office, and about even more
things in order to retain it. Dissenters prudently keep quiet in order to
remain undetained or even alive. Common sense indeed dictates that one
observe a politic silence on a wide variety of occasions. Men in the
public eye may conceal their disbelief in religious authority in the interests
of those in the community who depend on religious conviction for their
good conduct. Most consider lying in the face of the enemy to be in the
interests of the polity, and all admire man who keeps silent even in the
face of severe enemy torture. Parents often keep silent to protect their
children, either when concerned about outsiders or about the more general
vulnerability of those unable to reason. One important
political use of silence is in terms of the myths and fables related to
children. Inestimable damage may be done when the "noble lie"
that idealistically structures the citizen's understanding of his regime
is repudiated in various respects by the liberal desire to expose all to
the public in the interests of enlightenment. At the point where children
are shown that the great men they look up to are "merely
human," one most clearly sees the harm that may be done by breaking
silence. Everybody becomes really equal, despite appearances to the contrary,
since everyone - even the heroes - acts from deep, irrational motives,
appetites, fears, etc. High ideals and motives for action are
debunked. Since many of the political uses of silence mentioned
above concern appropriate silence about things known, the next brief
discussion will focus on silence and knowledge. The primary aspect of the
general concern for silence in the life devoted to the pursuit of
knowledge is a function of the twin features of political awareness and
political concern. Though closely tied to the aforementioned appropriate uses
of silence, this is concerned less with the disclosure of unsalutary
facts about the life and times of men than with questions and truths of
a higher order. For example, if it could be discerned that man's
condition was abysmal, that he would inevitably become decadent, it would
not be politically propitious to announce the fact on the eight-o'clock
newscast There seem to be at least two situations in which such facts are
revealed A politically unaware man might not realize it; a politically
aware but somehow unconcerned man might not care about the well-being of
the community as a whole. There are at least two additional
respects in which silence is important to the life of knowledge. Both play a
part in Alkibiades' education in the First Alkibiades and contribute to his
desire to trade places with Socrates. Firstly one must be silent
to learn what others have to say. On the face of it, this seems a trivial
and fairly obvious thing to say. However when one appreciates the
importance of trust and friendship in philosophic discourse, one perceives that
the notion of silence important to this aspect of learning is much
broader than the mere logistics of taking turns speaking. To mention only
a single example, one has to prove one's ability to "keep one's
mouth shut" in order to develop the kind of trust essential to frank
discussion among dialogic partners. Secondly, silence
enhances mystery if there is reason to suspect that the silent know more
than they have revealed. This attraction to the mysterious accounts for
many things, including to mention only one example, the great appeal of
detective stories. If both witnesses and the author did not know more
than they let on in the beginning, if the reader/detective did not have
to take great care in extracting the truth from muddled accounts, it is
not likely that the genre would have the enduring readership it now
enjoys. Both of these might be tied directly to Socrates' initial
silence toward Alkibiades. Socrates had kept quiet until Alkibiades had
reached a certain stage in the development of his ambition. His
prolonged silence, and then his repeated reminders of it, as he begins to
speak, increases Alkibiades' curiosity. As it becomes more and more
apparent to Alkibiades that Socrates knows what he is talking about,
Alkibiades becomes increasingly desirous of learning. He wants Socrates
to reveal the truth to him, the truth he suspects Socrates is keeping to
himself. Throughout the discussion the men discuss ever more important subjects
and it is readily apparent that their mutual trust grows at least partly
because of their recognition of what is appropriately kept silent. In
addition, at yet another level, it has been frequently observed that Socrates'
silence ragarding a part of the truth, or the necessity of an example, or
a segment of the argument, indicates to the careful reader a greater
depth to the issues. Recognition of this silence increases the philosophic
curiosity of the readers as he attempts to discover both the subject of,
and the reason for, the silence. Alkibiades has suggested that he
shall switch "places" with Socrates. Socrates has attended on
him for all this time and now Alkibiades wants to follow Socrates. This
is only one of a number of "switches" that occur in the turning
around of Alkibiades, witnessed only by Socrates and the careful
reader. In the beginning Socrates says that the lovers of
Alkibiades left because his qualities of soul were too overpowering. He
is flattering Alkibiades in order, perhaps, to entice Alkibiades to begin
listening. In the end he suggests they ceased pursuing the youth because
the bloom of his beauty (the appearance of his body) has departed from
him. At first glance this is not complimentary at all. Nevertheless it is
now that Alkibiades claims to want very much to remain and listen. He
will even bear insults silently. At the start Alkibiades is
haughty, superior and self-sufficient. In the end he wishes to
please Socrates, recognizing his need for the power of speech in his
coming to know himself. At first he believes he already knows, and
arguments seem extraneous. By the end he wants to talk over the proper
care of his soul at length with Socrates. Probably the most notable
turning around in the dialogue is the lover—beloved switch between the
beginning and the end (cf. also Symposium 217d). But a number of puzzling
features come to the fore when one attempts to draw out the implications
of the change. In what way is their attraction switched? Socrates is
attracted to Alkibiades' unquenchable eros . Perhaps a mark of its great will
for power is that it is now directed toward Socrates. However, what does
that suggest about Socrates' eros in turn, either in terms of its
strength or its direction? What kind of eros is attracted to a most
powerful eros which in turn is directed back to it? Do Socrates and
Alkibiades both have the same intensity of desires and are their ambitions not
directed toward the same ends? Perhaps Socrates' answer will
suffice. He is pleased with the well-born man. His eros is like a stork -
he has hatched a winged eros and it returned to care for him. (This is
the first indication that Socrates assumes responsibility for the form of
Alkibiades' desires; it also indicates another whole series of problems
regarding how Alkibiades will "care for" Socrates). They are
kindred souls (or at least have kindred eros), and their relationship is
now one of mutual aid. Socrates will look into Alkibiades' soul to find
his own and Alkibiades will peer into Socrates' soul in attempting to
discern his. The reader is implicitly invited to look too; he has the privilege
starting again and examining the souls more closely each time he returns
to the beginning. Alkibiades agrees that that is the situation in
which they find themselves and he will immediately begin to be concerned
with justice. Socrates wishes he'll continue, but expresses a great fear.
In an ironic premonition of both their fates, he says he doesn't distrust
Alkibiades' nature, but, being able to see the might of the state (cf.
132a), he fears that both of them will be overpowered.There is always an
irony involved in concluding an essay on a Platonic dialogue. The
most fitting ending, it seems, would be to whet one's appetite for
more. This I shall attempt to do by pointing out an intriguing
feature about the dialogue in general. If one were to look at the
Platonic corpus as a kind of testament to Socrates, a story by
Plato of a Socrates made young and beautiful regardless of their historical
accuracy. For example, the Theaitetos, Sophist and Statesman all
take place at approximately the same time, shortly before Socrates'
trial. Similarly, the Euthyphro and Apology occur about then. The
Crito and Phaido follow shortly thereafter, and so on. The First Alkibiades
has its own special place. The First Alkibiades may well be the
dialogue in 133 which Socrates makes his earliest
appearance. The Platonic tradition has presented us with this as
our introduction to Socrates, to philosophy. Why? This dialogue
marks the first Socratic experience with philosophy that we may
witness. Why? The fateful first meeting between Socrates and
Alkibiades is also our first meeting with Socrates. Why? The
reader's introduction to the philosopher and to philosophizing is in
a conversation about a contest for the best man. Why? One must
assume 134 that, for some reason, Plato thought this
fitting. Plato, Republic 377a.9-10. The dialogue is known as the
First Alkibiades, Alkibiades I and Alkibiades Major . Its title in Greek
is simply Alkibiades but the conventional titles enable us to distinguish
it from the other dialogue called Alkibiades . Stephanus pagination in
the text of this thesis refers to the First Alkibiades of Plato. The Loeb
text (translated by W. Lamb, 1927) formed the core of the reading.
However, whenever a significant difference was noted between the Lamb
translation and that of Thomas Sydenham ( circa 1800), my own translation
forms the basis of the commentary. Unless otherwise noted, all other
works referred to are by Plato. 2. The major sources for
Alkibiades' life are Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch and Plato. It seems
to be the case that no history can be "objective." Since one
cannot record everything, a historian must choose what to write about.
Their choice is made on the basis of their opinion of what is important
and therein vanishes the "objectivity" so sought after but
always kept from modern historians. The superiority of the accounts of
the men referred to above lies partially in that they do not pretend to
that "value-neutral" goal, even though their perspective may
nonetheless be impartial. I wish to take this opportunity to
emphasize the limited importance of the addition of this sketch of the
historical Alkibiades. Were it suggested that such a familiarity were
essential to the understanding of the dialogue, it would be implied that
the dialogue as it stands is insufficient, and that I was in a position to
remedy that inadequacy. As a rule of thumb in interpretation one should
not begin with such presuppositions. However, there are a number of ways in
which the reading of the dialogue is enriched by knowing the career of
Alkibiades. For example, the reader who doesn't know that Alkibiades'
intrigues with (and illegitimate son by) the Spartan queen was a cause of
his fleeing from Sparta and a possible motive for his assassination,
would not have a full appreciation of the comment by Socrates on the
security placed around the Spartan queens (121b-c). At all events,
extreme caution is necessary so that extra historical baggage will not be
imported into the dialogue. It might be quite easy to prematurely
evaluate the historical Alkibiades, and thereby misunderstand the
dialogue. 3. We are also told she had dresses worth fifty minae
(123c). Plutarch, Life of Alkibiades, 1.1 (henceforth referred to
simply as Plutarch); Plato, Alkibiades I, 112c, 124c, 118d—e. Plutarch,
II. 4-6. 6. Diodoros Siculus, Diodoros of Sicily, XII. 38. iii-iv
(henceforth Diodoros). 7. This is the Anytos who was Socrates'
accuser. He was also notorious in Athens for being the first man to bribe
a jury (composed of 500 men)! He had been charged with impiety. Some
suspect that Alkibiades' preference for Socrates caused Anytos to be
jealous and that this was a motive for his accusation of Socrates.
8. Plutarch, IV. 5. 9. The historical accuracy of the
representation is impossible to determine and, so far as we need be
concerned, philosophically irrelevant. 10. Actually Alkibiades
admits this in a dialogue which Plato wrote (cf. Symposium 212c-223b,
esp. 215a, ff.). 11. Plutarch, VI. 1. 12. Plato,
Symposium 219e-220e; Plutarch VII. 3. 13. Plato, Symposium
220e-221c; Plutarch VII. 4; Diadoros XIII. 69. i-70. vi; cf. Thucydides,
History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydudes, Cf. also Plutarch, Plutarch,
XIV. 6-9; Thucydides V. 45. 17. Plutarch, XIII. 3-5. Cf.
Aristotle's discussion in his Politics, Thucydides, Diodoros, Thucydides,
Thucydides, Plutarch, XVIII. 1-2; Thucydides.The Hermai were religious statues,
commonly positioned by the front entrance of a dwelling. Hermes was the
god of travelling and of property. Cf. Thucydides, Thucydides,
Plutarch, Thucydides, Thucydides, VI. 48-50. Thucydides,
Thucydides, Plutarch, Diodoros,
Thucydides, Plutarch, Thucydides, Plutarch, Thucydides, Thucydides,
Plutarch; cf. also Plato, Alkibiades, where Plato's mention might provide some
support for a claim that the motive was other than lust. 35.
Thucydides, Plutarch, Plutarch, Thucydides, Diodoros, XIII. 41. iv-42iii;
Plutarch, Thucydides, VIII. 72-77. 40. Thucydides, Thucydides,
VIII. 97. For an excellent and beautiful examination of this in Thucydides,
read Leo Strauss, "Preliminary Observations of the Gods in
Thucydides' Work." INTERPRETATION, Nijhoff, The Hague,
Netherlands. Plutarch, Xenophon, Hellenika, Diodoros,
XIII. 49. iii-52ii 44. Xenophon, Hellenika,
I, i, 9-10; Plutarch, Xenophon, Hellenika, Xenophon,
Hellenika, I, iv, 8-17; Plutarch, Xenophon, Hellenika, I, iv,
20-21; Plutarch,Plutarch, Diodoros, Plutarch, Xenophon, Hellenika I, v,
11-16; Plutarch, Plutarch, Diodoros, Plutarch. There are various
accounts, the similar feature being the Spartan instigation. It is not
likely that it was a personal assassination (because of the queen), but
it was probably not purely due to political motives, either. 54.
Aristophanes, Frogs; cf. Aristophanes, Clouds, Plato, Symposium,Aristophanes,
Clouds, 217 ff. 56. Politically speaking, however, this is not to
be thoroughly disregarded, for in their numbers they can trample even the
best of men. 57. Cf. for example: Plato, Gorgias 500c, Aristotle,
Politics 1324a24 ff., Rousseau, Social Contract, Marx, Theses on
Feuerbach, Hobbes, Leviathan, edited by C. B. MacPherson, Pelican Books,
Middlesex, 1968, page 102 ff. 59. It is interesting that Socrates
uses the promise of power to entice Alkibiades to listen so that he can
persuade him that he doesn't know what power is. It is very important for
the understanding of the dialogue that the reader remember that Socrates
has characterized Alkibiades' desire for honor (105b) as a desire for
power. This is of crucial significance throughout the dialogue, and in
particular in connection with Socrates' attempts to teach Alkibiades from whom
to desire honor, and in what real power consists. The reader is advised
to keep both in mind throughout the dialogue. Perhaps at the end he may
be in a position to judge in what the difference consists.
60. The most notorious example, perhaps, is Martin Heidegger,
although he was surely not the only important man implicated with
fascism. 61. Cf. Aiskhylos, Agamemnon 715-735, and Aristophanes, Frogs,
for the metaphor. The latter is a reference to Alkibiades himself, the
former a statement of the general problem. (f. also Republic 589b; Laws
707a; Kharmides 155d; and Alkibiades I 123a). 62. The fully
developed model resulting from this effort should probably only be made
explicit to the educators. The entire picture (including the hero's
thoughts about the cosmos, etc.) would be baffling to children and most
adults, and would thus detract from their ability to identify with the
model. Perhaps a less thoroughly-developed example would suffice for
youths. However, the entire conception of the best man that the youths
are to emulate should be made explicit. The task is difficult but worth
the effort, since the consistency of two or more features of the model can
only be positively ascertained if he is fully developed. An obvious
example of where conflicts might arise should this not be done is where,
say, a very hybristic, superior and self- confident young man is the
leader of the radical democratic faction of a city. Some kind of conflict
is inevitable there, and those tensions are much more obvious though not
necessarily more penetrating than those caused by incompatible
metaphysical views. 63. For example, Lakhes, Kharmides, Republic,
Euthyphro . 64. These questions are not the same, for in many
dialogues the person named does not have the longest, or even a seemingly
major speaking part; e.g., Gorgias, Phaedo, Minos, Hipparkhos .Protagoras,
336d. Here Alkibiades is familiar with Socrates, for he recognizes his
"little joke" about his failing memory. However, Socrates was
not yet notorious throughout Athens, for the eunuch guarding the door did
not recognize him ( Protagoras 314d). Much of this speculation as to the date
depends on there not being anachronisms between (as opposed to within)
Platonic dialogues. We have no priori reason to believe there are no
anachronisms. However, it might prove to be useful to compare what is
said about the participants in other dialogues. The problem of
anachronisms within dialogues is a different one than we are referring to
in our discussion of the dramatic date. Plato, for a variety of
philosophic purposes, employs anachronisms within dialogues, including
perhaps, that of indicating that the teaching is not time-bound. This is
obviously related to teleology, a way of accounting for things that
concentrates on the fulfilled product, the end or teleos of the thing and
not on its origin, as the most essential for understanding the thing. The
prescientific, or common-sensical, understanding of things is a
teleological one. The superior/ideal/proper characteristic of things somehow
inform the ordinary man's understanding of the normal. This prescientific
view is important to return to, for it is such an outlook, conjoined with
curiosity, that gives rise to philosophic wonder. For this
kind of detailed information, I found the Word Index to Plato,
by Brandwood, an invaluable guide. 68. The challenge to
self-sufficiency is important to every dialogue, to all men. It is
something we all, implicitly or explicitly, strive towards, a key
question about all men's goals. Even these days, one thing that will
still make a man feel ashamed is to have it suggested that he depends on
someone (especially his spouse). The first step toward
self-improvement has to be some degree of self-contempt, and that might
be sparked if Alkibiades realizes his dependency. 69. Socrates
might be saying this to make the youth open up. It isn't purely
complimentary; he doesn't say you are right. (Cf. also Kharmides). I am
indebted for this observation to Proclus whose Commentary on the First
Alkibiades, is quite useful and interesting. In order to claim that
something is or is not a cause for wonder, one apparently would have to
employ some kind of criteria. Such criteria would refer to some larger
whole which would render the thing in question either evident or
worthy of wonder or trivial. None of these has been explicitly suggested
in the dialogue with reference either to difficulty of stopping speech or
beginning to talk. 71. It may be important to note that this
discussion refers to political limits, political ambitions. Perhaps a
higher ambition (perhaps indeed the one Socrates is suggesting to Alkibiades)
can be understood as an attempt to tyrannize nature herself, to rule (by
knowing the truth about) even the realm of possibility and not to be
confined by it. 72. One notices that this, by implication, is a
claim by Socrates to know himself, not exactly a modest claim.
73. Interestingly, he does not consider what Alkibiades heard in
such speeches to be part of his education, "comprehensively" listed
at 106e. 74. This appears similar to Socrates' strategy with
Glaukon. Cf. Craig, L.H., An Introduction to Plato's Republic, pp.
138-202; especially pp. 163-4; Bloom, A., "Interpretive Essay,"
in The Republic of Plato. Cf. Republic. Cf. Republic, 327b, 449b; Kharmides,
153b; Parmenides, 126a.While imagined contexts may influence one's thinking
and speaking in certain ways, one is not naively assuming that then one
will speak and act the same as one would if the imagined were
actualized. Many things might prevent one from doing as well as one
imagined. An example familair to the readers of Plato might be the construction
of the good city in speech. Cf. 105d, 131e, 123c, and 121a. One
might be curious as to the difference between Phainarete's indoor
teaching of Socrates and Deinomakhe's indoor teaching of Alkibiades. Also
perhaps noteworthy is that Alkibiades was taught indoors by his actual
mother: the masculine side of his nurture was not provided by his natural
father. Except see Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 29; Plato, Republic,
372e. And one must remember that when the plague strikes, the city is
dramatically affected. 80. Thucydides. Note two things: (1)
Athenians don't debate about this at the ekklesia ; (2) Alkibiades, as
well as the wrestling master, would be qualified (118c-d).
Socrates drops dancing here; perhaps it is similar enough to wrestling to
need no separate mention/ and to provide no additional material for
consideration. But if that were so one might wonder why it was mentioned
in the first place. 83. Perhaps "all cases" should be
qualified to "all cases which are ruled by an art." The general
ambiguity surrounding this remark invites the reader's reflection on the extent
to which Socrates' suggestion could be seen to be a much more general
kind of advice. Perhaps Alkibiades would be better off imitating Socrates
- period. Or perhaps something else about Socrates' pattern (of life)
could be said to provide "the correct answer in all cases," -
he is after all a very rational man. 84. The referent here is
unclear in the dialogue. It could be 'lawfulness' and 'nobility' just as
readily as the 'justice' which Socrates chooses to consider; that choice
significantly shapes the course of the dialogue. Note: Socrates brought
up 'lawful' (even though there probably is no law in Athens commanding
advisors to lie to the demos in the event they war on just people); whereas
Alkibiades' concern was nobility. 85. This would be
especially true if considerations of justice legitimately stop at the
city's walls. Cf. also Thucydides, I. 75, and compare the relative
importance of these motives in I. 76. This conclusion may not be fair to
Alkibiades, for he is clearly not similar to Kallikles (see below) since
he is convinced that he must speak with Socrates to get to the truth. He
wants to keep talking. But he is still haughty. He has just completed a
short display of skill that wasn't sufficiently appreciated by Socrates, and,
most importantly, there will be an unmistakeable point in the dialogue at
which Alkibiades does become serious about learning. Alkibiades will
confess ignorance and that will mark a most important change in his
attitude. His attention here isn't focussed on the premises but on
the conclusion of the argument. There are a number of possibilities
here for speculation as to the cause of his taking refuge - from shame?
from the truth? from the argument? 88. Draughts is a table
game with counters, presumably comparable to chess. Draughts is a
Socratic metaphor for philosophy or dialectics. The example arises in
connection with language, and seem to indicate the reader's participation
in the dialogue. First, of course, Plato must have us in mind, for
Alkibiades cannot know that draughts are Socrates' metaphor for
philosophical dialectics. Second, the metaphor itself demands reflecting upon.
How not to play is a strange thing to insert. Though proceeding through
negation is often the only way to progress in philosophy, one doesn't set
out to learn how not to play. The many indeed cannot teach one to philosophize,
but the question of how not to philosophize often has to be answered in
light of the many, as does the question of how not to "argue."
The philosopher must show caution both because of the many's potential
strength over himself, and through his consideration of their irenic
co-existence; he must not rock the boat, so to speak. Cf. Hobbes,
Leviathan, p. 100; Genesis 2:19-20. 90. It is interesting that with
reference to "running" (the province of the gymnastics expert
or horseman) Socrates mentions both horses and men. In the example of
"health" he mentions only men. Presumably he is indicating that there
is some distinction to be made between men and horses that is relevant to
the two technae . Quite likely this distinction shall prove to be a
significant aid in the analysis of the metaphors of 'physician 1 and
'gymnast' that so pervade this dialogue. Borrowing the analogy of
'horses' from the Apology (30e), wherein cities are said to be like
horses, one might begin by examining in what way a gymnastics expert
pertains more to the city than does a doctor, or why "running"
and not "disease" is a subject for consideration in the city,
while both are important for men. Perhaps a good way to begin would be by
understanding how, when man's body becomes the focus for his concerns,
the tensions arise between the public and private realm, between city and
man. 91. The practical political problem, of course, is not
simply solved either when the philosophic determination of 'the many' is
made, or when empirical observation yields the results confirming what
'the many' believe. The opinions must still be both evaluated and
accounted for. However, when it is an extreme question of health -
e.g., starvation, a plague - a question of life or death, they do. The
condition of the body does induce people to fight and the condition of
the body seems to be the major concern of most people and is thus
probably a real, though background, cause of most wars and battles.
93. Homer, Odyssey, XXII 41-54; XVIII 420-421; XX 264-272, 322-
337, 394. 94. In Euripides' play, Hippolytos, Phaedra, the wife of
Theseus, is in love with her stepson Hippolytos, and though unwilling to
admit, she is unable to conceal, her love from her old nurse. She
describes him so the nurse has to know, and then says she heard it from
herself, not Phaedra. 95. It is undoubtedly some such feature
of power as this that Alkibiades expects Socrates to mention as that
power which only he can give Alkibiades. It may be that Socrates' power
is closely tied to speech - we are not able to make that judgement yet -
but Alkibiades is certainly not prepared for what he gets.
The reader is cautioned to remember that Socrates is assuming power
to be the vehicle for Alkibiades' honor. At least one sense in which this
is necessary to Socrates' designs has come to light. Alkibiades
could be convinced that he should look for honor in a narrower group of
people once he thought they were the people with the secret to power. It
is not as likely that he would come to respect that group (especially not
for being the real keys to power) if he hadn't already had his sense of
honor reformed. Cf. Gorgias, beginning at 499b and continuing through the
end. He certainly doesn't seem to care, although it may be a bluff or a
pose. 97. Such as, perhaps, a dagger only partially concealed under
his sleeve - Gorgias 469c-d. 98. This, of course, is from the
perspective of the city. Very powerful arguments have been made to the
contrary. The city may not be the primary concern of the wisest
men. 99. Perhaps it should be pointed out, though, that men who
devote themselves to public affairs frequently neglect their family -
again the tension between public and private is brought to our attention
(cf. Meno, 93a-94e). 100. The fact that oaks grow stunted in
the desert does not mean that the stunted oak of the desert is natural.
The only thing we could argue is natural is that 'natural' science could
explain why the acorn was unable to fulfill its potential, just as
'natural' science can explain how there can be two-headed, gelded, or
feverish horses. In any explanation of this sort the reference is to a
more ideal tree or horse. And any examination of an existing tree or
horse will involve a reference to an even more perfect idea of a tree or
a horse. 101. It may be of no small significance that Socrates uses
the word ' ideas ' in this central passage. It is the only time in
this dialogue that the word is used and it seems at first innocuous.
'Ideas' is another form of ' eidos ' - 'the looks' so famous in the
central epistemological books of the Republic. What is so
exceptional about the " * use here is that it
occurs precisely where the question of the proper contest, the question
of the best man, is raised. Socrates says, "My, my, best of men,
what a thing to say! How unworthy of the looks and other advantages of
yours." We are perhaps being told it is unworthy of 'the looks,'
'the ideas, 1 that Alkibiades does not pose a high enough ambition. The
translators (who never noted this) are not in complete error. Their error
is one of imprecision. The modifier "your" ( soi) is an
enclitic and would have been understood (by Alkibiades) to refer to
"looks" as well as to his other advantages. However, as an
enclitic, it is used as a subtle kind of emphasis, and it is clearly the
"other advantages" that are emphasized. The 'soi' would
normally appear in front of the first of a list of articles. It doesn't
here, and the careful reader of the Greek text would certainly be first
impressed with it as " the looks." The reference to Alkibiades'
looks would be a second thought. And only in someone not familiar with
the Republic or with the epistemological problem of the best man, would
the "second- thought" be weighty anough to drown the first
impression. Incidentally, it is indeed interesting that the word
for the highest metaphysical reality in Plato's works is a word so
closely tied to everyday appearance. Once again there is support for the
dialectical method of questioning and answering, to slowly and carefully
refine the world of common opinion and find truth or the reality behind
appearance. Whether the war justly or unjustly is not mentioned. I believe
that the referent to "others" is left ambiguous. Note also that
here (120c) Socrates speaks of the Spartan generals ( strategoi ), a
subtle change from 'king' (120a) a moment earlier. Perhaps he is implying a
difference between power and actual military capability. This is/ of
course/ generally good advice. Cf. Thucydides I 84: one shouldn't act as
though the enemy were ill-advised. One must build on one's foresight, not
on the enemy's oversight. The important provision of nurture is added to
nature. Cf. 103a and the discussion of the opening words of the
dialogue. 106. Socrates has included himself in the deliberation
explicitly at this point, serving as a reminder to the reader that both
of these superior men should be considered in the various discussions,
not just one. A comparison of them and what they represent will prove
fruitful to the student of the dialogue. 107. Plato, another
son of Ariston, is perhaps smiling here; we recall why it is suspected
that Alkibiades left Sparta and perhaps why he was killed.
Two more facets of this passage are, firstly, that this might be
seen as another challenge by Socrates (in which case we should wonder as
to its purpose). Secondly, it implies that Alkibiades' line may have been
corrupted, or is at least not as secure as a Spartan or Persian one.
Alkibiades cannot be positive that his acknowledged family and kin are
truly his. 108. There is a very important exception and one
significant to this dialogue as well as to political thinking in general.
One may change one's ancestry by mythologizing it (or lying) as Socrates
and Alkibiades have both done. This may serve an ulterior purpose;
recall, for example, the claims of many monarchies to divine right.
109. Hesiod Theogony 928; cf. also Homer, Iliad, The opposite of Athena,
Aphrodite ( Symposium 180d), and Orpheus ( Republic 620a).
111. A number of Athenians may have thought this was much the same
effect as Socrates had. He led promising youths into a maze from which it
was difficult to escape. This discussion should be compared in detail with
the education outlined in the Republic . Such a comparison provides even
more material for reflection about the connection between a man's nurture
and his nature. (One significant contrast: the Persians lack a
musical education). Compare, for example, the difference concerning
horseback riding: Plato, Alkibiades I, 121e; and Xenophon,
Kyropaideia, I, iii, 3. Cf., for example, Machiavelli, The Prince, chapters 18,
19. The only other fox in the Platonic corpus (besides its being the name
of Socrates' deme - Gorgias) is in the Republic where the fox is
the wily and subtle deceiver in the facade of justice which is what
Adeimantos, in his elaboration of Glaukon's challenge, suggests is all
one needs. The reader of the dialogue has already been reminded of
the Allegory of the Cave, also in the context of nurture. Sydenham,
Works of Plato, points out that Herodotos tells us that this is not exclusively
a Persian custom. Egyptians, too, used all the revenue from some sections
of land for the shoes and other apparel of the queen. Cf. Herodotos,
Histories, II, 97. 117. Cf. Pamela Jensen, "Nietzsche and
Liberation: The Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future,"
Interpretation: "[Nietzsche] does not suppose truth to be God, but a
woman, who has good reasons to hide herself from man: her seductiveness
depends upon her secretiveness. This greatly compounds the problems of
understanding the two men and their eros . What has heretofore been
interpreted by Socrates as Alkibiades' ambition for power is now
explicitly stated to be an ambition for reputation. Are we to understand
them as more than importantly connected, but essentially similar? And
what are we to make of Socrates' inclusion of himself at precisely this
point? Does he want power too? Reputation? Perhaps we are to see both men
(and maybe even all erotic attraction whatsoever) as willing to have
power. Socrates sees power as coming through knowledge. Alkibiades
sees it as arising from reputation. Is Socrates in this dialogue engaged in
teaching Alkibiades to respect wisdom over glory in the interests of some
notion of power? The philosopher and the timocrat come out of (or begin
as) the same class of men in the Republic. The reader should examine what
differences relevant to the gold/philosophic class, if any, are displayed
by Socrates and Alkibiades. Perhaps Socrates' education of Alkibiades
could be seen as a project in alchemy - transforming silver into
gold. 119. Homer, Iliad, X. 224-6. Cf. Protagoras, 348d; Symposium,
174d; Alkibiades II, 140a; as well as Alkibiades. This is not intended to
challenge Prof. Bloom's interpretation ( The Republic of Plato, p. 311). As far
as I am capable of understanding it and the text, his is the correct reading.
However, with respect to this point I believe the dialogue substantiates
reading the group of men with Polemarkhos as the many with power, and
Socrates and Glaukon as the few wise. This is left quite ambiguous.
The jest could refer to: a) Socrates' claim to believe in the
gods b) Socrates' reason as to why his guardian is better
c) Socrates' claim that he is uniquely capable of providing Alkibiades
with power. In the Republic, inodes and rules of music are considered
of paramount political importance. Cf. Republic [citato da H. P. Grice] Cf.
however. Symposium, 174a, 213b. At this stage of the argument Socrates
does not distinguish between the body and the self. 124. This is
the only time Socrates swears by an Olympian god. He has referred
to his own god, the god Alkibiades "talked" to, a general
monotheistic god, and he has sworn upon the "common god of
friendship" (cf. Gorgias 500b, 519e, Euthyphro 6b), as well as
using milder oaths such as 1 Babai 1. It would probably be very
interesting to find out how Socrates swears throughout the
dialogues and reflect on their connection to his talk of piety, and of
course, his eventual charge and trial. Strictly speaking that is the
remark on which there won't be disagreement, not the one following it.
"Man is one of three things," is something no one can
disagree with. (He is what he is and any two more things may be added to
make a set of three.) Why does Socrates choose to say it this way? And
why three? Are there three essential elements in man's nature? As we
shall presently see, he does assume a fourth which is not mentioned at
this time. 126. Though first on the list of Spartan virtues,
temperance ( sophrosyne ), a virtue so relevant to the problem of
Alkibiades, does not receive much treatment in this dialogue. One might
also ask: if temperance is knowing oneself, is there a quasi-virtue, a
quasitemperance based on right opinion? 127. This is what Socrates'
anonymous companion at the beginning of Protagoras suggests to Socrates
with respect to Alkibiades. Homer, Odyssey, II. 364. Odysseus' son,
Telemakhos, is called the "only and cherished son" by his nurse
when he reveals to her his plan of setting out on a voyage to discover
news about his father. His voyage too (permitting the application
of the metaphor of descent and human nature) is guarded by a divine
being. Alkibiades/Telemakhos is setting out on a voyage to discover his
nature. 129. For other references to "stripping" in the
dialogues, see Gorgias 523e, 524d; cf. also Republic 601b, 612a, 359d,
361c, 577b, 474a, 452a-d, 457b; Ion 535d; Kharmides 154d, 154e;
Theaitetos; Laws 772a, 833c, 854d, 873b, 925a; Kratylos 403b;
Phaidros; Menexenos; Statesman; Sophist. This word for release,
apallattetai, has only been used for the release of eros to this point in
the dialogue. Parenthetically, regarding this last passage, we note also
that the roles of wealth and goodness in well-being have not been
thoroughly 0 xplored. Perhaps he is suggesting a connection between
becoming rich and not becoming temperate. 131. One might
interject here that perhaps the virtues resulting from, say, a Spartan
nurture, do not depend on the virtues of the governors. Perhaps they
depend on the virtue or right opinion of the lawgiver, but maybe not even
that. There might be other counterbalancing factors, as, for example,
Alexander Solzhenitsyn suggests about Russians today - (Harvard
Commencement Address, 1978, e.g., paragraph 22). 132. As was
mentioned with respect to their other occurrences in the dialogue, the
metaphors of the diseased city, physician of the city, doctor of the body,
pilot of ship, ship-of-state and passenger are all worth investigating
more thoroughly, and in relation to each other. There is a dialogue, the
Parmenides, in which the "Young Socrates" speaks. We do not
know what to make of this, but the fact that he is called the
"Young" Socrates somehow distinguishes his role in this, from
the other dialogues. He is not called "Young Socrates" in the
Alkibiades I, nor is he referred to as "Middle-aged Socrates" in
the Republic, nor is he named "Old Socrates" in the
Apology. Having come this far, the reader might want to judge for
himself some recent Platonic scholarship pertaining to the First
Alkibiades. In comparatively recent times the major source of interest in
the dialogue has been the popular dispute about its authenticity.
Robert S. Brumbaugh, in Plato for the Modern Age, (p. 192-3)
concludes: But the argument of the dialogue is clumsy, its
dialectic constantly refers us to God for philosophic answers, and
its central point of method - tediously made - is simply the difficulty
of getting the young respondent to make a generalization. There is almost
none of the interplay of concrete situation and abstract argument that
marks the indisputably authentic early dialogues of Plato. Further, the
First Alkibiades includes an almost textbook summary of the ideas that
are central in the authentic dialogues of Plato's middle period; so
markedly that it was in fact used as an introductory textbook for
freshman Platonists by the Neo-Platonic heads of the Academy it would be
surprising if this thin illustration of the tediousness of
induction were ever Plato's own exclusive philosophic theme: he had
too many other ideas to explore and offer. Jowett, translator of the dialogue
and thus familiar with the writings, says in his introduction to the
translation: we have difficulty in supposing that the same writer,
who has given so profound and complex a notion of the characters both of
Alkibiades and Socrates in the Symposium should have treated them in so
thin and superficial a manner as in the Alkibiades, or that he
would have ascribed to the ironical Socrates the rather unmeaning boast
that Alkibiades could not attain the objects of his ambition without his
help; or that he should have imagined that a mighty nature like his
could have been reformed by a few not very conclusive words of Socrates...
There is none of the undoubted dialogues of Plato in which there is
so little dramatic verisimilitude.Schleiermacher, originator of the charge of
spuriousness, analyzed the dialogue. It is to him that we owe the
current dispute. Saving the best for last: there is nothing in it too
difficult or too profound and obscure for even the least prepared
tyro. This work appears to us but very insignificant and poor and genuinely
Platonic passages may be found sparingly dispersed and floating in a mass
of worthless matter and we must not imagine for a moment that in
these speeches some philosophic secrets or other are intended to be
contained. On the contrary, though many genuine Platonic doctrines are
very closely connected with what is here said, not even the
slightest trace of them is to be met with and in short, however we may
consider it, the Alkibiades, is in this respect either a
contradiction of all other Platonic dialogues, or else Plato's own
dialogues are so with reference to the rest. And whoever does not feel
this, we cannot indeed afford him any advice, but only congratulate him
that his notions of Plato can be so cheaply satisfied... In
any event, much could be said about whether anything important to the
philosophic enterprise would hinge upon the authorship. My comments
concerning the issue will be few. Firstly there is no evidence that could
positively establish the authorship. Even should Plato rise from the dead
to hold a press conference, we are familiar enough with his irony to
doubt the straightforwardness of such a statement. Secondly, many of the
arguments are based on rather presumptuous beliefs that their proponents
have a thorough understanding of the corpus and how it fits together. I
will not comment further on such self- satisfaction. Thirdly,
there are a number of arguments based on stylistic analyses. If only for
the reason that these implicitly recognize that the dialogue itself must
provide the answer, they will be addressed. Two things must be
said. First, style changes can be willed, so to suggest anything
conclusive about them is to presume to understand the author better than
he understood himself. Second, style is only one of the many facets of a
dialogue, all of which must be taken into account to make a final judgement.
As is surely obvious by now, that takes careful study. And perhaps all
that is required of a dialogue is that it prove a fertile ground for such
study. Aristophanes. The Eleven Comedies . New York: Liveright, The King
James BIBLE. Nashville, U.S.A.: Kedeka,Bloedow, E. F. Alcibiades Reexamined .
Weisbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1973. Bloom, Allan D. The
Republic of Plato . Translated, with Notes and an Interpretive Essay, by
Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, Brandwood, Leonard. A Word Index to Plato .
Leeds: W. S. Maney and Son, Ltd., 1976. Brumbaugh, R. S.
Plato for the Modern Age . U.S.A.: Crowell Collier Press, Churchill,
Winston. Great Contemporaries . London: Macmillan; Craig, Leon H. An
Introduction to Plato's Republic . Edmonton: printed and bound by the
University of Alberta, de Romilly, Jacqueline. Thucydides and Athenian
Imperialism . Translated by Philip Thody. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Diodorus
Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily . Tr. Oldfather; Loeb Classical Library, London:
Heinemann, Friedlander, Plato, New York: Bollingen Series,
1958. Grene, David; and Richmond Lattimore, eds. The Complete Greek
Tragedies . Aeschylus I, tr. Lattimore; Euripides I, translated by
Lattimore. Chicago, Grote. Plat o and the Other Companions of Sokrates .
London: John Murray, 1885. Hamilton and Cairns. Plato: The
Collected Dialogues . Princeton, Bollingen Series, Hammond and Scullard, The
Oxford Classical Dictionary, Clarendon, Herodotus. The Histories . Tr.
Powell; Oxford, Hesiod. Hesiod . Tr. Lattimore. Ann Arbor: Michigan; Hobbes,
Thomas. Leviathan . Ed. Macpherson. Middlesex, England: Pelican, Homer.
Iliad . Translated by Richmond Lattimore. New York: Harper and Row,
Homer. Odyssey . Translated by Richard Lattimore. New York: Harper and
Row, Jensen, Nietzsche and Liberation: The Prelude to a Philosophy of the
Future," Interpretation . 6:2. The Hague: Nijhoff, Jowett, B., ed.
The Dialogues of Plato : Volume I. Translated by B. Jowett. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, MACHIAVELLO MACHIAVELLI (si veda), The
Prince . Tr. and ed. by Musa. New York: St. Martin's. Marx,
Theses on Feuerbach," The Marx-Engels Reader . Ed. Tucker. New Tork:
Norton, McKeon, Richard, ed. The Basic Works of Aristotle . New York:
Random House, Olympiodorus. Commentary on the First Alkibiades of Plato.
Critical texts and Indices by L. G. Wes ter ink'. Amsterdam:‘
North-Holland,O'Neill, William. Proclus: Alkibiades I A Translation and
Commentary . The Hague: Nijhoff, Paulys-Wissowa. Real-Encyclopoedie
der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft . Stuttgart: Metzler Buchhandlung, Plato.
Plato in Twelve Volumes . Loeb Classical Library; translated by R. G.
Bury, H. N. Fowler, W. Lamb, P. Shorey; London: Heinemann, Plutarch.
Lives . Loeb Classical Library, tr. Perrin.
London: Heinemann, Rousseau, J.-J. The Social Contract . Translated and
edited by R. Masters and J. Masters. New York: St. Martin's, RYLE (citato
da H. P. Grice), Plato's Progress. Cambridge, Schleiermacher. Introduction to
the Dialogues of Plato . Translated by W. Dobson. Cambridge: J. et j. j.
Deighton, Shorey, Paul. What Plato Said . Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1933. Solzhenitsyn, A. "Harvard Commencement
Address." Harvard, Strauss, Leo. "Preliminary Observations of the
Gods in Thucydides Work," Interpretation, The Hague z Martinus
Nijhoff, 1974. Sydenham, Floyer, transl. The Works of Plato . Vol.
I. Edited by Thomas Taylor. London: R. Wilks, Taylor, A. E. Plato: The
Man and His Work . New York: Meridian, Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian
War . Translated by Rex Warner; Introduction and Notes by M. I. Finley.
Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1954. Westlake, H. D.
Individuals in Thucydides . Cambridge. Ennio Carando. Keywords: l’amore
platonico, l’amore socratico, l’implicatura di Socrate, filosofo socratico,
Socrate, Alcibiade. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Carando” – The
Swimming-Pool Library.
Grice e Carapelle: la ragione
conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale – linguaggio e metafilosofia – linguaggio
oggetto – meta-linguaggio – Peano – Tarski 1944 – bootstrapping – scula di
Napoli – filosofia napoletana – filosofia campanese -- filosofia italiana –
Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice, The Swimming-Pool Library (Napoli). Filosofo napoletano. Filosofia campanese. Filosofo italiano. Napoli,
Campania. Grice: “I like Carcano; I cannot say he is an ultra-original
philosopher, but I may – My favourite is actually a tract on him, on
‘meta-philosophy,’ or rather ‘language and metaphilosophy,’ which is what I’m
all about! How philosophers misuse ‘believe,’ say – but Carcano has also
philosophised on issues that seem very strange to Italians, like ‘logica e
analisi,’ ‘semantica’ and ‘filosofia del linguaggio’ – brilliantly!” Quarto Duca
di Montaltino, Nobile dei Marchesi di C.. Noto per i suoi studi di
fenomenologia, semantica, filosofia del linguaggio e più in generale di
filosofia analitica. Studia a Napoli, durante i quali si formò alla scuola di
Aliotta e si dedica allo studio delle scienze. Studia a Napoli e Roma. Sulla
scia teoretica del suo tutore volle approfondire le problematiche poste dalla
filosofia e riesaminare attentamente il linguaggio in uso. La sua tesi centrale
è che correnti come il pragmatismo, il positivismo, la fenomenologia,
l'esistenzialismo e la psicoanalisi, fossero il portato dell'esigenza teoretica
di una maggiore chiarezza – la chiarezza non e sufficiente -- delle varie
questioni che emergevano da una crisi culturale, vitale ed esistenziale. Al
centro di tale crisi giganteggia la polemica fra senza senso metafisico e senso
anti-metafisica, soprattutto a causa del vigore critico del positivismo logico,
contro il quale a sua volta lui -- che ritiene necessaria una sostanziale
alleanza o quantomeno un aperto dialogo fra la metafisica e la scienza -- pone
diversi rilievi critici, principale dei quali è quello di minare alla base
l'unità dell'esperienza, alla Oakeshott -- che senza una cornice o una
struttura metafisica in cui inserirsi rimarrebbe indefinitamente frammentata in
percezioni fra loro irrelate. A questo inconveniente si può rimediare
temperando il positivismo con lo sperimentalismo, ovvero accompagnando alla
piena accettazione del metodo una piena apertura all’esperienza così come
“esperienza” è stata intesa, ad esempio, nella fenomenologia intenzionalista intersoggetiva
di Husserl. In questo senso si può procedere a mantenere una costante tensione
sui problemi posti dalla filosofia, in opposizione a ogni dogma di sistema, e
al contempo non cadere nell'angoscia a cui conduce lo scetticismo radicale che
tutto rifiuta, compresa l'esperienza. Non si tratterebbe dunque per la
filosofia di definire verità immutabili ma di sincronizzarsi col ritmo del
metodo basato sull’esperienza fenomenologico, sussumendo i risultati
sperimentali e integrandoli nel continuum di una struttura metafisica mediante
il ponte dell'esperienza. Altre opere: “Filosofia e civiltà” (Perrella, Roma);
Filosofia (Foro Italiano, Roma); Il problema filosofico. Fratelli Bocca, Roma);
La semantica, Fratelli Bocca, Roma – cf. Grice, “Semantics and Metaphysics”)
Metodologia filosofica, una rivoluzione filosofica minore. Libreria scientifica
editrice, Napoli. Esistenza ed alienazione” (MILANI, Padova); Scienza
unificata, Unita della scienza (Sansoni, Firenze); Analisi e forma logica (MILANI,
Padova); Il concetto di informativita, MILANI, Padova); La filosofia
linguistica, Bulzoni Editore, Roma. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Roma.
Ben altrimenti articolato e puntuale ci sembra l'intervento operato sulla
fenomenologia da C., ed allievo di Aliotta a Napoli e pur fedele estensore
delle sue teorie, sulle quali, per questo mo tivo, ci siamo nell'ultima parte
dilungati sorvolando sullo scarso ruolo t-he gioca in esse l'opera di Husserl.
L'iter formativo di C. interseca
situazioni ed esperienze riscontrabili, come ve dremo, anche in altri giovani
filosofi della stessa generazione. Di più, nel.suo caso, c'è una singolare e
probabilmente indotta analogia con la vicenda teoretica del primo Husserl. In
realtà, scrive l'autore in un brano autobiografico io non posso dire di essere
venuto alla filosofia in maniera diretta, per un'intima voca zione alla
speculazione o per un normale maturarsi dei miei studi e della mia men talità
giovanile, ma questa era soprattutto caratterizzata da un'intensa passione
pèrle scienze e da una viva disposizione per la matematica. Questo germinale
orientamento, unito a una sensibilità religiosa che non tarderà a manifestarsi,
ebbe come primo e scontato effetto di allontanare C. dall'area neo-idealistica,
il cui radicale immanentismo, la esclusione dei concetti di peccato e di grazia
e l'avversione per ogni for- 53 Ibidem, p. 7. 54 P. Filiasi C., 17 ruolo della
metodologia nel rinnovamento della filo sofia contemporanea, La filosofia
contemporanea in Italia. Invito al dialogo, Asti, Arethusa. ma di
naturalismo, non potevano in alcun modo essere accettati. Di qui un sentimento
di estraneità e di insoddisfazione subito denunciati fin dai primi scritti,
l'intima perplessità e la difficoltà di orientarsi in una temperie culturale
già decisa e fissata nelle sue grandi linee da altri. E, d'altro canto, un
naturale rivolgersi al problema metodologico, come pre liminare assunzione di
consapevolezza circa i percorsi teoretici che con veniva seguire per ottenere
uno scopo valido, senza tuttavia ancora nul la presumere circa la necessità di
quei percorsi o la natura di questo sco po. In tal senso, l'elaborazione di
una qualsivoglia metodologia doveva prevedere come esito programmatico, da un
lato, una sorta di epochizza- zione delle grandi tematiche metafisiche e della
tradizionale formulazione dèi problemi, dall'altro lato, un lungo e paziente
lavoro di analisi, con fronto, chiarificazióne e comprensione che consentisse
di recuperare, di quelle tematiche e di quei problemi, il contenuto più
autentico. Ma più lo sguardo critico del giovane filòsofo andrà maturando fino
ad abbracciare nel suo complesso il controverso panorama culturale del tempo,
più quel programma iniziale perderà la sua connotazione prope deutica per
trasformarsi in compito destinale, in una ' fighi for clarity* che assumeva i
termini di un radicale esame di coscienza nei confronti della filosofia. Scrive
Filiasi Carcano: Confesserò che varie volte ho avuto ed ho l'impressione di non
aver abba stanza compreso, e per questo alla mia spontanea insoddisfazione (al
tempo stesso scientifica e religiosa) si mescola un senso di incomprensione.
Questo stato d'animo spiega bene il mio atteggiamento che non è propriamente di
critica, ma ha piut tosto il carattere di un prescindere, di una sospensione
del giudizio, di una messa in parentesi, in attesa di una più matura
riflessione 56. Al fondo dei dualismi e delle vuote polemiche che, nella
comunità filoso- fica italiana degli anni Trenta, sembravano prevaricare sulle
più urgenti esigenze scientifiche e di sviluppo, Filiasi Carcano coglie i
sintomi dì un conflitto epocale, di una inquietudine psicologica e di
un'incertezza morale che andranno a comporsi in una vera e propria fenomenologia
della crisi. ' Crisi della civiltà ', anzitutto, come recita il titolo della
sua opera prima, dove al desiderio di fuggire l'alternativa del dogmatismo fa
da 55 Per questi punti mi sono riferito a M. L. Gavazzo, Paolo Filiasi
Carcano,. «Filosofia oggi»; * P; Filiasi Carcano, // ruolo della metodologia, Cfr. C., Crisi della civiltà e orientamenti della
filosofia contraltare l'eterno dissidio tra ragione e fede. Crisi
esistenziale, di con seguenza, dovuta al prevalere delle tendenze scettiche e
antimetafisiche su quelle spirituali e religiose. Crisi della filosofia,
infine, fondata sulla raggiunta consapevolezza del suo carattere problematico,
sull'incapacità di realizzare interamente la pienezza del suo concetto. Come
moto di reazione immediata occorreva allora, oltreché circoscrivere le proprie
pre tese conoscitive ponendosi su un piano risolutamente pragmatico, assur
gere ad una più compiuta presa di coscienza storica e conciliare la filoso fia
con una mentalità scientificamente educata. Solo, cioè, il confronto con una
seria problematica scientifica (la quale C. vede realizzata nell'ottica
positivista dello sperimentalismo aliottiano) avreb be potuto segnare per la
filosofia l'avvento di una più matura riflessione intorno alle proprie
dinamiche interne e ai propri genuini compiti critici. E a questo scopo parve a
Filiasi Carcano, fin dai suoi studi d'esor dio, singolarmente soccorrevole
proprio l'opera d’Husserl. Scri ve Angiolo Maros Dell'Oro: A un certo punto si
intromise Husserl. C. pensa, o spera, che là fenomenologia sarebbe stata la
scienza delle scienze – REGINA SCIENTIARVM – Grice --, capace di indicargli la
via zu den Sachen selbsf, per dirla con le parole del suo fondatore. Da allora
è stata invece per lui l'enzima patologico di una problematica acuta. Sùbito
rifiutata, in realtà, come idealismo metafisico, quale eira frettolo samente
spacciata in certe grossolane versioni del tempo (non esclusa, lo abbiamo
visto,.quella del suo, maestro), la fenomenologia viene aggredita alla radice
dal giovane studioso, con una cura e un rigore filologico i quali pure riscontreremo in altri suoi
coetanei — giustificabili solo con l'urgenza di una richiesta culturale cui
l'ambiente nostrano non poteva evidentemente soddisfare. Non è un caso che C.
insista, fin dal suo primo articolo dedicato ad Husserl, sul valore della
fenomeno logia, ad un tempo, emblematico, nel quadro d'insieme della filosofia
contemporanea, e liberatorio rispetto al giogo dei tradizionali dogmi
idealistici che i giovani, soprattutto in Italia, si sentivano gravare sulle
spalle. contemporanea, pref. d’Aliotta, Roma, Perrella, Cf. Il pensiero scientifico ìtt Italia
'Creiriòria, Màngiarotti; Cfr. Cartario/ Da Carierò'ad H«w&f/,:« Ricerche
filosofìche. In piena coscienza, scrive il
filosofo se abbiamo voluto scio gliere l'esperienza da una necessaria
interpretazione idealistica, non è stato per forzarla nuovamente nei quadri di
una metafisica esistenziale, ma per ridare ad essa, secondo lo schietto spirito
della fenomenologia, tutta la sua libertà. Tale schiettezza, corroborata da un
carattere decisamente antisistema tico e dal recupero di una vitale esigenza
descrittiva, avrebbe consentito lo schiudersi di un nuovo, vastissimo
territorio di indagine, sospeso tra constatazione positivistica e
determinazione metafisica, ma capace, al tem po stesso, di metter capo ad un
positivismo di grado superiore e ad un più autentico pensare metafisico. Si
trattava, in sostanza, non tanto di dedurre i caratteri di una nuova positività
oppure di rifondare una me- tafisica, quanto piuttosto di guadagnare un più
saldo punto d'osserva zione dal quale far spaziare sul multiverso
esperienziale il proprio sguar do fenomenologicamente addestrato. È in questo
punto che la fenome nologia, riabilitando l'intuizione in quanto fonte
originaria di autorità (Rechtsquelle), operando in base al principio
dell'assenza di presupposti e offrendo i quadri noetico-noematici per la
sistemazione effettiva del suo programma di ricerca, veniva ad innestarsi sul
tronco dello sperimenta lismo di stampo aliottiano, che FC. aveva assimilato a
Napoli negli anni del suo apprendistato filosofia). Il ritorno alle cose stesse
predetto dalla fenomenologia non solo manteneva intatta la coscienza cri tica
rimanendo al di qua di ogni soglia metafisica, ma anche e più che mai serviva a
ribadire il carattere scientifico e descrittivo della filosofia. In un passo si
possono scorrere, a modo di riscontro, i punti di un vero e proprio manifesto
sperimentalista: Descrivere la nostra esperienza nel mondo con l'aiuto della
critica più raffi nata; cercare di raccordarne i vari aspetti in sintesi
sempre più vaste e più com prensive, esprimenti, per cosi dire, gradi diversi
della nostra conoscenza del mon do; non perdere mai il senso profondo della problematicità
continuamente svol- gentesi dal corso stesso della nostra riflessione; infine
stare in guardia contro tutte le astrazioni che rischiano di alterare e
disperdere il ritmo spontaneo della vita: sono questi i principali motivi dello
sperimentalismo e al tempo stesso, i modi mediante i quali esso va incontro
alle più attuali esigenze logiche e metodologiche del pensiero contemporaneo.
D'altro canto, si diceva, non è neppure precluso a questo program- C., Crisi
della civiltà; C., Anti-metafisica e sperimentalismo, Roma, Perrella ma un
esito trascendente, e a fenderlo possibile sarà ancora una volta, in virtù
della sua cruciale natura teoretica, proprio l'atteggiamento feno menologico.
Scrive C. In realtà, il dilemma tra una scienza che escluda l'intuizione e una
intui zione che escluda la scienza, non c'è che su di un piano realistico ma
non su di un piano fenomenologicamente ridotto: su questo piano scienza e
intuizione tornano ad accordarsi, accogliendo una pluralità di esperienze,
tutte in un certo senso le gittime e primitive, ma tutte viste in un
particolare atteggiamento di spirito che sospende ogni giudizio metafisico. È
questo, com'io l'intendo, il modo particola rissimo con cui la filosofia può
tornare oggi ad occuparsi di metafisica. Certo, nella prospettiva husserliana,
il problema del trascendens puro e semplice, che farà da sfondo a tutto il
percorso speculativo di Filiasi Carcano, sembrava rimanere ingiudicato o,
almeno, intenzionalmente rin viato in una sorta di ' al di là ' conoscitivo,
Ma in ordine alla missione spirituale che l'uomo deve poter esplicare nel mondo
storico, il metodo fenomenologico conserva tutta la sua efficacia. Esso nota C.
nelle ultime pagine del suo Antimetafisica e spe rimentalismo — certo
difficilmente può condurre a risultati, ma compie per lo meno analisi e
descrizioni interessanti, e tanto più notevoli in quanto tende a sollevare il
velo dell'abitudine per farci ritrovare le primitive intuizioni della vita
religiosa. Dato questo suo carattere peculiare e l'orizzonte significativo nel
quale viene assunta fin dal principio, la fenomenologia continuerà a va lere
per Filiasi Carcano come referente teoretico di prim'ordine, accom pagnandolo,
con la tensione e la profondità tipiche delle esperienze fon damentali, in
tutti i futuri sviluppi della sua speculazione. La terza grande area di
interesse per il pensiero hussèrliano negli anni Trenta in Italia, fa capo
all'Università.di Torino e si costituisce prin cipalmente intorno all'attività
4i tre studiosi: il primo, già incontrato e che, in qualche modo, fa da ponte
fra questa e la neoscolastica mila nese è Mazzantini; il secondo è Annibale
Pastore ne parleremo ora che teneva
nell'ateneo torinese la cattedra di filosofia teoretica; C.,. Crisi.della civiltà,:; C., Anti-metafisica
e sperimentalismo. Apparently, Hilbert is the first to use the prefix meta (from
the Greek over) in the sense we use it in meta-language, meta-theory, and now
meta-system. Hilbert introduces the term meta-mathematics to denote a
mathematical theory of mathematical proof. In terms of our control scheme,
Hilbert's MST has a non-trivial representation: a mapping of proofs in the form
of usual mathematical texts (in a natural language with formulas) on the set of
texts in a formal logical language which makes it possible to treat proofs as
precisely defined mathematical objects. This done, the rest is as usual: the
controlled system is a mathematician who proves theorems; the controlling
person is a metamathematician who translates texts into the formal logical
language and controls the work of the mathematician by checking the validity of
his proofs and, possibly mechanically generating proofs in a computer. The
emergence of the metamathematician is an MST. Since we have agreed not to
employ semantically closed languages, we have to use two different languages in
discussing the problem of the definition of truth and, more generally, any problems
in the field of semantics. The first of these languages is the language which
is "talked about" and which is the subject- matter of the whole
discussion; the definition of truth which we are seeking applies to the
sentences of this language. The second is the language in which we "talk
about" the first language, and in terms of which we wish, in particular,
to construct the definition of truth for the first language. We shall refer to
the first language as "the object-language,"and to the second as
"the meta-language." It should be noticed that these terms
"object-language" and "meta- language" have only a relative
sense. If, for instance, we become inter- ested in the notion of truth applying
to sentences, not of our original object-language, but of its meta-language,
the latter becomes automatically the object-language of our discussion; and in
order to define truth for this language, we have to go to a new
meta-language-so to speak, to a meta- language of a higher level. In this way
we arrive at a whole hierarchy of languages. The vocabulary of the
meta-language is to a large extent determined by previously stated conditions
under which a definition of truth will be considered materially adequate. This
definition, as we recall, has to imply all equivalences of the form (T): (T) X
is true if, and only if, p. The definition itself and all the equivalences
implied by it are to be formulated in the meta-language. On the other hand, the
symbol 'p' in (T) stands for an arbitrary sentence of our object-language.
Let “A(p)** mean “I assert p between 5.29 and 5.31’*. Then q is “there is
a proposition p such that A(p) and p is fake”. The contradiction emerges
from the supposition that q is the proposition p in question. But if
there is a hierarchy of meanings of the word “false** corresponding to a
hierarchy of propositions, we shall have to substitute for q something
more definite, i.e. “there is a proposition p of order «, such that k{p)
and p has falsehood of order n*\ Here n may be any integer: but whatever
integer it is, q will be of order « + i? and will not be capable of truth
or falsehood of order n. Since I make no assertion of order n, q is
false, The hierarchy must extend upwards indefinitely, but
not downwards, since, if it did, language could never get started.
There must, therefore, be a language of lowest type. I shall define one
such language, not the only possible one.* I shall call this sometimes
the “object-language”, sometimes the “primary language”. My purpose, in the
present chapter, is to define and describe this basic lai^age. The
languages which follow in the hierarchy I shall call secondary, tertiary,
and so on; it is to be understood that each language contains all its
predecessors. The primary language, we shall find, can be defined
both logically and psychologically; but before attempting formal
definitions it will be well to make a preliminary informal explora-
tion. It is clear, from Tarski’s argument, that the words
“true” and “false” cannot occur in the primary language; for these
words, as applied to sentences in the language, belong to the (« -t-
language. This does not mean that sentences in the primary language are
neither true nor false, but that, if “/>” is a sentence in this
language, the two sentences “p is true” and “p is false” belong to the
secondary language. This is, indeed, obvious apart from Tarski’s
argument. For, if there is a primary language, its words must not be such
as presuppose the existence of a language. Now “true” and “false” are
words applicable to sentences, and thus presuppose the existence of
language. (I do not mean to deny that a memory consisting of images,
not words, may be “true” or “false”; but this is in a somewhat
different sense, which need not concern us at present.) In the primary
language, therefore, though we can make assertions, we cannot say that
our own assertions or those of others are either true or false.
When I say that we make assertions in the primary language, I must guard
against a misunderstanding, for the word “assertion” and, since q
is not a possible value of p, the argument that q is also true collapses.
The man who says ‘T am telling a lie of order n” is telling a He, but of
order n 4 - I. Other ways of evading the paradox have been suggested,
e.g. by Ramsey, “Foundations of Mathematics”, p. 48. * My
liierarchy of languages is not identical with Carnap's or
Tarski's. Proceeding psychologically, I construct a language (not
the language) fulfilling the logical conditions for the language of
lowest type; I call this the “object-language” or the “primary language”.
In this language, every word “denotes” or “means” a sensible object or
set of such objects, and, when used alone, asserts the sensible presence
of the object, or of one of AN INQUIRY INTO MEANING AND TRUTH
the set of objects, which it denotes or means. In defining this
language, it is necessary to define “denoting” or “meaning” as applied to
object-words, i.e., to the words of this language. Paolo Filiasi
Carcano di Montaltino di Carapelle. Paolo Filiasi Carcano di Montaltino de
Carapelle, quarto duca di Montaltino. Paolo Filiasi Carcano. Paolo Carcano.
Montaltino. Keywords: linguaggio e metafilosofia, semantica, quarto duca di
montaltino, semantica ed esperienza, semantica e fenomenologia, filiasi
carcano, montaltino, carapelle. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Carapelle” –
The Swimming-Pool Library. Carapelle.
Grice e Carbonara: la ragione
conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale l’esperienza e la prassi –
Cicerone e il pratico – scuola di Potenza – filosofia basilicatese -- filosofia
italiana – Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice, The
Swimming-Pool Library (Potenza). Filosofo
basilicatese. Filosofo italiano. Potenza, Basilicata. Grice: “I like Carbonara;
my favourite of his tracts are one on ‘del bello,’ – another one on ‘dissegno
per una filosofia critica dell’esperienza pura: immediatezza e reflessione’ –
but mostly his ‘esperienza e prassi,’ which fits nicely with my functionalist
method in philosophical psychology: there is input (esperienza), but there is
‘prassi,’ the behavioural output --; I would prefer this to the tract on the
‘filossofia critica’ since I’m not sure we need ‘reflexion’ to explain, say,
communication – not at least in the way Carbonara does use ‘reflessione,’ alla
Husserl. Conseguito il
diploma liceale, si trasferì a Napoli, frequentando la facoltà di filosofia.
Ottenuta la laurea sotto Aliotta, collabora per “Logos”. Insegna a Campobasso, Nocera
Inferiore, Cagliari, Catania, e Napoli.
Con “Disegno d'una filosofia critica dell'esperienza pura”, rifacendosi
alla filosofia kantiana e riprendendo il discorso idealistico ne mette in
rilievo il tentativo fallito di Gentile di dare concretezza all’astratto.
Nell'attualismo, il ritorno all’atto, al fatto, si risolve infatti nell'atto
sempre uguale e sempre diverso del pensare, unica realtà e verità del pensiero
e della storia: «vera storia non è quella che si dispiega nel tempo, ma quella
che si raccoglie nell'eterno atto del pensare».. Il problema secondo C.
anda esaminato riportandolo alla sua origine, cioè al problema del rapporto tra
esperienza e concetto, tra realtà e concetto così come era stato affrontato
dalla filosofia kantiana e che Gentile crede di risolvere stabilendo un rapporto
dialettico tra il concetto e il suo negativo all'interno del concetto stesso.
La soluzione invece era in nuce secondo C. nella sintesi a priori kantiana dove
convivono forma (segnante) e contenuto (segnato) per cui la coscienza è per un
verso forma, contenitore (segnante) di un contenuto (segnato) storico e per un
altro *coincide* col suo contenuto (segnato) in quanto il contenuto (segnato)
non avrebbe realtà al di fuori della forma della coscienza segnante. La
successiva questione si pone considerando oltre il rapporto del pensiero – il
segnante -- con la materia quella collegata all'origine del pensiero stesso.
Ancora una volta Kant intravede la soluzione nella teoria dell' “io penso” che
però va ora intesa non come la struttura logico-metafisica della realtà
storica, ma come la sua struttura psicologica ma *trascendentale* o
"esistenziale", secondo una concezione della "filosofia
dell'esperienza pura" nel senso che l'esperienza coincide col divenire
della vita dello spirito e deve restare indifferente al problema, ch'è
propriamente di natura ontologica, circa la sua dipendenza o indipendenza da
una realtà diversa dal mio spirito. Il rapporto tra pensiero e materia porta C.
ad indagare quello tra filosofia e scienza con “Scienza e filosofia” in
Galilei, in cui sostiene che mentre da un punto di vista filosofico non si può
andare oltre l'ambito dell'autocoscienza (il mio spirito – Il “I am hearing a
noise” di Grice) del cogito cartesiano, al contrario la scienza si basa sulla
necessità di fondarsi sul mondo esterno (nel spirito dell’altro –
intersoggetivita). Forse la soluzione di questa antinomia, sostiene Carbonara,
va ricercata nell'insoddisfazione dello stesso idealismo verso se stesso non potendo rinunciare a se stesso ma neppure
al suo opposto -- nec tecum nec sine te -- solus ipse. Si interessa anche
della filosofia rinascimentale a Firenze. Nota come in quel periodo si fosse
realizzata una fusione tra il cristianesimo e il neo-platonismo così come ad
esempio in Ficino prete cattolico che visse la sua fede come teologia razionale
dando una base filosofica, trascurando la stessa rivelazione, alla sua
spiritualità religiosa: In Ficino, il platonismo si congiunge al
cristianesimo non soltanto sul fondamento di una religiosità profonda da cui il
primo appare permeato, ma anche per una tradizione storica ininterrotta, per
cui l'antichissima saggezza, ripensata da Platone e dai neoplatonici, si
ritrova trasfigurata ma tuttavia persistente nei Padri della Chiesa e nei
dottori della Scolastica. Come apprendiamo dall'Epistolario di Ficino, la
sapienza e intesa come un dono divino e come mezzo per cui l'uomo può elevarsi
fino a Dio. Tale principio fu poi appreso da Pitagora, Eraclito, Platone,
Aristotele, i neoplatonici. Riemerse nella speculazione filosofica ispirata
dalla Rivelazione cristiana e si ritrovò quindi in Agostino. Lo stesso Cicerone
figura nella catena dei platonici romani. Riallacciandosi a quella
tradizione e meditando sui testi platonici, Ficino concepí il disegno, portato
a termine di ricostruire su fondamento platonico la teologia il platonismo vi è
considerato come il nucleo essenziale di una teologia razionale i cui princípi
coincidono con quelli della rivelazione. Tale coincidenza è il principale
argomento con cui si riesce a dimostrare l'eccellenza del cristianesimo
rispetto alle altre religioni positive. Del resto Ficino è disposto ad
ammettere che qualsiasi culto, purché esercitato con animo puro, reca onore e
gradimento a Dio. Altre saggi: “L'individuo, i dividui, e la storia; Scienza e
filosofia in Galilei; Esperienza; Umanesimo e Rinascimento (Catania) Del Bello;
Introduzione alla Filosofia (Napoli; Materialismo storico e idealismo critico; Sviluppo
e problemi dell'estetica crociana; I presocratici; Esperienza ed umanesimo
(Napoli) La filosofia di Plotino; “Persona e libertà”; Ricerche di un'estetica
del contenuto”; Esperienza e prassi; Discorso empirico delle arti, Il
platonismo nel Rinascimento. In un momento diverso dalla storica ora presente
offrire in veste italiana alla coltura filosofica del nostro paese il sistema
di dottrina morale secondo i principi della dottrina della scienza di Fichte
sarebbe stata opera già esaurientemente giustificata e dalla grandezza di
quel genio speculativo, e dal vivo crescente interesse del nostro tempo per il
suo originale sistema idealistico-romantico, e dalla capitale importanza che
nella struttura del sistema stesso ha la dottrina morale, e dall’opportunità,
quindi, di agevolare la diretta conoscenza di questa a quanti tra noi non
fossero in grado di leggerla e gustarla nè nella classica (nonostante i
suoi difetti) edizione tedesca dovuta alla pietà filiale di Fichte — divenuta
oggi assai rara, ma di recente lori. Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre
nach leu Prinzipletl (lev Wìsseuschaftslehre, Jena und Leipzig, Gabler V. il
voi. IV delle Opere complete (Sitmmtliche 1 Werke) di Fichte, edite con assai
utili prefazioni da Eli. Ehm. Fichte (Berlin, Veit e C.), dopo altri tre
volumi di Opere postume (Nachgelasseiie Werlce) apparsi per cura dello
stesso editore a Bonn, ma aggiunti come ultimi agli precedenti. I
difetti, che sono stati rim- fedelmente riprodotta (con tatti i suoi
difetti) da Fritz Me- proverati all’edizione di Fichte figlio, consistono,
tra gl’altri a parte le critiche riguardanti l’ordinamento generale degli
scritti paterni (sulle quali v. Ravà, Le opere di Fichte, Rivista di Filosofia)
in errori di stampa, lacune casuali o soppressioni arbitrarie di una o più
parole, aggiunte o trasposizioni di vocaboli, deposizione dei capoversi e
punteggiatura non sempre quali si avrebbe ragione di aspettarsi, ecc. ;
donde non poche nè lievi difficolta per intendere bene e rendere esattamente in
altra lingua il pensiero dell’autore. La qual cosa ci preme far rilevare, anche
perchè non sembri esagerazione, se diciamo che fu lavoro di non poca
lena, sostenuta soltanto dall’interesse per l’opera fiehtiana, quello da
noi compiuto attorno a una traduzione che ci proponemmo eseguire
con la più 'scrupolosa fedeltà al testo originale, ma, in pari tempo,
curando il più possibile la chiarezza del contenuto e l’italianità della
forma. Al quale duplice fine ci parve opportuno di riportare tra parentesi
curve le espressioni genuine e più caratteristiche dell’autore, quando il nostro
idioma non si prestava a riprodurle se non inadeguatamente ovvero
assumendo un certo aspetto di stranezza, e di chiudere tra parentesi
quadre [ J le espressioni aggiunte dal traduttore con intento interpretativo o
dilucidativo. Il lettore, in tal modo, è sempre messo sull’avviso circa i
punti in cui il linguaggio dell’autore è meno trasparente e può giudicare
se talvolta al traduttore — secondo il noto bisticcio - non sia accaduto di
essere involontariamente il traditore del pensiero tichtiano. TI quale pensiero
riesce tanto più difficile a restituire nella sua forma genuina, in
quanto che esso non solo fu iu continua evoluzione e trasformazione, ma
ebbe dal Fichte, più oratore elio scrittore, le mutevoli formulazioni
occasionali adatte alla predicazione, all’insegnamento e alla polemica, anziché
la stabile struttura definitiva di un’opera d’arte destinata a tramandare ai
posteri il documento autentico di un sistema compiuto; e la Dottrina
inorale, di cui ci occupiamo qui, risente anch’essa, nello stile, del
carattere proprio a quella gran parte delle opere del Fichte, che sono o
riproduzioni o preparazioni, ampiamente elaborate in iscritto, di lezioni
e corsi accademici. Si aggiunga a ciò che la Sit- tenlehre, e nel
contenuto e uella forma, è la continuazione c l’applicazione di quella
Wissetischaflslehre che il Medicus, in una sua monografia dedicata al
Fichte, uou esita a chiamare “ il libro, torse, più difficile che esista
in tutta la letteratura filosofica (sie ist vielleicht das schiiieriijste
Rudi in der yesmnten philósophischen Lucratile) „ (cfr. Grosse Denker,
editi a Lipsia, Verlag
Quelle dicus —, uè nella libera e, proprio nei punti ove H
testo è meno chiaro, monca versione inglese fattane dal Kroeger; (in
francese o in altra lingua non ci risulta sia stata mai tradotta, il che
non ha certo contribuito ad accrescerle et Meyer, senza «lata, <la E.
vou Aster) della Dottrina della Scienza abbiamo iu italiano la traduzione
fattane da A. Tilouer (Bari, Laterza) — j si noti, inline, che il Fichte
figlio sconsigliava il Bouillier dal tradurre in altra lingua quelle, tra le
opere del padre, che non avessero un contenuto popolare e fossero
scritte in una rigorosa forma scientifico-filosofica — ecco le sue parole.
Te conseille de ne pas traduire les oeuvres
scientifiques proprement dites, «:t d’ uno forme philosophique
rigoureuse. 11 est à peu près impossi- ble de les traduire «lana votre
luugne; il faudrait les transformer et eu changer l’exposition. Uue
traduction littérale mirait le doublé iu- convénient de taire violence à
votre 1 angue, et de ne pas reproduire le veritable esprit du système. „ (cfr.
MéUiode pour arrivar à la tir bica heureuse par Udite, traditit par M.
Bouillier, aver, uno Introdaction par Fichte le File, Paris, Ladrango): e
si sarà, speriamo, meglio disposti a giudicare con qualche indulgenza le
manchevolezze anche da noi sentite, ma che non riuscimmo ad evitare, so
pur erano evitabili, iu questa nostra traduzione, in cui la lettera doveva
più che mai venir suggerita e giustificata dallo spirito della dot- liiua
tradotta, onde ci s imponeva di continuo la necessità di ripen- norr e,
per quanto ci fu possibile, di rivivere il pensiero del Fichte. 11 Jmc
Gotti*. Fichte, IVerke, Auswahl in sechs Btinden (mit nielli ci en
Bildnisxen Fichtes ), edizione e introduzione di FimtzMediCUS, Leipzig.
Non intendiamo detrarre nulla alle lodi giustamente! tributate d’ ogni
parte a questa nuova edizione delle principali opere del Fichte, condotta
di recente a termine e salutata nel mondo fìlosofico come un importante e lieto
avvenimento, soprattutto per il contributo che porterà alla diffusione e alla
conoscenza della dottrina lichtiana; dobbiamo soltanto osservare che,
almeno per quanto concerne .1 System der Sittenlehre, di cui diamo qui la
traduzione, la collazione del testo nelfediz. del Medicus non presenta
assolutamenta nulla di diverso e nulla di migliorato, rispetto a quella
curata da Lm. Era. Fichte ; se mai, anzi, qualche errore di stampa in più
; onde essa non ci è stata di nessun aiuto. Tanto per la verità. The Science of Etìlica as based on thè Science
of knowledge by Ioh. Gotti. Fichte, tradnz. di A. E. Kroeoeh. edita da
Harris (London, Kegau Paul, Treucli, Trubner et Co., Ltd.). il numero
dei lettovi). Dorante, poi, l’attuale immane cataclisma bellico che sì
inaspettatamente ha tutta Europa sconvolto e le nostre coscienze profondamente
turbato, in questa tragica ora chè tigne il mondo di sanguigno, perchè
proprio nella terra classica dell’idealismo filosofico, sfrenatasi
l'ebbrezza mistica di una supposta superiorità di razza e di coltura, prevalso
un malinteso spirito di egemonia mondiale, straripata la prepotenza del
militarismo, scatenatisi gli istinti e le cupidigie più basse, la civiltà
sembra inabissata nel buio e la scienza si è trasformata, con scempio di
ogni leggo umana e divina, in strumento di barbarie, rinnegando quel carattere
umano che della scienza è e deve essere la vera, sovrana, immortale
bellezza, in questa immensa mina di tutta la scala dei valori, due forti
ragioni di più — contrariamente a quanto potrebbe parere a prima
vista — c’inducono all’opera stessa: da un lato mostrare con quale
serenità, imparzialità e altezza di vedute noi italiani, che più volte nella
storia fummo maestri di civiltà, sappiamo riconoscere, pur quando gli
animi nostri siano agitati da moti sentimentali avversi, il possente
contributo di pensiero e di moralità che gli spiriti geniali, a qualunque
nazione appartengano, hanno recato alla coltura ; dal- 1’ altro fornire,
con la divulgazione delle dottrine morali di un filosofo tedesco come il
Fichte — da cui più specialmente con grave errore si vorrebbe derivare il
pangermanismo una prova di più della radicale deviazione che le fiualità
della Germania odierna, rappresentata dai Nietzsche, dai Treitschke, dai
Bernhardi, dai Chamberlain, dai Woltmaun, segnano rispetto alle idealità
profondamente umane e universali rifulgenti in tutta la letteratura e
in tutta la filosofia della Germania classica, rappresentata da un
Leibniz, da un Lessing, da un Herder, da un Gboethé, da uno Schiller, da
un Kant e dallo stesso Fichte. Perchè anche il Fichte, al pari del suo
grande predecessoro Kant il filosofo della pace a cui Con esattozza soltanto
relativa egli fu contrapposito come il filosofo della guerra, aspirava,
pur con tutte le esagerazioni essenzialmente teutoniche del suo pensiero, al
regno della ragione, al Vemunftstaat, basato sul riconoscimento del valore
dello spirito quale unico, vero e assoluto valore, e costituito da personalità
autonome e responsabili che devono svolgersi soltanto entro le linee di
un ordinamento razionale del tutto. Che se la magnificazione e la
glorificazione della lingua e del popolo tedesco a cui il Fichte
assurge, a cominciare dai Caratteri fondamentali dell’età presente -- Revue
de Métaphysique et de Morale, l’importante articolo di. Basch, L’Allemagne
classique et le pangermanisme. V. inoltre Sante Ferra ni, Fra la guerra e
V Università (Seatri Ponente); in questo discorso inaugurale dell'anno
accademico all’università di Genova, l'A., dopo avere stigmatizzato con
indignata parola “ la nuova sofìstica, più audace e più operativa
dell'antica, die in Germania per decenni lavorò a eccitare gli spiriti e
a iriebbriarsi nel sogno del dominio mondiale a qualunque patto,,, “ le
iniquità senza pari, corruttrici, vigliacche, brutali, e le violazioni dei
patti più solenni che quel popolo sostituisce al valore degli eroi
pagani, alla cavalleria del guerriero medievale „ e u la volontà sinistra
che informò i metodi alla subdola preparazione dell'immane delitto, invita
a distinguere in'quella nazione lo opere dei grandi avi e quelle dei
uepoti : “ Quali e quante pagine troveremmo nei primi, atto a rintuz- i
zare, a riprovare, a distruggere le smodate ambizioni dell’ oggi ! e
quanti successori vedremmo rinnegati!, e, per antitesi, si ferma a
illuminare nella loro sublime purezza le figure del Kant e a» del
Fichte. Grundziige dea gegenviirtigen Zeilullers (Sanimi!. Werke). Queste
conferenze si direbbero quasi altrettanti aifreschi di filosofia della
storia, di cui lo Herder aveva dato il mo. sino ai Discorsi alla, nazione
tedesca (*), attraverso la serie di opuscoli politici intermedi, hanno
potuto giustamente apparire come la radice del pangermanismo, non ne
segue perciò che il Pielite stesso fosse un pangermanista. u Come !
esclama il Basoh, pangermanista quel Fichte che parla a Berlino, ancora
occupata dai francesi, dinanzi a spie francesi, dopo Auerstftdt e Iena,
dopo Eylau e Fried iand, dopo quel trattato di Tilsit di cui sappiamo le
stipulazioni draconiane ! Chi non vede che appunto perchè il suo popolo
era asservito, umiliato, esposto a essere cancellato dalla carta d Europa con
un tratto di penna del- l’onnipossente imperatore francese, e appunto
perchè la Germania era stata spezzettata, la Prussia smembrata,
egli ha, per legittima reazione e con sflflrzo ammirevole,
esaltato, idealizzato, divinizzato quel popolo, opponendo alla
realtà la visione magnifica di un avvenire che a lui stesso appare
problematico? Le Reden sono un’ utopia ; un’ utopia cento volte quel
Germano autoctono, quel Mutterland, quella lingua madre; e il Fichte lo
sapeva bene e 1’ ha dello, e in cui il Ciclite, con una miscela di
nazionalismo mistico o di cosmopolitismo umanitario, tratteggia a grandi
periodi l’evoluzione dei genere umano dalle sue più lontane origini sino
ai suoi più remoti destini futuri, passaudo attraverso le cinque età: ni
dell’ innocenze o ragiono istintiva, b) dell’ autorità o ragione
coercitiva, c) del peccato o ribellione contro la ragione sia istintiva
sia coercitiva, d) della giustizia o arte della ragione, e) della santità o
scienza della ragione. Reden an die deutsche Nailon (Summit. Werke). Segnaliamo,
tra gli altri, i Discorsi ai combattenti tedeschi all’inizio della campagna
(Reden an die deutschen Kricgev zu All funge des Feldzuges) (Stillanti.
11 erke t VII) e i dialoghi patriottici, Il patriottismo e il suo contrario
(Dei Patriotismus und sein Gegentheil), (Sananti. Werke, Nacliyel.
Werke). det-.fo egli st.esso. Questa lingua, questo popolo egli li
póne non come già esistenti, ma come qualcosa che bisogna creare, se si
voleva salvare la nazione tedesca dalla rovina totale e impedire che
fosse radiata dal numero dei popoli \ilidipendenti. Questa lingua e
questo popolo non erano una realtà, ma un ideale -- o meglio un imperativo.
Del lèsto non abbiamo avuto anche noi, nella nostra letteratura, un
(fenomeno analogo ai Discorsi alia nazione tedesca, in <\\i<\PRIMATO
MORALE E VIRILE [SIC] DEGL’ITALIANI, in cui, invertendo, il puuto di vista
fichtiano, GIOBERTI costrue una filosofa della storia non meno
utopistica, ma che pur tanti petti sdpsse, taute anime accese negli anni
più belli del nostro riscatto? Che se poi il saggio eloquente ed
essenzialmente. opera di fede di Fichte sia inteso non alla lettera ma nel suo
profondo significato filosofico, spogliato dei suoi particolari
riferimenti spaziali e temporali e considerato sub specie aeternitatis, allora
non solo oltrepassa il valore di ubo scritto d’occasione, ma si eleva
all’altezza di un’ opera sublime, perennemente suggestiva di nobili
pensieri e di eroiche azioni. L’ autore, sempre ispirandosi a quel suo
idealismo immanente, che egli contrappone a [Li il leit-motiv proprio di
tutta la filosofia fichtiana porre il dover essere ossia 1’idealo come
condizione creatrice e ragione sufficiente e spiegazione finale dell’ u
essere ossia del reale. Se il Kant potè dirsi il Copernico dolla
filosofia, in quanto trasferì il punto di vista del problema filosofico
dall' oggetto al soggetto, dall'essere al conoscere, Fichte può dirsi anch’egli
il Copernico della filosofia, in quanto spostò di nuovo quel punto di
vista dal conoscere al fare, dall’essere al dover-esserc: la vera realtà,
il vero assoluto sta per lui nell’ideale, nel dovere. Rivista di
Filosofa. A. Faggi, Il “ Primato „ del Gioberti e i “ Discorsi alla nazione
tedesca „ del Fichte. qualsivoglia dogmatismo, specialmente se
materialistico, sostiene in sostanza che non c’è possibilità di
filosofia e di poesia, di religione e di educazione, di libertà e
di progresso, se non là dove lo spirito crei o trovi in sè, e in
nessun modo attinga dal di fuori, il principio propulsore e direttivo di
tutta l’esistenza. Questo idealismo immanent/ egli chiama filosofia
tedesca, ossia viva, di fronte a qualsiasi filosofia straniera, ossia
morta. E che intende egli, per tedesco ?
Non occorre ricordare che secondo il Fichte vi sono dué sistemi
filosofici rigorosamente conseguenti, ciascuno dal suo punto di vista: il
dogmatismo, l’ idealismo. Ul^cio della filosofia è spiegare l’esperienza, la
quale è costituita dalle rappresentazioni delle cose. Ora si può a) o far
derivare la rappresentazione dalle cose, come fa il dogmatismo, b) o far
derivare la cosa dalla rappresentazione, cóme fa l’idealismo. Lo scegliere
l’una piuttosto che l’altra delle dué vie possibili dipende dal carattere
individuale. Un sistema filosofico
basterebbero queste parole a mostrare quanta fede pratica, quanta
iniziativa personale ed energia spirituale Fichte mettesse nella sua filosofia
e quanta ne esigesse da chi questa filosofia voglia comprendere non è uno strumento inanimato che si
possa a piacimento possedere o alienare : esso scaturisce dal più profondo
dell’anima umana: “ Iras far eine Philosophie man wàihle, hangt... davon
ab, was man far ein Mensch ist: demi ein philosophisclies System ist
nicht ein todter Hausrath, dea man ablegen oder abnehmen honnte, irte es
mis beliebte, sonderà es ist beseelt durch die Seele des Menschen, der es
ìiat. „ (Erste Ein leitung in die Wissensehaftsle'ire, Scimmtl. IVerke). La
scelta sarà diversa secondo che prevarrà in noi il sentimento
dell’indipendenza e dell’attività o il sentimento della dipendenza e della
passività; un carattere flaccido per natura, ovvero rilassato e incurvato
dalla schiavitù dello spirito, dal lusso raffinato o dalla vanità, non
s’innalzerà mai all’idealismo: 11 ein von Notar schiaffar oder durch
Geistesknechtschaft gelehrten Luxus and Eitelkeit erschla/fler und
gekrùmmler Chardhter toird sich nie zum Idealismus erheben. E ciò,
indipendentemente dalle ragioni teoretiche che anch’esse dànno
un’incontestabile superiorità di filosofia esaurientemente persuasiva
all’idealismo di fronte all’in9ufficiente e assurdo dogmatismo. Nel
settimo discorso, in cui si approfondisce il .concotto àe]Y originarie là, e
germanicità di un popolo l’autore stesso ha cura di far rilevar^ u con
chiarezza peretta „ ciò che in tutto il suo libro ha intesò per tedesco
(was uoir in unsrer bishcrigen Schilderung unter Deutschen verstanden haben). “
Il vero e proprio punto di divisione egli scrive sta in questo: o si crede che
nell’uomo ci sia qualcosa di assolutamente primo e originario, si crede
nella libertà, nell’infinito miglioramento e nell’eterno progresso della nostra
specie, oppure si nega tutto ciò e si crede di vedere e comprendere
chiaramente che è vero tutto il contrario. Coloro che vivono creando e
producendo il nuovo, coloro che, se non hanno questa sorte, almeno
abbandonano decisamente quel che non ha valore (das Nichtige) e vivono
aspettando che da qualche parte la corrente della vita originaria venga a
rapirli con sè, coloro che, non essendo neppure tanto avanti, almeno
presentono la verità, e non l’odiano o non la paventano, ma l’amano:
tutti costoro sono uomini originari e, considerati come popolo, sono un
popolo vergine (Urvolk), sono il popolo per eccellenza, sono tedeschi.
Coloro, invece, che si rassegnano a essere un che di secondo e derivato e
chiaramente concepiscono e riconoscono sè stessi come tali, tali sono in
realtà, e sempre più tali divengono in forza di questa loro credenza;
essi sono un’appendice della vita che una volta prima di loro o accanto a
loro viveva per impulso proprio, essi sono l’eco che la roccia rimanda
di [S’intitola: Noch tiefere Erfassung der Ursprunglichkeit utid
Deutscheit eines Volkes (Sammtl. Werke, nella trad. ita!. Burich,
Palermo, Sandron). una voce già spenta, e, considerati come popolo, non
sono un popolo vergine, anzi di fronte a questo sono stranieri ed
estranei (Fremete und Andando-) Ecco, dunque, che cosa significa:
tedesco! non già il tedesco considerato Ine et nune, ma il simbolo di un
tipo ideale, onde Fichte, continuando, aggiunge: u Chiunque crede nella
spiritualità, nella libertà e nel progresso di questa spiritualità
mediante la libertà, egli, dovunque sia nalo, qualunque lingua
parli (wo es auch geboren seg und in welcher Sprache cs reile) e dei
nostri, appartiene a noi, ci seguirà; chiunque, invece, crede nella stasi
generale, nella decadenza, nel ricorso circolare e pone a governo del mondo una
natura morta, egli, dovunque sia nato, qualunque^lingua parli, è
non-tedesco (undeutscll), è per noi uno straniero, ed è desiderabile
che quanto prima si stacchi completamente da noi. I Discorsi alla nazione
tedesca, dunque, soltanto occasionalmente si rivolgono al popolo germanico,
mentre nella loro profonda verità si rivolgono a tutti i popoli moderni,
a tutti gli uomini che hanno fede nella libera spiritualità, di
qualunque paese essi siano, additando a ciascuno la via sulla quale si
può servire alla propria patria particolare e insieme alla gran patria
comune, si può essere a un tempo nazionalista e cosmopolita, perchè gl’
interessi supremi ed essenziali dell’umanità sono sempre e dovunque gli
stessi. Ma a dimostrare in modo* 1 definitivo quanto l’autore
dei Discorsi sia alieno dal cosidetto pangermanismo sta il [ Reden an die
deutsche Nalioti (Stimmll. Werke), il nerette delle parole "
dovunque sia nato ecc. „ è nostro discorso decimoterzo, donde trae maggior luce
il significato di tutti gli altri. Si direbbe che i pangermanisti, ai
quali piace farsi forti dell’auLorità del uostro filosofo, si siano
di proposito arrestati dinanzi a questa sua arringa, che pure è il
punto culminante verso cui tendono le rimanenti e che può dirsi un vero
catechismo antimperialistico. Tutto ciò che all’imperialismo della
Germania odierna sembra l’ideale che essa sarebbe chiamata ad attuare: il
possesso di colonie, l’esclusiva libertà dei mari, il commercio e
l’industria mondiali, le guerre di aggressione e ili conquista, la
barbarie scientificamente organizzata, le vessazioni sui paesi
invasi, la visione di una monarchia universale, l’egemonia
assoluta, vi ò rappresentato come odioso e insensato. Ammettiamo pure che
il Fichte abbia combattuto questa criminosa megalomania perchè essa
s’incarna sotto i suoi occhi nella Francia napoleonica; non è men
vero, però, che l’ideale opposto, a lui caro, rispondeva in modo reciso a
tutta una concezione politica che fa di lui il figlio e il rappresentante
più genuino della rivoluzione francese. La sua vita, i suoi scritti di
filosofia pratica e di filosofia della storia nte sono prova ampia,
piena, sicura, e se anche subirono modificazioni, queste riguardano non il suo
pensiero e i suoi sentimenti, i quali in fondo rimasero sempre gli
stessi, ma le mutate circostanze esteriori, il mutato aspetto della
Francia, divenuta, da repubblicana e liberatrice, imperialistica e liberticida.
Nato popolo figlio di un povero tessitore, infatti, comincia la vita
avviandosi al mestiere paterno e guardando le oche, egli sempre po-
[Kedeii ecc. (Sàmmll. I Verke) polo è rimasto nel più profondo
dell’anima, per quanto ricca e forte sia divenuta poi la sua coltura, a
qualunque sommità della scienza, dell’eloquenza e della gloria
siasi inalzato il sùo genio. Già sin dagl’inizi della sua fama si
rivela un democratico ardente, giacobino quasi, irrecouciliabile avversario di
ogni pregiudizio religioso, politico e nazionalistico. Subito dopo la sua
Rivendicazione della libertà di pensiero dai principi d'Europa die /ino
allora l'acecano oppressa, egli, nei suoi Contributi alla rettifica
dei giudizi del pubblico sulla rivoluzione francese, plaude ai principi dell’89
col fervido entusiasmo d’un uomo la cui classe usciva redenta da quel
grande atto di liberazione sociale, e aterina la sua fede nella
rivoluzione stessa, proclama i diritti del popolo, frusta a sangue il
militarismo, maledice alle guerre mosse da interessi o da capricci
dinastici, e lancia contro principi e monarchie assolute i primi strali di
quell’eloquenza appassionata che fa di lui forse il più grande oratore
della Germania. Zuruckfarderung der Denkfreihe.it von den Filrsten
Europas, die eie bisher unterdriikten (Sdmmtl. If erkeI). Beitriige zar
Berichtigung der Urtheile des PubVcuins iiber die franzòsische Revolution
(Sananti. Werke). In queste sue prime opere politiche, elio per lungo
tempo furono messe all’indice in tutta la Germania, Fichte mostra che la
rivoluzione francese fu il prodotto necessario della libertà del
pensiero, che la persona morale ha il diritto di elevarsi contro lo
Stato, e che l’uomo uscito dalle mani della natura è autonomo, e che è
inalienabile il diritto dei cittadini di moditicare la costituzione, di uscire
da un’associazione politica per crearne una nuova, di fare ciò che appunto
si chiama una rivoluzione. Fine ultimo degli uomini ò la coltura di
tutti per la libertà, ma le monarchie, egli afferma, invece di lavorare
al perfezionamento dei sudditi, sono state centro di depravazione morale. Come
hanno inteso, infatti, i sovrani la coltura dei sudditi a loro affidati?
Sotto forma di educazione alla guerra; perchè, dicono essi, la guerra
coltiva. Qra, è vero che la guerra Il Fondamento del DIRITTO NATURALE secondo
i principi inalza le nostre anime a sentimenti e azioni eroiche, al
disprezzo del pericolo e della morte, alla noncuranza dei beni
continuamente esposti ni saccheggio, a una simpatia per tutto ciò che ha
aspetto umano, perchè i pericoli e i dolori sopportati in comune
stringono di più gli altri a noi. Ma non crediate di vedere in queste mie
parole un panegirico della vostra follia bellicosa, o fors’anco l’umile
preghiera che l’umanità dolente v’indirizzerebbe perchè non cessiate dal
decimarla con guerre sanguinose. La guerra non inalza all’eroismo se non
le anime già per natura eroiche; incita, invece, le anime poco nobili
alla ruberia e all'oppressione della debolezza priva di difesa. La
guerra crea a un tempo eroi e vili rapinatori, ma aitimi ’ delle due
specie quale in numero maggiore ? „ (cfr. Sàmmtl. Werke). Nel
fondare e governare i loro Stati i monarchi mirano a rafforzare la loro
onnipotenza all’interno, ad allargare le loro frontiere all’esterno: due
fini, questi, tutt’altro che favorevoli alla coltura dei loro sudditi. 1
monarchi pretendono di essere i custodi del necessario equilibrio delle
forze europee; ma questo fine, se è il loro, è perciò anche quello dei
loro popoli? “ Credete proprio egli domanda ai principi tedeschi che l'artista
o il contadino lorenese o alsaziano abbia molto a cuore di veder
menzionata la propria città o il proprio villaggio, nei manuali di
geografia, sotto la rubrica dell’impero germanico, e che por ottenere ciò
butti via lo scalpello o l’aratro? Il pericolo della guerra, ossia di ciò
che lede e ferisce a morte la coltura, ultimo fine dell’evoluzione umana,
deriva unicamente dalla monarchia assoluta, la (piale tende per necessità
alla monarchia universale. Sopprimete questa causa, e tutti i mali che ne
derivano scompariranno anch’essi, e le guerre terribili e i preparativi
della guerra, ancor più terribili, non saranno più necessari. Più oltre,
poi, troviamo Fichte antisemita e anti-militarista: antisemita contro quegl’ebrei che
sono refrattari ad assimilarsi alle nazioni in mezzo a cui pluvi vono anti-militarista
contro l’esercito del suo tempo che
mette il proprio onore nella propria umiliazione e trova nell’impunità per le
sue angherie contro i borghesi e i contadini un compenso ai pesi del
proprio stato. E continua. Il più
brutale semi-barbaro crede acquistare con la divisa militare una
superiorità sul contadino timido e spaventato, che sopporta le sue
prepotenze e i suoi insulti per non essere, per soprammercato, anche
bastonato.Il giovincello che può vantare più antenati, ma non certo più
coltura, considera la propria spada come un titolo sufficiente per
guardare dall’alto e con disprezzo il commerciante, l’uomo di scienza e
l’uomo di Stato. \Vilt della Dottrina della scienza e Lo Stato
commerciale chiuso contengono auch’essi una filosofia politica che, scaturita
interamente, oltreché dal pensiero kantiano, dai principi della rivoluzione
francese, supera quel pensiero e questi principi per le conseguenze
economiche che egli fu il primo a trarne, e approda aH’atfermazione di
un diritto dei popoli e di un diritto dei cittadini del mondo
(Volker- und Weltbnrgerrechl) e alla necessità di un’anione di popoli (
Vdlkerbund) ben diversa da uno Stato
di popoli (Volkerstaat) — che garantisca la giustizia e porti
gradatamele alla Pace perpetua (zUm ewigen Friede) Grundlage des Natnrrechte
nach Prinzipien dee ìVissenscliafls Pin e (Siimmil. Werhe, IH). Ber
geschlossene Handelsstaat (StillimiI. Werhe, III). Vediue- auclie la
traduz. ita!, di tì. B. P., Dell'intimo ordinamento di uno Stato ec<\,
Lugano, e l’altra (anonima) Lo Stato secondo ragione e lo Stato
commerciale chiuso, Torino, Bocca. Ecco, sommariamente, la dottrina
politico-economica del Fichte: La radice più profonda dell’Io è l’Io
pratico o la libera volontà; e poiché alla libera volontà di eiasenu
individuo si contrappone quella degli altri, nasce una libera azione reciproca
tra lo diverse volontà individuali, per regolare la quale gli
uomini'hanno concluso IL CONTRATO SOCIALE – “un mito” – H. P. Grice -- da cui è
uscito lo Stato. Nello Stato il potere legislativo appartiene alla comunità dei
cittadini; l’esecutivo può essere affidato sia all’elezione (democrazia), sia
alla cooptazione (aristocrazia), sia all’elezioue e alla cooptazione
insieme (aristodemocrazia). Tutte queste forme di governo sono egualmente
legittime, purché vi sia accanto a esse uu altro potere ìndipendente,
VSforato, il quale decida dei casi in cui il potere esecutivo, essendo
caduto in errori o colpe, deve risponderne dinanzi alla comunità. Oltre a
questo contratto sociale-politico, il Fichte, oltrepassando la prudenza
borghese di Kant, il quale ammetteva come legittima l’ineguaglianza
economica accanto all’eguaglianza politica, istituisce un contratto
sociale-economico (Eitjenthumverlrag) egli proclama originari in ciascun
uomo il diritto alla vita e il diritto al lavoro, e di fronte alla
proprietà privata (prodotti del suolo coltivato, bestiame, case, mobili, ecc.)
dichiara proprietà dello Stato ciò che la natura produce da sola e ciòcia' la
col- sino all’alt,imo anno della sua vita, nelle lezioni sulla
Z>n/- letti vitti produce meglio del
singolo individuo (miniere, foreste, grandi industrie, seryizì pubblici,
ecc.). Per l’elaborazione dei prodotti naturali richiede corporazioni di
competenza tecnica, e sulla qualità o quantità dei prodotti industriali
il diritto di sorveglianza Ha parte dello Stato. Donde segue la necessità
che da uu lato i cittadini ri- uuuzino alla libertà industriale, e
dall’altro si stabilisca uno scambio armonico tra i prodotti naturali e i
prodotti industriali, essendo reciprocamente gli uni indispensabili alla
produzione degli altri. Per questo scambio si è formata la classe
speciale dei commercianti. Per impedire ai produttori di elevare ad arbitrio i
prezzi dei prodotti, lo Stato accumula iu magazzini generali, mediaute
prestazioni in natura degli agricoltori e prestazioni d’opera degli
artigiani, i frutti della terra e gli strumenti del lavoro, si che i
prezzi veugouo livellati. Per obbligare i produttori a vendere, lo stato mette
iu circolazione la moneta, la quale rappresenta la somma di ricchezza che
può essere venduta, e rende possibile a uu produttore di cedere i suoi
prodotti anche in un momento iu cui non gli occorra ancora di prendere in
cambio altri prodotti. E atiinehè sia garantita la proprietà e regolata
la circolazione dei prodotti e mantenuto l’equilibrio tra agricoltori,
industriali e commercianti equilibrio che sarebbe turbato
dall’importazione di prodotti stranieri, dei quali i cittadini debbono
assolutamente poter fare a meno - è necessario che lo Stato vieti tutti
gli accessi ai commercianti di fuori e ai contrabbandieri di dentro, che
sia cioè uno Stato commerciale rigorosamente chiuso. Fichte si
ripromette le conseguenze più vantaggiose per la moralità del popolo
fortunato elio adotti la perfetta chiusura commerciale e viva soltanto di
ciò che ò prodotto e fabbricato dal paese, venduto e consumato nel paese
(cfr. Der geschlossene llandelsstaat, Sàmmll. ÌVerke), e conclude che di li
innanzi sarà la scienza il miglior legame intemazionale tra tutte le nazioni
divenute Stati chiusi : perché “ nessuno Stato della terra, dopoché il
sistema politico-economico dianzi descritto sia diventato universale, e
siasi fonduta pace perpetua tra i popoli, avrà il menomo interesse a celare ad
altri le proprie scoperte, giacché ogni Stato potrà servirsene soltanto
all’interno per il proprio sviluppo e non già per opprimere gli altri
Stati o acquistare una qualsivoglia preponderauza su di essi. Nulla, quindi,
impedirà la libera comunicazione tra i dotti e gli artisti di tutte le
nazioni: di 11 innanzi i giornali, invece di guerre e battaglie, trattati
di pace e di alleanza, conterranno soltanto notizie dei progressi della
scienza, delle nuove invenzioni, del perfezionamento della legislazione e
degli trina dello Sialo, tenute a Berlino, proprio quando la Prussia
si preparava a quella guerra d’indipendenza che egli tanto si era adoperato a
suscitare, si domanda ancora una volta quale sia la guerra
legittima (der Wahrhafte Krieg) e risponde: Una guerra è giusta
soltanto qualora la libertà e l’indipendenza nazionale di un popolo siano
attaccati; gli uomini, per compiere il loro destino, devono formare
società libere, e uno Stato non ha valore se non in quanto può
contribuire all’avvento del regno universale della libertà e della
ragione. A questa guerra veramente popolare vuole Fichte nelle sue
le- ordinamenti di governo; e. ogni Stato si affretterà ad arricchirsi delle
scoperte degli altri popoli. Nè si ha a
temere, del resto, dalla chiusura commerciate dei singoli Stati il loro
isolamento, perchè i rispettivi sudditi, iu quanto cittadini del mondo
(Weltbiirger), circolano liberamente da uno Stato all’altro, portando
seco i diritti inerenti alla persona e alla proprietà; occorre anzi, per
questo, una legislazione comune che garantisca tali diritti e punisca
l’ingiustizia commessa dal cittadino di uno Stato a danno del cittadino
di un altro Stato. I diversi Stati, inoltre, fanno contratti,
concludono trattati e sono rappresentati gli uni presso gli altri da
ambasciatori. Nel caso che uno degli Stati contraenti violi il contratto,
la guerra è 1’ unico mezzo per punirlo di questa violazione. Ma ogni
guerra è aleatoria, e se proprio lo Stato che violò il contratto
rimanesse vittorioso, in quanto più forte?! A evitare tale ingiustizia bisogna
che un’Unione distati, meglio ancora, un’unione di popolim Vslkerbund, s'impegni
a punire, viribus uniti, lo stato che, appartenente o no all’unione, si
rifiuti di riconoscere l’indipendenza degli stati uniti o violi un
contratto concluso con uno di essi, Orundlage des Nata rrechts nach Prinsipien
der Wissenscliaftslelire, Sa minti- Werke. Quanto più questa unione si allarga,
estendendosi a poco a poco su tutta la terra, tanto meglio è assicurata
la pace perpetua, der ewige Friede, che è il solo rapporto legale tra gli
stati. La guerra dev’essere soltanto mezzo al fine supremo, che è la
conservazione della pace; mai fine a sé stessa. Die Slaalslehre oder uber das
Verhaltniss des Urstaates zum Vernunftreiche (Siimintl. Werke). zioni
preparare gli uditori, perchè è questa la guerra legittima, la guerra
cioè in cui non si tratta di famiglie regnanti, ma in cui il popolo si
leva a difendere la propria vita, la propria individualità, le proprie
prerogative, la guerra a eui soltanto i vili vorrebbero sottrarsi,
e per cui invece i cittadini con esultanza daranno i loro beni, il
loro sangue, rifiutando ogni proposta di pace sino a che non siano
garantiti contro ogni minaccia ulteriore. L’oratore, è vero, contrappone ancora
una volta qui il carattere germanico al carattere neolatino e specialmente
al francese, per concluderne che non bisognava aspettarsi certo da un
Napoleone, strangolatore della nascente libertà della Francia rivoluzionaria,
l’attuazione del regno di giustizia che l’architetto del mondo affidava
invece al popolo tedesco; ma ciò attesta anche come il filosofo patriota
fosse sempre sotto la medesima ispirazione che lo animava veut’anni prima
nel suo entusiasmo per la rivoluzione francese; e, malgrado tutte le
apparenze in contrario, è sempre la medesima ispirazione quella che traspare
nel Disegno ili uno scritto politico della prima cera, destinato a illustrare
il proclama del re di PRUSSIA “ Al mio popolo, quivi il Fichte, se, dinanzi al
pericolo mortale che minacciava la nazione tedesca, riconosce la
necessità di porle a capo come despota sovrano (Zwingherr) il re di PRUSSIA,
uou perciò rimane meno fedele al suo ideale democratico; per lui ha dovuto riconoscerlo lo stesso [Veber
den Begriff des wahrhaften Krieges (Summit. Werke) «a dem
Entwurfe zu etnei- politischen Schrift ini FruhUnge (Stimma.
Werke). Treifcscbke la Repubblica, senza re, senza
principe, senza signori, è sempre il vero Stato di ragione. Passato
il pericolo, il sovrano stesso dovrà adoperarsi con tutte le sue forze a
disabituare i suoi sudditi dalla soggezione, a Fichte nini die nationale
Idee, in Historische und politiseli Aufsalse, 4. ediz. Leipzig, Hirzel. Nodi
inumo- sehwebt ihm als hòchtes Zini vor Augeu eine “ Republik dei-
Deutschen oline FUrsten und Erbadel dodi er begreift, dosa diesea Zini
in weiter Ferne liege. Fui- jetzt gilt ee da* “ die Deutscbeu sioh
selbst mit Bewus 9 tsein maoheu „ ». Si, è vero, il Fichte colloca in
un tempo ancora assai lontano la vagheggiala attuazione del suo
ideale repubblicano, al punto che uno ilei frammenti di una sua opera
politica, scritta a Kònigsberg e rimasta incompiuta s’intitola: La repubblica
tedesca sotto il suo V." protettore (Die Republik der Deutschen su Anfani des
sirei- und zwanzigsten Jahrhunderls, un ter ihrem fiinften Reichsvogtei,
ina intanto quale coraggioso e severo linguaggio rivoluzionario egli
tiene contro i principi alemanni, cosi in questo frammento come altrove! Cou la
spietata crudeltà del chirurgo che, per guarire radicalmente una piaga
purulenta, affonda il bisturi nel pili vivo delle carni, egli mette a
nudo tutti i difetti e le turpitudini del suo tempo e del suo paese e
propone come rimedio una nuova costituzione, la quale dovrebbe stabilire
l’eguaglianza di tutti' i popoli teutonici e non ammettere altra disuguaglianza
tra gl’individui elio non sia quella del- p ingegno; una costituzione
adatta a una nazione come la germanica, la quale, die’egli, pressoché
incurante del giudizio dello altre nazioni, ha la caratteristica di raccogliersi
in se stessa e di min chiedere nulla più che di vivere pacificamente secondo il
proprio genio. Una nazione, la quale, còme la tedesca, non mira che ad
affermare e conservare per sé la propria torma disesistenza (ibr
eigentìiiimliches St'jti) e in nessun modo a imporla ad altri
(keinesweges anderen es aufzudringen), non senza intenzione é stata
collocata in mezzo a popoli, i quali, tosto che abbiano acquistato una mediocre
quantità di coltura, sentono il bisogno di diffonderla al di fuori;
nell’eterno disegno della storia umana essa è destinata a servire di diga a
questa intempestiva invadenza e a fornire non solo a sé stessa, ma a
tutti gli altri popoli d’Europa la garanzia di poter progredire, ciascuno
a suo modo, verso il fine comune (sie seg [die deutsche Natimi ],
im eteigen Entwurfe eines Menschengeschlechles jm Qanzen, bestimint,
als ein Damm dazustehen gegen jene unzeitige Zudringlichheit, und
uni renderli, in altri termini, capaci di fare a meno di lui.. u Se
cosi non dovesse avvenire nel futuro della Germania — esclama egli con
forza importerebbe poco che una
parte di essa fosse governata da un maresciallo francese come
Bernadotte, nel cui spirito almeno sono passate le visioni entusiasmanti
della libeità, piuttosto che da un signorotto tedesco, tronfio
d’orgoglio, immorale e di una brutalità e di un’arroganza sfrontate „
('). Quando si leggano queste parole contenute in quel medesimo Scritto
politico della primavera. ISIS, che non interamente a torto si è potuto considerare
come il luogo letterario in cui l’autore si è più inoltrato sulla via del
nazionalismo, e quando si ricordi il noto particolare della vita del
Fichte, ili avere cioè dopo la disastrosa campagna di Russia, impedito come un
orrendo delitto il macello a tradimento della guarnigione lfaucese
rimasta a Berlino, chi vorrà ancora vedere nel nostro filosofo un
pangermanista a cui si possa far risalire la responsabilità non solo
delle teorie insensate degli odierni teutomani, ma persino del cinismo satanico
con cui e per terra e per aria e per mare pretendono apnichf tuie sich, sonderà
nudi alien anderen europaischen Vblkern die Garantie zu leisten, ilass
sie auf dire eigene Weise laufen konnten zìi detti gemeinsamen Siete)
(Sdmmtl. Werke). Quale stridente contrasto tra l'ufficio storico-politico
che il Pielite assegnava alla nazione tedesca o quello che la Germania odierna
pretende arrogarsi ! Aus dem Enluourfe eie. {Siimitili. ÌVerke). «
Weun wir dahor nieht im Auge behielten, vvas Deutschland zu werden
hat, so 18ge an sich nicht so viel durun, ob ein franzusischer
Marscliall, wie Bernadotte, an dem weuigstens friiher begeisternde Bilder
der Freiheit voriibergegangen sind, oder ein deutscher aufgehaseuer
Edel- maun, ohne Sitten uud mit Rohlieit und frechem Ueberrauthe, iiber
eineu Theil von Deutschland gebiete. ] plicarle i novelli barbari odierni,
i rossi devastatori joiù veri e maggiori dello stesso Attila flagellum
Dei? Tanto più tempestivo, e tanto più salutare e confortevole ci sembra,
dunque, dinanzi alla mostruosa degenerazione del senso morale di cui dà
spettacolo l’odierna nazione tedesca, ostentando di non riconoscere altro
diritto all’infuori del despotismo e della forza bruta, rievocare dalla
letteratura classica di questa stessa nazione la dottrina morale di uno dei più
grandi assertori e della forza del diritto e del diritto che individui e
pispoli hanno alla giustizia, all’indipendenza, alla libertà. Chi
abbia seguito nella storia della filosofia le vicende toccate alla
dottrina di Fichte ('), avrà notato
come al grande entusiasmo e ai vivaci dibattiti suscitati dal suo
primo apparire succedesse per vari decenni un immeritato oblio, dovuto al
predominio delle 1 dottrine uscite dal suo seno e specialmente dello
hegelismo, i cui rappresentanti, imponendo alla storia della filosofia un
loro preconcetto di scuola, quello cioè di non tener conto nella
speculazione prehegeliana se non di quanto avesse contribuito a preparare
il sistema del loro maestro, avevano abituato a vedere nel Fichte nulla
più che il pensatore da cui era derivato un deciso indirizzo idealist ico
alla speculazione post kantiana. Vani furono gli sforzi del figlio ilei
Ficht.e, Ema- Ofr. in proposito A. Ravà, Introduzione allo studi» tirila
filosofia (li Fichte, Modena, Formiggiui, V., per es., Karl Ludw.
Michelet, Geschichte der lefzten Sy- steme der Philosophie in Deutschland
voli Kant bis Hegel (Berlin), in cui alla prima filosofia del Fichte seno
dedicate le miele Ermanno, per mostrare il valore che la filosofia,
paterna aveva per sè stessa. Soltanto col risvegliarsi dello spirito nazionale
germanico, risorse la fortuna del grande rigeneratore della
coscienza tedesca, del filosofo popolare, dell’oratore eloquente,
del fervido nazionalista, ilei supposto pangermanista; ma, appunto per
questa circostanza, l’attenzione fu rivolta di preferenza alla sua
filosofia politica, arbitrariamente o artificiosamente interpretata, e il
centenario della nascita del Fichte fu solennemente celebrato da tutta la
Germania ilei voi. I, e alla seconda filosofia; A. Oli', avendo avuto il
torto di prendere quest’opera come guida principale per una conoscenza
della filosofia tedesca postkantiana, fu trattò a un’eccessiva reazione
contro il Kant e contro lo hegelismo nel suo libro: Hegel ri la
philosophie allemande (Paris). Di Em. Ehm. Fichte, oltre le Prefazioni
(dianzi ricordate) a vari degli undici voli, delle Opere complete di G.
A. Pielite, vedi ancora: i Beitràge sur Charuk'teristik dar ncueren
Philosophie (Sulzbach) di cui la 2.“ ediz. può considerarsi come un’opera
nuova; il voi. Fichte ' s Lehen and litterarlscher Briefwechsel
(Sulzbach, ISSO), con cui, prima ancora che con la pubblicazione delle
opere, cercò richiamare l’attenzione sulla personalità e sull’attività
pratica del padre, affinchè nascesse cosi gradatamente anche l’interesse
per il suo pensiero; e infine V Introduci ion (in frane.) alla Méthodc
pour arriver à la vie blenheureuse par Fichte (traduz. Bouillier)
(Paris). V., per es.: t due voli, del Busse, Fidile und sei ne
Bezìehung zar Gegenwart des deutsehen Volkes (Halle), la conferenza
dello Zeli.eh, l'idi lo aìs Politiker (ristampata in Zelleh, Vor- Irdgr
und Abliandlinigen, Leipzig) e l’opuscolo del Lassalle, Melile's poìilisches
Vermdchtnis and die neuesle Gegenwart (Hamburg, ristampato in Lassallk,
Reden und Schriflen, Berlin). Bisogna, invece, uscire dalla Germania per
trovare un’esposizione prettamente storica e serenamente obiettiva di tutta la
filosofia del Fichte quale si ha nella solida opera del Willm, Histoire
de la Philosophie allemande drpttis Kant jusqu’k Hegel (Paris), opera
premiata, su relazione del de iléinusat, dall'istituto di con significato più
politico che filosofico; mia
singolare fatalità, poi, (che sembra un’ironia della storia a chi intenda
il vero senso delle teorie politiche del Fichte) ha voluto che il cèntenario
della sua morte coincidesse con l’irrompere improvviso della premeditata
aggressione pangermanistica! Francia e ancora utile e pregevole,
nonostante la sua vetustà; la si può leggere con profitto anche dopo le
ampie ed eccellenti monografie posteriori del Fischer (Fichles
Leben,\Verke und Lehre, Heidelberg) e del Leon (La philosophie de Fichte et ses
rapportò uvee la conscience coti tempo faine, Paris), il quale ultimo
dedica al suo soggetto un lungo studio e un grande amore. Questo
carattere politico-nazionalistico degli scritti usciti in occasione del
centenario del Fichte fu ben rilevato da von Rkichi.IN- Memusco nel suo
articolo l)er hundertòte Geburistng ./. O. Fichtes
(in Zeitschrift fiir Philosophie uud philos. Kritih, Halle). Vedine la
lunga lista nell’UKBERWKO-HEiNZE. Grundriss der Geschiclite dcr
Philosophie, IV, Berlin; qui basti ricordare per tutti il discorso già citato
del Treitbchke, Fichte i ind die nutionale Idee. L’uso e l’abuso del
Fichte a scopi patriottici e imperialistici non cessa io Germania col
conseguimento dell'unità tedesca. Più di una volta le conferenze tenute nelle
università tedesche in occasione del natalizio dell’imperatore hanno avuto per
argomento preferito la personalità o qualche dottrina particolare di Fichte:
per es., all’università di Strasburgo, terra di conquista, Windelband fa
un’alta affermazione di germanismo parlando dell’idea dello stato tedesco
secondo Fichte; Windelband, Fiehte's Idee des dentschen Stante, Freiburg i.
Breisgau. All’università di Kiel, Martius inneggia al cinquantesimo anno
di Guglielmo II, ricordando la vita e l’opera d’un uomo, il quale
grandemente co-opera all’elevazione e all’emancipazione delle forze
morali della Germania, e della cui azione efficacissima, insieme e accanto
alla concezione politica dello Stein, ricorre oggi il centenario; d’un uomo,
a cui appunto ora la nazione tedosca si appresta a dimostrare la propria
gratitudine inalzandogli un monumento nella capitale [e il monumento è poi
sorto a Berlino], insomma, di Fichte, (Redc zur Feier des Geburtstages
seiner Majeshit des Deutschen Kaisers Kdttigs von Preiissen Wilhelm 11 von Golz
Martius, Kiel). Se tra molti scritta' rolli di occasione cominciò ad
apparire qualche studio serio di tutta l’opera fichtiaua, il suo aspetto,
per lo spostamento dell’attenzione dal lato politico ai fondamenti teoretici
del sistema, è non meno unilaterale di quello che continuarono a
presentare, in tempi più recenti, le dissertazioni te le monografie sulla
dottrina giuridico-sociale del [Ricordiamo, per es.: Lòwio, Die
Philosophie Fichte’s iiach (lini Gesaimntergehnisse ihrer EntuHchelung
und in ihrem Verhiiltnitise zìi Kant unii Spinosa, Stuttgart [l’Autore, seguace
del dualismo de[ Giintlior e perciò d’indirizzo radicalmente opposto
a tinello di Fichte, mira specialmente a mostrare la logica
coerenza in cui le due diverse forme assunte dal sistema fichtiauo
stanno al principio fondamentale del sistema stesso anche là dove, secondo lui,
si contraddicono, pei concluderne l’insufficienza del principio stesso]; il
L.\s- soN, .Fichte Un Verhaltniss zu Kirche und Slaat (Berlin)
[l’Autore, dominato, com’è, dall’ idea religiosa quale può rientrare
nella concezione hegelismi, considera fondamentale la seconda forma
della lilosolia lichtiana, quella in cui prevale il pensiero religioso,
pur giudicandola non riuscita e insoddisfaeeute] ; e sopra tutti il già ricordato
Fibciusr, Fichtes Leben, Werke und Lehre (Heidelberg, Geschichtc der
neueren Fhilosophic) opera veramente classica per la larghissima e
accuratissima esposizione di quasi tutte le opere del grande idealista;
in essa si sostiene la tesi che le due forme della filosofia fichtiana non
sarebbero che duo opposte direzioni assuute rispetto allo stesso
principio fondamentale del sistema: uel primo periodo il Fichte, partendo
dalla lilosolia teoretica, si sarebbe elevato alla filosofia del diritto, alla
lilosolia morale, alla filosofia religiosa, all'Assoluto; quivi, infatti,
il postulato di quell'ordiuamento morale del mondo, che per lui la tutt
uno con 1 In assoluto e con Dio (die lebendige unii loirkende moralische
Ordnung itti selbst Goti), è il punto di arrivo; noi secondo periodo,
invertito il cammino e trasformato quel postulato da punto di arrivo in
putito di partenza, il Fidilo avrebbe preceduto dall’Assoluto alla
religione, alla morale, al diritto e alla scienza. — Più denigratore che
profoudo è stato giustamente giudicato, infine, il libro del NoàCK, J. G.
Fichte nach sei non Leben, Leliren und Wirken (Leipzig). filosofo
tedesco, inopportunamente staccata da tutto il resto deli’edifizio
speculativo. Anche nella maggior parte degli odierni studi storici
sul Lichte divenuti più che mai frequenti dopoché al moto neo-kantiano
iniziatosi al grido: ritorniamo al Kant! (zurìick zu Kant!) si associò,
come orientamento filosofico, un moto neo-fichtiano: ritorniamo al
Fichte!j(zuriick zu Fichte!) che è andato sempre più accentuandosi
dagli ultimi decenni del secolo scorso ai giorni nostrf è \11 ritorno a Kant si suole farlo
risalire alla celebre lezione dello Zellar: Ueber die Bedeutung und
Aufgabe der Er/ iJnntnistheorie (Heidelberg); ma già il Weisse
pronunziava a Lipsia un discorso: In welchem Sitine sich die deutsche
Philisopkie wieder a " Kanl zu orientieren hai (Leipzig),. dal quale
si rileva la sua avversione alla dialettica hegeliana e il suo sforzo por
contrapporre al panteismo idealistico un teismo etico. n? V '
m P ro P oa ìto I’Uebeuweg-Hbinzb, Grundtjss der Geschichle (ter
p/iilosop/tie seit Beginn des neunzehnten Jahrhundcrts (Berlin), Elnwìrkung
Fichtes auf neuere Lahren. Se ne ricava il largo é potente influsso che
la filosofia fichtiana, intesa sia come idealismo soggettivo, sia come
idealismo etico, sia come panpsichismo, ha esercitato e sopra le varie nuove
dottrine sorte in Germania e sopra menti speculative di altri paesi
(Inghilterra, Nord-America, ecc.). Per la recente e assai ricca letteratura
intorno al nostro filosofo vedi lo stesso voi. dell’Uebervveg-Heinze,
Baldwin, Dictionary of philosophy and psychology, London, e per quella
recentissima, ancor yù abbondante, cfr. i
voli, editi da Rude, Die P/iilosop/tie der Gegemoarl (Heidelberg) e
contenenti pressoché tutta la bibliografia filosofica. Nel centenario della
morte del Fichte e scoppio della guerra europea) la Bibliotheh fUr
Philosop/tie, edita da Stein, pubblica l’opuscolo di Stàhler, Fichte, ein
deutscher Den/ter (conferenza tenuta nel circolo tedesco di Charcow in Russia),
in cui FA., movendo dal bisogno spirituale oggi sempre più intensamente
sentito di una nuova orientazione circa la concezione del mondo, affermava
essere appunto Fichte il più atto a fornire una chiara risposta alla questione,
una forse da rilevare una certa esclusività d’interesse, corrispondente
all’ interesse prevalentemente critico e gnoseologico che ha animato siuo a
ieri il pensiero contemporaneo; di guisa che in questa rifioritura di
studi fichtiani, mentre alla teoria della conoscenza ò assegnato
per lo più il posto d’onore, le altre parti del sistema, in ispecie le più
pratiche, vengono relativamente lasciate nell’ombra. Il che nuoce alla
dottrina e anche alla figura del nostro filosofo, le quali così risultano
monche e diminuite, e spesso oscurale e falsate; quando invece Fichte reclamava
sempre e vivamente che i futuri critici non giudicassero la sua
concezione se non nella sua totalità, se non ponendosi cioè in quel punto
di vista centrale, da cui si dominano e s'illuminano tutti gli aspetti; tanto
più, poi, che nessuu’altra concezione come la sua aspirava a essere una
rigorosa unità, organica, inscindibile, completa, a rispecchiare, quasi,
queiraltra rigorosa unità, altrettanto massiccia quanto severa e
semplice, che era la personalità stessa di Fichte, il quale appartiene
all’eletta schiera di spiriti eminenti che nella storia deH’uinauità
seppero unire in intima connessione la speculazione filosofica con la
vita vissuta, fondendo armonicamente pensiero e azione, investendo del medesimo
prorisposta che 11 non ha nè corna nè denti (die u tceder Horner nodi
Zàhne hai), ed essere sempre Fichte “ la stella polare (der Leit- sternj
verso la quale possiamo di nuovo orientare la nostra vita e il nostro
sapere „ (cfr. la prefazione). Peccato che l’opuscolo dello Srahler
uscisse accompagnato nello stesso anno da altri due volumetti della stessa
Biblioteca, riguardanti, sebbene con intento puramente storico, figure
filosofiche ben diverse dall’ideale figura del Fichte, e di significato
più sintomatico in quel nefasto anno, e cioè: il Protagoras-Niclzsche-Stirner
di B. Iachsiann e il Nietzsches Metaphysik- limi ihr Verhdltniss zu Erkenntnialheorie
u. Ethih di S. Flemming. fondo interesse le più fredde concezioni astratte
della ricerca teoretica e le più ardenti questioni concrete
dell’attività pratica, intensificando la luce diffusa dalla loro opera
in- stauratricè nel campo del sapere col calore irradiantesi dalla
loro missione riformatrice nel campo del dovere. E invero non si può
negare al sistema del nostro filosofo la sua principale caratteristica : quella
di essere cioè È veramente ammirevole in Fichte che Zeller
giustamente definiva anche per il carattere morale un idealista nato il rapporto stretto che uni sempre la
sua vita alla sua dottrina. Jamais la
manière d’agir et di sentir cosi scrive Bauthoi.mf.ss nella sua
Ili- gioire critique des doefriu^s religieuses de la philosophie moderne
(Paris) — jamais la conduite et l’àrae ne fu- rent séparées chez lui de
la manière de penser et de voir. Ce qu : il croyait était eu méme temps
le nerf de sa volonté, le soufflé et. l’inspiration de son existence entière.
Prenant au sérieux tous les mou- vements de son intelligence, il vonlait
vivre de ce qu' il coucevait, et taire vivre ce qu’ il savait, cornine il
ne vonlait savoir que ce qu’ il pouvait aimer, admirer et pratiquer. Ce
n’ótait pas lii l’héroique effet d’uu parti pris, c’était le propre de sa
naturo méme, où lo seu- timent de la valeur morale, de la diguité
personnelle, se confondait avec une telle hauteur de pensée, avec une
hardiesso de speculatimi si intrèpide, qu’ elle pouvait, semidei- la
rósolution d’nn caractère l'u- domptable. La ilestiuée, il est vrai,
avait surtout coutribué à Pac- croissemeut de nette énergie, de cette
trempe primitive. Fiofite avait eu longtemps à combattre, non seulement
des adversaires et des enne- mie, mais les soucis et la misère, le froid
ot la faim. Avant, do lutter pour la libertà de penser et pour P
indépendance de sa patrie, il avaiti pour s'assurer le pain dn jour,
endnré tout.es les rigueurs matórielles ot sociales; et de tant
d’èpreuves diverses, il était sorti plus vigoureux, plus courageux, plus
convaiucu de ce que peut et vaut la no- b lesse d’àme. Ausai ne
saurait-ou contempler, sans ètre à.la foia tou- chó et fortifié, le
tableau de ses souffrauces et de ses victoires, na'i- vemeut et
inodesteraeut trace dans cette Vie et correspondance, qu’ a publiée lo
lils qui porte si eonvenablemeut son illustre nom. con tutti i suoi difetti, i
suoi errori e, diciamolo pure, la sua oscurità un vero sistema. In esso
trovi subito un’idea che l’ha generato tutto quanto, che ne è il
centro, l’anima e ne fa l’unità : idea ovunque presente e ovunque
feconda, da cui nascono il metodo, le divisioni, gli svolgimenti, le
applicazioni, e da cui germogliano in ogni direzione soluzioni, buone o
cattive, a tutti i problemi teoretici e pratici. Esso è non solo uno nel suo
insieme e omogeneo nelle sue parti, ma universale: tutte le grandi questioni
intorno a Dio, all’uomo, alla natura, e ai loro rapporti, rientrano nel suo
quadro e vi si coordinano; vi si potranno notare lacune, rifacimenti,
mutevolezza di atteggiamenti e di espressioni, indefinitezza di disegno e
incompiutezza di linee, ma ciò va attribuito più alle contingenze
esteriori in mezzo a cui il sistema si svolse (‘), che non alla sua idea
ispiratrice, la quale, posta l’universalità della dottrina a cui dà vita,
non poteva non esercitare un influsso auch’esso universale sulla coltura del
tempo e delle età posteriori sino a noi, assicurando così al nome
dell’autore una fama imperitura nella storia dello spirito umano. Intorno itilo
svolgimento del pensiero fichtiano et'r. \V.Kaiutz, S ludi<’u z.
EnUoicklungsgeschichU der Fichteschen Wissemchaftslehre (Berlin) e nnolie
E. Focus, Vom Werden rlreier Denker : Fichte, Schelling, Schleiermachcr, Tiibingen.
cfr. anello IC. Voit LÀNDlSK, Geschichte der Philosophie, Leipzig, Schlegel
considera la Wissenschaftslehre di Fichte una delle “ tre maggiori
tendenze del secolo (circi griissten Tetidenzen iteti Jahrshunderts) „
accanto al Wilhelm Meister del Goethe e alla Rivoluzione francese. E
innegabile che il filosofo di Jena fu il filosofo per eccellenza della scuola
romantica, le cui idee, a giudizio concorde degli storici e in
particolare dello I-Iaym, che su ciò insiste ctm forza (cfr. Die
romantische Schuie), sono derivate in Quale questa idea ispiratrice? È
l’idea più alta e, pei la coscienza comune, la più paradossale che sia
sorta nella storia della filosofìa : la sintesi, cioè, di due termini in
apparenza così inconciliabili come l’io e il non-io, il conoscere e l’essere,
la libertà e la necessità, lo spirito e la natura, nel monismo superiore, nella
“ superiore filosofia (Jiohere Phihsophie) direbbe lo Schelling, della
libertà. Il sistema del Fichte consiste, intatti, in una * filosofia
della libertà e poiché il suo principio metafisico s’identifica con l’ideale
morale, giustamente fu chiamato un Idealismo elico. La vecchia metafisica
s’intitolava scienza dell’essere, ontologia, e nell’essere riponeva
l’assoluto, il reale, e dall’essere derivava ciò che dev’essere l’ideale.
Secondo Fichte, invece l’assoluto, il
principio ultimo e supremo da cui veniamo e a cui tendiamo non ù 1 essei e,
ma grandissima parte dalla Dottrina tirila scienza. E si spiega la
predi- lezione dei romantici per un sistema come il ttchtiano, il «piale
trasforma il kantismo ancora esitante in un idealismo assoluto, e a tutto
uscire, sotto il rispetto metafisico, da «piella stessa genialità dell’
lo, da cui i romantici tutto derivavano sotto il rispetto estetico. Fu
detto anche Idealismo soggettivo, ma tale definizione e ei- ronea, perchè
V Io che il Fichte pone al principio di tutto il suo sistema non è l’io
individuale, sì bene 1 ’/o collettivo, universale, che sta a fondamento
di tutti gl’individui, l’/o,assoluto, l’originaria incognita X, dalla cui unità,
ancora chiusa in sè stessa e incosciente, dovrà uscire, in virtù di quel
misterioso urto (Ansiosa), che è il t eus er m china di tutta la
metafisica Uchtiana, l’antitesi cosciente del soggettivo e
dell’oggettivo. Il mio lo assoluto - dice Fichte - non è l’individuo;
soltanto cortigiani offesi e filosofi irritati contro di me hanno cosi
male interpretato la mia filosofia, per attribuirmi l’infame dottrina
dell’egoismo pratico (mein absolutes Teh tst mcht das Individuili» ; so
haben beleidigte Hóflinge und drgerhchc Phiìo- sophm mich erklàrt, uni
mir die sehandliche Lehre des prahtischen Egoismus anzudichten. Cfr. G.
Ws ioi.lt. Zar GescMchte derneue reti Philosophie (Hamburg). il
dovere, è un ideale che non è, ma dev'essere. L’essere in quanto essere,
in quanto quid stabile e compiuto, in quanto cosa o materia inerte, a
rigore non esiste ; la fissità, l’immobilità di ciò che chiamiamo sostanza, sostrato,
materia, non è che apparenza. Agire, tendere, volere, ecco in che
consiste la realtà vera. L’universo è il fenomeno della Volontà pura, il
simbolo dell’ Idea morale, che è la vera cosa in se, il vero Assoluto.
Filosofare significa com vincersi che l'essere non è nulla, che il dovere
è tutto; significa riflettere sul proprio io empirico, individuale,
unica ultivilà libera che tende incessantemente ad attuare ciò che dev'
essere, ossia il Dovere, il Bene, /.’ Io assoluto, universale; significa
acquistare la coscienza di por- lare con sè la libertà che crea e
soggioga il mondo, appunto per attuare il Dovere, il Bene, l'Ideale
morale, l Io o la Libertà assoluta. Il Kant aveva bene
ammesso che il soggetto, ossia la ragione e la libertà, impone una forma
e una legge agli oggetti della conoscenza: dell’ Io egli aveva fatto, si,
il legislatore del mondo, ma non era giunto a farne addirittura il
creatore; poiché aveva lasciato sussistere ancora, ili fronte al
soggetto, uu oggetto, una cosa in sè, capace d’imporre un limite al
soggetto. Per il Fichte, invece, il quale dà all’ io empirico un
significato universale, questa pretesa cosa in sè, ultimo residuo del
dogmatismo, è una chimera che bisogna esorcizzare, perchè è
semplicemente la parte dell’ Io ancora incosciente che il progresso
della conoscenza trae a poco a poco alla luce della coscienza ;
sarebbe assurda, infatti, di fronte alla Libertà assoluta, alIo assoluto e
universale, una materia non creata da lui e a lui imposta dal di fuori. E
poi, questa misteriosa cosa in sè. supposta al ili là di ogni conoscenza,
questo essere senza intelligenza, a che si riduce, se non a un
contenuto mentale (Oeilankending ) e quasi a un fantasma, creato da
noi stessi a spiegarci le sensazioni e le rappresentazioni che in noi
sorgono, non per libera creazione nostra, ma prodotte dal di fuori. Se un
limite esiste all'attività del- ]> jo, gli è perchè l ’lo stesso lo
pone liberamente alla propria attività illimitata, con lo scopo di avere il
modo di sopprimerlo e di esentare cosi quella stessa attività propria e
di rivelare a si stesso la propria essenza, che è la libertà. La moralità
e la virtù, del resto, non suppongono lo sforzo e la lotta? bisogna,
dunque, per attuarle, crearsi perenue- mente ostacoli e superarli; onde V
Io nel primo momento della propria evoluzione “ pone sè stesso, tesi, nel
secondo momento u contrappone a sè il non-Io, antitesi, e nel terzo
momento si riconosce nel non-Io, sintesi. Tre aiti, questi, a cui corrispondono
i tre modi di esistenza, i tre oggetti del sapere, che sono l’io, il
mondo, il tu. Guai se l’7o desistesse un solo istante dali’esercizio
della propria libera attività! cesserebbe immantinente di esistere;
di qui il carattere titanico che il Fischer ammira nel- p Jo fichtiano,
destinato per natura sua a continuamente agire, produrre, volere. Per
approssimarsi in qualche modo al concetto dell lo iich- tiauo nel quale
va ricercato il fondamento di ogni esperienza, giova fare completamente
astrazione da qualsiasi contenuto rappresentalo della nostra coscienza
empirica. Dopo questa immensa sottrazione, si consideri la rappresentazione
più vuota che possa pensarsi, 1 unica affermazione che non abbisogni di
nessuna dimostrazione, il principio logico d’identità: A è A, col quale
uon si afferma nemmeno che zi esiste, ma soltanto che: se A esiste, A
dev’essere A. Orbene, quantunque con tale affermazione si formuli soltanto una
vuota venta e Un cosi intenso idealismo non era mai sorto
prima.del Pielite. Esso insegna che il variopinto e multisono mondo
sensibile, che si estende nello spazio e si svolge nel tempo, non ha
esistenza propria e indipendente : 1’ unico ch'e veramente esista è l’ lo. E lo
stesso Io esiste solo in quanto agisce. Dal suo operare, dal suo
rifrangersi in In e non-lo, sorge per lui il mondo visibile, percepibile
e connesso da non i ponga
nessuna esistenza, si compie, tuttavia, un atto del pensiero, un giudizio, e un
giudizio d’incrollabile certezza, il quale porta direttamente a porre e a
riconoscere 1'esistenza reale dell’/o. Infatti, donde proviene il verbo “è”
con cui il primo A è messo in relazione col secondo A, il soggetto col
predicato? Il nesso tra i due termini del giudizio è beu soltanto nell’/o e per
opera dell’/o. Dunque, nellu precedente proposizioue: A è A, ebe è la più
evidente, per quanto la più vuota di contenuto, che si possa formulare,
si nasconde già l’ lo, si trova già l’attività certa di aè stessa;
perché, meutre per A non si ha il diritto di fare, oltre il giudizio
ipotetico: se A esiste, A è A, nnehe il giudizio categorico: A esiste, in
quantiche anatale affermazione richiederebbe un’ulteriore dimostrazione,
per V Io, invece, anello se non sappiamo assolutamente nulla più di
questo: che è A, possiamo dire non solo: se V Io esiste, l’ Io è l’/o, ma
altresì: l’ Io esiste (ciò elio ricorda l’agostiniano e il cartesiano:
Cogito ergo sum). Ma V Io è, per natura sua, essenzialmente attività, e,
prima ancora di acquistare coscienza dei propri prodotti, dei propri
atti, e di sè stesso, crea, con la sua immagiuazione produttrice, perenne
e inesauribile, le innumerevoli rappresentazioni, che poi lu riHeasioue
farà apparire alla sua intelligenza come oggetti, come non-lo;
perchè va sempre ricordato questo punto originale della dottrina del
Fichte - il non-lo, ossia il mondo esterno, è posto ilall’/o inconscio,
non già dall' Io cosciente; è un prodotto, quindi, anteriore a quella
relazione di antitesi e sintesi tra soggettivo e oggettivo che è la coscienza,
e quando la coscienza nasce, s’impone a essa come già dato. Così, grazie
a questa produzione inconscia dell’ immaginazione dell' lo — di
quell’immaginazione che già per il Descartes era il trait d’union tra l’anima e
il corpo, e per il Kant l’intermediaria tra le intuizioni pure della
sensibilità e le categorie dell’intelletto —, il non-lo apparisce all’
intelligenza come un limite dal di fuori senza essere perciò estraneo
all’/o, essendo sempre un prodotto dell’/o inconscio. leggi, il quale
perciò non è che il sistema delle nostre rappresentazioni, il rispecchiarsi
dell’ lo nell’/o. Ma anche questo rispecchiamento non ci rivela in modo puro e
immediato ]’ intima essenza del nostro spirito, perchè non uel
rappresentarsi è il nostro più alto operare, non nel rappresentarsi è
tutto il nostro Io. Noi operiamo veramente soltanto nel libero volere
morale; noi attuiamo completamente il nostro Io soltanto «piando, con
attività rinnovata al lume della coscienza, ci sforziamo di soggiogare il
mondo delle rappresentazioni scaturite dall’inesauribile fonte dell’ lo
inconscio il quale mondo non è che “ il materiale sensibilizzato
del nostro dovere (unsre Welt ist das versinnlichte Muterial unsrer
Pjlicht) e ci sforziamo di trasformarlo nel mondo della libertà, nel
mondo soprasensibile ed eternamente in fieri del Bene; poiché, esclama il
Fichte, essere liberi è nulla, divenir liberi è il cielo (frei se‘in ist
nichts, frei wenlen ist dei' Ilimmel)! La costruzione filosofica del Fichte può
dirsi monolitica, ed è tale da superare in semplicità persino quella
eretta, da un punto di vista e con centro «li gravita affatto
opposti, dallo Spinoza: al Jacobi
il sistema del filosofo tedesco appariva il rovescio del sistema del
filosofo olaudese. E qui sta il vantaggio della concezione fichtiana
anche sulla kantiana; il Kant non aveva tanto fornito un sistema,
quanto, piuttosto, i germi e i materiali per più sistemi; nella lotta
contro il dogmatismo e contro lo scetticismo egli aveva voluto inalzare
alla scienza propriamente detta, più che un tempio, una fortezza; e, per
rendere questa fortezza iuespuguabile da tutti i lati, ne aveva
costruito -i bastioni quasi in tempi diversi, quasi in stile diverso
: onde nella sua filosofia non solo rimane il dualismo inconciliabile tra
l’essere e il conoscere, tra il conoscere'e il lai e, ma nell ambito
stesso del conoscere manca una rigorosa unità tra i diversi poteri conoscitivi,
tra la sensibilità con lo sue intuizioni pure, l’intelletto con le sue
categorie, la ragione con le sue idee metafisiche. Il filosofa di
Ko- nigsbei'g da una parte pareva chiudere lo spirito umano tutto
nel giro del proprio mondo interno, nel fenomeno, dall altra gli lasciava
intravedere, al di là di questo mondo interno, un altro mondo, il
noumeno, avvolto sempre da densa nebbia e sempre refrattario alla
conoscenza. Donde la domanda : questo mondo esistente in sè è quello
stesso che ci si i ivela nella voce della coscienza, ed è possibile
tiadui lo in atto con la pura e buona volontà? La risposta di Kant, almeno
nell’espressione datale dall’autore, se non nello spirito dell’autore
stesso, era stata cosi cauta, che ognuno poteva trarne le conseguenze a
suo proprio rischio. Iusomma, non si poteva non riportare l’impressione
che nella, dotti ina kantiana la verità fosse svelata soltanto a
mezzo, e che a essa mancasse, dal punto di vista scientifico, cosi il
fondamento come il coronamento. Fichte, invece, da quel pensatore ben più
ardito e deciso ch’egli eia e che si era formato sullo stampo dello
Spinoza, s’impossessò dei materiali kantiani, e fece della Critico un sistema
unitario: Tutto ciò che è, è per noi; tutto ciò che è per noi, può essere
soltanto per opera nostra; nell’attività dell’ lo è racchiuso il conoscere e
l’essere, il sensibile e il soprasensibile, il reale e 1’ ideale ;
nell’autocoscienza (Selbstbeiousstsein)
lo stesso Kant aveva già insinuato che la misteriosa incognita
nascosta sotto i fenomeni sensibili poteva benissimo essere quella stessa
che portiamo con noi è l’unità di tutti i poteri dello spirito, l’unità
delle forme cosi del fenomeno come della cosa in sè che sta a fondamento
del fenomeno, l’unità del sistema delle nostre rappresentazioni e del sistema
dei nostri doveri, l’unità della nostra essenza teoretica e della nostra
essenza pratica: 1’ unità, e con 1’ unità il fondamento e il coronamento
di tutta la dottrina. Se il Reinhold aveva cercato un principio
superiore, come principio unico indispensabile a dare forma sistematica
di scienza alla dottrina della conoscenza, se il Beck aveva interpretato
lo spirito della filosofia kantiana nel senso idealistico, se il Jacobi
aveva reclamato l’eliminazione della cosa in sè ecco nella filosofia di
Fichte soddisfatti tutti insieme questi desideri, e in pari tempo
fornita ai risultati della CRITICA DELLA RAGIONE 1’evidenza richiesta
dallo Schulze. La filosofia di Kant, raccoglie, a dir cosi, in un'unità
vivente tutti i germi e principi motori del pensiero moderno, e il
sistema di Fichte non è che una delle direzioni che poteva prendere il
kantismo. La direzione fichtiana, quindi, scaturisce naturalmente
dalle premesse kantiane, ma non deve considerarsi perciò, come vuole
Leon, quasi l’unico e necessario completamento del kantismo. Altre
direzioni, assai divergenti dalla fichtiana, l'anno capo
legittimamente aneli’esse a Kant, dei cui discepoli può ripetersi ciò che
CICERONE (si veda) diceva dei diversi discepoli di Socrate: ALII ALIVII SVINPSENVIT.
Fichte è un kantiano — Grice un hardieiano -- all’incirca nel medesimo senso
che L’ACCADEMIA è socratica, e sta allo Spinoza come Platone a VELIA (si veda)e;
con Kaut afferma l’ideale morale, con Spinoza l’unità dei “ due
moudi onde la Bua filosofia, dicemmo già, è un’originale sintesi, forse
Unica nel suo genere ai tempi moderni, di ciò che sembra
assolutamente inconciliabile: il monismo e la libertà, il mondo delle
cause o il inondo dei fini. Anziché ritornare sui singoli problemi della
Critica della ragione, egli s’impadronisce del centro animatore di
quella Critica, e trae fuori dal pensiero fondamentale dell’
auto-attività dello spirito, in quanto forza reale e fine a sé stesso, un
uuovo quadro del mondo di grandiosa arditezza, entro il quale
l’idealismo, che nella filosofia kautiana era latente sotto 1’ involucro
di prudenti re- La filosofia di Fichte, abbiamo detto, è una
filosofia della libertà, poiché ha per principio una realtà
assoluta, intesa come Io pratico, come Attività pura, come
Auto-determinazione, ed è uno sforzo poderoso per dedurre da questo
principio oltreché le condizioni della vita etica, anche le funzioni
della ragione teorica, celebrando in tal modo quel primato della ragione
pratica che Kant già proclama, e facendo perciò della ragione pura un
organo della moralità. L’attività dell’ Io assoluto alterna i suoi
atti di produzione inconscia con i suoi atti di riflessione cosciente, la
sua direzione centrifuga ed espansiva che si protende verso l’infinito,
con la direzione centripeta e coustrizioni, viene chiamato a potente vita, e
ciò che di sublime il grande lilosofo dell’ imperativo categorica aveva
insegnato intorno alla libertà morale di fronte alla necessità naturale,
viene tradotto dal linguaggio di un moderato contegno in quello di un
energico entusiasmo. li mondo può comprendersi soltanto in base allo spirito
e lo spirito soltanto in base alla volontà. La dottrina di Fichte è
tutta nel vivere e nel fare, tanto vero che comincia non con la
definizione di un concetto, ma con la richiesta di un atto, Thathandlung,
Poni te stesso, fai con coscienza ciò che bui fatto inconsapevolmente
ogni qual volta ti sei chiamato io, analizza questo atto di
autocoscienza e riconosci nei suoi elementi le energie da cui scaturisce
ogni realtà Questa intima vitalità del principio lichtiaiio, che ricorda
l'atto puro aristotelico e il perpetuo divenire eracliteo, e in
conseguenza della quale Dio, anziché una sostanza assoluta già compiuta,
sarebbo un ordino cosmico sempre attenutesi, mai attuato, si ridette
anche uell’opera filosòfica dell’autore, il cui spirito, fiero e irrequieto, si
svolse iu continua lotta non solo nella pratica, ma anche nel pensiero.
Nelle sue lezioni, come nei suoi scritti, spesso egli riprende daccapo la
serie delle sue deduzioni e sempre iu modo diverso e quasi conversando coi suoi
uditori e coi suoi lettori, mai trascurando le possibili obiezioni da
parte di questi; sicché il suo filosofare sembra compiersi trattile che
arresta la prima e respinge V Io in sè stesso; pone a sè stessa l’urto
(Anstoss) della sensazione, il limite della rappresentazione, l’intoppo
del non-Io ; è insomma teoretica : soltanto al fine di diventare pratica.
Tutto 1’ apparato della conoscenza non serve che a darci la possibilità
di compiere il nostro dovere: quel dovere che è 1’ unica realtà vera, 1’
unico in-sè (An-sich) del mondo fenomenico, perchè le cose sono in sè ciò che
noi dobbiamo farne; 1’io teoretico pone oggetti, affinchè 1’io
pratico trovi resistenze -- Gegenstand, oggetto, è qui preso come
sinonimo di Widerstund, resistenza. L’oggettività esiste soltanto per essere la
materia indispensabile all’azione, per ricevere da questa la forma che
deve elaborarla e inalzarla sì da rendere sempre più visibile
alla presenza d’interlocutori, è come un filosofare in comune e
per più rispetti richiama alla mente il dialogo platonico. Del resto
al Fichte sarebbe parsa vana una filosofia avulsa dal suo ambiente
naturale, l’umanità, ond'egli si faceva un dovere di agire e influire
energicamente sui suoi contemporanei e su quanti fossero in relazione con lui,
e visse in continuo coutatto col mondo e con la società; al contrario del Kant,
tra la vita e la speculazione del quale non appare certo Io stretto
connubio che è nel nostro filosofo ; infatti, i rapporti sociali e tutto il
contegno esteriore del grande solitario di Konigsberg furono, rispetto alla sua
vita interiore e al suo pensiero, cosi indifferenti come il guscio al
gheriglio ma turo ; mentre il Kant per molti e molti auui aveva portato
entro di so,i suoi gravi pensieri senza che alcuno sospettasse nemmeno
che cosa accadesse nell’ intimo di questo professore che senza differenza
dagli altri teneva i suoi corsi universitari, il Fichte, invece,
impaziente di ogni ritardo nella missione rigeneratrice, a cui con
orgogliosa coscienza di sè si sentiva chiamato, lasciava prorompere la
manifestazione delle sue idee, anche se non definitivamente elaborate,
man mano che scaturivano dal profondo della sua anima agile e trasmutabile e
disposta agli atteggiamenti più diversi secondo i campi a cui si
applicava, secondo i problemi ché affrontava, secondo i momenti in cui
agiva. 1’ attività dell lo. In conclusione, noi siamo Intelligenza
Per poter essere Volontà. La Dottrina della Scienza, quindi, nel sistema
del Fichte, è tutta in servigio della filosofia pratica, la quale,
attraverso la dottrina del diritto, va a culminare nella dottrina morale,
e'mira ad attuare quel regno dei fini che Kant contrapponeva al
regno delle cause, e che jier il nostro filosofo consiste nell’adempimento
completo del Dovere, nel dominio assoluto dell’ lo, nel trionfo supremo
della Libertà. E invero, mentre da un lato la Dottrina della Scienza
ci apprende che il fondo, l’essenza dello spirito umano non è
l’intelligenza ma 1’ attività, non il pensare ma il volere nella forma,
almeno, in cui attività e volere sono accessibili all’uomo, e che
l’intelligenza — pur essendo inseparabile dall’attività, da cui è
condizionata e di cui e condizione
resta subordinata all’ attività come la forma al proprio
contenuto, come la riflessione al proprio oggetto, d’altra parte la
Dottrina morale ci mostra il procedimento con cui lo spirito umano si sforza —
il che è preciso suo dovere di prendere coscienza, mediante
l’intelligenza, di quell’attività pura, di quella volontà, di quella
libertà infinita, che è appunto il fondo suo, la sua essenza assoluta.
Dal che risulta evidente lo stretto nesso che avvince la Dottrina morale
alla Dottrina della Scienza ; quella si deduce direttamente dai principi
di questa, in quanto la moralità, secondo il Fichte, non è che uno
dei momenti pii importanti, anzi il più essenziale, dell’ attuazione di
quell’ Io puro, di quella Libertà assoluta che la Dottrina della Scienza
pone al di là dei limiti di ogni coscienza, e da cui l’io empirico deriva
e a cui l’io empirico aspira. Il passaggio dall’ Io puro, assoluto e
infinito, per via di limiti e determinazioni, all’ io empirico,
relativo e finito, ossia dalla Libertà all’Intelligenza, è il
problema a cui pili specialmente si applica la dottrina della scienza
; il passaggio dall’io empirico, relativo e finito, per via di
superamenti e liberazioni, all’Io puro, assoluto, infinito, è il problema
a cui più specialmente si applica la Dottrina morale. L’ un problema è il
reciproco dell’ altro, e la soluzione di entrambi dipende dalla soluzione
dell’antinomia tra la finitezza dell’Io-intelligenza, attività
oggettivante (che pone oggetti, limitazioni, resistenze), e
l’infinitezza dell’ Io-libertà, attività pura (= che ha per essenza l’assolutezza,
l’illimitatezza, l’autonomia). E come Fichte risolve tale antinomia con
quell’attività a un tempo finita e infinita che è lo sforzo (Streben) —
attività finita, perchè lo sforzo implica una limitazione, una
determinazione, che impedisce l’immediato compimento dell’atto nella sua
infinità; attività infinita, perchè questa determinazioue non ha nulla di
assoluto, di fisso, è un limite che l’attività fa indietreggiare
incessantemente per conseguire l’infinità, ne segue che l’idea dello
sforzo è, nella sua filosofia, il cardine fondamentale dell’ attività
teoretica non meno che dell’ attività pratica, dell’ Intelligenza non
meno che della Volontà, della Dottrina della Scienza non meno che
della Dottrina morale. Nella Dottrina morale, a oui ora è rivolta la
nostra attenzione, lo sforzo esprime la tendenza dell’Io a identificare
la sua attività oggettivante con la sua attività pura, e lo svolgimento
dell’ Io è tutto nel rapporto tra queste due attività : l’infinita Libertà
non può attuarsi se non at traverso la limitazione e l’Intelligenza, ma
non c’è limitazione uè Intelligenza se non rispetto all’infinita
Attività pura elle di continuo le sorpassa. Lo sforzo, quindi, può
definirsi un’attività in cui l’infinito è posto non come stato attuale,
ma come meta da raggiungere, un’attività in cui 1’ adeguazione del finito
e dell’ infinito non è, ma dev'essere, un’attività, insomma, che ha per
contenuto il Dovere e che del Dovere è a sua volta il contenuto.
Diamo, in breve, il disegno della Dottrina morale. La Dottrina morale si
apre I) con un’ Introduzione, in cui sono sinteticamente presentati i
presupposti filosofici dell’etica; e si svolge in tre Libri, dei quali
II) il primo trae da quei presupposti il principio della moralità)
il secondo deduce da essi la realtà e l’applicabilità di questo
principio) il terzo fa l’applicazione sistematica del principio stesso, ed
espone quindi la morale propriamente detta. I presupposti filosofici dell'
etica, contenuti nell’Introduzione e perfettamente conformi alla Dottrina
della Scienza, muovono dal principio che la vera filosofia soltanto
allora è possibile, quando si abbia un punto in cui il soggettivo e
l’oggettivo, l’essere in sè e la rappresentazione di esso non siano divisi, ma
facciano tutt’uno, e che un tal punto si trova nell’EGOITÀ o io puro,
nell’Intelligenza o Ragione. Senza questa assoluta identità del soggetto e
dell’oggetto nell’Io, la quale peraltro non si lascia cogliere
immediatamente come un dato della coscienza attuale, ma soltanto argomentare
per via di ragionamento, la filosofia non approda a nessun risultato.
Bisogna, dunque, ammettere un’Unità fondamentale e primitiva, la
quale, tosto che nasce una coscienza attuale o anche soltanto
l’autocoscienza, si scinde necessariamente in soggetto e oggetto, poiché “
solamente in quanto io, essere cosciente, mi distinguo da me, oggetto
della coscienza, divengo cosciente di me stesso. Bisogna ammettere, inoltre,
che l’oggettivo abbia causalità sul soggettivo, e viceversa il
soggettivo sull’oggettivo, per rendere concordi tra loro, e in generale
possibili, il pensiero e il pensato, la ragione e il suo dominio sulla
natura. E appunto perchè il legame causale tra soggetto e oggetto è
duplice — ognuna delle due parti è causa ed effetto dell’altra: il
soggettivo è effetto dell’oggettivo nel conoscere, Soggettivo è effetto
del soggettivo nell 'operare, la filosofia si divide in teoretica e
pratica. Senonchè, come avemmo già occasione di notare, l’Io
puro, ossia l’Unità soggettivo-oggettiva ancora indivisa, non è un fatto
(Thatsache ), ma un atto ( Thathand - tutiff), la sua natura originaria è
attività: è, dunque, pratica. Perciò il principio : “ Io mi trovo come operante
nel mondo sensibile è di capitale importanza per il nostro
conoscere. Da esso comincia ogni coscienza ; senza la coscienza della mia
attività non è possibile nessuna autocoscienza, senza l’autocoscienza nessuna
coscienza di un quid diverso da me. Infatti, la percezione della mia
attività suppone una resistenza al di fuori di noi; “ ovunque e in quanto
tu percepisci attività, tu percepisci necessariamente anche resistenza ;
altrimenti tu non percepisci attività (Ora la resistenza è affatto
indipendente dalla [Sittenlehre (Stimanti. Werke.) Cfr. pvec. Sittenlehre.
mia attività, è anzi il suq opposto; è qualcosa che esiste soltanto e in
nessun modo agisce, qualcosa di quieto e morto, die tende semplicemente a
rimanere quel che è, qualcosa che nel proprio campo contrasta
all’azione*della libertà, ma non può mai invadere il campo di questa. Un
qualcosa di simile, dunque, è pura oggettività, e si chiama., col suo
proprio nome, materia. Senza la rappresentazione di una tale materia, niente
resistenza alla nostra attività, quindi niente attività, niente
autocoscienza, niente coscienza, niente essere. La rappresentazione
del puro oggettivo resta così dedotta necessariamente dalle leggi
stesse della coscienza. Con la medesima necessità con cui viene dedotto il
puro oggettivo, viene posto anche il suo contrario, il soggettivo, ossia
1’ attività propriamente detta, sotto la forma di un’ agilità (Agililàt)
o forza efficiente. Ma poiché nella coscienza, quasi come in un prisma,
ogni unità si rifrange in soggetto e oggetto, così in essa, avvenuto lo
sdoppiamento dell’Io puro in soggettivo e oggettivo, anche il soggettivo si
sdoppia a sua volta, e si ha da una parte 1’ attività propriamente detta,
veduta come una forza reale, come un oggettivo esistente in me,
dall’altra il soggettivo, fonie inesauribile di questa forza reale, fonte
originaria non derivante da nessun oggettivo, e dalle cui
profondità oscure e inaccessibili sgorga, con libero, spontaneo e
talora impetuoso moto interno, l’infinita varietà delle nostre
rappresentazioni, dei nostri concetti ; per conseguenza la mia attività
ossia il soggettivo ancora indiviso nella sua unità anteriore alla
coscienza —, quando sia veduta attraverso il tramite della coscienza, appare
come un oggettivo, che da un lato scaturisce da un soggettivo
perennemente rinascente a ogni estrinsecarsi dell’oggettivo, dall'altro
determina l’oggetti vita pura dianzi chiamata materia. Così si rivela
alla coscienza la nostra assoluta auto-attività, la cui essenza sta nel
produrre rappresentazioni, nel creare concetti, e la cui manifestazione
sensibile dicesi libertà. Ciascun concetto, riguardato come determinante
l’oggettivo in virtù della propria causalità, diventa un
concetto-line, e allora esso stesso appare un qualcosa di oggettivo e
si chiama uua volizione; e lo spirituale che in noi si considera come
principio immediato delle volizioni dicesi volontà. Spetta, dunque,
alla volontà agire sulla materia ed esercitare causalità nel mondo
sensibile ; ma ciò non le sarebbe possibile se non avesse uno strumento
che sia esso stesso materia, ossia quel corpo articolato che è il
nostro [Nel Leon trovasi ben descritta la natura dell’attività
spirituale nel senso fichtiano, attività clic è, a un tempo e
continuamente, produzione di sè e riflessione sopra di sè, oggettivazione e
soggettività, io reale e io ideale, attualità e potenzialità; chi voglia
intendere una tale attività, che ha la caratteristica di esistere e di essere
anteriore alla propria esistenza, devo ricordarsi che essa non va pensata
alla maniera delle cose, perché, contrariamoute alla natura di queste
ultime, la cui realtè si esaurisce tutta quanta nell'essere oggettivo,
l’attività spirituale può ripiegarsi su di sé, può riflettersi. E a ciò
si deve quel fenomeno meraviglioso e cosi lontano dal meccanismo
materiale, per cui 1’ esistenza ideale determina l’esistenza reale, l’idea ha
causalità, lo spirito è libertà. Onde si vede che la libertà è proprio
(come il Kant aveva ailermato, senza però dimostrarlo) il comiuciamento
assoluto d’uno stato, la creazione di un’ esistenza seuza rapporto di
dipendenza reale con un’ altra esistenza. E si vede altresì che solamente l’essere
ragionevole, dotato d’intelligenza e riflessione, è capace di libertà,
poiché in lui soltanto è possibile una causalità in forza di un
concetto. organismo. E invero u io, consideralo come un principio di
attività nel mondo dei corpi, sono un corpo articolato, e la
rappresentazione del mio corpo non è altro che la rappresentazione di me
stesso come causa nel inondo materiale 5 e perciò, mediatamente, non
altio che un ceito aspetto della mia attività assoluta. Volontà e
corpo sono quindi una medesima cosa, riguardata però da due lati
diversi: una medesima cosa, perchè soltanto fin dove si estende
l'immediata causalità della volontà sul corpo, si estende il corpo
articolato, necessario strumento della causalità sulla materia;
riguardata però da due lati diversi, perchè, in virtù dell’ azione sdoppiatrice
della coscienza, la volontà appare come il soggettivo che esercita la sua
causalità sul corpo, e il corpo come 1 ’oggettivo i cui mutamenti
coincidono con quelli di tutta l’oggettività o realtà corporea.
Similmente una medesima cosa, riguardata però anch’ essa da due lati diversi,
sono la natura che la mia causalità può cangiare, ossia la costituzione
e l’ordinamento della materia, e la natura non cangiabile, ossia la
materia pura : la natura mutevole è l’oggettivo considerato
soggettivamente e in connessione con 1’io, intelligenza attiva ; la natura
immutevolo è Soggettivo considerato oggettivamente e soltanto in
sè. Secondo il precedente ragionamento, i molteplici elementi che
l’analisi ritrova nella percezione della nostra causalità sensibile
vengono dedotti dalle leggi della coscienza e ridotti all' unità, all’ unico
assoluto su cui si tonda ogni coscienza e ogni essere, all 'attività pura.
Questa attività, in virtù della legge fondamentale della
coscienza, Sittenlehre. per cui 1 essere attivo non si comprende senza una
resistenza su cui agisce, non si comprende cioè se non come un Io-soggetto
operante sopra un non-io-oggetto, appare sotto forma di efficienza su
qualcosa fuori dell'Io. Ma tutti gli elementi contenuti in questa
apparenza, a partire dal concetto-fine propostomi assolutamente da me stesso,
sino alla materia greggia del mondo esterno su cui esercito la mia
causalità, non sono che anelli intermedi dell’apparenza totale, e perciò
semplici apparenze anch’essi. L’unico reale 1 vero è la mia
auto-attività, la mia indipendenza, la mia libertà. Da tali presupposti
bisogna ora dedurre il principio della moralità. L’ uomo trova in sè un’
obbligazione assoluta e categorica a fare o non fare certe azioni
indipendentemente da ogni fine esteriore, la quale si accompagna
immancabilmente con la natura umana e costituisce la nostra caratteristica
morale. Donde ha origine questa obbligazione o Dovere, che vai quanto
dire la leggo morale, ossia il' principio della moralità? Secondo
che esige la Dottrina della Scienza, tale origine non va ricercata
altrove che in noi stessi, nell’ Jo. Onde il primo problema da risolvere
a tal fine è:^ u Pensare sè stesso come puramente sè stesso, ossia come
distaccato da tutto ciò che non è io. La soluzione di questo problema si
ottiene così : Io non trovo me stesso se non nella mia volontà, se
non come volente ; e trovarsi volente significa riconoscere in se
una sostanza che vuole. L’intelligenza è la coscienza puramente
soggettiva; la coscienza del proprio io in quanto io non può nascere che
dalla volontà,. Ma la volontà non si concepisce se non supponendo
qualcosa di diverso dal1’ io, perchè ogni volontà reale è una determinata
volizione che ha un concetto-fine, che tende cioè ad attuare un oggetto
concepito come possibile, un oggetto che stia fuori di noi. Ne segue che,
per trovare me stesso e nuli’altro che me stesso, bisogna fare astrazione
da questo oggetto esterno della mia volontà: ciò che rimane allora sarà
il mio essere puro, la volontà assoluta, il principio della nostra filosofia.
Ne segue altresì che il carattere essenziale e distintivo dell’ io è una
tendenza ad agire di propria iniziativa e indipendentemente da ogni
impulso estraneo, a determinare sè stesso in modo incondizionato e autonomo, è,
in una parola, la libertà. Ora, appunto questa tendenza e questa
libertà costituisce l’io preso in sè, l’io considerato all’ infuori di
ogni relazione con checchessia di diverso da sè. Ma ogni essere non
è se non in quanto viene riferito a un’ intelligenza, la quale sa che
esso è ; in altri termini suppone una coscienza. L’io, quindi, non è se
non in quanto si pone, non è se non in forza della coscienza che ha
di sè; onde esso deve avere la coscienza di quella tendenza alla libera
auto-determinazione che dicemmo costituire la sua essenza. E invero l’io che,
mediante l’intelligenza, pone sè stesso come tendenza all’autonomia
assoluta o libertà, è un essere il cui principio si trova non in un
altro essere, ma in un quid di categoria diversa l’unico quid che possa concepirsi oltre
l’essere — e cioè nel pensiero, inteso non come qualcosa di sostanziale, sì
bene come attività pura, come movimento dell’intelligenza
senza restrizioni e senza fissità. Orbene, da questa intima fusione
dell’io in quanto tendenza all’attività assoluta o libertà e dell’io in
quanto intelligenza, dell’io in quanto essere e dell’ io in quanto
riflessione, è possibile dedurre il principio della moralità. Come?
L’io assoluto, non ancora rifratto dal prisma della coscienza, è
determinato, come abbiamo detto, dalla sua tendenza all’attività
assoluta, e questa determinazione diventa oggetto o contenuto dell’
intelligenza. Ma, siccome l’Io assoluto nella sua unità integrale, nella
sua semplicità e identità originaria non può essere mai oggetto della
coscienza, bisogna che questa si sforzi di apprenderlo, almeno per
approssimazione, attraverso la dualità dell’essere oggettivo e della riflessione
soggettiva, mediante quella specie di espediente che consiste nel
considerare il soggettivo e 1’oggettivo come determina»tisi
reciprocamente l’uno l’altro, come complementari, quindi come inseparabili
e impensabili l’uno senza l’altro. E allora, se si concepisce il soggettivo
come determinato dall’ oggettiv'o (nel qual caso nasce quella relazione
psicologica che si chiama sentimento), essendo l’oggetto, rispetto al
soggetto, qualcosa di per sè stante, di fisso .e permanente, si troverà
che il contenuto del pensiero è immutabile e necessario e che
l’intelligenza impone a sè stessa la legge di una attività propria e
assoluta. Se poi si concepisce l’oggettivo come determinato dal
soggettivo (nel qual caso nasce quell’altra relazione psicologica che si chiama
volontà), essendo il soggetto, rispetto all’ oggetto, qualcosa di mobile,
di attivo e indipendente, si troverà che l’io si pone come libero. Si
arriverà cosi combinando, i due risultati, la legge necessaria da una
parte e la libertà illimitata dal1’altra all’ idea di una legge che l’io
liberamente -impone a sè stesso: la legge ha per contenuto la libertà, e
la libertà è sottoposta alla legge. Legge e libertà, per tal modo, si
determinano reciprocamente : esse fanno insieme una sola e medesima
unità. Tra la libertà ( = attività incondizionata e illimitata) e l’autonomia (
= imposizione spontanea di una legge a sè stesso) non c’ è
incompatibilità; esse nascono entrambe da quello sdoppiamento che è
dovuto alla natura dell’ attività spirituale e che è a un tempo posizione
di sè e riliessione sopra di sè, oggetto e soggetto. In altri termini, si
ha qui l’intima fusione, nel- 1’ unità dell’ io, tra 1’ intelligenza, che
concepisce la nostra essenza come libertà, e la volontà, che è 1’
attuazione del1’autonomia, tra la libertà-concetto e la libertà-atto, e
il legame che unisce 1’ una all’ altra è di causalità non Inec-
canico-coercitiva ma psichico-imperativa, è di necessità non teorica ma
pratica, è il legame morale del dovere. La libertà-idea non può non
tradursi, dece tradursi in libertà- realtà; il Dovere, obbligazione per
eccellenza, sta nell’attuare l’essenza nostra, nel divenire, attraverso la
coscienza, quel ohe siamo in fondo al nostro essere assoluto anteriore
alla coscienza, nel renderci cioè liberi ; e in ciò precisamente consiste il
principio supremo di tutta la moralità, il quale per tal guisa risulta
dedotto, come ci proponevamo, dalla natura dell’ io. Posto l’io, è
in pari tempo posta anche la tendenza all’assoluta auto-attività, alla
libertà; ma la libertà non acquista valore se non per un’ intelligenza
che ne faccia la legge determinante delle nostre azioni ; ne segue
che l’io deve sottoporsi con coscienza e quindi con libertà alla
legge della propria natura, che è la legge della libertà, senz’altro fine
che la libertà, stessa. La moralità, appunto perchè esprime direttamente
l’essenza dell’io, la sua praticità assoluta e la sua autonomia, è una perpetua
legislazione dell’io imposta a sè stesso, sotto un triplice rispetto
: rispetto all’adozione stessa della legge morale, adozione la quale non
può essere che una libera sottomissione, una spontanea adesione alla
logge; rispetto all’applicazione della legge a ciascun caso particolare,
applicazione nella quale il giudizio morale è sempre un atto di
autonomia, un consenso di noi con noi stessi ;rispetto al contenuto della
legge, uel quale contenuto è evidente che ogni determinazione della
volontà da parte di una causa estranea a sè stessa, che vai (pianto dire
alla ragione, costituirebbe un’eteronomia affatto contraria alla legge morale.
Per tal modo si può concludere che la vita morale tutta quanta non è
altro che una ininterrotta auto-legislazione dell’io, una perenne autonomia
dell’essere razionale; e dove questa autolegislazione cessa, ivi comincia
l’ immoralità. IH- - Alla deduzione del . principio della moralità segue
la deduzione della realtà e dell’ applicabilità del principio stesso,
senza di che quest’ ultimo rimarrebbe un’ astrazione e la morale si
ridurrebbe a un formalismo vuoto e sterile. Invece la morale ha una
realtà, la legge morale ha efficacia nel mondo sensibile in cui viviamo
; onde il principio della moralità è non solo vero, logica). A chiarire
ancor meglio la deduzione della legge morale dall’Io, ricollegandola con
i principi e le conseguenze della Dottrina della Scienza giova il seguente
schema fornito un mente possibile e giustificato dalla ragione,
ma altresì reale e applicabile : reale, perchè è un concetto che
deve attuarsi nel mondo sensibile ; applicabile, perchè il mondo
sensibile è tale, per origine e natura, da prestarsi come strumento
all’attuazione di quel principio. da Fischer (Geschichte der neuem Philosophie,
Fichte unti seine Vorgànger) e nel quale viene simboleggiato lo
sdoppiarsi dell’ Io nella coscienza teorica e il suo reintegrarsi nella
legge morale: Io Soggetto = Oggetto Coscienza (Divisione) Soggetto
Autoattività Causalità del
Concetto Libertà Oggetto Materia Causalità della Materia Necessità Libertà
= Necessità Legge della Libertà Libertà sotto la Legge della
Libertà (Assoluta Autonomia) Legge Morale. Come si vede, qui
la realtà del principio morale non è la realtà già attuata di ciò che esiste
nel mondo meccanico dei fatti naturali o nel mondo giuridico della
convivenza sociale, ma la realtà di ciò che deve esistere nel mondo
morale della volontà; le prime due specie di realtà sono sotto la
categoria della necessità (leggi naturali) o della coercizione (leggi
sociali), l’ultima, invece, di cui ora si tratta, è sotto la categoria
della contingenza, della libertà (legge morale). Infatti, il
principio della moralità dianzi dedotto è a un tempo un principio
teorico, in quanto l’io si determina da sè dinanzi a sè stesso come
essere assolutamente indipendente e libero — il che costituisce la materia
della legge morale —, e un principio pratico, in quanto l’io impone da sè
a sè stesso 1’ attuazione della propria natura il che costituisce la forma
(imperativa) della legge morale. Ogni singolo io è libero, ecco il principio
teorico ; Ovatterai ogni singolo io come un essere libero, ecco il
principio pratico derivante, sotto forma di comando, da quel principio
teorico. In sostanza la legge pratica della libertà potrebbe formularsi
così: Opera secondo la conoscenza che hai della natura e del fine originario
degli esseri Giusta i principi della Dottrina della Scienza, le cose che
abbiamo posto fuori di noi non sono, in fondo, che le nostre idee ; di
qui l’armonia tra la determinazione teorica degli oggetti e gl’ imperativi
morali che da questa determinazione teorica scaturiscono rispetto agli
oggetti stessi. La spiegazione dell’ accordo dei fenomeni con la nostra
volontà sta nell’accordo della volontà con la natura, a cominciare dalla natura
nostra : noi non possiamo volere se non ciò a cui ci spinge 1’ impulso
naturale ; questo impulso non è la legge morale, ma^ legge morale
non può nulla comandare il cui oggetto non sia nella sfera di
questo impulso. L’essere ragionevole, il quale deve porre sè stesso come
assolutamente libero e indipendente, non può far ciò senza in pari tempo
determinare teoricamente il suo mondo mediante la rappresentazione ; e la
sua libertà, che è un principio pratico, esige che questa determinazione
teorica da parte del pensiero si mantenga e si completi mediante l’azione da
parte della volontà. L’azione della liberta dell’ io sul mondo determinato come
rappresentazione consiste nella modificazione di uno stato del mondo
stesso mercè il dominio di un concetto anteriormente posto ; è la
produzione di una realtà conformemente a un’idea data come suo principio
; significa, per conseguenza, proprio l’inverso della rappresentazione, la
quale è la determinazione di un concetto secondo una realtà anteriormente
posta. E come l’enigma della rappresentazione, ossia il rapporto
tra la cosa e l’idea, trovava la sua soluzione nell’identità originaria
dei due termini, essendo la cosa un prodotto inconscio dell’ io, similmente qui
il l’apporto tra il concetto e la realtà ha il suo fondamento nel fatto
che la produzione di questa realtà non è la produzione di una cosa in sè,
di una realtà assoluta, che sarebbe in qualche modo esteriore alla coscienza,
ma è sempre uno stato di coscienza, una determinazione dell’ io. E allora
non è più questione di sapere come sia possibile nel mondo una
modificazione da parte della libertà, poiché, essendo il mondo esso
stesso un prodotto della libertà, un limite che l’io pone a sè
stesso, è questione di sapere come sia possibile, mediante la libertà, un
cangiamento nell’io, un’estensione dei suoi limiti ; e se si osserva che
1’ io, oggetto di questa modificazione, è l’io limitato., ossia l’io empirico,
e che la legge della libertà, sotto la quale si operano nell’ io
empirico queste modificazioni, esprime l’io puro, l’io assoluto, è
evidente che il problema circa la realtà del principio morale, circa
l’attuazione della libertà, si riduce, in fondo, alla questione già
esposta anteriormente circa i rapporti tra l’io empirico, naturale, e
l’io eterno, assoluto Sittenlehre. Per dedurre ora la realtà e la conseguente
applicabilità del principio dell’ etica, bisogna dedurne la materia e la
sfera d’ azioue, bisogna stabilire, cioè, anzitutto l'oggetto della nòstra
attività in generale, poi la causalità reale dell’essere ragionevole. Quanto
al primo punto si ha questo teorema. L’essere l'agionevole non può
attribuirsi nessun potere, senza pensare in pari tempo qualcosa fuori di
sè a cui quel potere sia diretto; egli, infatti, non può attribuirsi la
libertà, senza pensare più azioni reali e determinate come possibili per
opera della libertà, e non può pensare nessun’ azione come reale e
determinata, senza supporre all’ esterno qualcosa su cui quest’ azione sia
esercitata. Esiste, dunque, fuori di noi
e posta dal pensiero, una materia a cui la nostra attività si riferisce e
che può essere modificata all’ infinito. Quanto al secondo punto si
ha quest’altro teorema. L’essere ragionevole non può trovare in sè
nessun’applicazione della propria libertà, ossia nessun volere reale,
senza in pari tempo attribuire a sè stesso una reale causalità o
efficienza sul mondo esterno r, e non può attribuirsi una siffatta
causalità o.efficienza, senza determinarla in una certa maniera. Ora,
l’attività pura non può essere determinata in sè, altrimenti non sarebbe
più pura; essa non può essere 'determinata se non da ciò che le si
oppone, ossia dai suoi limiti. Questi limiti non possono essere percepiti se
non nell’esperienza sensibile e, inquanto oggetto d’intuizione sensibile,
consistono in una diversità o varietà di materia. Onde l’io, il quale non
sarebbe attivo se non si sentisse limitato, viene posto come un’ attività che
preme, per allargarli, sopra i limiti entro cui lo rinserra la diversa
materia che gli resiste, il nou-io che gli si oppone. L’essere
ragionevole, dunque, esercita una causalità reale nel mondo sensibile, e
tale causajit.à consiste non già nel creare o distruggere la materia su cui
si esercita tale materia è
condizione indispensabile per l’attività dell’essere ragionevole, ma
nell’introdurvi ulteriori determinazioni nuove ; u io ho causalità „ significa
sempre: u io allargo i miei confini che vai quanto dire: io attuo progressivamente
il concetto di libertà secondo che mi è imposto dalla legge morale, pur non
giungendo mai a un’ attuazione completa. Di guisa che la nostra esistenza,
mentre uel mondo intelligibile è legge morale, nel mondo sensibile è azione
reale: il punto in cui le due esistenze si riuniscono è la libertà intesa
come facoltà assoluta di determinare 1’azione mediante la legge. Risulta
da quanto precede che il principio della moralità, ossia la libertà, non può
attuarsi se non opponendo all’attività pura dell’ io una limitazione o un
sistema di limitazioni, e imponendo alla medesima attività un
progres [Abbiamo qui una delle idee fondamentali del sistema
ficbtiauo, cioè: l’impossibilità per noi di separare il sensibile
dall’intelligibile, la negazione del dualismo, l’assurdità di concepire nell’
àmbito della coscienza un carattere noume- nico radicalmente distinto dal
carattere fenomenico. Secondo Fichte scrive Léon il sensibile è la
condizione per l’intelligibile; Benza il sensibile, il quale determinandolo
lo attua, il puro intelligibile rimarrebbe allo stato di potenza
indeterminata e vuota. Questa concezione segua la rovina del misticismo,
che pretende isolare lo spirito dal corpo e relegarlo in una sfera
chimerica ; l'Io fichtiano – cf. l’io griceino – Fichte’s I, Grice’s I -- non
è fatto di singoli pezzi separabili ad arbitrio; esso forma in tutti i
suoi elementi una gerarchia, un vero organismo. sivo ampliameuto di questa limitazione o
sistema di limitazioni. Il che si verifica anche quando si tratti non di
un fine ultimo, come la libertà assoluta, ma di fini intermedi. Il
più spesso’ci accade di non poter attuare immediatamente un determinato fine
scelto dalla nostra volontà, e siamo costretti, per conseguirlo, a servirci
di certi mezzi già determinati in* antecedenza senza il nostro intervento
: non perveniamo al nostro fine se non attraverso una serie di
gradi interposti ; che equivale a dire : tra il sentimento da cui sono
partito con la volontà e il sentimento a cui mi sforzo di giungere
intercedono altri sentimenti, di cui ognuno è l’esponente dei limiti che
mi si oppongono, limiti che con la mia causalità, con la mia azione, io fo
indietreggiare ogni volta di più, estendendo cosi pi-ogressiva- mente la
mia attività reale. La mia causalità, dunque, appare come un’azione continua e
diversa, come una serie ininterrotta di sforzi e di sentimenti svariati ;
poiché essa è assolutamente una e identica in quanto attività, ma
presenta tuttavia infiniti aspetti multiformi a causa della multiforme
resistenza che incontra da parte degl’ infiniti oggetti esterni; esterni,
s’intende, e posti indipendentemente da noi, per chi non adotti o ignori il
punto di vista della filosofia trascendentale e rimanga al punto di vista
della coscienza comune. Intesa nel modo descritto, la causalità dell’ essere
ragionevole contiene in sé la sintesi assoluta della conoscenza e dell’
attività, determinantisi reciprocamente nella concezione e nel
perseguimento di un medesimo fine. L’essere ragionevole, infatti, non ha una
conoscenza se non in seguito a una limitazione della propria attività, tesi; ma
d’altro canto non ha attività se non in seguito a una
conoscenza (antitesi) ; conoscenza e attività sono poste come
identiche nella volontà, sintesi. Come si ottiene questa sintesi?
Basta pensare all’ essenza originaria dell’ io oggettivamente considerato
: sappiamo che tale essenza è assoluta attività e nuli’altro che
attività; e poiché l’attività, oggettivamente presa, è impulso, e nell’io
nulla esiste o accade di cui egli non abbia coscienza, cosi, posto nell’
io oggettivo un impulso, vien posto altresì iu esso un sentimento di
questo impulso. Il sentimento o coscienza primitiva dell’impulso è,
dunque, l’anello sintetico in cui con l’attività è posta la conoscenza e
con la conoscenza l’attività. Soltanto è da aggiungere che, se dal
punto di vista pratico la conoscenza e l’attività sono inseparabili, la
coscienza che accompagna qui l’impulso non è affatto la coscienza riflessa e iu
nessun grado una riflessione libera ; in essa non c’ è neppure quella
specie di libertà che caratterizza la rappresentazione e che ci permette di non
rappresentarci l’oggetto, di fare cioè astrazione da esso ; è una
coscienza tutta spontanea, che s’impone a noi con necessità, è un
sentimento di cui non siamo in nessun modo padroni. Il sistema d’impalisi
e di sentimenti di che s’intesse 1’io empirico oggettivo deve quindi
concepirsi come natura, come la nostra natura, come cioè qualcosa di dato,
di non prodotto da noi, d’ indipendente dalla libertà, ma su cui la
libertà può esercitarsi, e si esercita, allorché l’io-soggetto ne fa
oggetto di riflessione e consente o no a soddisfarlo ; e invero, tosto
che riflettiamo sui nostri impulsi originari, non siamo più dominati da
essi ; sono essi, invece, dominati da noi, perchè dipende da noi
assecondarli o no ; comincia allora il vero ufficio della nostra libertà
cosciente. Nasce così la differenza tra la facoltà appetitiva inferiore
del semplice impulso di natura e la facoltà appetitiva superiore del
medesimo impulso sottoposto alla riflessione e alla libertà. Giova
chiarire meglio la facoltà appetitiva inferiore, prima di passare alla
superiore. Abbiamo detto che essa costituisce ciò che in noi si chiama
natura; ma bisogna distinguere la natura nostra dalla natura delle cose
in cui regna il puro meccanismo. Nel mondo meccanico non c’è
attività propriamente detta, c’ è soltanto una trasmissione di urti
attraverso tutta la serie di cause ed effetti, senza che nessun anello
produca o modifichi la forza trasmessa. Nella natura nostra, al
contrario, c’è una vera spontaneità, la quale non è ancora la libera
causalità del pensiero, del concetto, perchè è una necessaria
determinazione dell’esistenza reale per opera di questa esistenza stessa, ma
sta tuttavia al disopra del puro meccanismo, perchè consiste in una
determinazione proveniente da una serie di cause ed effetti disposta non
più secondo un ordine lineare di successione, sì bene secondo un ordine
ricorrente di reciprocanza ; quivi, infatti, le singole parti sono a un tempo
effetti e cause del tutto, onde si ha quel che si dice un or- (Per essere
più chiari : l’impulso e il sentimento che l’accompagna mancano di
libertà; la volontà e la riflessione che ne è condizione hanno per
essenza la libertà; a parte, però, questa differenza di capitale importanza ma
soltanto formale, l’impulso e il sentimento, per quanto riguarda il loro
contenuto materiale, sono identici alla volontà e alla riflessione; l’oggetto a
cui tendono necessariamente i primi diventa l’oggetto liberamente accettato o
ripudiato dalle seconde. gallismo, ossia una costituzione, la
quale, lungi dal dipendere da un’azione esterna, Ira in sè stessa il principio
della propria determinazione, è dotata insomma di spontaneità,. La
reciprocanza di azione tra le parti di un tutto organico in natura si spiega
così: a ciascuna di esse le altre non lasciano che una certa quantità di
realtà, onde ciascuna parte per la rimanente realtà che le manca non ha
che una tendenza o impulso risultante dallo stato determinato delle altre parti
: ciascuna tende a formare il tutto, a integrarsi con la realtà delle
altre ; e cosi in un’ unità organica la realtà è in proporzione
inversa della tendenza (o impulso) derivante dalla mancanza di
realtà; realtà e tendenzfP (o impulso) si completano a vicenda ; ciascuna
parte tende a soddisfare il bisogno di tutte, e tutte a loro volta
tendono a soddisfare il bisogno di ciascuna ; ogni singola parte tende a
combinare la propria essenza e la propria azione con l’essenza e l’azione
delle rimanenti, e questa tendenza giustamente si dice impilino plastico
(Bildungstrieb), cosi nel senso attivo come nel senso passivo della
parola, perchè è la facoltà a un tempo così d’imprimere come di ricevere
forme. Questa facoltà organizzatrice è universale, essenziale, inerente a
tutte le parti e a tutti gli elementi, onde ciò che si chiama un
tutto naturale, ossia un tutto chiuso, può altresì chiamarsi un prodotto
organico della natura, a costituire il quale certi elementi della natura,
in virtù della causalità di cui questa è dotata, hanno riunito il loro
essere e il loro operare in un solo e medesimo essere, in un solo e
medesimo operare. Ciò posto, ecco quanto accade in quel tutto organico
della natura che è l’io individuale, empirico, a partire dai più bassi
impulsi sino alle più alte tendenze. Iu ciascun io individuale,
appunto perchè esso è un tutto organico della natura, l’essenza delle
parti consiste in una tendenza a conservare unite a sè altre
determinate parti, e siffatta tendenza, se attribuita al tutto, dicesi
impulso all' autoconservazione ; alla conservazione, s’intende, non
dell’esistenza in generale, che è un’astrazione, ma di un’esistenza
determinata. L’impulso all’autoconservazione, che è poi la tendenza a
perseverare nel proprio essere, porta 1’ essere organico a inferire a sè
certi oggetti della natura; di qui l’appetito o la brama verso questi
oggetti, appetito o brama dapprima vaghi e indeterminati, quasi COME
IL PRIMO GRIDO INARTICOLATO DELL’ORGANISMO ANCORA INFANTE, POI SEMPRE PIÙ
DETERMINATI E DIFFERENZIATI, COME IL LINGUAGGIO ARTICOLATO DELL’ORGANISMO
ADULTO. E — si noti bene — non già la diversità degli oggetti determina
lo specificarsi dei vari appetiti e desideri; al contrario, i diversi
modi del desiderio, mediante le proprie determinazioni, si creano i propri
oggetti. La coscienza o l’intelligenza* che ci rappresenta gli oggetti non è
che il riflesso dei nostri istinti,, inclinazioni, tendenze, della nostra
vita pratica in generale; non, dunque, gli oggetti suscitano, quasi
loro fine, gli appetiti, ma gli appetiti hanno il proprio fine in sè
stessi, nella propria soddisfazione, e noi non perseguiamo, attraverso gli
oggetti, altro che i nostri desideri esteriorizzati nelle cose. Ma se è
così, se ciò che ci sforziamo d’ottenere è non l’oggetto — il quale si riduce
a im simbolo, sì bene la soddisfazione della nostra tendenza, della nostra
brama, in altri termini, il nostro godimento, il nostro piacere, si comprende
come, tanto dal punto di vista della pura natura irriflessa, quanto da
quell» della riflessione sulla natura, sia il piacere il fine supremo
della nostra condotta ; di guisa che, nel primo passaggio immediato dallo
stato di pura natura allo stato di coscienza riflessa, la nostra azione cangia
di forma da necessaria e istintiva diventa libera e riflessa, e tale
cangiamento ne modifica radicalmente il carattere, ma il suo
contenuto rimane ancora il medesimo, è ancora il piacere: al punto
da far sembrare che l’uomo con la riflessione non si elevi al di
sopra della natura, se non per sottoporlesi meglio e perseguire con pili luce e
sicurezza il fine edonistico. Ora, finché è spinto al piacere e dipende
dagli oggetti dei suoi appetiti, ]' uomo rimane confinato nell’
esercizio della facoltà appetiti va inferiore. Ma l’attività ragionevole in lui
tende con coscienza e riflessione a determinarsi assolutamente da sé, a
rendersi indipendente da ogni oggetto che non sia essa stessa, quindi
anche e soprattutto dal piacere; e allora la nostra azione si differenzia
da quella compiuta allo stato di pura natura, oltreché per la forma,
anche per il contenuto, essendo questo costituito non pili dal piacere —
comunque ricercato, per istinto cieco e necessario, ovvero per volontà,
cosciente e libera, ma dalla libertà stessa, che è l’es senza nostra e il
nostro vero fine supremo. L’ uomo si eleva cosi all’esercizio della
facoltà appetitiva superiore, di quella che appartiene non a lui prodotto
di natura, ma a lui spirito puro. Ciò non ostante, le due facoltà appetitive,
l’inferiore e la superiore, costituiscono un solo e medesimo impulso
originario dell’io, dell’io veduto da due lati diversi : nella facoltà
appetitiva inferiore, ossia nell’ impulso naturale, mi concepisco come oggetto,
uella facoltà appetitiva superiore, ossia nell’impulso spirituale, mi
concepisco come soggetto, mentre tutta la mia essenza si ritrova nell’
identità del soggetto e dell’oggetto, ò soggetto-oggetto. Dall’azione
reciproca dei due impulsi nascono tutti i fenomeni dell’ io ; ma entrambi
si fondono in un unico e medesimo io, onde debbono essere conciliati, unificati
; ed ecco in qual modo : l’impulso superiore rinunzia alla purezza della
propria attività — purezza che consiste nel non essere determinato da un
oggetto —, lasciandosi determinare da un oggetto, e l’impulso inferiore
rinunzia al piacere in quanto fine, al piacere per il piacere ; si ha
così per risultato della loro unione un’ attività oggettiva, il cui
oggetto e fine ultimo è un’ assolute libertà, un’assoluta indipendenza da
ogni natura;'un fine, questo, proiettato all’infinito e perciò irraggiungibile
raggiungerlo sarebbe porre termine in pari tempo all’attività e alla
natura che dell’attività è il limite correlativo, la condizione
indispensabile; un fine, tuttavia, a cui è possibile avvicinarsi sempre più,
facendo uso della libertà e della facoltà appetitiva superiore. Non si
obietti qui — dice il Fichte ( Sittenlehre) che un’approssimazione
all’infinito è contraddittoria, in quantoche un infinito a cui potessimo
avvicinarci cesserebbe d’essere un infinito e diverrebbe in certo qual
modo suscettivo di misura. L’infinito non è una cosa, un oggetto posto
come dato e verso il quale si avanzerebbe come verso un termine fissato
in precedenza, ma è igu ideale, ossia appunto ciò che si oppone alla
realtà del dato, ciò che nessun dato può esaurire ; Infatti, grazie alla
sintesi dianzi descritta, l’io svelle sè stesso da tutto ciò che sembra
trovarsi fuori di lui, entra in possesso di sè e si pone dinanzi a sè
come assolutamente indipendente, essendo l’io riflettente indipendente per sè
stesso, l’io riflettuto tutfc’ uno con l’io riflettente, ed entrambi uniti in
una sola inseparabile persona, alla quale il riflettuto dà la forza reale
e il riflettente la coscienza. La persona così costituita non può più agire
ormai se non secondo e mediante concetti, e poiché tutto ciò che ha
la propria ragion d’ essere in un concetto è un prodotto della libertà,
cosi d’ ora innanzi l’io non agirà più se non liberamente, anche quando
non faccia che assecondare l’impulso di natura, perchè anche in tal caso egli
non opera meccanicamente ma con coscienza, e in lui non più il
cieco impulso naturale, si bene la coscienza da lui acquistata di questo
impulso naturale è il primo fondamento del suo operare, il quale perciò è
libero come poco fa notammo — se non nel contenuto, almeno nella forma. Ma che
significa essere libero e agire liberamente? Prima di giungere alla
riflessione l’io è di natura sua e questo ideale clie portiamo in
noi stessi indietreggia dinanzi a noi man mano che ci eleviamo verso di
esso. Noi possiamo bene allargare i nostri limiti, inalzarci sempre più verso
la libertà, ma non possiamo mai sopprimere totalmente questi limiti, attuare
cioè la libertà; a qualunque grado di liberazione noi si giunga, la libertà
assoluta rimane sempre un ideale. Insomma, .con l’idea di un progress o
infinito il Fichte risolve la contraddizione tra la libertà e la natura : la
natura deve tendere alla libertà come a un fine infinito, e se l’infinito
potesse essere attuato, la natura s’identificherebbe con la libertà ; la realtà
di questo progresso non è nel conseguimento
impossibile di un fine fissato a un dato punto, ma nel valore sempre
più alto della nostra azione. (Cfr. Léon)] libero, ma per un’ intelligenza
fuori di lui, non già per sè stesso ; per essere libero anche agli occhi
propri egli deve porsi come tale, e come tale non si pone se non
allorché diventa cosciente del suo passaggio dallo stato indeterminato a
uno stato determinato. L’ io determinante e l’io determinato scftio un
solo e medesimo io, prodotto dalla sintesi del inflettente e del riflettuto,
dell’ io-soggetto e del1’io-oggetto. Per siffatta sintesi la concezione di un
fine diventa immediatamente azione e l’azione diventa conoscenza della
libertà. Senonchè l’indeterminatezza non è soltanto uon-determinatezza
(ossia zei'o), sì bene un deciso librarsi tra più possibili
determinazioni (ossia una grandezza negativa) ; altrimenti essa non potrebbe
essere posta e sarebbe un nulla. Ora, finché non intervenga la facoltà
appetitiva superiore, non si vede in che modo la libertà possa scegliere
tra più determinazioni possibili; perchè: o si trova in presenza del solo
impulso naturale, e allora non ha nessuna ragione per non seguirlo, anzi
ha ogni ragione per seguirlo; ovvero si trova in presenza di più
impulsi la quale ipotesi non si comprende nel caso di cui ora si
tratta e allora seguirà naturalmente il
più forte ; nel- l’una e nell’altra ipotesi, dunque, nessuna possibilità
d’indeterminatezza. Siccome però l’essere ragionevole non può esistere
senza quella tra le condizioni della sua ragionevolezza che si chiama
sentimento morale e consapevolezza della libertà, bisogna bene ammettere,
nell’ impulso originario delirio, un impulso ad acquistare la coscienza e
della moralità e della libertà. Ma tale coscienza, si è visto, ha
per condizione uno stato indeterminato, e non si produce se l’io
obbedisce unicamente all'impulso naturale ; occorre, dunque, che vi sia
nell’io un impulso o tendenza a trarre dal proprio seno, e non già
dall’impulso naturale, il contenuto o l’oggetto dell’azione; occorre, in
altri termini, che vi sia una tendenza alla libertà per sè stessa, e che alla libertà
formale quella per cui lo stesso risultato, che la natura avrebbe
prodotto se avesse potuto ancora agire, nasce invece da un nuovo
principio, da una nuova forza, ossia dalla coscienza libera si aggiunga
la libertà materiale quella per
cui si ha non solo un nuovo principio operante, ma altresì una serie di
effetti tutta nuova anche nel contenuto, onde non solo è l’intelligenza
la forza che opera, ma essa intelligenza opera qualcosa di ben diverso da ciò
che avrebbe operato la natura. In virtù della libertà materiale io mi
sento emancipato dall’ impulso di natura, gli oppongo resistenza, e tale
resistenza, considerata come essenziale all’ io, quindi come immanente, è essa
stessa un impulso, l ’impulso purodell’ io. L’impulso naturale si
manifesta come iuclinazione e, per il fatto che io posso dominare la sua
forza e sottoporla alla mia libertà, questa forza diventa qualcosa di cui
non fo stima. L’impulso puro, invece, in quanto mi eleva sopra la
natura e mi pone in grado di contrappormele con la più semplice
risoluzione, si manifesta come tale da ispirarmi stima e da investirmi di una
dignità, la quale, essendo al disopra di ogni natura, m’ impone rispetto
verso me stesso; l’impulso puro, anziché al piacere, porta al disprezzo
del piacere ed esige l’affermazione e la conservazione della mia assoluta
indipendenza e libertà. L’adempimento di questa esigenza e il suo
contrario significano rispettivamente l’accordo e il disaccordo tra
l’ideale tendenza essenziale dell’ io puro all’assoluta libertà e il
reale stato accidentale dell’io empirico ; suscitano, quindi, il mio
interesse m’interessa, infatti, ossia
tocca direttamente il mio sentimento, tutto ciò che lia immediata relazione col
mio impulso fondamentale, si accompagnano, dunque, a piacere o dolore; ma
e questo è di capitale importanza si tratta qui di stati affettivi che
non hanno nulla a fare con l’affettività comune, perchè consistono
in una contentezza e in un disgusto di sè la cui natura non si confonde
mai con quella del piacere o del dolore dei sensi. Il piacere sensibile
che nasce dall’ accordo tra l’impulso naturale e la realtà non dipende da me in
quanto sono un io, ossia in quanto sono libero ; esso è tale da
strappare me a me, da rendermi estraneo a me stesso e da farmi
dimenticare in esso ; è, in una parola, involontario, e questa qualità lo
caratterizza nel modo più esatto. Altrettanto vale del suo opposto, ossia del
dolore sensibile. Il piacere morale, al contrario, che nasce dall’accordo
tra l’impulso puro e la realtà, è qualcosa non di estraneo ma di
dipendente dalla mia libertà, qualcosa che potrei aspettarmi in conformità
d’una regola, come non potrei aspettarmi, invece, il piacere involontario ;
esso, quindi, non mi trasporta fuori di me, anzi mi fa rientrare in me
stesso e, meno tumultuario, ma più intimo del piacere sensibile,
m’in- [Intorno al concetto dell’ interesse Fichte fa una specie di
digressione ( Sittenlehre) per meglio illuminare la sua trattazione sul
sentimento morale e sulla coscienza morale. fonde, in quanto
soddisfazione e auto-stima, nuovo coraggio' e nuova forza. Similmente il
suo opposto, ossia il dolore morale, appunto perchè dipende dalla
libertà, è un rimprovero interno, si associa a un sentimento di
auto-disistima e sarebbe insopportabile se il sentirci ancora capaci di
provarlo non ci risollevasse dinanzi a noi stessi, e non ravvivasse la
coscienza della nostra natura superiore e della nostra assoluta libertà,
insomma la coscienza morale fdas Oetoissen), vale a dire : la
consapevolezza immediata dell’adempimento del dovere, dell’accordo cioè tra
l’azione (nel mondo della natura) e il fine ideale (la libertà). Ora, la
coscienza morale si connette strettamente con l’impulso morale, il quale
è di natura mista, perchè partecipa a un tempo dell’impulso puro e dell’impulso
naturale. Come? Ogni volizione reale tende all’azione e ogni azione
si porta sopra un oggetto : ogni volizione reale, quindi, è empirica. E
poiché non posso agire sugli oggetti se non mediante una forza fisica, la quale
non proviene che dall’impulso naturale, cosi ogni fine concepito
dall’intelligenza finisce per coincidere con 1^ soddisfazione di un IMPULSO
NATURALE. Certo, chi vuole è l'io -intelligenza non già la na-
/M/'fl-iucoscieuza ; ma, quanto al contenuto, il mio volere non può avere
materia diversa da quella che la natura vorrebbe anch’essa, se di volere
fosse capace : non c’ è libertà circa la materia delle azioni. E allora quale
causalità rimane all’impulso puro, che pur non può esserne
destituito? Affinchè rimanga una causalità all’ impulso puro,
bisogna che la materia dell’azione sia conforme a esso non meno (Siltenlekre)
che all’IMPULSO NATURALE. Tale duplice conformità si comprende soltanto così: l’impulso
puro nell'operare tende alla piena emancipazione dalla natura ; ma i
limiti che l’attività dell' io impone a sè stessa costringono l’operare
entro i confini dell’ impulso naturale ; onde l’azione conforme a questo
secondo impulso diventa conforme anche al primo quando al pari di esso
tenda alla piena emancipazione dalla natura, si trovi cioè in una serie
di sforzi, continuando la quale all’infinito, l’io si approssima sempre più
all’indipendenza assoluta. Deve esservi una serie di tal genere, che
muova dal punto in cui la persona si trova posta per la propria
natura e si prolunghi all’ infinito verso il .fine supremo e ideale si badi bene a questo appellativo che
esclude ogni possibilità, di attuazione completa di ogni attività,
altrimenti uon sarebbe possibile una causalità dell’ impulso puro :
questa serie si può chiamare la destinazione morale dell’ essere
ragionevole finito, e seguendola possiamo sapere in ogni momento quale è
il nostro dovere. Il principio della morale può, dunque, formularsi cosi.
Adempì in ogni momento la tua destinazione. Quel che in ogni momento è conforme
alla nostra destinazione morale, ossia al fine a cui si dirige l’impulso
puro, è in pari tempo conforme all’impulso naturale, ma uon tutto quel
che è conforme all’impulso naturale è conforme alla nostra destinazione morale.
Appunto perciò l’impulso morale è misto: esso riceve dall’impulso
naturale la materia dell’operare, dall’impulso pui'O la forma; per esso
io debbo agire con la coscienza di adempiere un dovere ; gl’ impulsi ciechi
della natura, come la simpatia, la compassione, la benevolenza spontanea,
in quanto tali non hanno nulla di morale, perchè contraddice alla
moralità il lasciarsi spingere ciecamente. L’impulso morale
differisce profondamente dal cieco impulso naturale, e molto ai avvicina
all’ impulso puro, perchè la sua causalità è ambigua, può avere effetto e può
anche non averne, perchè esso comanda: sii libero (cioè: sii in grado di fare e
di a'stenerti dal fare). E in questo comando appare per la prima
volta un imperativo categorico, un imperativo che è un prodotto
nostro proprio (nostro in quanto siamo intelligenze capaci di agire per
concetti), e il cui oggetto è il fine non subordinato a nessun altro fine.
L’impulso morale, infatti, non ha per fine nessun godimento ; esso esige
u la libertà per la libertà. È poi evidente in questa formula imperativa
il duplice significato della parola “ libertà la quale sta a designare
nel primo posto un operare in quanto tale, ossia un puramente soggettivo, e nel
secondo posto uno stato oggettivo che dev’essere conseguito, ossia 1’
ultimo fine assoluto, la piena nostra indipendenza da tutto ciò che è
fuori di noi. In altri termini : io debbo agire con libertà per
divenire libero; e soltanto determinandomi da me stesso e non seguendo
altro che le ispirazioni del sentimento del dovere agisco con libertà e
divengo veramente indipendente dalla natura, veramente libero. A questa
distinzione tra la libertà come attività e la libertà come risultalo, che è
di così grande importanza nel nostro sistema, se ne aggiunge un’
altra entro il concetto stesso di libertà intesa come attività: la distinzione,
cioè, tra la forma e la materia dell’attività libera; distinzione da cui nasce
la divisione della dottrina morale e con cui si passa all’ applicazione
sistematica del principio della moralità. Fichte discorre delle condizioni
formali della moralità delle nostre azioni, del contenuto materiate
della legge morale; e dei doveri. Il principio formale di ogni moralità
può enunciarsi così. Opera sempre secondo la convinzione che hai intorno
al tuo dovere. Questo imperativo o legge che presuppone naturalmente e
logicamente una libera volontà— si scinde in due precetti, di cui 1’ uno
concerne la forma o la condizione : u procurati la convinzione di ciò che
è tuo dovere; l’altro la MATERIA o il condizionato. Fai ciò che ritieni con
convinzione tuo dovere 9 failo soltanto perchè lo ritieni tale Ora, la
convinzione nasce dall’accordo di un atto della facoltà giudicatrice coll’impulso
morale, e il criterio della giustezza della nostra convinzione è un
sentimento intimo al di là del quale non si può risalire, perchè con esso
si raggiunge 1’ espressione diretta della nostra essenza assoluta e della
nostra finalità. Per conseguenza, la coscienza morale, che in quel
sentimento ha radice, va immune per natura sua da dubbio e da errore, non
può ingannarsi, nè è suscettiva di rettifiche da parte di un’
inconcepibile coscienti più interiore, è essa stessa giudice di ogni
convinzione e le sue sentenze non ammettono appello. Voler oltrepassare
la propria coscienza morale per timore che possa essere erronea, sarebbe
come voler uscire fuori di sè, voler separarsi da sè stesso. È
condizione formale della moralità, quindi, non decidersi [Della volontà
iu particolare e della sua natura cosi opposta al juro meccanismo, il
Pielite tratta nella Sitlenlehre] all’azione se non per soddisfare alla propria
coscienza morale, all’impulso originario dell’io puro, senza sottostare
ad altra autorità che non sia quella della propria convinzione, del proprio
giudizio. Chi, dunque, agisce senza consultare la sua coscienza, senza essersi
prima assicurato j delle decisioni di questa, agisce, come suol dirsi,
senza coscienza, e perciò immoralmente, è colpevole e non può imputare la sua
colpa ad altri che a sè stesso. Similmente opera senza coscienza, e
perciò senza moralità, chi si lascia guidare dall’autorità altrui, perchè
la convinzione della coscienza morale e la certezza della sua giustezza non
nascono mai da giudizi estranei, ma traggono origine esclusivamente dal
soggetto: sarebbe una flagrante contraddizione fare di qualche cosa che non
sono io stesso un sentimento di me stesso. In conclusione: in tutta la
nostra condotta (si tratti della ricerca scientifica, ovvero della
vita pratica) l’azione, per essere morale, deve uscire da un’intima
convinzione, perchè soltanto allora essa esprime veramente la nostra
autonomia spirituale. Ogni azione fatta per autorità (si tratti dell’
accettazione di una verità che non risponde in noi a una convinzione,
ovvero del compimento di un’ azione che accettiamo come un ordine) va
direttamente contro il verdetto della coscienza, è male, è I colpa. Giova
ricordare che per Fichte non vi sono azioni indifferenti; tutte debbono essere
riferite alla legge morale, uon foss’altro per assicurarsi che sono
lecite; onde anche le azioni più indifferenti iu apparenza, vanno
sottoposte a matura riflessione, sempre iu vista della legge morale (Siltenlehre).
Risulta qui ancora una volta definitivamente stabilito il primato della
ragione pratica sulla ragione teorica; di quella ragione pratica che agli
occhi E facile argomentare da ciò quale sia la causa del male o
della colpa nell’essere ragionevole finito. Quel che in generale
costituisce l’essere ragionevole trovasi necessariamente ih ciascun individuo
ragionevole, altrimenti questi non sarebbe più tale. Ora, secondo la
legge morale, l’io individuale, finito, empirico, che vive nel tempo,
deve tendere a divenire un’esatta copia dell’Io primitivo, originario,
infinito, extra-temporale; ma, sottoposto com’è alla condizione del t^mpo,
non può acquistare la chiara coscienza di tutto ciò che primitivamente e
originariamente fa l’essenza dell’Io, se non mediante un lavoro
successivo e una progressione nel tempo. Finché questo lavoro più o
meno faticoso e questa progressione più o meno lenta non abbiano compiuto
nell’ io empirico individuale il passaggio dallo stato d’ irriflessione
al massimo sviluppo della coscienza morale, c’ è sempre luogo nella nostra
condotta all’immoralità, alla colpa, al male. Conviene, dunque, seguire
questa storia dello sviluppo della coscienza emjnrica, per vedere
attraverso quali fasi germogli e maturi il seme della moralità, notando a
tal proposito ohe tutto sembrerà succedere come casualmente, perchè tutto
dipende dalla libertà, e in nessun modo da una meccanica legge di natura.
Anzitutto, e al suo grado pivi dàsso, l’io empirico si riduce a
un’attività istintiva ; l’istinto, senza dubbio, si accompagna con la
coscienza, dista però ancor molto dalla di Fichte è veramente la ragione,
e nella quale si attua l’accordo dell’essere e dell’agire, dell’oggetto e
del soggetto, della produzione e della riflessione, e che ci fornisce
l’intuizione, la coscienza immediata dell’ Io assoluto. E risulta anche
come la morale di Fichte fluisca per essere in sostanza una morale del
sentimento.] riflessione; l’uomo allora segue meramente e semplicemente l’impulso
naturale e, così facendo, è libero per un’ intelligenza fuori di lui, ma per sè
stesso è puro animale. I Tuttavia l’uomo può riflettere su questo stato; e
tale riflessione è per natura sua un atto di libertà : essa non è
nè fisicamente nè logicamente necessaria, ma soltanto moralmente obbligatoria:
chi vuole adempiere la propria destinazione e acquistare in sè la coscienza
dell’ Io puro, deve riflettere su questo suo stato, e mercè tale riflessione
si eleva, quasi, sopra sè stesso, si stacca dalla natura, se ne distingue
e le si oppone come intelligenza libera ; acquista cosi il potere di differire
‘la propria autodeterminazione e di scegliere quindi tra più modi — la pluralità
dei modi nasce appunto dalla riflessione e dal differimento della
risoluzione di soddisfare l’impulso
naturale. Tale scelta si compie secondo una massima liberamente
adottata dall’ io individuale, e perciò profondamente diversa dal PRINCIPIO
supremo che scaturisce dalla legge morale e CHE NON È, COME LA MASSIMA, UN
LIBERO PRODOTTO DELLA COSCIENA EMPIRICA. Per conseguenza, nel caso di una MASSIMA
cattiva, la colpa spetta tutta all’ io individuale. Ora, in questa
seconda fase di sviluppo, dovuta al primo grado della riflessione, l’io
acquista coscienza del fine a cui tende 1’ impulso naturale, lo fa suo e adotta
come regola di .condotta la MASSIMA della felicità. L’uomo rimane dunque
ancora un animale, ma diventa un animale intelligente, prudente: è
già formalmente libero. Soltanto mette la sua libertà al servigio
dell’impulso naturale. La MASSIMA della felicità, per quanto sia un
prodotto della sua libertà, non può essere diversa da quella che è, e, una
volta posta, egli le obbedisce necessariamente. Senonchè la MASSIMA stessa, e
con essa il carattere ohe ne risulta, non ha nulla di necessario e non è
detto che l’io individuale debba arrestarvi»]/ se vi si arresta è
soltanto sua colpa. Nulla lo costringe L progredire, è vero, ma egli deve
e può progredire, facenti uso della propria libertà ed elevandosi
liberamente a qn piu alto grado di riflessione. Il male morale non deriva
ile non dal fatto che l’uomo il più delle volte non esercita la
propria libertà, onde a ragione Kant
riteneva il male radicale innato nell’uomo e nondimeno prodotto dalla
sua libertà. Quando però — con nuovo miracolo della sua
spontaneità — 1’ uomo, nella fase ora descritta, esercita la propria libertà,
una seoonda riflessione si compie, che, al pari della precedente, ha
carattere non di necessità fisica o logica, ma di obbligatorietà morale, e in
virtù di essa nasce una terza fase, nella quale l’io individuale prende
coscienza della sua opposizione rispetto alla natura e della spontaneità
del proprio operare, ed erige questa spontaneità stessa, ossia la propria
volontà, a nuova massima di condotta. Non piu la ricerca della felicità guida
ora le sue azioni, ma il godimento di un’ indipendenza dal nou-io
la quale non ammette freno al proprio capriccio e fa di sè stessa il proprio
idolo. Si ha, quindi, un progresso verso la libertà assoluta, ma non
ancora la vera libertà morale, non ancora la volontà riflessa sottoposta
alla legge del dovere. Anzi, mentre la MASSIMA della felicità è, si, mancanza
di legge, ma non addirittura rovesciamento della legge > n l’ostilità
contro questa, lt MASSIMA della volontà egoistica e arbitraria, invece,
può portare sino alla trasgressione intenzionale della legge. Il carattere
della condotta ispirata a tale MASSIMA è soltanto la soddisfazione
dell’amor proprio, dell’ orgoglio, del bisogno di dominare, ottenuta
a qualsiasi costo, anche di dolori corporei ; e appunto questa
idolatria della volontà egoistica spiega pressoché tutta la storia umana.
Essa riempie grandissima parte del teatro del inondo con le sue lotte e
le sue guerre, con, le sue vittorie e le sue sconfitte. u II
soggiogamento dei corpi e delle anime dei popoli, le guerre di conquista
e di religione, e tutti i misfatti cou cui l’umanità si è disonorata non si
spiegano altrimenti. Che cosa indusse l'invasore, l’oppressore a perseguire il
proprio fine con pericolo e fatica ? Sperava egli forse che per tal modo
si accrescerebbero le fonti dei suoi godimenti sensitivi? No davvero. 1
Ciò ohe io voglio deve accadere, a quel che io dico si deve stare ’ :
ecco 1’ unico principio che lo moveva. Un siffatto culto della volontà
egoistica certamente non è senza una certa aureola di grandezza, poiché
giunge anche al disinteresse: non al disinteresse che deriva dall'
obbedienza al dovere e che solo ha significato morale, ma a un
disinteresse di carattere impulsivo, derivante dal desiderio di suscitare
ammirazione, di cattivarsi stima, e che rimane tuttora una forma di amor
proprio e di orgoglio. E un culto che porta sino al sacrifizio della vita
e ci vuole del coraggio a vincere in noi la natura. Ma questo
sacrifizio è senza valore etico, perché è fatto soltanto al proprio io
individuale, è puro egoismo. Certo, rispetto alla fase precedente, la
quale non mira che alla felicità sensibile, la fase ora descritta segna
un progresso e sta come a rappresentare l’età eroica dello sviluppo
morale. Ma dal punto di vista della moralità nulla di più pericoluso che
arrestarvisi, perchè essa ci abitua a considerare come nobili e meritori,
come rari e ammirevoli, come opera mpererogativa, atti che sono
semplicemente doverosi, e a considerare d’ altra parto tutto ciò che a
vantaggio nostro si fa da Dio, dalla natura, dagli altri uomini,
come nulla più che doveri verso di noi. Con siffatte pretensioni la
massima della volontà egoistica e senza, freno, adottata in questa fase,
è peggiore di ogni altra, perchè finisce addirittura col corrompere le stesse
radici della moralità: “ >1 pubblicano peccatore non vale più del fariseo
sedicente giusto, in quanto che nessuno dei due ha il menomo valore ; ma
il secondo è assai più difficile a convertire del primo. Per elevarsi al
disopra di questa terza fase basta che l’uomo con un terzo atto di
riflessione, al pari dei precedenti spontaneo ma inesplicabile, non
necessario ma obbligatorio acquisti coscienza chiara di quell’
originario impulso all’ indipendenza assoluta che, considerato
(analogamente a un eminente grado di capacità intellettuale) come un dono
gratuito della natura, può chiamarsi genio della virtù, ma che, allo
^tato d’impulso cieco, pi'oduce un carattere assai immorale. Mercè la
riflessione, quell’ impulso si trasforma in una legge assolutamente
imperativa, e poiché ogni riflessione limita e determina ciò che è
riflettuto, anche quell’impulso sarà limitato dalla riflessione, e da
cieco impulso verso una causalità sconfinata diventerà una legge di
causalità condizionata ; riflettendo, l’uomo sa di dovere assolutamente
qualche cosa ; e affinchè questo sapere si tramuti in azione, bisogna che
egli adotti la MASSIMA: adempì il Ino dovere perchè è tuo dovere. Sorge
così la coscienza morale, la quale impone appunto alla volontà
arbitraria, alla volontà senza regola uè freno della fase precedente,
l’obbedienza al principio assoluto della ragione. Una volta conseguita
questa chiara coscienza del dovere, la nostra condotta vi si conforma
necessariamente, essendo inconcepibile che noi ci decidiamo di proposito
e con piena chiarezza a ribellarci alla nostra legge, a mancare al
nostro dovere, appunto perchè è la nostra legge, appunto perchè è il nostro
dovere. Vi sarebbe in ciò, oltre che una contraddizione evidente, una
condotta veramente diabolica, se lo stesso concetto u diavolo non fosse
contraddittorio. Soltanto può accadere che la chiara coscienza del dovere si
annebbii, si oscuri, che la riflessione non si mantenga sempre alle
altezze della moralità, e la nostra condotta, perciò, cessi di essere
conforme alla legge morale. Il dovere primo, quindi, e anche il più alto, è
mantenere la coscienza del dovere in tutta l’intensità della sua luce
e «Iella sua forza. Bisogna vegliare continuamente su noi stessi,
alimentare senza tregua il fuoco sacro della riflessione; possiamo fare di
questa riflessione un’abitudine, senza perciò renderla una necessità,
senza pregiudizio cioè della libertà, allo stesso modo diesi può fare
un’abitudine dell’irriflessione, con cui la coscienza empirica comincia,
e persistere in essa, senza renderla perciò una necessità e senza
escludere quindi 1’ esercizio della libertà. Nella sua Ascetih «fa Animili/ zur
Murai ( Ascetica conir appendice alta Morale) contenuta in Nuahgelarsene
Werke, e tradotta in inglese da Kroeger. Se la coscienza morale svanisce
del tutto, si da non lasciar sopravvivere più nessun sentimento del
dovere, noi The sciunce of Elltics bij Fichte dianzi ricordato Pielite si adopera a fornire il mozzo
pratico per mantener viva o luminosa, una volta nata per opera della
libertà, la coscienza del dovere, 'l'ale mezzo consiste ned’associazione
delle idee, intermediaria tra la necessità della natura e la libertà della
ragione, e precisamente nell’associare in precedenza la rappresentazione
dell'atto futuro con la rappresentazione dell’atto conforme al dovere.
Occorre, in altri termini, che i due propositi : voglio fare quest’azione; non
voglio agire se non conforme al dovere, siano indissolubilmente uniti
in ima sintesi, e la funzione propria dell’ascetica consiste appunto
in questa associazione permanente e anticipata del concetto del dovere
non solo col concetto della nostra condotta in generale il che sarebbe
ancora troppo vago e astratto ma con i concetti di azioni determinate,
soprattutto di quelle ABITUALI, QUOTIDIANE, in cui più facilmente possiamo
peccare per omissione o violazione del dovere. Mentre invece per le azioni
eccezionali e straordinarie difficilmente manca I intervento della
riflessione e la conseguente chiarezza della coscienza. Di qui due
regole: un esame di coscienza generale dei casi in cui siamo più esposti
al pericolo di cadere in colpa; e la risoluzione ferma e sempre attiva di
ridettero, in questi casi, sopra noi stessi e di sorvegliarci, opponendo
alla forza cieoa e alla resistenza passiva di certi stati di coscienza,
divenuti abitudini quasi invincibili, la causalità iutelligAte della
coscienza morale: è noto ohe spesso basta ridettero sulla propria passione
e rendersi consapevoli delle associazioni che la costituiscono per liberarsene,
dissociando mentalmente i fattori da cui nasce e controbilanciando il
piacere che ci aspettiamo dal suo soddisfacimento col disprezzo che accompagna
la trasgressione del dovere. Ma, affinchè l’esame della propria coscienza
abbia valore etico, bisogna che non si riduca a una pura
aulocontemplazione, a un’ analisi fatta quasi per semplice giuoco estetico.
Bisogna, invece, che si proponga la nostra riforma morale, il
miglioramento della nostra attività. Tale esortazione, del resto, si
rivolge non già agli uomini privi di coltura, la cui vita é tutta rivolta
all’azione, ond’essi non ridettono se non per agire, ma agli artisti, ai
letterati, e persino ai lilosotì e ai sacerdoti, per i quali è frequente
il grave pericolo di dimenticare il valore pratico delle coso, di
arrestarsi alla contemplazione e di nou tradurre la speculazione in
azione. ricadiamo in uno degli stati che precedono la moralità e OPERIAMO
SECONDO LA MASSIMA o della felicità o del dominio arbitrario della nostra
volontà egoistica. Se, invece, ci ri mane ancora un sentimento vago e
intermittente del dóvere. possono verificarsi le seguenti tre specie
d’indeterminatezza corrispondenti alle tre condizioni che rendono
determinato il dovere. L’indeterminatezza può concernere la MATERIA
del dovere, cioè l’applicazione della legge morale a un dato caso : in
ciascun singolo caso tra più azioni possibili non ce n è che una conforme
al dovere. Ma, per insufficiente attenzione e riflessione, noi cediamo
segretamente, e quasi a nostra insaputa, a qualche altra sollecitazione e
perdiamo il filo conduttore della coscienza --; il MOMENTO del dovere :
in ciascun singolo caso si deve adempiere subito ciò che è dovere. Ma,
per l’affievolirsi della coscienza, ci illudiamo che non occorra
affrettarsi a ciò, procrastiniamo il nostro perfezionamento e ci
abituiamo a procrastinarlo all’ infinito --; la FORMA del dovere :
l’imperativo morale è categorico, esige obbedienza assoluta e incondizionata. Ma,
se perdiamo di vista tale sua caratteristica, consideriamo il dovere,
anziché come un comando, COME UN SEMPLICE CONSIGLIO DI PRUDENZA che si può
seguire quando piaccia e non costi troppa abnegazione, e con cui si può
anche transigere; di qui quei compromessi, quegli accomodamenti con
la propria coscienza che sono altrettanti modi di eludere la legge morale,
altrettante cause di torpore per la riflessione, e che pongono nel massimo
pericolo la nostra salvezza spirituale, quando per caso non
sopravvenga dall’esterno una forte scossa, la quale ci sia occasione
a rientrare in noi, a ravvederci. Quest’ultima maniera d’intendere il
dovere, infatti, accusa la morale di RIGORISMO impraticabile, sotto lo specioso
pretesto che l’ adempimento del dovere impone troppi sacrifizi, quasi che
non fosse appunto in ciò l’obbligo nostro. Nel sacrificar tutto al
dovere, la vita, l’onore e ogni cosa all’uomo più caramente diletta. Quale
che sia il modo di oscurarsi della coscienza, si può dire in generale che
la causa di questo suo oscurarsi e del conseguente smarrirsi della
moralità, la causa iu- somma del male, va ricercata in una sconfitta
della libertà. Se la riflessione che ci eleva alla libertà consiste in
una creazione da parte della libertà e quasi in un colpo di grazia
che ci strappa all’oppressione della natura, il mantenimento della chiara
coscienza del dovere non può essere che un perpetuo riprodursi di questo atto
creativo, una creazione continuata, uno sforzo incessante della
riflessione, dell’attenzione ; e appunto perciò al menomo affievolirsi della
nostra vigilanza consegue la nosti-a caduta e il trionfo delle forze
antagonistiche della natura, le quali sono sempre e necessariamente in azione:
tosto che cessa lo sforzo morale, l’impulso naturale inevitabilmente ha
il sopravvento e, con la luce della coscienza, si spegue anche LA
VIRTÙ. Ogni uomo, dallo stato di natura, con cui s’inizia la sua vita in
una specie d’innocenza perchè sono ancora ignorati gli stati superiori in
cui l’innocenza primitiva assume aspetto di colpa, perviene
necessariamente alla coscienza di sé stesso: a ciò gli basta riflettere
sulla libertà che ha di scegliere tra più azioni possibili per soddisfare l’impulso
naturale. SIAMO ALLORA IN QUELLA FASE IN CUI EGLI OPERA SECONDO LA MASSIMA
DELL’INTERESSE O DELLA FELICITÀ (Siuenlehre). In questo grado di sviluppo
rimano volentieri, trattenutovi dalla forza d 'inerzia che l’uomo, in quanto
essere sensibile, ha in comune con tutta la natura fisica. È vero
che, in virtù della sua natura superiore, egli deve 'strapparsi a questo stato,
e può farlo perchè dotato di libertà. Ma proprio la sua libertà è impedita in
questo stato, essendo essa alleata con quella forza d'inerzia, da cui
dovrebbe invece svincolarsi. Come farà egli a elevarsi alla libertà,
quando per questa elevazione stessa deve far uso della libertà ? Donde
attingerà la forza che faccia da contrappeso nella bilancia per vincere la
forza d’inerzia? Certamente non nella sua natura empirica, la quale in
nessun modo fornisce alcunché di simile. Gli occorre, dunque, un
aiuto superiore. L’uomo naturale qui non può nulla da sé – ma da un miracolo puo
essere salvato. Intanto sappiamo che l’inerzia, la pigrizia — la
quale a forza di riprodursi indefinitamente diviene impotenza
morale — è il vizio radicale, il male innato, il peccato originale. L’'uomo
è per natura pigro, dice assai giustamente Kant. Da pigrizia nasce
immediatamente viltà, il secondo vizio fondamentale dell’ uomo. LA VILTÀ
E LA PIGRIZIA D’AFFERMARE LA PROPRIA LIBERTÀ E INDEPENDENZA NELLO *SCAMBIO ili AZIONE
CON GLI ALTRI: donde tutte le specie di schiavitù fisica e morale tra gli
uomini. In genere si ha abbastanza coraggio dinanzi a coloro di cui si
conosce la debolezza relativa, ma si è disposti a cedere, a
umiliarsi, dinanzi a una supposta e temuta superiorità qualsiasi. Si
preferisce la sottomissione piuttosto che lo sforzo necessario a resistere. Precisamente
come quel marinaio che preferiva le eventuali pene dell’ inferno al lavoro
faticoso di correggersi in questa vita. Il vile si consola di
questa sottomissione forzata con l’astuzia e con la frode. Da viltà
nasce inevitabilmente il terzo vizio fondamentale: falsità. È questa il
risultato di uno sforzo indiretto che si compie per ricuperare
l’indipendenza perduta, quell’indipendenza che nessun nomo può
sacrificare ad altri cosi interamente come il pigro finge di fare per
essere dispensato dalla fatica di difenderla in aperta battaglia.
Falsità, menzogna, malizia, insidia derivano dall’esistenza di un oppressore,
e ogni oppressore deve aspettarsi tali frutti. Soltanto il vile è
falso. Il coraggioso non mente e non è falso. Per orgoglio, se non per
virtù. Ma come pud aiutarsi l’uomo, quando in lui è radicata la
pigrizia, la quale paralizza appunto l’unica forza con cui' egli deve
aiutarsi ? Che cosa gli manca propriamente? Non già t la forza, che egli ben
possiede, ma la coscienza della forza e l’Impulso a farne uso. E
donde gli verrà questo impulso? Non da altra foute che dalla
riflessione: è necessario che l’io empirico, avendo in sè l’immagine dell’Io
assoluto, e vedendosi in tutta la propria bruttezza, senta orrore di sè ;
soltanto per questa via potrà formarsi la coscienza di quel che deve
essere, soltanto di là verrà l’impulso. In genere gl’ individui che
formano la grande maggioranza degli uomini hanno bisogno di apprendere la
propria libertà da altri individui liberi, che essi contemplano come
modelli. Ma vi souo nella moltitudine spiriti eletti a cui fu dato di essere
gl’ iniziatori della moralità e quasi i primi maestri dell' umanità, per
es. i fondatori di religione. Si comprende come costoro, non avendo
attinto dall’ esempio altrui la consapevolezza della propria
indipendenza, e non trovando nella propria natura empirica il principio
dell’ emancipazione da questa natura empirica, si credano ispirati dall'
alto da una grazia soprannaturale, da uno spirito divino, mentre invece non
han fatto che obbedire alla propria natura superiore, all’Io assoluto, di
cui l’io finito e individuale deve divenire la copia fedele. Una volta emancipato dalla schiavitù della
natura e divenuto cosciente della propria libertà formale, l’uomo deve
far uso di questa per compiere l’infinita serie di azioni diretta verso l’assoluta
libertà materiale. Quale la materia di queste azioni? In qual modo l’ io
individuale si puo elevere gradatamente sino a quell’ indipendenza
assoluta, a quello stato oggettivo di libertà, che è il fine ultimo della
sua libera attività soggettiva? L’accennammo già. L’attuazione dello stato
di libertà non si ottiene se non determinando il mondo in funzione
della libertà stessa, operando cioè come chi considera e tratta le cose
dal punto di vista non della loro esistenza data, ma della loro FINALITÀ,
non del loro essere, ma del loro dover-essere, e le modifica perciò e le
adatta progressivamente nella direzione di questa FINALITÀ, di questo
dovere. Tale determinazione del mondo secondo l’idea della libertà,
determinazione posta come obbligatoria e come praticamente necessaria,
costituisce il sistema dei nostri doveri, la materia della moralità. In
altri termini, la morale propriamente detta non è che l’insieme delle
condizioni a cui il mondo va sottoposto e a cui deve prestarsi per essere
strumento all’ attuazione della libertà. Queste condizioni possono ridursi
a tre, perchè triplice è il punto di vista da cui può considerarsi il
mondo. Il mondo si può considerare in sè, come pura e semplice
materia, come natura corporea; o nel suo rapporto col pensiero, come
materia di conoscenza; o, finalmente, nel suo rapporto col volere, come
oggetto indispensabile all’ esercizio dell’ attività, come il luogo d’incontro
delle molteplici sfere di libertà individuale, come IL TEATRO DELLA SOCIETÀ. E
per la morale si tratta appunto di mostrare nella nostra natura corporea,
nella nostra intelligenza, e nella NOSTRA VITA SOCIALE, gli strumenti per
l’attuazione della libertà, la quale non può DIVENIRE REALE se non OPERANDO
sul mondo oggettivo, PER MEZZO del corpo, dell’intelligenza e DELLA
SOCIETÀ. Come, dunque, dobbiamo trattare, in vista del fine ideale da
raggiungere: il corpo, l’intelligenza, LA SOCIETÀ? Il nostro corpo, essendo da
una parte prodotto di natura, dall’ altra strumento della causalità del
concetto, funziona da intermediario tra la necessità e la libertà.
La volizione si esercita immediatamente su di esso, e per esso
modifica mediatamente il mondo esterno secondo i nostri concetti. Di qui
risulta chiaro un triplice dovere rispetto al corpo: un dovere negativo :
non far mai del proprio corpo il fine ultimo delle proprie azioni ; un
dovere positivo : conservare e coltivare il proprio corpo nell’interesse
della libertà ; un dovere limitativo : evitare come illecito ogni piacere
corporeo che non si riferisca al fine ultimo della nostra attività. u
Mangiate e bevete in onore di Dio: se questa morale vi sembra troppo
austera, tanto peggio per voi ; non ce n’ è un’ altra. L’intelligenza è
la forma indispensabile attraverso cui può attuarsi la libertà, poiché
soltanto la riflessione dà alla libertà la sua legge; fuori
dell’intelligenza ci sarà 1’ istinto cieco, non già la coscienza morale ;
l’intelligenza è il veicolo stesso della moralità. Diciamo di più-: per
la legge morale, mentre il corpo è condizione materiale puramente esterna
e soltanto della sua causalità, l’intelligenza è condizione materiale veramente
interna e di tutta quanta la sua essenza. Di qui un triplice dovere
anche verso l’intelligenza : un dovere negativo : non subordinare mai
materialiter ossia nelle sue
ricerche e cognizioni
l’intelligenza a nessuna autorità, foss’anche quella della legge
morale ; la ricerca da parte della ragione teorica dev’ essere
assolutamente libera e disinteressata, non deve preoccuparsi di altro che
non sia l’acquisto della conoscenza ; un dovere positivo : formare
l’intelligenza il più possibile ; il più possibile imparare, pensare,
indagare ; un dovere limitativo: subordinare formaliier l’intelligenza
alla moralità, la quale rimane sempre il fine supremo ; riferire al
dovere tutte le nostre investigazioni ; coltivare la scienza non per
curiosità ma per dovere, essendo essa strumento di moralità. LA SOCIETÀ,
infine, può dirsi addirittura l’espressione vivente della libertà, in quanto
questa non si concepisce come qualcosa d’individuale, ma soltanto come
una recijjrocanza di RAPPORTI TRA PIU INDIVIDUI corporei, intelligenti e VOLENTI.
L’ideale della libertà, quindi, si attua non nel singolo uomo, ma NELLA
COMUNITÀ di tutti gli uomini, in seno alla quale l’individuo DIVIENE
PERSONA e senza la quale per l’ individuo nessun perfezionamento, anzi
nemmeno l’esistenza stessa, sarebbe possibile, essendo individuo e SOCIETÀ
termini correlativi, coudizionantisi a vicenda. Se così è, se l’io
empirico non può porsi altrimenti che come individuo, e se come tale NON PUO
PRESCINDERE DA SUOI RAPPORTI CON LA SOCIETÀ, che vai quanto dire dalla
esistenza di ALTRI INDIVIDUI e dalla loro libertà, è evidente che egli
non può voler sopprimere questa esistenza e questa libertà, da cui sono
determinate l’esistenza e la libertà sua propina. La mia tendenza
all’indipendenza assoluta, fine supremo della mia attività, è dunque SUBOARDINATA
ALLA LIBERTÀ DEGLI ALTRI. Le libere azioni degli altri sono gli originari
punti di confine della mia individualità, e a esse io reagisco f non meno
liberamente, autodeterminandomi a quella serie di azioni che prescelgo e da
cui uscirà costituita la mia personalità, non essendo io se non
quel che mi fo • con le mie azioni, e non consistendo il mio essere in
altro che nel mio operare. Soltanto che mentre il mio operare, rispetto a
quegli originari punti di confine della mia individualità, ossia rispetto
ai liberi influssi degli altri, mi appare l’effetto della mia assoluta
autodeterminazioue, della mia libera causalità, quei punti di confine,
quei LIBERI INFLUSSI DEGLI ALTRI, invece, mi appaiono come predeterminati a
priori. Alla stessa guisa che dal punto di vista altrui s’invertono le
parti, e agli altri appare liberamente autodeterminato il loro agire
su di me e predeterminato a priori il mio reagire su di loro. Il
che dà luogo, è vero, a un’ antinomia tra predeterminazione e
autodeterminazione, ma a un’ antinomia che si risolve facilmente cosi. Tutte
le azioni libere (le mie come le altrui) sono predeterminate ab æterno
(ossia fuori del tempo) dalla ragione universale. Ma il momento in
cui ciascuna deve accadere e gli attori di essa non sono predeterminati.
Ecco, quindi, predestinazione e libertà perfettamente conciliate. Ciò premesso
- è evidente il-dovere fondamentale verso la società. Non impedire, con
l’esercizio della propria libertà, la libertà degli altri, hou trattare gli
altri uomini come cose, come semplici strumenti della propria libertà. Ma
anche nell’ interno di questo dovere sembra annidarsi un’ antinomia. Da una
parte devo tendere all’ indipendenza assoluta, all’ emancipazione
da ogni limitazione, dall’altra DEVO RISPETTARE LA LIBERTA ALTRUI, LA
QUALE E UNA VERA LIMITAZIONE ALLA MIA LIBERTA. Da una parte devo agire
sul moudo sensibile si da farne, come il mio corpo, il mezzo per giungere
al line supremo, all’ assoluta libertà, dall’ altra non mi è lecito modificare
i prodotti della libertà altrui. Come comporre questa nuova contraddizione?
Non difficile la soluzione. Basta supporre tra le molteplici libertà
individuali, anziché contrasto, vera COMUNANZA DI AZIONE. Se dal punto di
vista giuridico occorre una forza coercitiva -- l’autorità dello stato --
la quale, restringendo l’esercizio delle libertà individuali
antagonistiche, renda possibile il loro mutuo sviluppo, dal punto di
vista morale, invece, tutti gli individui sottostanno alla medesima
legge, tutti perseguono il medesimo fine, tutti sono in certo qual modo
identici nella loro condotta conforme al dovere. perchè tutti hanno il
medesimo dovere, e l’emancipazione degli uni, lungi dall’opporlesi, è
necessaria all’emancipazione degli altri, perchè l’indipendenza di ciascuno va
di pari passo con l’indipendenza di tutti, perchè LA LIBERTA, INTESA NEL
SENSO MORALE, NON SI ATTUA SE NON NELLA COLLETTIVITA DEGLI ESSERI LIBERI. Dunque,
non già limitazione o interferenza tra le libertà individuali, sì bene CONFLUENZA,
COLLABORAZIONE, CO-OPERAZIONE A UN’OPERA COMUNE, AL TRIONFO DELLE RAGIONE: il
rispetto della libertà altrui è qui compatibile con l’esercizio assoluto
della libertà propria, perchè questa e quella si accordano e si
completano reciprocamente, la liberazione dell’uno è in pari tempo
la liberazione di tutti. E invero, 1’ originaria tendenza
all’indipendenza assoluta non si riferisce a un determinato individuo; ha
per oggetto la libertà assoluta, l’autonomia della ragione in
generale. L’ultimo fine della moralità è il regno della ragione in quanto
ragione, il che NON SI OTTIENE SE NON NELLA COMUNANZA E CON LA COOPERAZIONE di
tutti gli esseri che partecipano della ragione, di tutta l’umanità ; la
libertà, ripetiamo non hì concepisce sotto la forma dell' individualità,
essa è di natura essenzialmeute sociale e universale, e non si attua nel
singolo uomo se uon in quanto questi da u individuo „ si eleva a “ PERSONA„
per confondersi in ispirito con tutti, gli esseri ragionevoli. Di qui
trae luce e spiegazione la nota formula kantiana. Opera in modo da poter pensare
LA MASSIMA DELLA TUA VOLONTA come PRINCIPIO d’ una legislazione universale, formula
più euristica che costitutiva della moralità, perchè non è un
principio come sembra al Kant, a cui il
metodo da lui adottato interdiceva di penetrare sino al fondo delle
cose ma soltanto una conseguenza di quel
vero principio che consiste nel comando dell’ assoluta indipendenza della
ragione. Di qui deriva la necessità che tutti-siano veramente liberi, che
nessuno sia impedito nell’esercizio dulia ragione e nell’adempimento del
dovere, che ciascuno si adoperi ad avvicinare sempre più quell’
ideale per quanto destinato a
rimanere sempre un ideale — che è la moralizzazione dell’umanità.
Soltanto l’uso della libertà contrario alla legge morale ho il dovere di
annullare ; ma siccome ciascuno deve operare secondo le proprie
convinzioni, cosi mi è lecito cercar di determinare o modificare soltanto
la convinzione degli altri, mai la loro azione. E poiché non si può agire
sulle convinzioni degli altri uomini se non vivendo in mezzo a essi,
anche per questa via si ribadisce la necessità morale della società e il
dovere per ognuno di vivere in essa. Segregarsi dalla società
significa rinunziare ad attuare il fine della ragione ed essere indifferente
al propagarsi della moralità, al trionfo della libertà, al bene dell’
umanità. Chi si propone di aver cura sola- Secondo Fichte la
suddetta formula kantiana va intesa non già nel senso: perchè un
quid può essere principio di una legislazione universale, perciò dev’essere
MASSIMA DELLA MIA VOLONTA ma nel senso
opposto : perchè un quid DEV’ESSERE
MASSIMA DELLA MIA VOLONTÀ, perciò può essere anche PRINCIPIO di uua
legislazione universale. In altri termini, non la forma determina il
contenuto della moralità, ma il CONTENUTO determina la forma. Se la moralità ha
per contenuto l’attuazione universale della ragione, ne segue che ciascun
individuo il quale operi di siuteressatameute, secondo ragione, può pensare la
propria condotta come un dovere per chiunque altro operi nelle medesime
circostanze. La proposizione kantiana, appunto con questa universalizzazione
della condotta individuale, non fornisce altro che un eccellente mezzo
di controprova per accertarci se, agli effetti della morale, la
condotta di un individuo sopporti o no universalità, possa o no erigersi
a legge per tutti: è perciò una proposizione euristica, non già
costitutiva della moralità.] mente di sè, dal lato morale, in verità non ha
cura neppure di si, perchè suo fine ultimo dev’essero il prendersi cura
di tutto il genere umano, la sua virtù non è virtù, ma soltanto im
servile, venale egoismo. Non già con una vita eremitica, dedita a
pensieri sublimi e speculazioni pure, non già col fantasticare, ma
soltanto con 1’operare nella e per la società si soddisfa al dovere. La
necessità etica della società e il dovere che ne deriva all’ individuo di
vivere in essa e di lavorarvi alla moi'alizzazione degli uomini, operando
sul loro spirito e formando le loro convinzioni, implica l’istituzione di
quella repubblica morale che i?i chiama la Chiesa e che è condizione
indispensabile per la reciproca azione sociale diretta a produrre
credenze pratiche concordi e con esse il progresso della moralità. La Chiesa,
infatti, rappresenta nel suo simbolo, accettato da tutti i suoi membri,
quell’accordo primitivo e, a dir così, minimo, che solo rende
possibile una comunità spirituale. Ma il simbolo non è, nè può essere,
che un punto di partenza o un mezzo, nou già un punto di arrivo o uu fine
; esso è indefinitamente perfettibile mercè la continua reciproca azione degli
spiriti gli uni sugli altri e il conseguente sviluppo della
moralità, e non può, quindi, rimanere fisso e invariabile. Così, appunto,
l’intende il PROTESTANTISMO. Invece, come fa il papismo, lavorare pur contro la
propria convinzione a mantenere il simbolo in una fissità assoluta, a rendere
la ragione stazionaria, a costringere gli altri in una fede già superata,
significa, oltre che ignoranza, trasgressione del dovere, perchè allora
si fa del simbolo non più 1’ espressione puramente prdVvisoria di un accordo
destinato a permettere la discussione delle diverse opinioni in
vista dell’ ulteriore sviluppo morale della comunità, ma la formula
definitiva di una verità assoluta e immutevole, il che sta in recisa
opposizione con lo spirito della moralità, la cui essenza consiste nello
sforzo e nel progresso all’ infinito. Come la Cliiesa è istituzione necessaria
al perfezionamento morale per quanto riguarda le convinzioni interne, COSI
LO STATO E ISTITUZIONE NECESSARIA per quanto riguarda le azioni esterne,
l’operare sul mondo sensibile. Ciò che sta fuori del mio corpo, ossia
tutto il mondo sensibile, è patrimonio comune e il coltivarlo secondo le
leggi della ragione non spetta a me soltanto, ma a tutti gli
individui ragionevoli; di guisa che il mio operare su di esso
interferisce con l’ operare degli altri, e può accadermi, perciò, di
arrecar danno alla libertà altrui, quando il mio operare non sia all’
unisono con 1’ altrui volontà: il che assolutamente non mi è lecito. Quel che
interessa tutti io non posso fare senza IL CONSENSO di tutti, e senza seguire, quindi,
principi universalmente accettati, previo ACCORDO, tacito o esplicito,
circa una parziale restrizione volontaria e generale delle diverse
libertà individuali. Il consenso a questa restrizione e 1’accordo che
determina i comuni diritti e la reciproca azione sul mondo sensibile è
oggetto del cosidetto contratto sociale e costituisce lo Stato. Lo
Stato, grazie alle leggi conosciute e accettate da tutti i cittadini,
rende possibile a ciascuno di essi di conciliare l’esercizio della
propria libertà col rispetto dovuto alla libertà degli altri; rende passibile,
iu altri termini, prevenendo eventuali conflitti nell’incontro delle libertà
individuali, quella convivenza sociale die è condizione strie iy ua non
della moralità'; di qui il suo alto significato e il suo valore etico. La
necessità del simbolo nella Chiesa, il rispetto delle leggi nello Stato,
impongono, non tanto alle convinzioni dell’individuo le quali sono incoercibili quanto alla loro manifestazione e
comunicazione, certi limiti che non si possono oltrepassare senza
mettersi fuori del simbolo o fuori della legge, fuori, iusomma, della
comunità morale e civile ottenuta iu un dato momento del progresso
umano. E pur tuttavia si è tenuti non solo a formarsi una convinzione
indipendente da ogni autorità, ma anche ad affermarla e parteciparla agli
altri. Come conciliare questa contraddizione tra 1’ assoluta libertà delle
singole coscienze e il rispetto alla fede comune? come risolvere questo
conflitto di doveri ? Non altrimenti che mediante una LIMITAZIONE RECIPROCA dei
due doveri, che vai quanto dire : ammettere la libertà assoluta delle
convinzioni e della loro comunicazione, ma circoscrivere questa libertà e
questa comunicazione a quel particolare gruppo sociale che è
il pubblico dotto. E invero, l’assoluta libertà delle convinzioni e
della loro comunicazione, se è impraticabile nel vasto ambito della
Chiesa e dello Stato, perchè per essere morale dovrebbe raccogliere cosa impossibile 1’ adesione unanime di tutti i membri della
comunità chiesastica e politica, è, invece, praticabile nel ristretto pubblico
dei dotti, il quale sta come anello di congiunzione tra la
convinzione comune e la privata. Il carattere distintivo del
pubblico dotto è uifa assoluti libertà e indipendenza di pensiero ; il
principio della sua costituzione è LA MASSIMA di non sottoporsi a nessuna
autorità, di basarsi in tutto sulla propria riflessione e di rigettare
assolutamente da sè tutto ciò che non sia da questa confermato. Nella
repubblica dei dotti non è possibile nessun simbolo, nessuna direttiva
prestabilita, nessun riserbo ; tra dotti si deve poter dichiaral e
tutto ciò di cui si è persuasi, appunto come si oserebbe dichiararlo alla
propria coscienza ; giudice della verità sarà il tempo, ossia il
progresso della coltura. E come assolutamente libera è l’investigazione
scientifica, così pure libero a tutti deve essere 1’ adito a essa. Per
chi nel suo intimo non può più credere all’ autorità, è contro coscienza
continuare a credervi, è dovere di coscienza associarsi al pubblico dotto. Lo stato
italiano e la chiesa debbono tollerare i dotti, altrimenti violerebbero»
te coscienze, perchè nessuna potenza terrena ha il diritto d’imporsi in materia
di coscienza. Lo tato e la Chiesa debbono anzi riconoscere la repubblica
dei dotti, perchè questa è condizione del loro progresso morale, in
quanto che soltanto in essa possono elaborarsi i concetti che
modificheranno, perfezionandoli, e il simbolo e la costituzione dello
Stato: sin anche come pubblici ufficiali
per es. nelle università i dotti
possono lavorare all’educazione degli uomini e alla formazione
scientifica degli insegnanti e dei funzionari tutti della Chiesa e dello
Stato. È da aggiungere, però, che il dotto, insieme con l’incontestabile
diritto che ha all’ esistenza, all' indipendenza e alla massima libertà di
ricerca e critica nel campo del pensiero, lia anche il preciso dovere di
sottomettersi all’autorità della Chiesa e dello Stato nel campo
deU’azioue ; onde non è lecito a chi ne faccia parte nè diffondere le
propine convinzioni, ancora discutibili e non universalmente accettate,
tra i fedeli e i cittadini che vivono fuori della repubblica dotta, nè,
tanto meno, attuarle senz’ altro nel mondo sensibile, minando cosi,
o addirittura sovvertendo, senza il consenso di tutti, gli ordinamenti e
i poteri costituiti; Stato e Chiesa hanno il diritto di impedire ciò. Sarebbe
un’oppressione della coscienza proibire al predicatore di esporre in
scritti scientifici le sue convinzioni dissenzienti, ma rientra
perfettamente nel1’ordine vietargli di portarle sul pulpito, ed egli
stesso, se'è illuminato, sentirebbe la propria immoralità quando
facesse così. In conclusione: l’ultimo fine di ogni attività
sociale è l’accordo universale tra gli uomini, accordo non
possibile se non sul puro ragionevole, perchè qui soltanto
ritrovasi ciò che agli uomini è comune. Col presupposto d’ un tale
accordo cade la differenza tra un pubblico dotto e un pubblico non dotto ;
scompaiono anche Chiesa e Stato. Condividendo tutti le medesime convinzioni, a
che servirebbe più il potere legislativo e coercitivo dello Stato?
Riunite tutte le coscienze individuali nella visione diretta della
verità assoluta, a ohe servirebbero più i simboli provvisori e mutevoli
della Chiesa ? Il pensiero e l’azione di ciascuno confluirebbe col
pensiero e 1’ azione di tutti, la legge morale troverebbe la sua espressione
nella sublime armonia di tutti gli esseri ragionevoli e buoni, nella
suprema comunione dei santi, l’io empirico e individuale,
completamente liberato da ogni limitazione, svanirebbe completamente
in seno all’Io puro e assoluto, si attuerebbe, insomma, nella
realtà l’Ideale, l’Infinito, Dio. Il contenuto materiale della moralità è
tutto in Questo perenne e progressivo attuarsi del regno della ragione
nel regno della natura, è tutto in questa ascensione, in
quest’approssimarsi del mondo verso lo spirito, vei’so la Libertà. Da
quanto precede risulta evidente che l’io empirico q la persona è soltanto
mezzo all’ attuazione del fine supremo morale. La proposizione del Kant :
L’uomo è /ine in se, è giusta purché completata così : l'uomo è fine in
.sr. ma per gli altri. Siccome la legge si dirige a ciascuno e il
suo fine è la ragione in generale, ossia 1’ umanità tutta quanta, ne
segue che tutti sono fine a ciascuno, ma nessuno è fine a se stesso; 1’
attività di ciascuno è semplice strumento per attuare la ragione. Con che
la dignità del1’ uomo non è abbassata, è anzi inalzata, poiché a ciascun
individuo vien affidato il raggiungimento del fine universale della ragione e
dalla cura e dall’ attività di lui dipende l’intera comunità degli esseri
ragionevoli, mentre egli, invece, non dipende da nulla. Ciascuno diventa
Dio nella misura che gli è possibile, ossia con riguardo alla
libertà degli altri, e appunto perchè tutta la sua iudividualità scompare, egli
diventa pura rappresentazione della legge morale nel mondo sensibile,
vero Io puro. Errano di molto coloro che pongono la perfezione in pie
meditazioni, in un devoto covare sopra sé stessi, e di qui aspettano
l’annientarsi della propria individualità e il loro confluire culi la divinità;
la loro virtù è, o rimane, e geliamo ; essi vogliono fare perfetti
soltanto se stessi. La vera virtù, invece, consiste nell’operare, e
nell’operare per la comunità : è quindi oblio, abnegazione intera di sè
nell’interesse della totalità degli esseri ragionevoli. Se
cosi è, se l’io empirico o individuale serve solamente di mezzo all’attuazione
del fine supremo, ossia all’avvento del regno della ragione, ne segue che i
doveri verso l’io empirico sono mediati e condizionati di fronte a
quelli che, riferendosi direttamente al fine supremo, diconsi immediati e
incondizionati, ossia assoluti. Senonchè la promozione del fine supremo è
possibile soltanto in virtù di una ben disegnata divisione di lavoro,
altrimenti potrebbe molto accadere in più modi, e molto non accadere
affatto. È necessario, dunque, attuare una tale divisione di
lavoro, mediante 1’ istituzione di divei'se professioni, da cui nascono
doveri diversi, che diremo particolari o trasferibili (perchè s’impongono
soltanto a chi abbia scelto quella data professione) di fronte ai doveri
che sono generali o intrasferibili (perchè s’impongono indistintamente a tutti
gli esseri umani). Combinando questa seconda classificazione dei doveri, fatta
dal punto di vista del soggetto della moralità, con la precedente, fatta
dal punto di vista dell’oggetto della moralità, si hanuo quattro specie
di doveri: generali condizionati; particolari condizionati; generali
incondizionati; e particolari incondizionati. I doveri generali
condizionati abbiamo dette si
riferiscono all’io empirico in quanto mezzo e strumento
indispensabile per 1 adempimento della legge morale: primo
tra essi, dunque, V autoconservazione, la conservazione, cioè,
di questo mezzo o strumento. *L’ autoconservazione già richiesta dal
diritto naturale come condizione necessaria al I attuarsi di quel futuro da cui
attendiamo la soddisfazione implicita nell’oggetto del nostro volere
presente, e perciò come qualcosa di relativo
diventa per la moralità materia di un comando assoluto ; per 1’
uomo morale si tratta non più di attendere un risultato più o meno
egoistico e interamente conseguibile nel tempo, ma di lavorare
disinteressatamente all’attuazione di quel fine supremo di cui egli non
potrà mai godere, perchè posto all’ infinito. Dal dovere dell’
autoconservazione nasce : un
divieto : evita tutto ciò che, secondo la tua coscienza, può mettere in
pericolo la tua conservazione in quanto strumento della moralità (il digiuno e
1’intemperanza in riguai do al corpo, l’inerzia intellettuale, il soverchio
sforzo, l’occupazione irregolare, il disordine della fantasia, la coltura
unilaterale, ecc. in riguardo all’ intelligenza) ; non espone al pericolo
la tua salute, il tuo corpo, la tua vita, quando non vi sia necessità
morale. Segue da ciò la più recisa condanna del suicidio : la moralità
può comandare di esporre la vita, non già di distruggerla ; la vita è
la condizione stessa dell’ adempimento del dovere, e il suicidio,
distruggendo la vita, la sottrae appunto al dominio della legge ;
suicidarsi significa dichiarare di non voler più adempiere il dovere; un
comando : opera tutto quello che ritieni necessario alla tua
conservazione (il buon mauteuimeuto del corpo, il nuo adattamento perfetto
ai fini che deve conseguire, la coltura dell’intelligenza, la
ricreazione estetica, eco.). Non va mai dimenticato, però, che il dovere
dell’auto-conservazioue è condizionato, essendo l’io empirico semplice
strumento della moralità : quindi, dove il fine della moralità non fosse
compatibile col dovere «Iella conservazione, sarebbe moralmente necessario che
la vita dell’individuo venisse sacrificata a quel fine, che il dovere
coudizionato fosse subordinato al dovere incondizionato : quando la
moralità lo esige, ho il dovere di arrischiare la mia vita, e tutti i
pretesti con cui cercassi di nascondere la mia viltà per es., quello di risparmiarmi la vita
per operare ancora dell’ altro bene che altrimenti rimarrebbe
incompiuto andrebbero contro il dovere,
il quale comanda in modo assoluto e non ammette indugi al suo adempimento.
Tra i doveri particolari condizionati
attinenti, cioè, ai diversi uffici e alle diverse professioni
individuali sta anzitutto quello d’avere
un ufficio, d’esercitare una professione nell’interesse della società, di
contribuire in qualche misura all’ esistenza e all’ organizzazione
sociale ; poi 1’ altro di scegliersi a ogni modo un ufficio, una
professione, e non già secondo l’inclinazione, ma con la coscienza d’ avere la
migliore attitudine all’ uno o all’ altra, considerate le proprie forze,
la propria coltura, le condizioni esterne dipendenti da noi, poiché non il
sodisfaci- mento dei nostri gusti dev’ essere lo scopo della nostra
vita, ma 1’ avanzamento del fine della ragione : onde gli uomini uou
dovrebbero scegliersi uno stato prima d’essere giunti alla necessaria
maturità della ragione, e sino a questa maturità si dovrebbe educarli
tutti allo stesso modo; infine il dovere di attendere con tutta coscienza
all’ufficio o alla professione prescelta, formando sempre meglio
all’uno o all’ altra il corpo e lo spirito, secondo che più occorre
(all’agricoltore, per es., occorre più la forza e la resistenza fisica,
all’ artista la destrezza e 1’ agilità dei movimenti, allo scienziato la
coltura spirituale in tutte le direzioni, ecc. Di una gerarchia delle
professioni e degli uffici secondo il loro grado di dignità, si può
parlare dal punto di vista sociale soltanto nel senso che le molteplici
occupazioni umane sono subordinate le une alle altre come il condizionato
e la condizione, come il mezzo e il fine ; ma dal punto di vista morale
esse hanno tutte lo stesso valore, tutte la stessa dignità : quel che
importa è adempieide bene. I doveri generali incondizionati si
riferiscono non più allo strumento, ma al fine stesso della moralità,
che è il dominio della ragione nel mondo sensibile e nella totalità degli
individui per opera di ciascun individuo. Primo tra essi il dovere
verso quella libertà formale di tutti gli esseri ragionevoli, nella quale
sta 1’origine, la radice stessa della moralità. La libertà formale di
eia- scun individuo poggia sopra due condizioni : la permanenza del
rapporto tra la volontà individuale e il corpo che ue è 1’ organo
esecutivo; la permanenza del rapporto tra il corpo individuale e il mondo
sensibile che ne è la sfera d’ azione. Di qui due specie di doveri
concerneuti l’inviolabilità: del corpo altrui; della altrui libertà
d’azione: L'inviolabilità del corpo altrui implica; il divieto di esercitare
qualsiasi violenza o coercizione fisica su altri (la condanna, quindi, della
schiavitù, della tortura, dell’ omicidio eoe.); il comando d’aver
cura della vita e della salute degli altri come della propria, essendo
gli altri, al pari di noi, strumenti della moralità (ama il tuo prossimo
come te stesso); L’ altrui libertà d’azione esige : in primo luogo l’esatta conoscenza dei
rapporti tra le cose, senza la quale manca ogni garanzia che il risultato
dell’ azione sarà conforme al disegno della volontà ; di qui il dovere
della veracità, il quale implica: il divieto d’ingannare il prossimo, con
l’inganno [Grice, SNEAKY INTENTIONS] si danneggia la libertà degl’altri,
trattandoli non come persone ma come cose, e la conseguente condauna DEL
VENIR MENO ALLE PROMESSE E DEL MENTIRE. Nessuna menzogna è lecita,
neppure la menzogna pietosa, o la pretesa menzogna necessaria, neppure col
pretesto dell’interesse altrui, o, peggio ancora, con quello dell’
interesse della moralità, perchè la menzogna stessa, per essenza sua,
nasce da viltà ed è sempre radicalmente immorale; comando
d’illuminare e istruire il prossimo e di COMUNICARGLI LA VERITÀ. In
secondo luogo la proprietà, ossia quella sfera d’azione nel mondo
sensibile senza la quale manca, oltreché la materia prima per attuare i
disegni della propria volontà, altresì la sicura coscienza di non
disturbare, con l’esercizio della propria libertà, la libertà degli
altri, come esige la legge morale ; di qui il dovere dell’ istituzione e
della conservazione della proprietà, il quale implica : a) il divieto di
distruggerla, usurparla o menomarla in qualsiasi maniera; il comando
d’acquistarsi una proprietà e di procurarne una a ciascun individuo (come
ogni oggetto dev’ èssere proprietà di ciascuno affinchè tutto il mondo
sensibile rientri nel dominio della ragione, così ognuno deve avere
una proprietà ; in uno Stato in cui un sol cittadino non abbia una
proprietà, ossia una sfera esclusiva se non di oggetti, almeno di diritti
a certe azioni, non esiste in generale nessuna legittima proprietà ; la
beneficenza consiste non nel fare l’elemosina, ma nel fornire a ciascuno
il modo di vivere del proprio lavoro). In fatto di libertà non può
mai nascere conflitto tra esseri che operino secondo ragione ; ma quando
della libertà si faccia un uso contrario al diritto, nasce collisione tra
determinati atti di più individui e viene posta in pericolo, quindi, la
vita o la proprietà, insomma la libertà del singolo. E poiché è
proprio dello Stato attuare l’idea della legalità, così spetta allo Stato
appianare gli eventuali conflitti tra individui, contenendo, mediante la
forza della legge giuridica, ciascuno entro i propri confini. Non sempre, però,
lo Stato può immediatamente intervenire a comporre contese : sottentra
allora il dovere della persona privata. È dovere universale, in tal caso,
salvare dal pericolo la libertà del1’ essere ragionevole, senza far distinzione
se si tratti di noi o di altri, perchè tutti, indistintamente, siamo
strumenti della logge morale. Se sono io l’aggredito, il dovere dell’
autoconservazione m’impone di difendermi con tutte le forze ; se è in
pericolo il mio simile a me vicino, l’amore del prossimo m’impone di
salvarlo anche a rischio della mia vita ; se più di uno è assalito nello
stesso tempo, si devo portare aiuto anzitutto a quello ohe si può
salvare più presto e del quale oi accorgiamo prima. In questo
adempimento del dovere non può essere mai mio fine uccidere 1’ aggressore, il
nemico, ma soltanto disarmarlo ; posso cercare d’indebolirlo, di ridurlo
all’ impotenza di ferirlo, ma
sempre in modo che la sua morte non sia il mio fine. u Se, peraltro,
rimanesse ucciso, ciò dipende dal caso, contro la mia intenzione, e io
non sono perciò responsabile „. Si deve, insomma, trattare il nemico con
1’ amore dovuto a ogni altro prossimo, perchè è aneli’ egli strumento
della moralità e se dalle sue azioni per il momento non si può concludere che
1’ opposto, non si deve, tuttavia, mai disperare che egli sia capace di
miglioramento. L’ uomo animato da sentimento morale non ha. nè riconosce,
nessun nemico personale; chi sente piu vivamente un’ ingiustizia soltanto
perchè fatta a lui, è ancora un egoista, è ancora lontano dalla vera
moralità. La libertà formale altrui, verso la quale s’impongono i doveri
ora descritti, è condizione necessaria ma non sufficiente per la moralità negli
altri ; questa è resa possibile da quella, ma, alfiuchè sia anche reale,
bisogna che gli altri prendano di fatto coscienza del loro dovere. Di
qui il comando, per chi si sia già elevato alla coscienza del dovere,
di allargare e promuovere la vita morale intorno a sè, di elevare gli
altri alla moralità. In qual modo? Poiché sarebbe assurdo voler produrre
la virtù con mezzi coercitivi, con premi o gastighi : la moralità non si
lascia imporre dal di fuori, nè per forza, ma nasce soltanto da una
determinazione interiore ; come può, dunque, tale determinazione nascere per
opera di un altro in colui che. ne è il soggetto e che deve possedere già
dentro di sé le condizioni atte a produrla? 14li è che, per chi
guardi bene, realmente esiste la possibilità, di un influsso
^morale da coscienza a coscienza, ed esiste grazie a un sentimento
che serve di leva alla virtù, ma il cui sviluppo esige appunto un’ azione dal
di fuori, l’azione dell’esempio altrui : è questo il sentimento del
rispetto o della stima, il quale, sempre latente nel cuore dell’uomo, da
cui è inestirpabile, si desta, dinanzi alla condotta virtuosa degli
altri, suscita, a sua volta, il bisogno di provare il medesimo
sentimento dinanzi alla condotta propria, il bisogno, cioè,
dell’autostima, e sprona, per tal via, alla moralità. Sorge, così, per
ognuno il dovere del buon esempio, essendo l’esempio il vero strumento
dell’educazione morale. E poiché l’esempio, per avere efficacia, per agire
sulla coscienza altrui, dev’ essere pubblico, ne segue che anche la
pubblicità della condotta morale è per noi un dovere : essa nasce dalla
franchezza dell’ operare virtuoso e non ha nulla di comune con 1’
ostentazione, la quale deriva dal desiderio d’ essere ammirato. I doveri
particolari condizionati si dicono così perchè hanno sempre per oggetto
il fine supremo della moralità, il dominio della ragione, ina, anziché
all’umanità o alla società in genere, si riferiscono a ben
determinate relazioni umane, a ben definiti organismi sociali,
quale che sia la loro origine, vuoi da una stabile legge di natura — nel
qual caso diconsi naturali vuoi dalla mobile
scelta delle singole volontà — nel qual caso diconsi artificiali. Dalle
relazioni naturali nascono i doveri di stato, dalle artificiali i doveri
di vocazione. Due relazioni naturali sono possibili per l’uomo, e insieme
costituiscono l’organismo sociale della famiglia : la relazione tra
coniugi, la relazione tra genitori e figli. Di qui due specie di doveri
di stato : doveri tra coniugi, doveri tra genitori e figli, La relazione
coniugale è già 1’ inizio della moralità nella natura, segna già il passaggio
da questa a quella, perchè è uno stato che da una parte si fonda sopra un
IMPULSO NATURALE l’istinto sessuale — dall’ altra implica, in entrambi x
sessi, sentimenti — reciproca dedizione completa e perpetuo reciproco
amore, reciproca fedeltà che trasformano la sensualità brutale in una
spiritualità umana. Il coniugio, associazione naturale e morale a un tempo, è
condizione precipua per l’esistenza di quella società che vedemmo
essere a sua volta condizione cosi indispensabile per 1’attuarsi della
moralità, e, in quanto t,ale, costituisce un dovere che implica: il comando di
contrarre matrimonio, quando si verifichi la sua base naturale, 1’amore,
(l’individuo umano fisico non è un uomo o una donna, è, a un tempo, 1’uno
e 1’altra; lo stesso dicasi dell’individuo umano morale: vi sono in lui aspetti
dell’ umanità e proprio i più
nobili e disinteressati i quali
solamente nel matrimonio possono formarsi ; perciò u rimaner celibi
senza propria colpa è una grande infelicità, ma rimaner celibi per
propria colpa è una gran colpa „) ; fi) il divieto di relazioni sessuali
fuori del matrimonio (queste relazioni, infatti, sono fondate o sull’
amore della donna, e allora s’impone moralmente il matrimonio, ovvero
soltanto sul' piacere o sull’interesse, ohe vai quanto dire
sull’indegnità della donna, e allora sono immorali non solo per la
donna ohe si avvilisce, ma anche per l’uomo che l’avvilisce, che
vede in lei non più un essere umano e ragionevole, ma un semplice
strumento di voluttà. La relazione tra genitori e figli dà luogo a due
serie inverse di doveri: da parte dei genitori il dovere di vigilare la
vita e la salute dei loro nati e in pari tempo di suscitare e favorire in
essi lo sviluppo della libertà secondo la direzione del fine umano :
insomma il dovere dell’allevamento e del- P educazione alla moralità.
L’adempimento di questo dovere che del
resto è una specificazione del dovere universale che a tutti incombe di
plasmare sè e gli altri in conformità della legge morale risponde nella famiglia a un bisogno
del cuore, perchè la prole, per i coniugi, non è semplicemente prossimo,
ma il prodotto del loro reciproco amore ; da parte dei figli, se minorenni il
dovere di obbedienza, se maggiorenni il dovere di rispetto, venerazione,
assistenza ai genitori. Due relazioni artificiali,ma non meno
indispensabili delle naturali alla vita comune, possono essere stabilite dalla
libera scelta dei singoli individui e insieme costituiscono l’organismo
sociale dello Stato: agire direttamente sugli uomini, in quanto esseri
ragionevoli ; agire sulla natura, in quanto mezzo o strumento per le
nostre azioni verso gli uomini. Su questa base e in forza della
suaccennata necessità di una armonica divisione del lavoro movale e di una
organizzazione gerarchica dell’attività degl’ individui per la promozione del
fine supremo, si distinguono due specie di classi sociali, con due
corrispondenti specie di doveri di vocazione : classi superiori (scienziati,
educatori, artisti, impiegati), che lavo- t vano al
progresso spirituale della società, e sono, perciò, quasi 1’ anima dello
Stato; classi inferiori (minatori, agricoltori, artigiani, commercianti)
che assicurano 1’ esistenza economica della società e sono, perciò, quasi
il corpo dello &tato. Quali i doveri di vocazione delle classi
superiori ? L’ uomo allora soltanto adempirà la sua vera destinazione
quando abbia una visione chiara del dovere ; è necessario, dunque, formare
anzitutto la sua conoscenza teorica. Tale ufficio è la missione del dotto. Chi
consideri tutti gli uomini come una sola famiglia, è tratto a fare
delle loro cognizioni un unico sistema, il quale si accresce e si elabora
attraverso i secoli, come si accresce e si elabora attraverso gli anni
l’esperienza del singolo individuo. Ciascuna generazione, quindi, eredita
dal passato un tesoro di formazione scientifica, che la classe dotta è
chiamata a conservare e aumentare. I dotti sono i depositari e quasi
1’ archivio della coltura della loro età; non però alla maniera dei non dotti,
che si arrestano ai risultati, si bene come chi possiede anche i principi
ohe condussero lo spi- L’essenza e la missione del dotto furono più volte
per il Fichte argomento di conferenze e di lezioni. Vedi in proposito
nel voi. VI dei Sàmmtl. Werke Ueber die Bestimmung des Gelchrten, lezioni
tenute a Erlangen; e nel voi. Ili dei Nachgel. Werhe, Ueber die
Bestimmung des Gelchrten, cinque lezioni tenute a Berlino. A
rito umano a questi risultati. E primo dovere del dotto, quindi,
acquistare una veduta stori co-filosofica del cammino della scienza sino al suo
tempo: altrimenti egli non potrebbe nè intendere il significato della
verità, uè epurarla dagli errori che 1* offuscano. È inoltre dovere del
dotto amare rigorosamente la verità e lavorare al suo progresso mediante una
ricerca sincera e disinteressata. la quale non si proponga altro che
servire al fine ultimo dell’umanità, all’avvento del regno della ragione
nel mondo. Il dotto, come ogni virtuoso, deve obliare se stesso in
questo fine : fare sfoggio di abilità nel difendere errori sfuggiti o
brillanti paradossi è soltanto egoismo e vanità che la morale disapprova
e un’ elementare prudenza sconsiglia ; perchè soltanto il vero e il buono
permane : il falso, per quanto sfolgori a tutta prima, è destinato
a perire. La formazione della conoscenza teorica è solfante mezzo
al fine supremo di promuovere la moralità, ed è un mezzo inefficace
quando non vi si aggiunga l’operare pratico, quando, cioè, alla visione da
parte dell’intelligenza non si aggiunga 1’ azione da parte della volontà.
Ora, è ufficio d’ur.a speciale classe di dotti, dedicarsi in modo
particolare all’ educazione della volontà del pubblico non dotto, alla
moralizzazione del popolo : sono essi i ministri della Chiesa, i quali,
appunto perchè si sono messi al servizio della comunità etico-religiosa, hanno
il dovere di adempiere il loro ufficio in nome della comunità
stessa, attenendosi scrupolosamente a ciò ohe è oggetto di fede
generale, al simbolo. Debbono, si, essere uomini di scienza e, ilei loro
campo speciale, vedere al di là e meglio di quanto vedano le anime
affidate alla loro cura, ma nel- 1 educare queste anime, nell’ inalzarle
a vedute superiori, devono procedere in modo che tutte a un tempo
possano seguirli, altrimenti si romperebbe quell’accordo spirituale
che fa 1 essenza della Chiesa. Gli educatori del popolo, in quanto tali,
non devono svolgere o dimostrare conoscenze teoretiche e principi, e tanto meno
polemizzarvi sopra, come si fa nella repubblica dotta; non è loro missione
porre articoli di fede o creare la fede — perchè articoli e fède esistono già
come legame vivente della comunità etico-religiosa ma ravvivare e rafforzare la fede che
il credente ha già nel progresso morale, ed elevare con essa lo spirito
di lui all’eterno, al divino. Soprattutto l’esempio che danno è
importante a tal fine ; la fede della comunità riposa in grandissima
parte sulla fede loro, e il più spesso non è che una fede nella loro
fede. Ora, se in essi la vita non risponde alla fede, la fiducia in
questa rimane profondamente scossa. Spetta al dotto formare
1’intelligenza, spetta all’educatore morale formare la volontà dell’ uomo : sta
tra i due l’artista, il quale ha il privilegio di educare il senso estetico,
interposto come tratto d’unione tra la conoscenza teoretica e 1 attività
pratica. L’ artista non agisce soltanto sull’ intelletto, come fa 1’ uomo
di scienza, nè soltanto sul cuore, come fa il moralista popolare, ma
sullo spirito umano tutto quanto : 1’ arte bella investo e pervade tutta
l’anima in quanto siuLesi di tutte le facoltà. La formula pili espressiva
di ciò che 1’ arte fa è la seguente : l' arie rende coninne il punto di vista
trascendentale. Il filosofo si eleva ed eleva con sé gli altri a questo
punto di vista col lavoro del pensiero e seguendo una regola ; l’artista vi
si trova già senza rendersene conto : nou ne conosce altri.
Bai punto di vista trascendentale il mondo è fatto : dal »
punto di vista comune il mondo è dato ; dal punto di vista estetico il
mondo è dato, sì, ma non altrimenti che come tatto. Il mondo reale,
voglio dire la natura, presenta due aspetti : da un lato è il prodotto
delle determinazioni o limitazioni a noi poste, dall’altro è il prodotto
della nostra attività libera, ideale, trascendentale. Sotto il
primo rispetto la natura è essa stessa limitata da ogni parte,
sotto il secondo è da per tutto libera. La prima maniera di vedere è
volgare, la seconda è estetica. Per es., ogni forma nello spazio può
considerarsi come circoscritta dai corpi vicini, ma anche come la
manifestazione della forza espansiva, della pienezza interna del corpo
che ha questa forma. Chi vede i corpi nelle prima maniera uon vede
che forme contorte, compresse, mostruose : vede la bruttezza ; chi li vede
nella seconda maniera, vede in essi la vigoria, la vita, lo sforzo della
uatura: vede la bellezza. Vale altrettanto della legge morale: in quanto
comanda assolutamente essa comprime ogni tendenza della natura, e
veder la nostra uatura a questo modo è come vederla schiava ; ma la legge
morale fa tutt’ uno con l’Io, ne è anzi l’espressione più intima, onde,
obbedendo ad essa, obbediamo a noi stessi : veder la nostra natura a
quest’altra mauiei’a è vederla esteticamente ^ ossia come bellezza. L’artista
vede tutto dal lato bello, vede in tutto energia, vita, libertà ; il suo
mondo è interiore, è nel1 umanità, e perciò 1’ arte riconduce 1’ uomo al fondo
di ne stesso, strappandolo al dominio della natura, liberandolo dai
vincoli della sensibilità e rendendogli l’indipendenza, che e il supremo
fine morale. Idi guisa che il senso estetico non e.la virtù, ma prepara alla
virtù, e la coltura estetica ha, un rapporto positivo con l’avanzamento
del fine morale. La moralità dell’ artista può raccogliersi in
questi due precetti : un itimelo per
tutti gli uomini : non ti fare artista a dispetto della natura, non
pretendere di essere artista quando la natura uon t’ispira ; un comando
per il vero artista: guardati dal favorire, o per egoismo, o per
desiderio di fama, il gusto corrotto del tuo tempo; sforzati soltanto a
riprodurre l’ideale che è in te; ispiiati alla santità della tua
missione, e sarai, a un tempo, uomo migliore e migliore artista.
L opera del dotto dell’educatore e dell’artista, in servigio del fine
supremo morale, presuppone sempre quella libera reciprocità d’azione tra
gli uomini, che è condizione prima di ogni comunità e a garantir la quale
— finché il regno della ragione non sia una realtà è necessario lo Stato. Quali sono ora i
doveri degli impiegati, ossia degli ufficiali dello Stato ? L’ impiegato
subalterno è rigorosamente legato alla lettera della legge, la quale, perciò,
dev’ essere chiara e uon dar luogo a dubbi d’interpretazione. Quanto all
impiegato superiore, al legislatore, al giudice inappellabile, i quali
non sono che i gerenti della volontà comune affermatasi, espressamente o
tacitamente, nel contratto sociale, debbono aneli’ essi conformarsi
alla costituzione politica attuale, nata dalla volontà comune, con
la riserva, però, di perfezionarla secondo le idee della ragione, tenendo gli
occhi tìnsi alla costituzione ideale. Chi regge lo Stato deve avere una
chiara veduta circa il fine della costituzione il quale non può essere che il
progresso umano — deve, perciò, elevarsi mediante concetti sopra 1’ esperienza
comune, dev’essere un do'tto nella sua materia, deve, come dice Platone,
partecipare alle Idee, e lavorare all’attuazione dell’ideale, favorendo
la coltura delle classi superiori. Da queste classi il progresso si diffonderà
poi nella comunità tutta quanta e trarrà seco, col suffragio universale,
la riforma della costituzione. Il reggitore di uno Stato, quindi, è sempre
responsabile dinanzi al suo popolo del modo ond’egli lo governa, e se può
considerarsi come legittima ogni costituzione che non renda impossibile
il progresso in generale e quello dei singoli individui, sarebbe
assolutamente illegittimo e immorale un governo che si proponesse di
conservare tutto com’ è attualmente. Quali i doveri di vocazione delle classi
inferiori ? La nostra vita e il nostro operare sono condizionati
dalla materia, la quale va trattata conformemente al fine supremo che è
il dominio della ragione sulla natura. Quanto piu questo dominio si
estende, tanto più l’umanità progredisce ; è necessario, dunque, elaborare la
rozza natura e renderla adatta ai fini spirituali ; è qui, appunto, 1’
ufficio delle classi sociali inferiori, il cui lavoro, riferendosi
come ogni altro alla moralità di tutti, ha il medesimo valore etico
del lavoro delle classi superiori, alla pve/sibilità del quale è
condizione indispensabile. E poiché dal perfezionamento meccanico e tecnico del
lavoro materiale è facilitata] la conquista della natura, ed è quindi
promosso il progresso dell’ umanità, è nu dovere per le classi inferiori
migliorare e inalzare il loro mestiere. TI che riohiede
1’adempimento d un altro dovere concernente i rapporti tra la classe
inferiore e la superiore. Il perfezionamento industriale dipende da conoscenze,
scoperte, invenzioni, che rientrano nell ufficio professionale dei dotti
; è dovere, dunque, della classe inferiore, onorare la classe piò colta
appunto perchè, tale e attenersi ai consigli e alle proposte che da essa
le provengono per quanto riguarda il miglioramento di questo o quel
ramo d’industria, di questo o quel genere di vite, domestica, di questo o
quel sistema di educazione, ecc. Dal canto suo, poi, la classe superiore,
ben lungi dal disprezzai e, deve tenere nella piu alta stima la classe inferiore,
rispettarne la libertà, riconoscere il valore dell’opera sua in riguardo
agli interessi superiori dell’ umanità. Soltanto in una giusta
reciprocanza di rapporti tra le varie classi sociali sta la base del
perfezionamento umano, inteso come fine supremo di ogni dottrina morale. Riassumendo,
la dottrina morale, nelle tre parti in cui si divide, si propone un
triplice oggetto e ottiene un triplice risultato. Anzitutto nella
deduzione del principio della moralità Fichte mostra come LA RAGIONE E LA
LIBERTÀ, le quali a tutta prima per la coscienza empirica non sono
che ideali, divengano poi in essa principi di azione, esercitino
una causalità. L’io empirico individuale non può porsi nè pensarsi se non
in base all’io puro universale, se non in quanto ha per principio e per
fine l’Ideale; e l’io puro universale non può attuarsi se non ha per
strumento l’io empirico individuale. L’ unità dell’ ideale non acquista
causalità, non diviene efficace nel mondo se non pluralizzandosi, quasi in
centri luminosi, in spiriti individuali, i quali soltauto possono dirsi
realmente esistenti e attivi. Ora, appunto questo reciproco rapporto tra i
molteplici io empirici e 1’unico Io puro fornisce il contenuto del dovere
e rende il dovere intelligibile. Il dovere, infatti, è la necessita
imposta all’io puro, ossia alla Libertà, di attraversare 1’intelligenza,
ossia l’io empirico, di divenire quindi intelligibile, per passare dallo stato
ideale di potenza a quello leale di atto, necessità che non significa
eteronomia perchè non impone alla Libertà se non la propria attuazione.
L’intelligibilità del dovere : ecco il primo risultato che Fichte ottiene,
colmando l’abisso che Kant lascia aperto tra la conoscenza e la volontà –
cf. H. P. Grice, KANTOTLE --, e facendo dell’ intelligenza la condizione
interna, il veicolo della libertà; poiché l’intelligenza esprime quasi lo
sforzo della libertà infinita per assumere, con la coscienza di sè, la
forma del reale. In secondo luogo, a proposito dell’applicabilità
del principio morale, Fichte mostra come il mondo si presti all
attuazione della ragione e della libertà ; il che significa che la natura
non è radicalmeute cattiva, non è assolutamente refrattaria allo spirito; c’ è
anzi una stretta parentela tra lo spirito e la natura, non essendo questa che
un prodotto inconscio di quello. Soltanto che l’attuazione del1’ideale
morale non si compie a un tratto nel mondo con un semplice decreto della
volontà, ma è la meta di un progresso. L’idea di sviluppo, di progresso è
una categoria della moralità; ecco il secondo risultato che Fichte ottiene
eliminando l’assoluta irriducibilità riaffermata dal Kant tra libertà e
natura . spirito e materia, idealità e realtà, e facendo la natura, la
materia, la realtà suscettive di un progressivo liberarsi,
spiritualizzarsi, idealizzarsi all’infinito. Infine, nel fare
1’applicazione del principio morale, Fichte mostra come il progresso richieda,
per compiersi, una duplice condizione; l’uua formale : occorre che
1’individuo acquisti in sè la coscienza della libertà e della legge
morale; 1’altra materiale : occorre che 1’individuo apprenda come il
contenuto del dovere sia nell’ attuare la moralità non solo in lui, ma
anche fuori di lui, negli altri individui, nel genere umauo tutto quanto,
la cui totalità appunto rappresenta la ragione universale ; occorre,
insomma, che 1’individuo sappia di essere strumento indispensabile per 1’
attuarsi dell’ ideale nel mondo, per 1’emancipazione cioè dell’ umanità intera
dai vincoli della natura e per la sua elevazione al regno dello spirito.
La sostituzione d’ un ideale sociale a un ideale individuale: ecco il
terzo risultato che Fichte ottiene trasformando la formula kantiana. Ogni uomo
è esso stesso fine in quest’altra: ogni uomo è esso stesso fine in quanto
mezzo ad attuale la ragione universale „ e subordinando così il
singolo al tutto, 1’individuo all’ umanità. È facile argomentare, in base
a questo triplice risultato, le radicali innovazioni di cui, rispetto alla
morale tradizionale, è feconda la dottrina fichtiana. L’intelligibilità
del dovere porta seco la razionalità dell’azione e sostituisce alla fede,
opera della grazia divina o di uu impulso incosciente, la convinzione
della propria coscienza, l’unione indissolubile dell’energia della volontà
con la luce del pensiero. Per ben operare, all’ intellettualismo socratico
basta il retto giudizio, al volontarismo cristiano basta il cuore puro: Fichte
fonde i due 'punti di vista ed esige per la moralità degli atti così la
dirittura del giudizio come la purezza del cuore, così l’intima
persuasione come la buona volontà. Un dovere IRRAZIONALE, impenetrabile a ogni
sforzo della riflessione è, secondo lui, altrettanto immorale quanto un
dovere adempiuto per secondi fini. Inintelligibilità e insincerità sono per
Fichte ugualmente incompatibili col concetto del dovere. L’ idea di
sviluppo e di progresso, intesa come categoria della moralità, porta seco la
riabilitazione della natura rispetto allo spirito, alla cui attuazione, anziché
ostacolo, è condizione e mezzo. Senza la natura vedemmo mancherebbe allo
spirito l’oggetto su cui esercitare la propria attività, la quale ha bisogno
d’agire sulla natura per liberarsi dalla natura; senza i corpi
individuali, che della natura fanno parte, mancherebbe alla libertà dello
spirito il modo di pluralizzarsi in tante sfere d’ azione, le
quali, sebbene distinte, sono in recipi'oco rapporto fra loro, sì
da applicarsi tutte al medesimo universo e da rappresentare, unite
insieme, e attuare la vivente unità del cosmo e della ragione universale.
Ogni organismo corporeo, infatti, è strumento indispensabile affinchè la libera
attività spirituale abbia causalità nel mondo ; e da ciò deriva a esso e,
per estensione, a tutta quanta la natura, una consacrazione morale, che
non si accorda con la condanna della natura e del corpo pronunziata dall’
ascetismo cristiano, ma nemmeno con l’apoteosi della natura e del corpo
celebrata dall’edonismo pagauo ; una consacrazione morale che vieta a un
tempo così la macerazione, come il blandimento della carne, e che mentre,
restituisce alla vita dei sensi il suo ufficio subordinato e la sua vera
finalità nella vita morale si ricordi la prescrizione fichtiana già
citata: Mangiate e bevete a gloria di Dio ; se questa morale vi sembra
troppo austera, tanto peggio per voi ; non ce n’ è un’ altra „ non ritiene necessario nè una risurrezione
dei corpi, nè un’ immortalità personale. Perché Fichte non si
contenta più di una moralità che miri a una vita futura, o che si appaghi
di un sogno di perfezione interiore, ma vuole attuare sulla terra stessa
il regno dei cieli, riponendo la beatitudine, come già il Lessing aveva detto
della verità, non nel possesso, ma nella conquista della
libertà: essere liberi è nulla, divenire liberi è il cielo! La
sostituzione dell’ ideale sociale all’ ideale individuale porta seco
l’inversione del rapporto di dipendenza tra morale e diritto,
1’accentuazione massima del valore del regime di giustizia e la radicale
trasformazione del concetto tradizionale di carità. È, infatti, un’
originale caratteristica della dottrina fichtiana l’aver posto non più
come si soleva in passato la morale a condizione del diritto, ma il
diritto a condizione della morale. Per Fichte la libertà, materia del
dovere, non si concepisce senza la società, ma la società non si
concepisce senza rapporti di giustizia, dunque la giustizia, ossia il
diritto (juslitiu da jus = diritto) è il fondamento della morale ;
affinchè la moralità possa attuarsi, occorre prima assicurare a
tutti 1’EGUAGLIANZA nel possesso della libertà esteriore, e procurare a
tutti indistintamente, con una legislazione regolatrice dell’attività
economica, quella parte di agiatezza materiale che è necessaria all’opera di
emancipazione morale o di elevazione verso la vita dello spirito. Questa
emancipazione ed elevazione spirituale, poi, non deve uè può finire nel singolo
individuo, che nella dottrina fiohtiana nou ha per sè nessun valore
assoluto, ma dev’ essere promossa da ciascun uomo in tutti gli altri
uomini, perchè l’ideale etico, ben lungi dal ridurci a una salvezza
individuale, a una perfezione interiore, a una santità eremitica
incurante della sorte delle altre anime, o una santità operosa soltanto
per conquistarsi un posto nel cielo, consiste invece nella moralizzazione
e nella salvezza di tutto il genere umano, nell’avvento del regno della
ragione su questa terra e in tutta 1’umanità. Di qui deriva, secondo
Fichte, il vero concetto della carità : sforzarsi d’inalzare i nostri
simili alla moralità. Ciascuno deve proporsi non la propria felicità, e
nemmeno soltanto la propria libertà e indipendenza particolare, ma la libertà
universale, la salute spirituale di tutti; il culmine della virtù per
l’individuo è darsi in olocausto per la salvezza del mondo,
accettando coraggiosamente l’imperativo ingrato, se si vuole, ma
categorico, di lavorare senza riposo e senza ricompensa, a un fine di cui
non vedrà mai l’adempimento completo, al trionfo infinitamente lontano
della ragione, e di lavorarvi in un ambiente spesso indifferente ed
ostile, con penosi sacrifizi, senz’ altro stimolo che il puro amore del dovere,
senz’ altra gioia che quella di avere colla propria abnegazione contribuito
all’ordine universale! Concezione sublime questa, che ricorda l’altra
affine dello Zend Avesta, la quale fa dipendere aneli’ essa la salvezza
di ciascuno dalla salvezza di tutti e comanda a ognuno di combattere,
secondo i propri mezzi e secondo il posto assegnatogli, il regno delle
tenebre e del male e di lavorare al trionfo della luce e del bene. E
nonostante questa abnegazione di sè nell’ interesse della ragione
universale, l’io individuale conserva tutta la propria realtà e personalità,
nè potrebbe avere una dignità ma'ggiore, poiché quale dignità può
ritenersi più grande di quella di un essere dalla cui azione dipende la
salvezza di tutti e alla salvezza del quale concorre 1’ universalità degli
esseri ragionevoli [Tale concezione trovasi eloquentemente illustrata da
Ficlite anche nella terza delle conferenze da lui tenute a Jena
sulla Missione ilei dotto ; ne riportiamo qui, liberamente tradotta, la
bella chiusa che è quasi una lirica: Se l’idea liuora svolta si considera auche
prescindendo da ogni rapporto con noi stessi, siamo portati a vedere fuori di
uoi una collettività in cui nessuno può lavorare per sè senza lavorare per gli
altri, nè lavorare per gli altri senza lavorare in pari tempo per sè,
essendo il progresso dell’ uno progresso di tutti, la perdita dell’ uno
perdita di tutti : spettacolo questo che ci sodisfa intimamente e solleva
alto il nostro spirito con la visione dell’armonia nella varietà.
L’interesse aumenta se, riportando lo sguardo sopra noi stessi, ci riconosciamo
membri di questa grande e stretta comunione. Sentiamo rafforzarsi la
coscienza della nostra dignità e della nostra forza, quando diciamo a noi
stessi ciò che ognuno può dire : la mia esistenza non è inutile e senza
scopo ; io sono un anello necessario dell’ infinita catena che, dal
momento in cui 1’ uomo assurse per la prima volta alla piena
consapevolezza del proprio essere, si svolge verso l’eternità; quanti,
tra gli uomini, furono grandi, buoni e saggi, i benefattori dell' umanità
i cui nomi leggo registrati nella storia del inondo, e i tanti i cui
meriti rimangono, mentre i nomi sono dimenticati, tutti hanno lavorato per
me; io raccolgo i frutti delle loro fatiche; ricalco sulla via che essi
percorsero le loro orme benefiche. Io posso, tosto che lo voglia, riprendere 1’
ufficio altissimo che essi si erano proposto ; rendere, cioè, sempre più
saggi e più felici i nostri fratelli ; posso continuare a costruire là
dove essi dovettero smettere; posso portare più vicino al compimento il
tempio magnifico che essi dovettero lasciare incompiuto. Ma anch’ io dovrò
smettere il [mio lavoro come essi, dirà qualcuno Oh ! questo è il pensiero più elevato di
tutti. Se assumo quell’ ufficio altissimo, non lo potrò mai portare a
termine ; quanto è certo che è mio dovere l’accettarlo, altrettanto è
certo che Amiamo sperare che la precedente esposizione della
Dol/t'ina morale del Fichte non riesca inutile per chi si accinga a
leggere il volume, se non nella lingua, nello stile del suo autore. Certo
non tutti accetteranno integralmente l’ardita metafisica ivi presupposta che volentieri chiameremmo Etilica come
quella dello Spinoza e che è forse, per adoperare una felice espressione
del Barzelletti, la più eroica presa di possesso che mai mente umana
abbia potuto fare, a un tempo, e del mondo delle idee e del mondo della
realtà ma tutti, senza dubbio, saranno colpiti dalla originalità,
profondità e finezza delle vedute psicologiche ivi proiettate e analizzate
con arte insuperabile, e in particolar modo dalla nobiltà dei senti- non
potrò mai cessare d’operare; quindi non potrò mai cessare d’essere. Ciò che si
suoi chiamare morte non può interrompere 1’ opera mia; perchè l’opera mia
dev’essere compiuta, e non può essere compiuta nel tempo ; perciò la mia
esistenza non è limitata nel tempo ed io sono eterno. Assumendo parte di
quell’ufficio sommo, ho fatto mia l’eternità. Sollevo fieramente il capo
verso le rocce minaccioso, verso le cascate spumeggianti, verso le nuvole
velegginoti in un oceano di fuoco, e dico : io sono eterno e sfido il
vostro potere. Irrompete tutti su di me, e tu, cielo, e tu, terra, precipitate
in un selvaggio tumulto, e voi tutti, o elementi, spumeggiate e
rumoreggiato e stritolate nella lotta selvaggia pur 1’ ultimo atomo del
corpo che io dico mio ; la mia volontà sola, col suo fermo proposito,
aleggerà ardita e fredda sopra le rovine dell’ universo, perchè io ho
assunto la mia missione, e questa è più duratura di voi : è eterna, e, al
pari di essa, sono eterno io (Einige Vorlesungen ilber din
Bcstimmung dea Gelehrten, Summit. Werke)
V. la trad. franc., di Nicolas, De la destinatimi da savant et de
l'liomine de lettres par Fichte, Paris, De Ladrauge; e la trad. ital. di E.
Roncali, con prefaz. di Vitali, G. A. Fichte, La missione del dotto,
Lanciano, Carabba; La Storia della Eiloso/ia (estratto dalla Nuova
Antologia) p. 2. menti ivi espressi con forza sempre, e spesso con
vivezza di colorito. Del resto non c’è una sola opera del nostro
filosofo che non elevi e non fortifichi l’anima del lettore perchè i suoi
seritti, .emanazione diretta delle più intime e salde convinzioni, e la
sua vii* di pensiero, rientrano nel ciclo di quella vita d’azione che fa
del Fichte una personalità tipica, un represen latice man, direbbe l’Emerson.
E invero egli appartiene come già
affermammo all’eletta schiera di quegli
eroi, la cui apparizione nella storia diventa un possesso eterno per
l’umanità, e la memoria dei quali durerà quanto il mondo lontana.
Il carattere adamantino della sua figura morale, la quale è un’
unità altrettanto solida quanto ben fusa, grazie alla più perfetta
armonia tra idee pai-ole e opere, risulta scultoreamente espresso in questa
solenne dichiarazione, da lui fatta all’ inizio della sua carriera
universitaria : u Io sono un sacerdote della verità ; la mia esistenza è
votela al suo servizio; sono impegnato a tutto fare, tutto osare,
tutto soffrire per essa. Se per causa sua fossi perseguitato e odiato, se
dovessi anche morire, che farei di straordinario? nulla più che il mio assoluto
dovere. Parole, queste, che spiegano bene il poderoso influsso,
spiritual- mente rigeneratore, esercitato dal Fichte sui suoi
conna- ziouali e contemporanei, influsso che, propagandosi nello
spazio e nel tempo, ha suscitato e susciterà sempre sublimi emozioni e
risoluzioni virili in mille e mille anime, Cfr. prec. Einiye Vorlesungen
iiber die Bestini muny (Ics Gelehrten (Sdmmtl. Werke). che pur non
udirono mai la voce di lui. Costante missione di questo eminente spirito fu :
destare negli uomini il senso della divinità della propria natura,
fissare i loro pensieri sopra una vita spirituale come l’unica e vera,
insegnar loro a guardare a qualcos’ altro che la pura apparenza e irrealtà e
guidarli così allo sforzo tenace verso i più alti ideali di purezza,
abnegazione, giustizia, SOLIDARIETÀ e libertà. Questa infinita risonanza
di idee, sentimenti e propositi, attraverso le generazioni, nel tempo e nello
spazio, questa immensa simpatia e solidarietà umana che eccelle tra i principi fondamentali della
dottrina liclitiana èprofondamente
sentita dal Fichte stesso, come può rilevarsi anche dalla seguente bella
pagina con cui si chiude la seconda conferenza sulla Missione del Dotto. Ognuno
può dire : chiunque tu sia, tu che hai sembianze umane, sei un membro di questa
grande comunità; sia pure infinito il numero di quelli che stauuo tra me e te,
io so, nondimeno, che il mio influsso giungerà sino a te, e il tuo sino a
me ; chiunque porti sul viso, per quanto rozzamente espressa, l’impronta
della ragione, non esiste invano per me. Ma io non ti conosco, nè tu
conosci me. Oh! quanto è corto che ambedue siamo chiamati a esser buoni e
a divenire sempre migliori, tanto è certo che verrà il giorno, e sia pure
tra milioni e bilioni d’ anni (che è mai il tempo ?), verrà il giorno,
dico, in cui trascinerò anche te nella mia sfera d’azione, in cui potrò
beneficarti e ricevere benefizi da te, in cui anche il tuo cuore sarà
avvinto al mio coi viucoli, i più belli, di un libero scambio di reciproche
azioni (Siimmtl. Werke. Cleto Carbonara. Keywords: l’esperienza e la prattica, esperienza,
dull title: “l’empirismo come filosofia dell’esperienza”! – i periti
conversazionale – esperienza dell’altro, persona e persone – solipsism,
anti-solipsismo – esperienza, sperimento, esperire, perito, perizia, per, fare,
fahren, --. altri, altro, l’altro, l’altri, la filosofia pratica, etica e
diritto, la filosofia pratica di Giovanni Amedeo Fichte, il pratico e
l’aletico. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Carbonara” – The Swimming-Pool
Library.
Grice e Carbone: la ragione
conversazionale e l’implicatrua conversazionale – scuola di Mantova – filosofia
lombarda -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P.
Grice, The Swimming-Pool Library (Mantova). Filosofia lombarda. Filosofo italiano. Mantova, Lombardia. Grice: “I
love Carbone; my favourite of his tracts are on the ‘unexpressible’ – a
contradictio in terminis – and on ‘the flesh and the voice’ – but the favourite-favourite are his tract on ‘il bello’ (‘eidos ed eidolon’)
and even more, his “La dialettica”. Si laurea a
Bologna con “Marxismo: i soggetti nella storia". Studia a Padova. Insegna
a Milano. Opere: Condannàti alla libertà, adattamento teatrale del romanzo di
Sartre L'età della ragione, che è stato messo in scena in quello stesso anno.
Fonda a Pisa con il sostegno del Leverhulme Trust un
Programma di ricerca sulla filosofia, concentrandolo
su alcune delle sue figure più importanti e sulle parole-chiave: l'essere, la
vita, il concetto». Dirige la collana f«L'occhio e lo spirito. Estetica,
fenomenologia, per Mimesis Edizioni. Si
concentra sulla fenomenologia di Merleau-Ponty, indagandone il duplice ma
unitario significato estetico di riflessione filosofica sull'esperienza
percettiva e sull'esperienza artistica attraverso l'esame del parallelo
interesse manifestato da Merleau-Ponty per Cézanne e Proust. Tale indirizzo di
studi si è allargato dapprima a una più vasta considerazione della
fenomenologia e poi a quella del pensiero post-strutturalistico sviluppatosi in
Francia, pur mantenendosi imperniato sul parallelo interesse per la riflessione
filosofica sulla pittura e sulla letteratura moderne. Questo ampliamento ha
inoltre condotto gli studi ad affrontare tematiche di carattere gnoseologico e
ontologico, spingendolo anche a problematizzare il tradizionale rapporto tra la
filosofia e la "non filosofia". Tli orientamenti hanno trovato sbocco
in una riflessione sul peculiare statuto delle immagini nella nostra epoca,
sulle possibili implicazioni etico-politiche del rapporto con esse e sulla
dimensione ontologica dell'"essere in comune" (morire insieme,
dividualita, dividuo). che in tali implicazioni troverebbe espressione. Cura Merleau-Ponty
(Il visibile e l'invisibile; Linguaggio Storia Natura, La Natura, È possibile
oggi la filosofia? Saggi eretici sulla filosofia della storia) e Cassirer -- Eidos
ed eidolon, il bello. Influenzato prevalentemente
da Merleau-Ponty, di cui ha sviluppato in maniera teoreticamente personale
alcune nozioni. Tra queste, spicca il concetto di "idea sensibile",
intesa quale essenza che s'inaugura nel nostro incontro col sensibile e da
questo rimane inseparabile, sedimentandosi in una temporalità retroflessa --"tempo
mitico". Alla prima di queste nozioni è dedicato il dittico “Ai confini
dell'esprimibile” e “Una deformazione senza precedente: la idea sensibile Porta
a sintesi le implicazioni filosofiche delle nozioni sopra citate nel concetto
di "de-formazione senza precedenti", con cui egli intende
caratterizzare il peculiare statuto che a suo avviso la de-formazione assume
nell'arte, al fine di staccarsi dal principio imitativo della rappresentazione
e dunque dalla concezione del modello inteso quale “forma” preliminarmente
data. Alle nozioni sopra menzionate si è andata successivamente collegando
quella di "precessione reciproca" tra l’immaginario e il reale che
Carbone ha proposto di dar conto del prodursi della peculiare temporalità
retroflessa detta "tempo mitico". Cerca di sviluppare le implicazioni
etico-politiche della concezione della memoria legata all'idea di
"deformazione senza precedenti" nella sua riflessione sue venti di
cui ha sottolineato l'irriducibile carattere visivo indagandolo pertanto
mediante un approccio anzitutto estetico. Cerca le radici ontologiche di tali
implicazioni etico-politiche della filosofia, proponendo le nozioni di
"a-individuale" e di "dividuo" per sottolineare
l'intrinseco carattere re-lazionale (e dunque il divenire e la divisibilità) di
ogni identità. Altre saggi: “Ai confini
dell'esprimibile. Merleau-Ponty a partire da Cézanne e da Proust, Milano,
Guerini); Il sensibile e l'eccedente. Mondo estetico, arte, pensiero, Milano,
Guerini e Associati); Di alcuni motivi in Marcel Proust, Milano, Libreria
Cortina); La carne e la voce. In dialogo tra estetica ed etica, Milano, Mimesis);
Essere morti insieme (Torino, Bollati Boringhieri). Sullo schermo
dell'estetica. La pittura, il cinema e la filosofia da fare, Milano, Mimesis). Una
deformazione senza precedenti. la idea sensibile, Macerata, Quodlibet). Mereologia
Lingua Segui Modifica Ulteriori informazioni Questa voce sull'argomento
concetti e principi filosofici è solo un abbozzo. Contribuisci a migliorarla
secondo le convenzioni di Wikipedia. In filosofia la mereologia (composizione
del grecoμέρος, méros, "parte" e -λογία, -logìa,
"discorso", "studio", "teoria"[1]) è uno dei
"cosiddetti" «sistemi di Leśniewski», ossia è la teoria, o scienza,
delle relazioni parti-tutto[3]; presentata da Achille Varzicome teoria «delle
relazioni della parte al tutto e da parte a parte con un tutto»[4] (o «teoria
delle parti e dell'intero»), da Hilary Putnam come «"il calcolo delle
parti e degli interi"» e da Claudio Calosi come la «teoria formale delle
parti e delle relazioni di parte». Per Ferraris tale relazione parte-interopuò
essere tra oggetti concreti, regioni spazio-temporali, processi (parti
temporali), eventi e oggetti astratti.[8] Storia Modifica Lo studio delle
parti affonda le sue radici nelle speculazioni filosofiche dei presocratici,
per poi essere portato avanti da Platone, Aristotele e Boezio. Di grande
importanza nello sviluppo della mereologia furono anche i contributi di
numerosi filosofi medievali, tra i quali AQUINO, Pietro Abelardo ed Occam. Nel
periodo illuminista, anche Kant e Leibniz si interessarono a quest'ambito.
Tuttavia, la diffusione della mereologia in età contemporanea si dovette a
Franz Brentano e ai suoi studenti, in particolare Husserl, assieme al primo
vero tentativo di avviarne un'analisi attraverso strumenti formali. Leśniewski creò il termine mereologia per
denominare la teoria (che gli si presentò tramite un ragionamento di Husserl)
delle relazioni tra le parti e il tutto a partire dalla differenziazione — il
cui principale fine era "evitare" l'antinomia di Russell— tra
interpretazione distributiva (un oggetto come elemento di una classe) e
interpretazione collettiva (un oggetto come parte di un intero) dei simboli di
classe. Leśniewski, parzialmente influenzato da Whitehead, elaborò poi la
teoria in un sistema assiomatico deduttivo entro cui poter esprimere il calcolo
proposizionale e il calcolo delle classi. I sistemi di Leśniewski. Anche
se cronologicamente è il primo dei sistemi di Leśniewski la mereologia contiene
gli altri due: la prototetica (scienza delle tesi più originarie,
fondamentali ..le «prototesi») che è una logica proposizionale con
l'equivalenza come unico termine primitivo, la proposizione come categoriafondamentale
(ammettente la quantificazione per le proposizioni e i funtori di qualunque
categoria), un solo assioma, e delle regole di separazione, sostituzione,
definizione, separazione dei quantificatori e di estensionalità. l'ontologia
così denominata per la presenza del funtore indicato con ε «preso nel suo senso
esistenziale» (non indica l'appartenenza insiemistica), essa è derivante dalla
prototetica ed è anche denominata «calcolo dei nomi» poiché gli è aggiunta la
categoria dei nomi. Con la mereologia si presenta una differente definizione
d'insieme. Esso non è definito distributivamente ma
collettivamente(mereologicamente): l'insieme è una concreta totalità di
elementi, un aggregato e dunque un oggetto fisico composto di parti, che è solo
se, e finché, esse sono (v. dipendenza ontologica]). Da ciò risultano varie
differenze dalla "normale" teoria degli insiemi tra le quali che in
mereologia è "insensato" ammettere l'esistenza di un insieme vuoto;
indi insiemi di un solo elemento sono tale elemento e la proprietà, unico
termine primitivo della mereologia, di «essere un elemento» è transitiva e
antisimmetrica e riflessiva. Assiomi e definizioni Modifica Il fondamento
concettuale alla base della mereologia è la nozione di parte. In generale,
nelle lingue naturali con «parte» si intende una porzione costitutiva di un
oggetto, gruppo o situazione. Si può dire, ad esempio, che «la maniglia è parte
della porta», che «il Gin è parte del Martini», che «il cucchiaio è parte
dell'argenteria» o che «il calciatore è parte della squadra». Tuttavia,
nell'ambito della mereologia si cerca di seguire un impianto nominalista
definendo questa nozione in termini puramente logici, prendendo in esame le
relazioni tra gli oggetti senza entrare nel merito di eventuali considerazioni
ontologicheriguardo questi ultimi. Di conseguenza, la relazione di parte si può
applicare anche a concetti più astratti, come ad esempio nelle frasi «la
razionalità è parte dell'essere umano» o «la lettera 'c' è parte della parola
'cane'». Assiomi fondamentali Modifica La nozione mereologica di parte
può essere formalizzata mediante il linguaggio della logica del primo ordine
come un predicato, solitamente indicato con P. Un'espressione del tipo
{\displaystyle Pxy} dunque si legge «x è parte di y». Per convenzione, questo
predicato è concepito come una relazione binaria che gode di tre proprietà
fondamentali: il principio della riflessivitàdella nozione di parte (Rp), il
principio dell'antisimmetria della nozione di parte (aSp) e il principio di transitività
della nozione di parte (Tp). (Rp) ogni cosa è parte di se stessa
{\displaystyle (\forall x)(Pxx)}, (aSp) per ogni x e y distinti, se x è parte
di y, allora ynon è parte di x {\displaystyle (\forall x)(\forall y)(Pxy\land
x\neq y\rightarrow \neg Pyx)}, (Tp) per ogni x, y e z, se x è parte di y e y è
parte di z, allora x è parte di z {\displaystyle (\forall x)(\forall y)(\forall
z)(Pxy\land Pyz\rightarrow Pxz)}.[9][4] In altri termini, la relazione di parte
è un ordine parzialelargo. Nonostante bastino solo questi assiomi per porre le
fondamenta della mereologia standard (o sistema M), si possono definire
ulteriori concetti a partire dal predicato P. Di seguito sono riportati quelli
più frequenti: Uguaglianza {\displaystyle EQxy:=Pxy\land Pyx} (x e y sono
uguali se sono uno parte dell'altro), Parte propria {\displaystyle
PPxy:=Pxy\land \neg (x=y)} (x è una parte propria di y se è parte di y ma è
distinto da esso), Sovrapposizione {\displaystyle Oxy:=(\exists z)(Pzx\land
Pzy)} (x è sovrapposto a yse c'è una parte di x che è anche parte di y),
Disgiunzione {\displaystyle Dxy:=\neg Oxy} (x è disgiunto da y se non ha
sovrapposizioni con esso). In particolare, la nozione di parte propria descrive
un ordine parziale stretto (irriflessivo, asimmetrico e transitivo) a
differenza del suo corrispondente primitivo, mentre la sovrapposizione è
riflessiva, simmetrica ma non necessariamente transitiva. È anche possibile
ridefinire il concetto di parte in termini di parte propria: {\displaystyle
Pxy:=PPxy\lor x=y}, ovvero x è parte di y quando è parte propria di y oppure
quando è identico a y. Decomposizione e composizione Modifica Per
disporre di una teoria mereologica che sia realmente in grado di rendere conto
dell'uso del termine «parte» in maniera adeguata, occorre imporre ulteriori
restrizioni sull'ordine parziale P. Nello specifico, vi sono due tipologie di
principi aggiuntivi: quelli di decomposizione (che ragionano dall'intero alle
parti) e quelli di composizione (che ragionano dalle parti all'intero).
Tra gli assiomi di decomposizione, il principio di supplementazione debole (o
WSpp) afferma che nessun intero può avere una singola parte propria. Ciò
risponde all'intuizione comune secondo la quale se un intero possiede una parte
propria, allora deve averne almeno anche un'altra, che costituisce il
rimanente. In simboli si ha che: (WSpp) {\displaystyle PPxy\rightarrow
(\exists z)(Pzy\land \neg Ozx)}, ovvero se x è una parte propria di y, allora
esiste (almeno) un zche è parte di y ma non è sovrapposto ad x. Similmente, il
principio di supplementazione forte (o SSp) prevede che un se y non è parte di
x, allora y ha una parte che non è sovrapposta a x. In simboli: (SSpp)
{\displaystyle \neg Pyx\rightarrow (\exists z)(Pzy\land \neg Ozx)}. Una
conseguenza logica del principio di supplementazione forte è l'estensionalità
(Exp). Questa importante proprietà afferma che due oggetti non possono essere
differenti se hanno le stesse parti proprie, o, in maniera equivalente, se due
oggetti hanno le stesse parti proprie, allora sono lo stesso oggetto. In simboli: (Exp) {\displaystyle x=y\rightarrow (\forall
z)(PPzx\leftrightarrow PPzy)}. Un sistema mereologico che accetta, oltre
agli assiomi fondametali di M, anche i principi di supplementazione debole,
supplementazione forte ed estensionalità è detto mereologia estensionale (o
EM). Considerazioni ulteriori, che però non fanno riferimento al
significato della nozione di parte, possono includere l'idea che esista un
oggetto privo di parti proprie, ovvero l'atomismo, oppure l'idea che, al
contrario, ogni cosa ha parti proprie, o simili, come la proprietà della
densità, che nega l'esistenza di parti proprie immediate. Atomismo
{\displaystyle (\forall x)(\exists y)(Pyx\land \neg (\exists z)(PPzy))}
Infinitismo{\displaystyle (\forall x)(\exists y)(PPyx)} Densità {\displaystyle
(\forall x)(\forall y)(PPxy\rightarrow (\exists z)(PPxz\land PPzy))} Tra
gli assiomi di composizione, il principio di somma mereologica o fusione
formalizza l'idea esistano degli interi composti esclusivamente ed esattamente
da un certo numero di parti. Ad esempio, la Spagna e il Portogallo compongono
la Penisola Iberica (o, in maniera equivalente, la Penisola Iberica è la somma
mereologica di Spagna e Portogallo). Di contro, la mano destra e la mano sinistra
non compongono il corpo umano, poiché quest'ultimo possiede anche altre parti
(gli occhi, il naso, i piedi, ecc.). Nei casi che, come in quest'esempio,
prevedono solo due parti la somma mereologica può essere definita come
segue: {\displaystyle Szxy:=Pxz\land Pyz\land (\forall w)(Pwz\rightarrow
(Owx\lor Owy))}(ovvero z è la somma mereologica di x e y se x e ysono parte di
z e ogni parte di z è sovrapposta a x o y) Si tratta di un principio
controverso, soprattutto se le parti che compongono la somma sono
potenzialmente infinite e non soltanto due. È infatti possibile generalizzare
tale definizione per indicare una somma di infinite parti: {\displaystyle
Sz\varphi x:=(\forall x)(\varphi x\rightarrow Pxz)\land (\forall
w)(Pwz\rightarrow (\exists x)(\varphi x\land Owx))}, dove φ indica una generica
proprietà. Vi sono almeno tre possibili posizioni che si possono assumere nei
confronti dell'esistenza somma mereologica: Nichilismo mereologico Non
esistono somme mereologiche, e anche gli oggetti che a prima vista sembrano
composti sono in realtà semplici. In altri termini, utilizzando un'immagine già
evocata da Peter van Inwagen, non esiste il tavolo, ma esistono solo atomi
disposti a forma di tavolo. Per un nichilista mereologico la Spagna e il
Portogallo non compongono la Penisola Iberica allo stesso modo di come la mano
destra e la mano sinistra non compongono il corpo umano, perché né la Penisola
Iberica né il corpo umano esistono (in senso mereologico, perlomeno).
Moderatismo Le somme mereologiche esistono soltanto in determinati casi e solo
qualora vengano soddisfatte determinate circostanze. Un moderatista potrebbe
ammettere che la Spagna e il Portogallo compongano la Penisola Iberica in virtù
di qualche proprietà di queste parti, ma negare che la mano destra e quella
sinistra compongano qualcosa. Universalismo Le somme mereologiche esistono in
tutti i casi, anche qualora non sembri possibile a prima vista. Per un
universalista qualsiai insieme di oggetti, ancorché totalmente differenti,
compone qualcosa. Non soltanto, dunque, la Spagna e il Portogallo compongono la
Penisola Iberica, ma anche la mano destra e quella sinistra compongono una
somma, benché non esista un termine per riferirsi ad essa. La nozione di somma
mereologica, assieme a quella di prodotto mereologico, costituisce la base
della mereologia estensionale classica (o CEM). -Logia, in Treccani.it –
Vocabolario Treccani Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Coniglione Leśniewski,
Stanisław, in Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia
Italiana, Varzi ^ Achille Varzi, Ontologia e metafisica, in Agostini e Nicla
Vassallo (a cura di), Storia della Filosofia Analitica, Torino, Einaudi, Putnam
Calosi; Ferraris Torrengo Inwagen, Material Beings, New York, Cornell
University Press, Ithaca, Varzi (2014) per una definizione di prodotto
mereologico. Cotnoir e Varzi, Mereology, Oxford, Lando, Mereology: A
Philosophical Introduction, Londra, Bloomsbury. Varzi, Mereology, in The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford, Edward N. Zalta, Calosi,
Mereologia, in APhEx (Analytical and Philosophical Explanation),, Lezione 2 -
In difesa della relatività concettuale., in Etica senza ontologia, tr. it. di
Eddy Carli, prefazione di Luigi Perissinotto, Milano, Paravia Bruno Mondadori
Editori, Coniglione, 2.2.8. I contributi in campo logico, in Nel segno della
scienza: la filosofia polacca del Novecento, Milano, FrancoAngeli, Torrengo,
2.6.5. Parte-intero, in Maurizio Ferraris (a cura di), Storia dell'ontologia,
Milano, Bompiani, Ferraris, Glossario, in Ontologia, Napoli, Guida, Voci
correlate Modifica Logica Ontologia Collegamenti esterni Modifica ( EN )
Achille Varzi, Spatial reasoning and ontology: parts, wholes, and locations (
PDF ), in M. Aiello, I. Pratt-Hartmann, e J. van Benthem (a cura di), Handbook
of Spatial Logics, Berlino, Springer-Verlag, Varzi, Ontologia, in SWIF Edizioni
Digitali di Filosofia, Volume Supplementare 2, Roma, Università degli Studi di
Bari, Bosco, La Fundierung nella Terza ricerca logica di Husserl, in
Dialegesthai, Roma. Portale Filosofia: accedi alle voci di Wikipedia che
trattano di filosofia Ultima modifica 18 giorni fa di FrescoBot Quantificatore
Rappresentabilità Geometria senza punti Mauro Carbone. Keywords: mereologia,
organicismo in Hegel, il tutto e le parti, dialettica, “individuo e dividuo”,
divisio, visio, compositio, de-compositio, divisum, indivisum -- eidos, forma,
shape, il bello, essere en comune, mit-sein, l’impersonale, l’intrapersonale,
l’interpersonale – tutto, parte, tutto-parte, totum-pars, unita, a-tomon,
a-tomism, atomismo logico. tomismo logico, il tutto e le parti -- #DialetticaDegl’EntrambiDividui
-- -- --. Merleau-Ponty ‘linguaggio’, individuus, dividuus, dividuo -- Refs.:
Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Carbone” – The Swimming-Pool Library. Carbone.
Grice e Carboni: la ragione
conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale disegno dal vivo, disgeno del
nudo dal vero, disegno dal vero, disegno del nudo dal vero -- disegno
dall’antico, desegno dalla natura -- drawn from life -- tratto dalla vita – royal
academy –drawn from the antique – scuola di Livorno – filosofia toscana -- filosofia
italiana – Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice, The
Swimming-Pool Library (Livorno). Filosofo toscano. Filosofo italiano. Livorno, Toscana. Grice: “I love
Carboni – my favourite of his tracts is ‘between the image and the ‘parable’” –
a semiotics of communication with sections on ‘the tacit response,’ through the
looking-glass’, ‘towards the hypertext,’ and quoting extensively from some
‘conversational-implicature’ passages in Aristotle’s metaphysics, ‘To ask ‘why
is man man?’ is to ask nothing!” “For some expressions, analogy suffices!”
Insegna a Roma, Bari, Viterbo. Altre
opere: L’angelo del fare. Melotti e la ceramica (Skira) e Il colore nell’arte
(Jaca). Cura Dorfles, Brandi, Deleuze,
Guattari, Adorno. Tra le recensioni dei suoi saggi si segnalano: Giacomo
Marramao, Gianni Vattimo (“L’Espresso”), Gillo Dorfles (“Il Corriere della
Sera”), Victor Stoichita (“il manifesto”). Al Festival delle Letterature di
Mantova hanno presentato i suoi saggi Sini
e Didi-Huberman. Scrive su “Nòema” e “Images Re-vues” e sulla “Rivista di
Estetica”. “L’Impossibile Critico. Paradosso della
critica d’arte, Kappa); “Cesare Brandi. Teoria e esperienza dell’arte, Editori
Riuniti); “Il Sublime è Ora. Saggio sulle estetiche contemporanee, Castelvecchi);
“Non vedi niente lì? Sentieri tra arti e filosofie del Novecento,
Castelvecchi); “L’ornamentale. Tra arte e decorazione, Jaca); “L’occhio e la
pagina. Tra immagine e parola, Jaca); “Lo stato dell’arte. L’esperienza
estetica nell’era della tecnica, Laterza); “La mosca di Dreyer. L’opera della
contingenza nelle arti, Jaca); “Di più di tutto. Figure dell’eccesso,
Castelvecchi); “Analfabeatles. Filosofia di una passione elementare,
Castelvecchi); “Il genio è senza opera. Filosofie antiche e arti contemporanee”
Jaca); “Malevič. L'ultima icona. Arte, filosofia, teologia, Jaca). Drawing after the Antique at the British Museum: “Free” Art Education
and the Advent of the Liberal State, Martin Myrone Drawing after the Antique at
the British Museum: “Free” Art Education and the Advent of the Liberal State; Myrone.
The British Museum in London began regularly to open its newly established
Townley Gallery so that art students could draw from the ancient sculptures
housed there. This article documents and comments on this development in art
education, based on an analysis of the 165 individuals recorded in the
surviving register of attendance at the Museum. The register is presented as a
photographic record, with a transcription and biographical directory. The
accompanying essay situates the opening of the Museum’s sculpture rooms to
students within a farreaching set of historical shifts. It argues that this new
museum access contributed to the early nineteenth-century emergence of a
liberal state. But if the rhetoric surrounding this development emphasized
freedom and general public benefit in the spirit of liberalization, the
evidence suggests that this new level of access actually served to further
entrench the “middleclassification” of art education at this historical
juncture. Authors Martin Myrone is an art historian and curator based in
London, and is currently convenor of the British Art Network based at the Paul
Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Acknowledgements The register of
students admitted to the Townley Gallery was originally consulted during my
term as Paul Mellon Mid-Career Fellow in 2014–15. Thanks to Hallett and Turner
of the Mellon Centre for their continuing support and guidance, to Baillie Card
and Rose Bell for their careful editorial work, Tom Scutt for crafting the
digital presentation of my research, the two anonymous readers for their
valuable critical input, and to Antony Griffiths, formerly of the British
Museum, and Hugo Chapman, Angela Roche, and Sheila O’Connell of the British
Museum, for providing access to the register and for their advice. I am
especially indebted to Mark Pomeroy, archivist, and his colleagues at the Royal
Academy of Arts for the access provided to materials there and for advice and
suggestions. I would also like to thank Viccy Coltman, Brad Feltham, Martin
Hopkinson, Sarah Monks, Sarah Moulden, Michael Phillips, Jacob Simon, Greg
Sullivan, and Alison Wright. Cite as Martin Myrone, "Drawing after the
Antique at the British Museum: “Free” Art Education and the Advent of the
Liberal State", British Art Studies, Issue 5,
dx.doi.org/10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-05/mmyrone From the summer of 1808 the
British Museum in London began regularly to open its newly established
galleries of Graeco-Roman sculpture for art students. The collection, made up
almost entirely of pieces previously owned by Charles Townley, had been
purchased for the nation in 1805 and installed in a new extension to the
Museum’s first home, Montagu House, which was built earlier. After some
protracted discussion with the Royal Academy, detailed below, the collection
was made available for its students in time for the royal opening of the
Townley Gallery on 3 June 1808. A written record was kept of students admitted
to draw from the antique. This volume survives in the library of the Department
of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum and identifies one hundred and
sixtyfive separate individuals admitted through to 1817. 1 The register forms
the focus of this essay and is presented here as a facsimile and transcription,
with an accompanying directory of student biographies (see supplementary
materials below). This may be taken as a straightforward contribution to the
literature on early nineteenth-century art education, and the author hopes it
may be useful as such. However, it also situates the opening of the Museum’s
sculpture rooms to students within a rather more far-reaching set of historical
shifts. Namely, it argues that this new form of museum access was part of the
early nineteenth-century emergence of a liberal state that “actively governs
through freedom (free ‘individuals’, markets, societies, and so on, which are
only ‘free’ because the state makes them so)”. 2 Access to the British Museum
was “free” in that there were no charges or fees. Meanwhile, the arrangement
offered a degree of freedom to the students themselves; they were expected to
be largely self-selecting and self-regulating. When the arrangement was exposed
to public scrutiny, as a result of questions asked in parliament in 1821, the
freedom of access and the service this did to the public good were emphasized.
But, once closely scrutinized, the evidence suggests that this manifestation of
the freedoms encouraged by the liberal state had a social disciplinary role
(even if disciplinary function can hardly be recognized as such), in serving to
further entrench the “middle-classification” of art at this historical
juncture. 3 The conjunction of art education and a grandiose notion such as the
liberal state may be unexpected, and rests on three key assertions. The first
is that art worlds are structured and in their structure have a homological
relationship with the larger social environment. 4 The initial part of this
statement (that art worlds are structured) may not be especially hard to
swallow, given the relatively formalized and hierarchical nature of the London
art world during the early nineteenth century, when cultural authority was vested
in a small number of institutions, and the practices associated with academic
tradition in principle still held sway. However, that the structure of the art
world, in its hierarchical dimension, may also be homologically related to the
larger field of power, so that social relationships are reproduced within this
relatively autonomous sphere, is more clearly contentious, and runs contrary to
commonplace beliefs and expectations about talent and luck in determining
personal fate in the modern age—artists’ fortunes most especially. In fact, in
the period under review here, the artist became an exemplary figure in the new
narratives of social mobility: the art world came to serve as a model of how
talent or sheer good fortune could override social origins and destinies. 5 The
second assertion is that the Royal Academy and British Museum were developing
new forms of state institution, underpinned by the conjoined principles of
freedom of access and public benefit. Such has been argued importantly by
Holger Hoock, and while I depart from his arguments in some key regards, his
insights into the status of these institutions and the role of forms of
public–private partnership in their formation are crucial. 6 The third
assertion (and this marks a departure from Hoock), is that the state is not a
stable, centralized entity, or site of power either “up above” or “below”
historical actors. Instead, it is taken to be the sum of actions and
dispositions ostensibly volunteered by these historical agents in all their
multitude and variety. The crucial point of reference here is the sustained
body of work on the liberal state by the historian Patrick Joyce, deploying the
work of Bruno Latour and Michel Foucault, among others, to yield a more
materialistic and decentralized understanding of the emergence and role of
state bodies. 7 The state, in this view, is composed of technologies,
disciplinary structures, habits of mind, and ways of doing things. The
mechanics of art education, insofar as this involves the movement through or
exclusion of individuals from identified places, the arrangement of their
bodies in relation to one another and to their model, the management of their
behaviour within those places, the very motion of their bodies, hands, and eyes
under the surveillance of their peers, teachers or other authorities, may be
considered as a form of biopolitics; the student who entered his or her name
into the British Museum’s register of admission was producing his or her
governmentality. 8 The argument here is emphatically historical and states that
this arrangement, while it may have precedents and may have been seminal,
belongs to an historical moment—the emergence of the liberal state. My case,
which can be sketched out only in outline in this context, is that the emergence
of the familiar institutional arrangements of the modern art world between the
1770s and the 1830s (in the form of actual institutions and regulatory
structures or permissions, including annual exhibitions, centralized art
schools supported by the state directly and indirectly, emphasis on
quantifiable measures of access and engagement as the test of public value, and
so forth) represents in an exemplary way the illusory freedoms promoted by
liberalism, and renewed by present-day “neo- liberalism”, as addressed by
commentators from the prophetic Karl Polanyi through to the later work of
Foucault and Bourdieu on the state, and Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, among
others. 9 The early nineteenth-century art world can be proposed as a
privileged focus of attention because it was still of a scale which can allow
for the kinds of data-based analysis which must underpin any sort of
sociological exploration, and because its individual membership can be
documented in fine detail in a manner which is simply not possible at an
earlier historical date. Paradoxically, despite its announced commitment to
non-intervention and personal freedom, the emerging liberal state generated
huge amounts of documentation about society and its individual members—tax
records, parochial and civil records, the national census from 1801—which
digitilization has made more readily available than ever before, allowing this
generation of artists to be documented as never previously. 10 The production
of artistic identities through these records is not unrelated to changes in
artistic identity itself over the same timeframe. One way of realizing this
might be to consider the period outlined above—c. 1770–1830s—not as a period
from the foundation of the Royal Academy to its removal to Trafalgar Square, or
even as the era of Romanticism, as much literary and cultural history-writing
would dictate, but as the era from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) to the
Reform Act (1832) and the Speenhamland system, a last experiment in patrician social
care before the Poor Law Amendment Act (1834), taking in Thomas Malthus and
David Ricardo. The challenge is thinking of these two frameworks not in
sequential or spatially differentiated ways, but as simultaneous and identical.
Within this emerging liberal state the figure of the artist is attributed with
a special degree and form of freedom, what has conventionally been alluded to,
in generally sociologically imprecise ways, as a feature of “Romanticism”,
slumping into “bohemianism” and a generic idea of art student lifestyle. If
this was a moment of unprecedented state investment in the arts (from the Royal
Academy through to the Schools of Design) and government scrutiny (notably with
the Select Committees), it simultaneously saw the emergence of artistic
identities expressing the values of personal freedom, freedom from regulation,
and even active opposition to the state. I propose that art education, as it
took shape in the emerging liberal state, might be explored as a “liberogenic”
phenomenon: among those “devices intended to produce freedom which potentially
risk producing exactly the opposite.” 11 As such, it may have renewed
pertinence for our own time, although this does not entail seeing a “causal”
relationship between the past and present, or a linear genetic relationship
between then and now. In fact, the purpose of this commentary, and the larger
project it arises from, 12 is rather to trouble our relationship with that
past. The intention is not, however, to point unequivocally to the era under
consideration as here entailing “the making of a modern art world”, with the
rise of art education and museums access representing a stage towards
democratization, as illuminated in stellar fashion by the great Romantic
artists (J. M. W. Turner—famously the son of a lowly London
barber—pre-eminently). I would want instead to take seriously Jacques
Rancière’s call for “a past that puts a radical requirement at the centre of
the present”, eschewing causality and “nostalgia” in favour of “challenging the
relationship of the present to that past”. 13 If giving attention to the
“freedom” of art education at the advent of the liberal state provides any
insight at all, it should do so by troubling rather than affirming our
narratives of the genesis of a modern art world. Access to the Townley Gallery
The arrival at the Museum of the Townley marbles, together with the development
of the prints and drawings collection and its installation in new, secure rooms
in the same wing, fundamentally changed the character of the institution. As
Neil Chambers has noted, having been primarily a repository of (often
celebrated) curiosities of many different forms, quite suddenly “The Museum was
now a centre for art and the study of sculpture.” 14 The shift was acknowledged
internally at the Museum by the creation in 1807 of a distinct Department of
Antiquities, which also had responsibility for the collection of prints and
drawings. But while the significance of the opening of the Townley Gallery in
the history of the British Museum is clear, the opening of the collection to
students has barely been noticed in the art-historical literature. The register
has been overlooked almost entirely, and the relevance of this development in
student access may not even be immediately obvious. 15 Figure 1. William
Chambers, The Sculpture Collection of Charles Townley in the dining room of his
house in Park Street, Westminster, 1794, watercolour, 39 x 54 cm. Collection of
the British Museum. Digital image courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum
Figure 2. Attributed to Joseph Nollekens, The Discobolus, 1791–1805, drawing,
48 x 35 cm. Collection of the British Museum. Digital image courtesy of
Trustees of the British Museum Townley’s collection had already famously been
on display for many years at his private house in Park Street, London. William
Chambers’ (or Chalmers’) drawing of the Park Street display from 1794 includes
a well-dressed young woman drawing under the supervision or advice of a man,
promoting the idea that the collection was available for sufficiently genteel
students of the art more generally (fig. 1). In his recollections of the London
art world, J. T. Smith described “those rooms of Mr Townley’s house, in which
that gentleman’s liberality employed me when a boy, with many other students in
the Royal Academy, to make drawings for his portfolios”. 16 Smith’s former
employer, the sculptor Joseph Nollekens, has been identified among the more
established artists who were also engaged by Townley to draw from marbles in
the collection (fig. 2). As Viccy Coltman has noted, “The townhouse at 7 Park
Street, Westminster became an unofficial counterpoint to the English arts
establishment that was the Royal Academy: as an academy of ancient sculpture,
much as Sir John Soane’s London housemuseum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields would
become an academy of architecture in the early 19th century.” 17 Evidently, a
number of the students and artists admitted to draw from the Townley marbles
once they were at the British Museum knew them formerly at first hand from
visiting 7 Park Street; for instance, William Skelton, admitted to draw at the
Museum in 1809, had apparently already studied and engraved three busts from
the collection for inclusion in the design of Townley’s visiting card (fig. 3).
Townley had hoped for a separate gallery to be erected to house the collection,
but his executors, his brother Edward Townley Standish and uncle John Townley
were unable to agree a plan. 18 The sale of the collection to the Museum was a
compromise. With the erection of a new gallery space for the collection
underway, the Museum considered how special access might be given to artists.
That the question was posed at all should be an indication of how far the realm
of cultural consumption and production was being folded in to the emerging
liberal state at this juncture. At a meeting of the Trustees on 28 February
1807, a committee was set up to consider how the prints and drawings
collections might be used by artists, and to draw up “Regulations... for the
Admission of Strangers to view the Gallery of Antiquities either separately
from, or together with the rest of the Museum: And also for the Admission of
Artists”. 19 Figure 3. William Skelton, Charles Townley's visiting card,
1778–1848, etching, 65 x 96 cm. Collection of the British Museum. Digital image
courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum With the Gallery still under
construction, the Sub-Committee was not obliged to move quickly, and it proved
to be a protracted and unexpectedly fractious affair. 20 It was not until the
Museum’s general meeting of 13 February 1808, that the principal librarian,
Joseph Planta, reported “his opinion of the best time et mode of admission of
Strangers as well as artists, to the Gallery of Antiquities”, with the request
that Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, be asked to attend a
further meeting. 21 After delays, he did so on 10 March, after which the
Council drew up a set of regulations. 22 These went back to the Academy with
additions and changes, which were accepted by the Council who wrote to the
British Museum on the 10 May to that effect, noting that a General Meeting of
the Academy was to take place, “to prepare the final arrangement for his
Majesty’s approbation”. 23 Accordingly, at the British Museum, the Sub-Committee’s
reports and proposals were approved by the Standing Committee, with
“Resolutions founded on the above mentioned Reports” read at the General
Meeting of 14 May. 24 The resolutions, numbered so as to be inserted in the
existing regulations regarding admissions, were confirmed in the meeting of 21
May, over three months after what should have been a straightforward matter was
raised (see Appendix, below). 25 Clause number eight, concerning the payment of
Academicians charged with the supervision of students, evidently caused some
consternation within the Academy, as recorded in the diary of Joseph Farington.
26 The relative authority of the Council and General Assembly had been a
contentious matter in previous years, and the lengthy dispute over arrangements
with the Museum reflected lingering tensions. On 12 July 1808 the proposals
were read, and “After a long conversation it was Resolved to adjourn.” 27 The
subject was taken up on re-convening on 21 July, but without resolution. 28 At
yet another meeting, on 26 July 1808, the point about the Academy’s provision
of superintendents to monitor the students while at the British Museum was
referred back to Council. 29 We have to turn to Farington’s diary for a fuller
account. He noted that the Academy’s General Assembly had met on 12 July “for
the purpose of receiving a Law made by the Council ‘That permission having been
granted by the Trustees of the British Museum for Students to study from the
Antiques &c at the Museum, certain days are fixed upon for that purpose, et
that an Academician shall attend each day at the Museum et to be paid 2 guineas
for each day’s attendance’... Much discussion took place.” 30 At a further
meeting: “The Correspondence of the Council with the Sub Committee of the
British Museum was read from the beginning” and “much discussion” was had about
the supervision of the students, Farington making the point that: as the
studies of the British Museum shd. be considered those of completion and not to
learn the Elements of art the Academy shd. not recommend any student whose
abilities et conduct wd. not warrant it, that it should be considered the last
stage of study, when those admitted wd. not require constant inspection;
therefore daily attendance of a Member of the Academy wd. not be necessary. 31
The point of contest may have concerned the right of the Council to organize
things independent of the General Assembly of the Academicians, and a more
general question about economy (“Northcote proposed that the Academician who in
rotation shall attend at the British Museum, shd. have 3 guineas a day. West
thought one guinea sufficient”). 32 But Farington’s point is more revealing in
indicating the expectation that the selected students of the Academy were to be
largely self-regulating, and self-disciplining; they were to be granted freedom
because they had already internalized the discipline required by these
institutions. Figure 4. Front cover, Register of Students Admitted to the
Gallery of Antiquities, 1809–17. Collection of the British Museum. Digital
image courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum The matter finally settled,
students were admitted to the Townley Gallery from at least the beginning of
1809: the first entries in the register book are dated 14 January 1809 (figs. 4
and 5 to 11). On that date four students were enrolled, although only one of
them was at the Royal Academy. That was Henry Monro, the son of Dr Thomas
Monro, Physician at Bedlam and an amateur and collector who ran the influential
“academy” at his home in Adelphi Terrace. The other students included two of
the daughters of Thomas Paytherus, a successful London apothecary, and a Ralph
Irvine of Great Howland Street, who seems quite certainly to have been Hugh
Irvine, the Scottish landscape painter and a member of the landowning Irvine
family of Drum, who gave that address in the exhibition catalogue of the
British Institution’s show in 1809. Another five students registered in
February and July. This included another recently registered Royal Academy
student, Henry Sass, whose name was entered into the Academy’s books in 1805,
recommended for study at the British Museum by the architect and RA John Soane,
and the artists William Skelton, Adam Buck, Samuel Drummond, and Maria
Singleton. The mix of amateur and professional artists, young and old, and
indeed the mix of male and female students (discussed below), continued
throughout the register. View this illustration online Figure 5. Page 1,
Register of Students Admitted to the Gallery of Antiques, 1809–17. Collection
of the British Museum. Digital image courtesy of British Museum View this
illustration online Figure 6. Page 2, Register of Students Admitted to the
Gallery of Antiquities, 1809–17. Collection of the British Museum. Digital
image courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum View this illustration online
Figure 7. Page 3, Register of Students Admitted to the Gallery of Antiquities,
1809–17. Collection of the British Museum. Digital image courtesy of Trustees
of the British Museum View this illustration online Figure 8. Page 4, Register
of Students Admitted to the Gallery of Antiquities, 1809–17. Collection of the
British Museum. Digital image courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum View
this illustration online Figure 9. Page 5, Register of Students Admitted to the
Gallery of Antiquities, 1809–17. Collection of the British Museum. Digital
image courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum View this illustration online
Figure 10. Page 6, Register of Students Admitted to the Gallery of Antiques,
1809–17. Collection of the British Museum. Digital image courtesy of Trustees
of the British Museum View this illustration online Figure 11. Page 7, Register
of Students Admitted to the Gallery of Antiques, 1809–17. Collection of the
British Museum. Digital image courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum Eight
of the twelve students registered on 11 November were current Academy students;
this proportion of Academy students to others continues throughout the record.
But on the same day Planta noted to the standing committee that the Royal
Academicians not having availed themselves of the Regulations in favour of
their Pupils, et many applications having been made to him for leave to draw in
the Gallery of Antiquities, he therefore submitted to the consideration of the
Trustees, whether persons duly recommended might not be admitted in the same
manner as in the Reading Room. 33 The matter was referred on to the general
meeting. 34 On 9 December 1809 the new regulations were confirmed: Students who
apply for Admission to the Gallery are to specify their descriptions et places
of abode; and every one who applies, if not known to any Trustee or Officer,
will produce a recommendation from some person of known et approved Character,
particularly, if possible, from one of the Professors in the Royal Academy. 35
On 10 February 1810 it was instructed “That the Regulation respecting the mode
of Admission of Students to the Gallery of Sculpture, as made at the last
General Meeting be printed et hung up in the Hall, et at the entrance into the
Gallery”. 36 The students admitted through 1810 were predominantly students at
the Royal Academy, but also included the emigré natural history painter the
Chevalier de Barde and Charles Muss, already established as an enamel and glass
painter. The same pattern was apparent in subsequent years. Twenty-five
students were registered in 1811 and again in 1812, before numbers dropped to
twelve in 1813, eight in 1814, picking up with nineteen in 1815, and dropping
to nine in 1816. The Museum’s original stipulation that no more than twenty
Academy students be admitted each year did not, it appears, create any undue
constraints on the flow of admissions. Far from having a monopoly over student
admissions, as the Museum’s original regulations had anticipated, the Royal
Academy had apparently been distinctly laissez-faire, doing little to try to
push students forward to make up the numbers. The galleries the students gained
access to comprised a sequence of rooms within the new wing added to
accommodate the growing collection of sculptural antiquities, notably the
Egyptian material taken from the French at Alexandria in 1801. The Egyptian
antiquities dominated the galleries in terms of sheer size, although the visual
centrepiece, whether viewed from the Egyptian hall or through the extended
enfilade of rooms II–V where the Townley marbles were displayed, was the
Discobolus (fig. 12). 37 The intimate scale of the galleries brought benefits,
as German architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel noted on his visit of 1826:
“Gallery of antiquities in very small rooms, lit from above, very restful and
satisfying”. 38 But is also imposed a practical limit on the numbers of
students who could attend. This changed when, in 1817, the Elgin marbles were
put on display at Montagu House in spacious, if warehouse-like, temporary rooms
newly annexed to the Townley Gallery (fig. 13). The spike of interest recorded
in the register, with thirty-seven students listed under the heading “1817”,
must reflect this new opportunity. The register terminates at this point,
although the volume continued to be used to record students and artists
admitted to the prints and drawings room (upstairs from the Townley Gallery)
from 1815 through to the 1840s. 39 Figure 12. Anonymous, View through the
Egyptian Room, in the Townley Gallery at the British Museum, 1820, watercolour,
36.1 x 44.3 cm. Collection of the British Museum. Digital image courtesy of
Trustees of the British Museum Figure 13. William Henry Prior, View in the old
Elgin room at the British Museum, 1817, watercolour, 38.8 x 48.1 cm. Collection
of the British Museum. Digital image courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum
Some form of register must have been maintained, but appears not to have
survived, and evidence of student attendance after 1817 is largely a matter of
anecdotal record. 40 These later records also, incidentally, point to the
variety of student practice in the galleries. While the Museum’s original
stipulations made the presumption that admitted artists would be drawing (“each
student shall provide himself with a Portfolio in which his Name is written,
and with Paper as well as Chalk”), students evidently worked in different media
as well. James Ward referred explicitly to “modelling” in the Museum in his
diary entries of 1817; and George Scharf’s watercolour of the interior of the
Townley Gallery from 1827 (fig. 14) shows a student sitting on boxes at work at
an easel, with what appears to be a paintbrush in his right hand and a palette
in his left. 41 Nonetheless, the Townley marbles had lost much of their allure.
Jack Tupper, a rather unsuccessful artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood, recalled his growing disillusion when studying at the British
Museum in the late 1830s: “So the glory of the Townley Gallery faded: the grandeur
of ‘Rome’ passed.” 42 Figure 14. George Scharf, View of the Townley Gallery,
1827, watercolour, 30.6 x 22 cm. Collection of the British Museum. Digital
image courtesy of Trustees of the British Museum The material record of student
activity in the Townley Gallery, in the form of images which seem definitely to
derive from this special access to the Museum, is extremely scarce. 43 Whatever
was produced in the Gallery was, after all, generally only for the purposes of
study, and was unlikely to be retained or valued after the artist’s death. John
Wood, a dedicated student at the Royal Academy from 1819, noted: “I am
surprised at the comparatively few drawings I made in the Antique School at the
Royal Academy, including my probationary one, not exceeding five, with an
outline from the group of the Laocoon.—In the British Museum I made a chalk
drawing from the statue of Libēra for Mr Sass”, that is, the Townley Venus,
apparently drawn by Wood as an exercise for the well-known drawing teacher
Henry Sass. 44 Student drawings after the antique must have been numerous, but
that does not mean they were preserved. J. M. W. Turner had apparently attended
the Plaster Academy over one hundred and thirty times up to the point he became
an ARA, in 1799. 45 Yet even with a figure of his stature, whose studio
contents were so completely preserved, and whose dedication to academic study
was so notable, we have only a handful of drawings which appear certainly to
derive from his time at the schools. 46 There are, doubtless, traces of study
in the Museum to be uncovered in finished works of the period. Charles Lock
Eastlake’s youthful figure of Brutus in his ambitious early work is evidently a
direct lift from the marble of Actaeon attacked by his own hounds in the
Townley collection; he had been admitted to draw from the antique in 1810
(figs. 15 and 16). But given the dissemination of classical prototypes (in
graphic form as well as in plaster) it would be hard to insist that it was only
access to the British Museum’s antiquities which made such allusion strictly
possible. Figure 15. Charles Lock Eastlake, Brutus Exhorting the Romans to
Revenge the Death of Lucretia, 1814, oil on canvas, 116.8 x 152.4 cm.
Collection of the Wiliamson Art Gallery et Museum. Digital image courtesy of
Wiliamson Art Gallery et Museum Figure 16. Anonymous, Marble figure of Actaeon
attacked by his hounds, Roman 2nd Century, marble, 0.99 metres high. Collection
of the British Museum (1805,0703.3). Digital image courtesy of Trustees of the
British Museum The Register of Students as Social Record Of arguably greater
interest than the question of the “influence” of access to the marbles on
artistic practice is the evidence the register provides about the social
profile of the students. This takes us to the heart of the question about the
relationship between art education and the state. This was, in fact, a question
raised at the time. The British Museum was in 1821 obliged to draw up a report
on student and public attendance of the Museum, prompted by Thomas Barrett
Lennard MP, who had entered a motion in the House of Commons seeking
reassurance that this publicly funded institution was not “merely an
establishment for the gratification of private favour or individual patronage”.
47 Lennard’s questions arose from a growing body of criticism directed against
the Museum, which turned on the question of whether, as a publicly funded body,
everyone could expect free access, or only a more specialist minority. As one
critic jibed in 1822, “If the British Museum is open only to the friends of the
librarians, et their friends’ friends, it ceases to be a public institution.”
48 The report elicited by Lennard’s question provided a detailed breakdown of
admissions. With regard to providing access to draw from the antique, the
Museum indulged the impression that it not only fulfilled but exceeded its
commitment to admitting Royal Academy students: providing the figures for the
period 1809–17 (based, surely, on the register under consideration here), the
Museum’s report elaborated: The Statute for the admission of Students in the
Gallery of Sculptures being among those required by the Order of the House of
Commons, it may not be irrelevant to add, that the number of students who were
admitted to make drawings in the Townley Gallery, from the year 1809 to the
year 1817, amounted to an average of something more than twenty. 49 Notably,
this summary gives the clear impression that the antiques were being opened to
the students of the Royal Academy; such is, quite reasonably, presumed by Derek
Cash in his recent, careful commentary on admission procedures at the Museum.
50 The report also pointed to recent changes: In 1818, immediately subsequent
to the opening of the Elgin Room, two hundred and twenty-three students were admitted:
in 1819, sixty-nine more were admitted, and in 1820, sixty-three. It asserted
that, now: Every student sent by the keeper of the Royal Academy, upon the
production of his academy ticket, is admitted without further reference to make
his drawings: and other persons are occasionally admitted, on simply exhibiting
the proofs of their qualification. According to the present practice, each
student has leave to exhibit his finished drawing, from any article in the
Gallery, for one week after its completion. 51 Thus stated, the Museum appeared
to be fulfilling its public duty in providing free access to appropriately
qualified students. The bare figures might seem to indicate a steady rise in
student interest, which could be taken as a marker of quantitative success. In
one of the earliest historical accounts of the Museum, Edward Edwards implied
that the statistical record was evidence of how Planta had progressively
extended access to the Museum: “From the outset he administered the Reading
Room itself with much liberality... As respects the Department of Antiquities,
the students admitted to draw were in 1809 less than twenty; in 1818 two
hundred and twenty-three were admitted.” 52 At that level of abstraction the
information appears beyond dispute. What I test in the remainder of this essay
is how these statements stand up to the more individualized account of student
activity represented in the biographical record. That record does include the
most assiduous students of the Royal Academy of the time, who certainly did not
need the kind of “constant inspection” Farington worried about, the kind of
student anticipated by the Museum’s regulations. Among these we could count
Henry Monro, Samuel F. B. Morse and Charles Robert Leslie, William Brockedon,
Henry Perronet Briggs, William Etty and Henry Sass, the last two famously
dedicated as students of the Academy. 53 However, the full biographical survey
of the register points to a more complicated situation. Of the one hundred and
sixty-five individuals named in the register, it has proved possible to
establish biographical profiles for the majority: details are most lacking for
about twenty-four of the attending students, although in most of those cases we
can conjecture at least some biographical context. 54 Slightly less than half
the total number of individuals listed were recorded as students at the Academy
at a date which makes it reasonably likely that they were actively attending
the schools when they were admitted to the British Museum (eighty in all). 55 Around
twenty more established male artists attended, and several of these were
formerly students at the Royal Academy, including John Samuel Agar, John
Flaxman, and James Ward. Whether they were pursuing their private studies or
undertaking more specific professional tasks is not always clear. There are,
certainly, a few cases where the latter appears to be the case. When William
Henry Hunt was admitted it was explicitly for the purpose of preparing drawings
for a publication; both William Skelton and John Samuel Agar were probably
admitted in connection with his ongoing work engraving from sculptures at the
Museum. It seems likely that the “Students to Mr Meyer”, that is, the engraver
and print publisher Henry Meyer, were engaged on professional business, as was
Thomas Welsh, recommended by the publisher Thomas Woodfall. More striking,
though, is the determined presence in the register of artists who did not
pursue the art professionally or full-time, including the relatively
well-documented Chevalier de Barde, Arthur Champernowne, John Disney, Hugh
Irvine (assuming he is the “Ralph Irvine” who appears in the register), Robert
Batty, Edward John Burrow, Edward Vernon Utterson, and a number of others
designated as “Esq”, so clearly from the polite classes, even if their exact
identities remain unclear. There are at least fifteen male individuals who
appear to come from backgrounds sufficiently socially elevated or affluent
enough to suggest they were taking an amateur interest rather than pursuing
serious studies. 56 Enough of these men are known to have practised art to make
it quite certain that they were not, at least generally, being admitted to
consult the collection without intending to draw, and John Disney was admitted
explicitly “to make a sketch of a Mausoleum”. Notable, in this regard, are the
large number of women admitted to study, most of whom are or appear to be from
polite backgrounds, including the Paytherus sisters, Elizabeth Appleton, Louisa
Champernowne, Miss Carmichael, Elizabeth Batty, Miss Home, Lucy Adams, Jane
Gurney, Maria Singleton, and Anne Seymour Damer. 57 Some were established
artists, or became so; others were pursuing art as a polite accomplishment, or
at least we can assume so given their family circumstances; in other cases the
situation is by no means clear-cut. All were admitted without special comment
or notice despite the issues of propriety around the drawing of even the
sculptured nude figure by female artists which crops up in contemporary
commentaries. 58 This may be all the more striking given the relative paucity
of women admitted as readers at the British Museum library over the same
period: only three out of the three hundred and thirty-three admitted between
1770 and 1810, as surveyed by Derek Cash. 59 On this evidence, the field of
artistic study was, in the most literal terms, relatively female compared even
to the study of literature or history. This points to an under-explored context
for the inculcation of the students into life as an artist: the “feminine”
sphere of the home, and of siblings (whether brothers or sisters) alongside
parents. We have, surely, barely begun to consider the family as the context in
which artists are made as much as, if not more than, the studio and academy.
Nor is it straightforward to assume that those individuals who had enrolled as
Academy students also had expectations about the professional pursuit of the
art. Among the Academy students who attended, a large proportion, including a
majority of the most assiduous, were from polite social backgrounds, with
fathers in the professions, or who were office-holders or from the landowning
classes, including Henry Monro, John Penwarne, Richard Cook, William Drury
Shaw, Charles Lock Eastlake, Henry Perronet Briggs, Alexander Huey, Thomas Cooley,
Samuel F. B. Morse, Andrew Geddes, John Zephaniah Bell, Thomas Christmas, John
Owen Tudor, and Samuel Hancock. Others were the sons of elite tradesmen, highly
specialized craftsmen or merchants, including William Brockedon, Seymour
Kirkup, Charles Robert Leslie, Gideon Manton, and John Zephaniah Bell. These
were not, either, predestined to be artists, by simply following in their
father’s footsteps, but were opting in to an artistic career, having had,
usually, a decent education, and access to material and social support. In many
cases their brothers, who shared the same upbringing, became doctors or
lawyers, property-owners or merchants. A number of individual students gave up
the practice of the art—Thomas Christmas became a landowner in Willisden; Richard
Cook was able to retire, wealthy; Seymour Kirkup languished in Rome dabbling in
the arts; William Brockedon became more engaged as an inventor and traveller;
while others were never really obliged to draw an income from their practice
but pursued art as a pastime. It remains the case that there was a high level
of occupational inheritance; perhaps thirty-eight of the students (23 percent)
had fathers who were architects, engravers or artists in painting or sculpture.
Many were the sons of established artists (including Rossi, Bone, Stothard,
Ward, Dawe, Wyatt, Bonomi, and the brothers Stephanoff); a few were part of
“dynasties” encompassing generations engaged in the arts (Wyatt, Wyon,
Hakewill, Landseer). Even then, there is the case of John Morton (noted
confusingly as “John Martin” in the register, although the address given
provides for a firm identification), who, although the son of an artist and a
student at the Royal Academy, exhibited personally as an “Honorary”, suggesting
he was not professionally engaged. That his brother became quite prominent as a
physician suggests that this was a quite emphatically middle-class family
setting. There are several points to derive from this information, even as
lightly sketched as it necessarily is here. Firstly, it is noteworthy that
while female students were a minority they were a definite presence; in this
regard, the British Museum was like other spaces of artistic study, notably the
painting school at the British Institution. 60 The observation is upheld by the
contemporary records of student attendance at the British Institution or of
copyists at Dulwich Picture Gallery, and should serve as a reminder that the
Royal Academy was exceptional among the spaces of art education in being so
entirely male. 61 Secondly, it is striking how few came from humble backgrounds
unconnected with the art world; really, only a handful, which would include
John Tannock (son of a shoemaker in Scotland), William Etty (son of a baker in
York), John Jackson (son of a village tailor in Yorkshire), and William Henry
Hunt (whose father was a London tin-plate worker). The circumstances which led
to their gaining access to the London art world are, therefore, noteworthy, as
a third and most important point would be to emphasize how emphatically
metropolitan, polite, and middle-class was the British Museum as a site of
artistic education. The Townley Gallery on student days was a place where
working artists, students, amateurs, and patrons mingled. 62 While the Royal
Academy is conventionally seen as an engine of professionalization, it is
striking that the social affiliations of artists point to strong, arguably
increasingly strong, affiliations between amateurs and professionals—to the
extent that our terminology around this point needs to be reconsidered. Looking
over the biographical survey, the kind of social suffering or precariousness
typically associated with artists’ lives, perhaps especially during the era of
industrialization, is markedly absent. When it does appear—most strikingly with
the grim life-stories of the siblings Jabez and Sarah Newell—they are among the
minority of students from backgrounds neither closely connected with the art
world, nor comfortably middle-class or genteel. The examples of stellar social
ascent and achievement on the basis of talent alone are real; but they are the
exceptions rather than representative. The relative weight of personal and
Academic connection is exposed in the record of the provision of references for
students. Of the forty-three referees recorded between 1809 and 1816, less than
half (nineteen) were Academicians. One of those was Henry Fuseli, who as Keeper
of the Academy Schools through this period must have provided references as
part of his duties, and accordingly provided the second largest number of
recommendations (nineteen; all but one students at the RA). The lead in
providing references was taken by William Alexander, artist and keeper of
prints and drawings (twenty-two; mainly but not exclusively students). Overall,
officers and Trustees were most active in admitting students. Most only ever
provided a reference for one, or at most a handful, and the jibe about “friends
of the librarians, et their friends’ friends” contains some truth. But the same
point applies to the artists, most of whom only ever recommended one student,
often known personally to them already: David Wilkie recommended his assistant,
John Zephaniah Bell; George Dawe provided a reference for his own son; Thomas
Lawrence for his pupil William Etty; Thomas Phillips and John Flaxman, the
relatives of fellow Academicians; Thomas Stothard, the son of a neighbour
(Kempe). Geography, too, seems to have played a role, with referees often
coming from the same area as their favoured student: Francis Horner recommended
John Henning, whom he had known in their native Scotland; the Scottish George
Chalmers recommended James Tannock; Arthur Champernowne put forward William
Brockedon, his protégé, whom he had supported in moving from Devon to the
metropolis to pursue art; James Northcote recommended two fellow West
Countrymen; Benjamin West, notorious for giving special assistance to visiting
American students, two such (Leslie and Morse). If the admission procedure
could be interpreted as an opportunity for the Academy to assert a corporate,
professionalized identity, based purely on merit, we can nonetheless detect
underlying patterns of kinship, personal, social, and geographical affiliation.
Simply stated, even if study at the Museum was free and freely available, any
given student would still need to access a letter of reference and the time to
go to the Museum (as well as the material means to acquire the portfolio,
paper, and chalks anticipated by the Trustees). The opening hours for students
militated against anyone attending who had to use these daylight hours for
work, a point which was made quite often with reference to the Reading Room
through this period. 63 The most assiduous students needed the time free to
study at the British Museum, something that well-off students like Eastlake,
Brockedon, Briggs, and Monro had readily available to them. Their peers at the
Academy who were obliged to work during the day to make a living, or who were
serving apprenticeships, would simply not be able to make the hours available
at the Museum. 64 The ambitious painter Thomas Christmas was free to attend the
Museum, having dedicated himself to study after working as a clerk, but his
brother, Charles George Christmas, who held down a job in the Audit Office,
would have struggled; accounting for his studies at the Academy, he had told
Farington, “He shd. continue to do the business at the Auditors' Office,
Whitehall, which occupies Him from 10 oClock till 3 each day, as it will keep
His mind free from anxiety abt. His means of living and leave Him with a
feeling of independence.” 65 Given that the students were admitted to the
Townley Gallery from noon to 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and that the Trustees
continued to prohibit the use of artificial lights in the Museum, there was
scarcely any real possibility of Charles George Christmas attending, although
he also enjoyed the comforts of a middle-class home background (their father
was a Bank of England official). With the ascent of utilitarian criticism,
visitor levels were turned to anew as a measure of the institution’s fulfilment
or failure to fulfil its “national” purpose. On strictly statistical terms, the
Museum seemed to be successful at providing opportunities for art students.
Only under the closest scrutiny, with attention to the “micro-history” of
individual lives, does that illusion start to be tested. It is, though, at this
“micro” level that we can apprehend the characteristic paradox of an emerging
cultural modernity, one that is still with us. Yet the point, to follow Rancière,
is not to see the past ascent of a present situation, but to force ourselves to
feel uneasy with that sense of recognition and its tacit model of history. The
evidence is that free access to culture and the (circumscribed) promotion of
equality were combined with socially restrictive patterns of preferment. 66
Study at the British Museum may have been free, and freely available to
properly qualified students of the Academy, but you needed to be in the right
place at the right time, to have the time available, and, indeed, to know or at
least be able to access the right people, to get in. This point may seem unduly
sociological or even tendentious, but overlooking it involves a denial of the
socially invested nature of time, specifically, of the scholastic time (given
over to study or contemplation or to creation) mythically removed from the
influence of social forces. 67 The acts of nomination which saw certain men and
women given special access to the Townley Gallery, acts so seemingly trivial in
themselves involving perhaps only an exchange of words and a scribbled note,
were microcosmic manifestations of social authority of the most far-reaching
kind. 68 When Robert Butt, the principal manager of the bronze and porcelain
department at Messrs Howell et James, Regent-street, was examined by the Select
Committee on Arts and Manufactures in 1835, he noted: The process by which a
knowledge of the arts of painting and sculpture is now acquired is this: a
young man receives tuition from a private master; he draws from the antique at
the British Museum for a certain time, and when he shows that he has sufficient
talent to qualify him for a student of the Royal Academy he is admitted; but
the expense of acquiring that preliminary knowledge is considerable, and the
young artist must also be maintained by his relatives during the time that he
is acquiring it. 69 The following year, in a further parliamentary committee,
this time dedicated to testing out the British Museum’s claims to public
status, James Crabb, “House Decorator” of Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, was asked,
“Did you ever obtain any assistance, by means of casts, from the better
specimens of sculpture in the Museum or elsewhere?”, to which he replied, “I
should derive assistance from them if I had the opportunity, but I have not
time.” 70 Considered sociologically, as the personal experience of these men
seems to have obliged them to do, time was certainly of the essence. The
prevalence of students with secure middle-class backgrounds at the British
Museum might, then, be taken as evidence of an early phase in the
“middle-classification” of art practice, the awkward but evocative phrase used
recently by Angela McRobbie in her eye-opening observations of careers in the
present-day creative industries. 71 Whatever emphasis may be put on equality of
access to educational opportunity, however rigorously fairminded and anonymized
the tests and measures involved in admission procedures, without forms of
positive support to counterbalance or actively adjust social inequalities,
those same inequalities will tend to be reproduced, homologically, in the
educational field. This is patently not a simple matter of social and material
advantage underpinning artistic enterprise in a wholly predictable way; such
would be a nonsense, in light of the many students who did not enjoy such
advantages. Instead, it is the very flexibility built into the exclusionary
processes of the emerging cultural field which is significant—the possibility
that talented students could get access, gain reputation, achieve success,
without being limited by their social origins. “Freeing” art education allowed
for the expression of personal preferences or dispositions at an individual
level, which at an aggregate level reproduced larger power relations. Exposing
that ultimately exclusionary process, which may be marked only in small
differences, in personal dispositions and behaviours, in the personal choices
and decisions which are neither truly personal nor really pure as choices, is
no small task. This essay, and the biographical survey accompanying it, with
its details of a multitude of student lives otherwise scarcely recorded or
recognized, is intended as a small contribution to that larger project, with
the excess of data presented here perhaps imposing, in itself, new requirements
on our understanding of the history of art education. Appendix Regulations for
the admission of students of the Royal Academy to the Townley Gallery at the
British Museum (May 1808): [7] That the students of the Royal Academy be
admitted into the Gallery of Antiquities upon every Friday in the months of
April, May, June, et July, et every day in the months of August and September,
from the hours of twelve to four, except on Wednesdays and Saturdays the
Students, not exceeding twenty at a time, to be admitted by a Ticket from the
President and Council of the Royal Academy, signed by their Secretary. [8] The
better to maintain decorum among the Students, a person properly qualified
shall be nominated by the Royal Academy from their own body, who shall attend
during the hours of study; the name of such person to be signified in writing,
from time to time, by the Secretary of the Royal Academy to the Principal
Librarian of the British Museum. [9] That the members of the Royal Academy have
access to the Gallery of Antiquities at all admissible times, upon application
to the Principal Librarian or the Senior under Librarian in Residence [10] That
on the Fridays in April, May June et July one of the officers of the Department
of Antiquities do attend in the Gallery of Antiquities according to Rotation in
discharge of his ordinary Duty. [11] That in the months of August et September
some one of the several Officers of the Museum, then in Residence, do
(according to a Rotation to be agreed upon by themselves et confirmed by the
Principal Librarian) attend on the Gallery upon the Days for the admission of
Students. [12] That the attendants in the Department of Antiquities be always
present in the Gallery during the times when the Students are admitted. 72
Footnotes The original register is held in the Keeper’s Office, Department of
Prints and Drawings, British Museum. Patrick Joyce, “Speaking up for the State”
(2014), https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ patrick-joyce/ speaking-up-for-state. These points are made in light of
a larger research project, which has given rise to the present study: a
biographical survey of all the students of paintings, sculpture, and engraving
who were active at the Royal Academy schools between its foundation in 1769 and
1830 together with a monograph, provisionally titled The Talent of Success: The
Royal Academy Schools in the Age of Turner, Blake and Constable, c. 1770–1840
(forthcoming). This fuller survey indicates several important shifts over these
decades, including a fundamantal shift in the proportion of students coming
from family backgrounds in the arts and design-oriented trades, in
comparison with those coming from professional and genteel backgrounds. It exposes,
specifically, a new group whose fathers were engaged as “officers”, in the
civil service or bureaucratic roles, who in turn had a disproportionate
representation within the developing art establishment (as Academicians, or as
officials in other cultural bodies). The term “art world”, as designating a
space of co-production, stems from Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds (1984), rev.
edn (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008). As deployed here, it
is closer in conception to the sociological “field” as detailed by Pierre
Bourdieu across a succession of influential works. Notable among these, for
present purposes because of its methodological statement about the homological
analysis of the world (field) of art in relation to the field of power, is The
Rules of Art, trans. Susan Emanuel (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), esp.
214–15. See, notably, the chapter on “Workers in Art” in Samuel Smiles’s
Self-Help, first published 1859 with numerous further editions. On the
self-motivated artist as the model for all forms of work, see Angela McRobbie,
Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries (Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2016), esp. 70–76. Holger Hoock, The King’s Artists: The Royal Academy
of Arts and the Politics of British Culture, 1760–1840 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003) and Hoock, “The British State and the Anglo-French Wars
Over Antiquities, 1798–1858”, Historical Journal 50, no. 1 (2007): 49–72.
Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City (London:
Verso, 2003) and Joyce, The State of Freedom: A Social History of the British
State Since 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); also his “What
is the Social in Social History?”, Past and Present 206, no. 1 (2010): 213–48.
On this Foucauldian framing of art education and creative production within
liberalism, see McRobbie, Be Creative, 71–76 and passim. Karl Polanyi, The
Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (1944;
Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2002); Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics:
Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979, ed. Michel Sennelert, trans.
Graham Burchell (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Luc Boltanski and Eve
Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Gregory Elliott (London and New
York: Verso, 2007); Pierre Bourdieu, On the State: Lectures at the Collège de
France, 1989–1992, ed. Patrick Champagne and others, trans. David Fernbach
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014). See Edward Higgs, Identifying the English: A
History of Personal Identification 1500 to the Present (London: Bloomsbury,
2011), 97–119. Higgs’s account is, essentially, positive about the liberties
and rights secured by this rising documentation. The position taken here is
more determinedly Foucauldian. For the foundational role of statistics in
“liberalisation”, and the hidden affinities between the liberal and the
totalitarian, see Michael Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the
Collège de France, 1975–76, ed. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana,
trans. David Macey (London: Penguin, 2004). Foucault, Birth of
Biopolitics, 69. A biographical dictionary of Royal Academy students from
1769–1830. See note 3, above. Jacques Rancière, The Method of Equality:
Interviews with Laurent Jeanpierre and Dork Zabunyan, trans. Julie Rose
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016), 108. Neil Chambers, Joseph Banks and the
British Museum: The World of Collecting, 1770–1830 (London: Routledge, 2007),
107. The register is mentioned in the notice of Seymour Kirkup in G. E.
Bentley, Blake Records, 2nd edn (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University
Press, 2004), 289n. Kirkup was an unusually assiduous student at the Museum,
admitted in 1809 and renewing his ticket through to 1812. The reference in
Bentley appears to be the only published reference to the register. The
admission of the Paytherus sisters to draw at the Museum is noted by James
Hamilton in his London Lights: The Minds that Moved the City that Shook the
World, 1805–51 (London: John Murray, 2007), 72, although with reference to the
early Reading Room register (marked “1795”) in the British Museum Central
Archive, rather than the volume in Prints and Drawings. See J. T. Smith,
Nollekens and his Times, 2 vols., 2nd edn (London: Henry Colburn, 1829), 1:
242. Viccy Coltman, Classical Sculpture and the Culture of Collecting in
Britain since 1760 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 242–44. See B. F.
Cook, The Townley Marbles (London: British Museum Press, 1985) and Ian Jenkins,
Archaeologists and Aesthetes in the Sculpture Galleries of the British Museum,
1800–1939 (London: British Museum Press, 1992). Chambers, Joseph Banks, Derek
Cash, “Access to Museum Culture: The British Museum from 1753 to 1836”, British
Museum Occasional Papers 133 (2002), 68.
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/publications/research_publications_series/2002/
access_to_museum_culture.aspx. The British Museum, Central Archive,
C/1/5/1029–30. Library of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, CM/4/50–52.
Library of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, CM/4/59. The British Museum, Central
Archive, C/1/5/1034. The British Museum, Central Archive, C/1/5/1043–144. Cf.
“Chapter III: Concerning the Admission into the British Museum”, in Acts and
Votes of Parliament, Statutes and Rules, and Synopsis of the Contents of the
British Museum (London, 1808), 15–16. Joseph Farington, The Diary of Joseph
Farington, ed. Kenneth Garlick, Angus Macintyre, and others, 17 vols. (New
Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1978–98), 9: 3284. Library of the
Royal Academy of Arts, London, GM/2/366, 370. Library of the Royal Academy of
Arts, London, GM/2/371. Library of the Royal Academy of Arts, London,
GM/2/372–73. Diary of Joseph Farington, 9: 3313. Diary of Joseph Farington, 9:
3317. Diary of Joseph Farington, 9: 3284. The British Museum, Central Archive,
C/3/9/2426. The British Museum, Central Archive, C/3/9/2428. The British
Museum, Central Archive, C/1/5/1069. The British Museum, Central Archive,
C/1/5/1070. The arrangement of the galleries was first detailed in a written
description provided by Westmacott for Prince Hoare’s Academic Annals (London,
1809) and in Taylor Combe’s A Description of the Ancient Marbles in the British
Museum, 3 vols. (London, 1812–17). See Cook, Townley Marbles, 59–61. Karl
Friedrich Schinkel, “The English Journey”: Journal of a Visit to France and
Britain in 1826, ed. David Bindman and Gottfried Riemann (New Haven, CT, and
London, 1993), 74. The record of admissions to view prints and drawings must
have arisen from the new regulations issued by the Trustees in November 1814;
see, Antony Griffiths, “The Department of Prints and Drawings during the First
Century of the British Museum”, The Burlington Magazine 136, 1097 (1994): 536.
In March 1817 the student artist William Bewick wrote to his brother: “I last
Monday set my name down as a student in the British Museum.” See Thomas
Landseer, ed., Life and Letters of William Bewick (Artist), 2 vols. (London:
Hurst and Blackett, 1871), 1: 37. Edward Nygren, “James Ward, RA (1769–1859):
Papers and Patrons”, Walpole Society 75 (2013): 16. Jack Tupper, “Extracts from
the Diary of an Artist. No.V”, The Crayon, 12 December 1855, 368. An album of
drawings of the Townley Marbles in the British Museum (2010,5006.1877.1–40)
appears to have been collected by Townley himself, so dates to before the
installation of the marbles at the Museum. The drawings serve as records of the
objects rather than student exercises. The drawings by John Samuel Agar in the
Getty Research Institute are evidently preparatory for the prints published in
Specimens of Antient Sculpture. BL Add MS 37,163 f.106. This and other figures
in the Townley collection could also be found as casts in the Royal Academy’s
plaster schools, so even if Wood’s drawing, for example, could be traced, it
could not definitively be said to be made in the Townley Gallery. See Ann
Chumbley and Ian Warrell, Turner and the Human Figure: Studies of Contemporary
Life, exh. cat. (London: Tate Gallery, 1989), 12–13. Eric Shanes, Young Mr
Turner: The First Forty Years, 1775–1815 (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale
University Press, 2016), 33–34. Hansard (House of Commons), 16 February 1821,
c.724 (online at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/
1821/feb/16/british-museum). See Cash, “Access to Museum Culture”, 197–225 for
a full account of public discussions around this date. Quoted in Cash, “Access
to Museum Culture”, 208. British Museum: Returns to two Orders of the
Honourable House of Commons, dated 16 th February 1821, House of Commons, 23
February 1821, 2. Cash “Access to Museum Culture”, 71. Quoted in The Literary
Chronicle, 17 March 1821, 168. Edward Edwards, Lives of the Founders of the
British Museum (London: Trübner and Co., 1870), Acts and Votes of Parliament,
Statutes and Rules, and Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum. London,
1808. Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds (1984). Rev. edn. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 2008. Bentley, G. E. Blake Records. 2nd edn. New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2004. Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. The New
Spirit of Capitalism. Trans. Gregory Elliott. London and New York: Verso, 2007.
See Martin Myrone, “Something too Academical: The Problem with Etty”, in
William Etty: Art and Controversy, ed. Sarah Burnage, Mark Hallett, and Laura
Turner (London: Philip Wilson, 2011), 47–59. The barest and most conjectural
biographies include those for William Carr of New Broad Street; W. W.
Torrington; Edward Thomson; Richard Moses; and Mr Lewer. Information is most
notably lacking for the trio of Miss Cowper, Miss Moula, and Mr Turner of Gower
Street; William Hamilton of Stafford Place; William Irving of Montague Street;
Thomas Williams of Hatton Garden; Daniel Jones; M. Hatley of Albermarle Street;
Miss Edgar; Miss Carmichael of Granville Street; Mr Atwood; Mr Higgins of
Norfolk Street; George Pisey of Castle Street; Charles White of George Street;
Robert Walter Page of Wigmore Street; Henry A. Matthew; Thomas Welsh; and John
Hall. Students were entered as “probationers” for a period of three months
(which might be extended), and once registered could attend the Schools for a
period of ten years. Ralph Irvine; Arthur Champernowne; the Chevalier de Barde;
John Disney; John Campbell; Edward Utterson; John Lambert; Robert Batty;
Alexander Huey; Richard Thomson; Charles Toplis; John Frederick Williams;
Edward Burrows; William Carr; W. W. Torrington. Jane Landseer; Janet Ross;
Georgiana Ross; the two Misses Paytherus; H. Edgar; Maria Singleton; Elizabeth
Appleton; Louisa Champernowne; Miss Carmichael; Elizabeth Batty; Frances
Edwards; Eliza Kempe; Ann Damer; Miss Cowper; Miss Moula; Miss Trotter; Miss
Adams; Sarah Newell; Emma Kendrick; Jane Gurney. Gentleman’s Magazine (1820)
and A Trip to Paris in August and September (1815), quoted by William T.
Whitley in his Art in England, 1800–1820 (London: Medici Society, 1928), 263,
as evidence that “It was still thought improper for women to study from such
figures” as the Apollo Belvedere. Cash, “Access to Museum Culture”, 113. As the
American Samuel F. B. Morse (a student at the Royal Academy and the British
Museum) noted in 1811: “I was surprised on entering the gallery of paintings at
the British Institution, at seeing eight or ten ladies as well as gentlemen,
with their easels and palettes and oil colours, employed in copying some of the
pictures. You can see from this circumstance in what estimation the art is held
here, since ladies of distinction, without hesitation or reserve, are willing
to draw in public.” See Edward Lind Morse, ed., Samuel F. B. Morse: His Letters
and Journals, 2 vols. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), 1: 45. Lists of
students admitted to copy at the British Institution appear in the Directors’
minutes, NAL RC V 12–14, and in contemporary press reports. Individuals
admitted to copy at Dulwich Picture Gallery were routinely listed in the
“Bourgeois Book of Regulations” from 1820; photocopies and notes at Dulwich
Picture Gallery, C1 and H3. This is expecially clearly expressed in James
Ward’s diary notes on his visits in 1817, meeting there the artists William
Skelton, Joseph Clover, Henry Fuseli, and William Long, but also the gentlemen
collectors and scholars William Lock, Edward Utterson, and Francis Douce
(Nygren, “James Ward”). See Cash, “Access to Museum Culture”, 217 and passim.
Although the timing of the Academy’s evening classes might seem to be more
accommodating, even this may have been challenging. The master of Richard
Westall, later a watercolour painter, “permitted him to draw at the Royal
Academy, in the evenings; but for that indulgence he worked a corresponding number
of hours in the morning”. Gentleman's Magazine, February 1837, 213. Diary of
Joseph Farington, 4: 4783. On educational tests as linking “macro” and “micro”,
“both sectoral mechanisms or unique situations and societal arrangements”, see
Boltanski and Chiapello, New Spirit of Capitalism, 32. See Pierre Bourdieu,
Pascalian Meditations, trans. Richard Nice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2000). “Acts of nomination, from the most trivial acts of bureaucracy,
like the issuing of an identity card, or a sickness or disablement
certification, to the most solemn, which consecrate nobilities, lead, in a kind
of infinite regress, to the realization of God on earth, the State, which
guarantees, in the last resort, the infinite series of acts of authority certifying
by delegation the validity of the certificates of legitimate existence”,
Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations, 245. The potentially trivial nature of the
acts of nomination involved in gaining access to the British Museum is
highlighted in Joseph Planta’s own account of providing recommendations (for
the Reading Room) often only on the basis of casual conversations. See Cash,
“Access to Museum Culture”, 207. Report of the Select Committee on Arts and
Manufactures, House of Commons, 4 September 1835, 40. Report of the Select
Committee on the British Museum, quoted in Edward Edwards, Remarks on the
“Minutes of Evidence” Taken before the Select Committee on the British Museum,
2nd edn (London [1839]), 14. McRobbie, Be Creative. The British Museum, Central
Archive, Bourdieu, Pierre. On the State: Lectures at the Collège de France,
1989–1992. Ed. Patrick Champagne and others. Trans. David Fernbach. Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2014. – – –. Pascalian Meditations. Trans. Richard Nice.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,The Rules of Art. Trans. Susan Emanuel.
Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. Cash, Derek. “Access to Museum Culture: The
British Museum from 1753 to 1836.” British Museum Occasional Papers 133 (2002)
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/publications/research_publications_series/2002/
access_to_museum_culture.aspx Chambers, Neil. Joseph Banks and the British
Museum: The World of Collecting, 1770–1830. London: Routledge, 2007. Chumbley,
Ann, and Ian Warrell. Turner and the Human Figure: Studies of Contemporary Life.
London: Tate Gallery, 1989. Coltman, Viccy. Classical Sculpture and the Culture
of Collecting in Britain since 1760. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Combe, Taylor. A Description of the Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, 3
vols. London, 1812–17. Cook, B. F. The Townley Marbles. London: British Museum
Press, 1985. Edwards, Edward. Lives of the Founders of the British Museum.
London: Trübner and Co., 1870. – – –. Remarks on the “Minutes of Evidence”
Taken before the Select Committee on the British Museum. 2nd edn. London
[1839]. Farington, Joseph. The Diary of Joseph Farington. Ed. Kenneth Garlick,
Angus Macintyre and others. 17 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1978–98. Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the
Collège de France, 1978–1979. Ed. Michel Sennelert. Trans. Graham Burchell.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. – – –. “Society Must Be Defended”:
Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–76. Ed. Mauro Bertani
and Alessandro Fontana. Trans. David Macey. London: Penguin, 2004. Griffiths, Antony. “The Department of Prints and Drawings during the
First Century of the British Museum.” The Burlington Magazine 136 (1994):
531–44. Hamilton, James. London Lights: The Minds that Moved the City that
Shook the World, 1805–51. London: John Murray, 2007. Higgs, Edward. Identifying
the English: A History of Personal Identification 1500 to the Present. London:
Bloomsbury, 2011. Hoock, Holger. “The British State and the Anglo-French Wars
Over Antiquities, 1798–1858.” Historical Journal 50, no. 1 (2007): 49–72. – –
–. The King’s Artists: The Royal Academy of Arts and the Politics of British
Culture, 1760–1840. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Jenkins, Ian.
Archaeologists and Aesthetes in the Sculpture Galleries of the British Museum,
1800–1939. London: British Museum Press, 1992. Joyce, Patrick. The Rule of
Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City. London: Verso, 2003. – – –. “Speaking
up for the State” (2014).
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Present 206, no. 1 (2010): 213–48. Landseer, Thomas, ed. Life and Letters of
William Bewick (Artist). 2 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1871. McRobbie,
Angela. Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries. Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2016. Morse, Edward Lind, ed. Samuel F. B. Morse: His Letters and
Journals. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914 Myrone, Martin. “Something too
Academical: The Problem with Etty.” In William Etty: Art and Controversy, ed.
Sarah Burnage, Mark Hallett, and Laura Turner. London: Philip Wilson, 2011,
47–59. Nygren, Edward. “James Ward, RA (1769–1859): Papers and Patrons.”
Walpole Society 75 (2013). Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation: The
Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (1944). Boston, MA: Beacon Press,
2002. Rancière, Jacques. The Method of Equality: Interviews with Laurent
Jeanpierre and Dork Zabunyan. Trans. Julie Rose. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016.
Schinkel, Karl Friedrich. “English Journey”: Journal of a Visit to France and
Britain in 1826. Ed. David Bindman and Gottfried Riemann. New Haven, CT, and
London: Yale University Press, 1993. Shanes, Eric. Young Mr Turner: The First
Forty Years, 1775–1815. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2016.
Smiles, Samuel. Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct. London:
John Murray, 1859. Smith, J. T. Nollekens and his Times, 2 vols. 2nd edn,
London: Henry Colburn, 1829. Tupper, Jack. “Extracts from the Diary of an
Artist. No.V.” The Crayon, 12 December 1855. Whitley, William T. Art in
England, 1800–1820. London: Medici Society, 1928. drawn from the antique
Artists et the Classical Ideal Adriano Aymonino and Anne Varick Lauder with
contributions from Eloisa Dodero, Rachel Hapoienu, Ian Jenkins, Jerzy Kierkuc
́-Bielin ́ski, Michiel C. Plomp and Jonathan Yarker sir john soane’s museum
2015 Drawn from the Antique: Artists et the Classical Ideal An exhibition
at Teylers Museum, Haarlem 11 March – 31 May 2015 Sir John Soane’s Museum,
London 25 June –26 September 2015 This catalogue has been generously supported
by the Tavolozza Foundation and the Wolfgang Ratjen Stiftung, Vaduz This
exhibition has been made possible through the support of the Government
Indemnity Scheme Sir John Soane’s Museum is a non-departmental body and is
funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Published in Great
Britain 2015 Sir John Soane’s Museum, 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, wc2a 3bp
Tel: 020 7405 2107 www.soane.org Reg. Charity No. 313609 Text the listed
authors All photographs as listed on pages 254–56 ISBN (paperback):
978-0-9573398-9-7 ISBN (hardback): 978-0-9932041-0-4 Designed and typeset in
Albertina and Requiem by Libanus Press Ltd, Marlborough Printed by Hampton
Printing (Bristol) Ltd Frontispiece: Michael Sweerts, A Painter’s Studio
(detail), c. 1648–50, cat. 12 (p. 134) Page 10: Hendrick Goltzius, The Apollo
Belvedere (detail), 1591, cat. 6 (p. 107) Page 78: William Pether, An Academy
(detail), 1772, cat. 24 (p. 189) Contents Preface 6 Abraham Thomas Introduction
7 Adriano Aymonino and Anne Varick Lauder Acknowledgements 9 Ideal Beauty and
the Canon in Classical Antiquity 11 Ian Jenkins and Adriano Aymonino ‘Nature
Perfected’: The Theory et Practice of 15 Drawing after the Antique Adriano
Aymonino Catalogue Bibliography Photo credits 79 232 254 - authors
of catalogue entries AA: Adriano Aymonino: AVL: Anne Varick Lauder: Eloisa
Dodero: cats 9, 22 JK-B: Jerzy Kierkuc ́-Bielin ́ski: cat. 29 JY: Jonathan
Yarker: cats 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 MP: Michiel C. Plomp: cats 6, 7, 8, 11, 31, 32
RH: Rachel Hapoienu: cats 1, 2, 4, 33. The exhibition ‘Drawn from the antique:
artists and the classical ideal” examines the crucial role played by antique
sculpture in artistic education and practice, a theme which lies at the heart
of the conception of Sir John Soane’s Museum. As a student at the Royal
Academy, Soane wins a travelling scholarship to embark on the grand tour. This
forms the basis of a classical education which would prove to be an enduring
influence on his subsequent career as one of the most important architects of
the Regency period. The drawings, paintings and prints selected for the exhibition
‘Drawn from the antique – artists and the classical ideal’ offer a glimpse into
an intriguing world of academies, artists’ workshops and private studios, each
populated with carefully chosen examples of statuary which provide compelling
snapshots of classical antiquity. Similarly, within his house and museum at
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Soane creates his own bespoke arrangements of ancient
statuary and architectural fragments, providing educational tools which defined
an informal curriculum for both his Royal-Academy students and the apprenticed
pupils working within his on-site architectural office. In fact, one could
consider much of Soane’s museum as an extended series of studio spaces,
intended for academic improvement and personal inspiration. The concept of the
exhibition ‘Drawn from the antique – artists and the classical ideal’ evolves from
a series of conversations between Timothy Knox, and the collector K. Bellinger,
to see if there may be some way to showcase the Bellinger extraordinary and
unique collection of art-works *depicting* artists’ studios. We extend a
special thanks to K. Bellinger, not only for her generosity in allowing us to exhibit
these wonderful pieces but also for all the hard work in securing some stunning
loans from other collections. We are grateful for the loans from the Getty
Collection, the Rijksmuseum, the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Kunstbibliothek in
Berlin. For the UK loans we would like to thank The British Museum, the
Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts and the Courtauld
Gallery. “Drawn From The Antique: Artists and The Classical Ideal” is a collaboration
between The Soane Collection and the Teylers Collection, and I am grateful to M.
Scharloo for agreeing to host the first leg of this exhibition, and also to
Michiel Plomp, for facilitating the exhibition in Haarlem. It feels rather
appropriate that the founders of our two institutions, Teyler and Soane, were
both collectors with singular visions of how their collections should provide a
resource for academic study and creative practice. This exhibition would not
have been possible without the fantastic curatorial team that K. Bellinger assembled:
A. Aymonino, A. Varick Lauder, and R. Hapoienu. I would like to express my
gratitude to them for bringing the project to fruition. I would also like to
thank Paul Joannides for his editing work on the catalogue and all of my
colleagues at the Soane who worked to make this exhibition a reality,
especially S. Palmer, D. Jenkins and J. Kierkuc-Bielinski, as well as S.
Wightman at Libanus for designing such a beautiful catalogue. Finally, I would
like to extend a special thanks to the Tavolozza Foundation and the Wolfgang
Ratjen Stiftung, Vaduz, for their generous support of the exhibition and the
catalogue. The exhibition explores one of the central practices of artists for
years: drawing after the antique – l’antico. Ancient Graeco-Roman statuary provides
artists with a “model” from which he learns how to represent the volume, the pose
and the expression of the male nude and which simultaneously offers a perfected
example of anatomy and proportion. For an established artist, a piece of antique
statuary or a elief offers a repertory of form that serves as inspiration. Because
the imitation (mimesis) and representation of nature is the principal aim of the
classical artist, education in a workshop or an academy revolves around the
study of geometry and perspective – to represent space – and anatomy, the antique
but also THE LIVE MODEL – to learn how to deploy and mould the male body
convincingly in a piece of statuary. This practical approach to the antique –
as a convenient model for depicting or moulding the naked male form – is accompanied by a more
theoretical, aesthetic, and philosophical one. A piece of ancient Graeco-Roman
statuary statue is perceived as a bench-mark of perfection and of the Platonic
concept of ideal beauty, the physical result of a careful selection of the best
parts of nature. Classical Graeco-Roman authors, such as the Italians Vitruvio,
Cicerone or Plinio, reveal to the artist and the philosopher that antique statuary
is based on a system. There is a Pythagoreian harmonic proportions. This rests
on the mathematical relationships between a part of the body and the whole
body. A piece of ancient statuary therefore embodies the same rational
principle on which the harmony of the cosmos and nature are based. It is the
powerful combination of this rational and universal principle that the antique
expresses, together with its extreme versatility as a model of forms, that
guarantees its ubiquitous success. Students in the early stages of their
training are encouraged to ‘assimilate’ fully the idealised beauty of a classical
statue through the copying of plaster casts. Only then can he be exposed to an
‘imperfections of nature’ as embodied by the live naked male model (“Drawn From
Life”). This is intended to provide the craftsman with a standard of perfection
that is then infused into his own statuary. For an artist, it was considered
essential to travel to Rome. At Rome, the artists confront the venerated
antique ‘original’ – not the copy -- and assembles his own ‘drawn’ collections
of models – ‘drawn from the antique’ only, not ‘drawn from life’, for which you
don’t need to go to Rome. Drawing (desegno) is considered the only intellectual
part of an art – the first sensorial (specifically visual) manifestation of an idea.
Drawing from and ‘after’ the Antique (desegno dall’antico) is the union of
intellectual medium and intellectual subject. It becomes an integral part of
the learning process and the activity of the artist who aims at pleasing the
Society gentleman. It proves crucial for legitimising the ambitions of the artist
who fashions himself as a practitioner of a liberal and intellectual activity.
So widespread is it, that representing the practice itself developed into an
artistic genre. Through a selection of pieces exemplifying this fascinating
category of images, by artists as diverse as the Italian Zuccaro, Dutch Goltzius
and Rubens, French Natoire, Swiss Fuseli and English Turner, we may attempt to
analyse this phenomenon. We begin with an image relating to an early Italian
academy and with a portrait, in which a piece of ancient statuary is included.We
may proceed to an image of an artist as he ‘draws’ after a celebrated statue –
the Apollo del Belvedere and the Laoconte, il torso del Belvedere, l’Antino del
Belvedere – in the cortile ottogono del casino della villa Belvedere in Monte
Vaticano, the Belvedere collection that serves as a model. We next may explore
the varied approaches of artists to a piece of ccanonical statuary in Rome and
the ways in which the Italian academic curriculum – with the antique (l’antico)
as one of the two cornerstones (the other being: ‘natura’) – spreads all over
Rome, where each palazzo claims its collection – Farnese, Ludovisi, Albani – and
even up to La Tribuna di Firenze.An Italian drawing manual is a powerful
vehicle for the uncostested establishment and entrenchment of the classical
ideal. Significantly, a manual illustrates the practice of copying after the antique
in their frontispieces. Next follow two of the most relevant images embodying
the classicist credo of the accademia dell’arte at Rome and academie des beaux
arts a Paris. The accademia a Roma codifies a structured syllabus. First-hand
experience of the Antique ‘original’ in Rome becomes a must. Fuseli magnificently
draws the fragments of the head, right hand, and left foot of the colossal
statue of Constantine at the
Campidoglio. Fuseli’s image expresses a ‘romantic’ attitude towards
classical statuary, based on the direct emotion and empathy – the eros of
Plato, and the catharsis of Aristotle -- rather than a ‘study’ (studio) of an idealised
beauty and proportion. Classicism is embraced and an academic syllabus is
developed to graduate from the academy – as opposed to the nobility who can
still practice amateur and present their statues at the annual exhibitions. The
elite, educated in the classics, has a crucial role in disseminating the
classical ideal. For less privileged students at Oxford (‘only the poor learn
at Oxford’) the Ashmolean starts collecting a plaster cast of this or that
original in Rome. Statues serve a decorative purpose in the villa garden
fountain --- and the palazzo interior -- a clear sign of the commercialisation
and further diffusion of the Antique. But while classical statuary becomes a n
attract when doing the calls. Its role within academic curricula remains well-established.
The Antique as a canonical model begins to be challenged by the more dynamic
and innovative forces of art, a challenge that led to its rapid decline. The
last exhibit shows a plaster copy of the celebrated ancient bust of Homer at
the Farnese collection in Napoli is placed on equal footing with a bust of a
non-classical author, neo-classical statuary, and even with a multicoloured
porcelain parrot, reveals how the Antique becomes just one of the many
historical references favoured by society, if not by Society. Although focused
on images representing the relationship of an artist WITH the Antique, that is,
the act or performance of copying or drawing from or after it, this catalogue
includes also examples of the product of the practice: sketches actually ‘drawn
from the antique’ not by students wanting to pass, but by professionals such as
Goltzius, destined to be disseminated through the engraving. We have also
included drawings by Rubens and Turner showing the compromising practice of
setting a live model in the pose of the antique model – lo spinario, i
lottatori in the case of a syntagma or statuary group -- and an early academic
study by Turner the student of the torso del Belvedere (Aiace contempla
suicidio). An image may portray how the artist HIMSELF in the presence of the
Antique. The point of view should always be that of the intended addressee: the
noble Epicurean connoisseur. The form and ideas that he enjoys and seeks in the
classical model, the diversity of his taste according to his mood, and the
kinds of image that are created to show their own relationship with the
Antique. The attitudes towards classical statuary of a manic collector or an antiquarian,
although touched upon in the essays and in some of the entries, are not
discussed at length. We also decided to focus primarily on free-standing in the
round male nude statue or syntagma (i lottatori), as opposed to a relief. The
free-standing in the round reproduction of the male naked body is what the
gentleman enjoys in terms of the proportion, the anatomy and his beauty. A
relief rather serves as a compositional model and inspiration for a narrative mythological
or historical scene. Drawings after reliefs would be the subject of a different
exhibition. The choice of the two venues is entirely appropriate. Haarlem is one
of the earliest Northern cities where the Antique is a subject of debate –
within the private academy established by Mander, Cornelisz, and Goltzius –
whose magnificent series of drawings after canonical classical statues is
preserved in the Teylers Collection. The Soane Collection at Lincoln Fields, on
the other hand, represents an incarnations of the classicist curriculum. It is
an eccentric, kaleidoscopic academy where, in the name of the union of the
arts, the study of Vitruvian and Palladian architecture gets integrated with
the copying of paintings, classical statuary and plaster casts, to attain that
mastery of drawing of the human forms (uomo
vitruviano) advocated by Vitruvius as a crucial element of architecture (to be
replaced by Le Corbusier’s functionalist metron!). The idea for this exhibition
has evolved. The Bellinger Collection is based on a just one theme: the sculptor
at work. Fascinated by the creative process and the mystique surrounding it.
The Bellinger Collection includes items in a range of media – drawings,
paintings, prints, photographs and sculpture. Rather than stage an obvious
‘greatest hits’ exhibition focusing on celebrity, my idea is to show
little-known, rarely exhibited, works and to present aspects of the collection,
which had been rather neglected by scholarship in an attempt to open new ground.
A preliminary step is made by Knox, who approached K. Bellingerto enquire
whether she might showcase works from the collection in the piano nobile of the
Palazz Soane. It soon became apparent that the theme of the relationship
between the sculptor and antique statuary, which seemed so suitable to the
venue of an architect’s palazzo-cum-academy-cum-museum with its rooms filled
with antiquities and plaster reproductions, would have resonance with the Few.
Accompanying a selection of works from the Bellinger Collection we have
attempted to borrow on loan some of the most ‘iconic’ images, and others less
well-known, that demonstrate the evolution of this practice of this class of ‘Drawn
from the Antique’ over an extended period. Almost half of the works on display
have never previously been exhibited and most have not been shown. The
resulting display provides the first overview of a phenomenon crucial for the
understanding and appreciation of ancient Roman art of the classical Augustean
period, which lays stress on the creative processes of the Italophile artist and
on the norms and conventions that guides and inspires his art. Presenting a
relatively small yet coherent display on a topic that encompasses one of the
major themes in the history of Art has been a serious challenge but a most
pleasurable one. Our exhibition could not have been accomplished without the
unwavering support of K. Bellinger, who generously agreed to part with fourteen
choice examples from her little-seen private collection of images of artists at
work and who has remained committed to the project since its inception: to Ballinger
we owe our deepest gratitude. For the other works on display, we have benefited
from the great generosity of colleagues at lending institutions for agreeing to
send works in their care – some of them among their most popular and requested
– to one or both venues of the exhibition. We owe sincere thanks to H. Chapman
at the British Museum, S. Buck at the Courtauld, R. Hibbard and H. Dawson at
the Victoria and Albert, C. Saumarez-Smith, H. Valentine and R. Comber at the
Royal Academy. Abroad we wish to acknowledge the generosity of L. Hendrix and J.
Brooks at Villa Getty, Bernhard von Waldkirch at the Kunsthaus Zürich, T. Dibbits
at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and K. Käding at the Kunstbibliothek, Berlin. We
are enormously grateful both to the Soane Collection and the Teylers Collection
for hosting this two-venue exhibition. Thanks are due to T. Knox and A/ Thomas,
for their support for the project, and to S. Palmer, and D. Jenkins, for
assisting with the loans. M. Scharloo, of the Teylers and Michiel Plomp, kindly
agreed to house the first showing of the exhibition and to lend works from
their collection. The catalogue was thoughtfully designed and produced by S. Wightman
at Libanus, to whom we owe our warmest thanks, and printed by Hampton Printing
in Bristol. R. Hapoienu, oversaw the photography and contributed immeasurably
to the catalogue. Other curatorial colleagues have given their time and effort
in preparing scholarly entries or essays: E. Dodero, I. Jenkins, J. Kierkuc
-Bielinski, M. Plomp and J. Yarker. Special thanks are due to Dodero for
sharing an infinite knowledge of antique sources. Finally, we are greatly
indebted to P. Joannides for his input. Any and all errors are entirely our
own. We wish to acknowledge warmly P. Taylor and Rembrandt Duits for granting
us unfettered access to the Photographic Collection of the Warburg and other
colleagues and friends who assisted in various ways in bringing this project to
fruition: Mattia Biffis, R Blok, Yvonne Tan Bunzl, Wolf Burchard, Elisa
Camboni, Martin Clayton, Zeno Colantoni, Paul Crane, Daniela Dölling, Alexander
Faber, Cameron Ford, Ketty Gottardo, Martin Grässle, Axel Griesinger, Florian
Härb, Eileen Harris, John Harris, Niall Hobhouse, Matthew Hollow, Peter
Iaquinandi, Catherine Jenkins, Theda Jürjens, Jill Kraye, David Lachenmann,
Alastair Laing, Barbara Lasic, Huigen Leeflang, Cornelia Linde, Anne-Marie
Logan, Olivia MacKay, Austeja MacKelaite, Bernard Malhamé, Patrick Matthiesen,
Mirco Modolo, Jane Munro, Lorenzo Pericolo, Benjamin Peronnet, Camilla
Pietrabissa, Eugene Pooley, Pier Paolo Racioppi, Cristiana Romalli, Gregory
Rubinstein, Susan Russell, Nick Savage, Nicolas Schwed, Ilaria Sgarbozza, Kim
Sloane, Perrin Stein, MaryAnne Stevens, Marja Stijkel, Michael Sullivan, C. Treves,
Michiel Ilja M. Veldman, Anna Villari, Rebecca Wade and Alison Wright. Support
for the exhibition and catalogue was provided by the Tavolozza Foundation and
the Wolfgang Ratjen Stiftung, Vaduz, to whom we owe our sincere gratitude.
Ideal Beauty is the Canon in Classical Antiquity. The practice of drawing from the
antique is a time-honoured one – if not antique! But even the Augustean copy
makers knew who to imitate --. Since Antino became such an icon, we can say
that Adrian finished the practice of ‘drawing from the antique’: He started to
ask his slaves to ‘draw from nature’ – the nature of his lover! The philosopher
should be reminded of the substantial role that the Antique has played in the
education and inspiration of artists for years. Soane famously mixed marble
sculpture with plaster reproductions in the learned and decorative interiors of
his Lincolnfields villa. A constant theme in ancient philosophy (with which any
Oxonian with a Lit. Hum. is more than acquainted with) is that behind the
surface chaos of the tangible sensible world, there is a hidden order (kósmos).
Harmony occurs when the opposite forces in nature (natura, physis), such as wet
and dry, hot and cold, strong and weak, are properly balanced. Well-being
depends upon a set of complementary humours. Reason (logos) – but cf. Dodds on
the irrational -- is the weapon wielded in a constant struggle against the dark
forces of the natural and non-natural artificial conventional realms alike. The
concept of ‘number’ plays an especially important role in the Graeco-Roman, or
Italic world view. Mathematics was most probably acquired from Babylon and
first took root in the cities of Ionia. Pythagora, who had settled in Crotona
and Melosponto in southern Italy, discovers the measurable intervals of the
musical scale This demonstrates that number holds the key to the mysteries of
the harmony of the Universe. Pythagoras was born on the Aegean island of Samos,
which was just one of the many city states that participated in the Ionian
Enlightenment with its concentration of natural philosophers. Applied
mathematics finds a new purpose in the creation of colossal temples in an
architectural culture that takes its inspiration from that of East. The
technical aspects of this new tectonic art are explained in philosophical
treatises. None of them survive but they were known to the Roman philosopher Vitruvio,
who uses them extensively for “De Architectura”. His is the only complete
treatise on ancient Roman architecture to survive. It is the main channel
through which knowledge of ancient Roman architectural principles are handed
down. The impact it has on architecture is paramount. Colossal temples are erected
and foremost among them is the archaic temple of Diana at Efeso. Its forest of
columns, some of them carved pictorially and its painted and gilded mouldings
are breath-taking. The Ionian Enlightenment terminates by the catastrophic
destruction of Mileto y the Persians. The Persians next set out to punish
Athens for her instigation of the revolt. The failure of the Persian invasion
in a series of battles on land and sea serve as a catalyst for a great surge of
art and thought in the city that was the world’s first democracy. It was in
Athens – the ‘Athenian dialectic’ -- that humanity’s sense of self is forged.
It is there that mankind acquires a unique and individual soul with personal
responsibility for its welfare. In classical antiquity mankind places itself at
the centre of the universe and is as Protagoras famously says, ‘the measure of
all things’. Protagoras’s contemporary, the philosopher Socrates, leads the way
in a moral philosophy aimed at penetrating the dark hinterland of human
existence. Humanism prompts a “realism” (de rerum matura) in product of an ‘ars’ that re-presents the naked
male body in a ‘naturalistic’ way. There were those, however, who ha less
positive view of human capacity for self-determination. A recurring theme in
the philosophy of Socrates’ famous pupil, Plato, is the theory of ‘mimesis’ (‘imitatio’),
whereby the product of an ‘ars’ is twice
removed from reality by virtue of its being a ‘copy’ of Nature, which is itself
a copy of the hidden, intangible reality of the abstract world of the Idea. In
Plato’s kósmos, reality is not to be found in Nature. Reality (and ideal
beauty) cannot be detected by *sensing*. Rather, reality and beauty is ‘noetic’
and exists beyond nature (trans-naturalia) and can be grasped only through an effort
of the ‘intellectual’ (logistikon) part of the tri-partite soul (the other two
parts being the thymoeides and the epithymtikon). A man never gets to ‘know’ or
grasp this ideal beauty. Man must be governed by the philosopher king, who has the
intellectual capacity to achieve true knowledge and understanding of the universal
law. The nature that man knows is itself a ‘copy’ (mimesis, imitation –
imitative) of this suprasensible realm, so Plato argued and. As an imitation of
nature, a product of an ‘ars’ is twice removed from the meta-physical intelligible
world. There is no place for the pretensions of artists in the world of true
reality. Only the pure and virtuous abstract beauty and goodness
(kalloskagathia, bonus et pulchrus) of a ‘form’ (‘forma’) is to be found in the
realm of the idea. The clearest and most developed account of Plato’s
condemnation of the idols or products of ‘ars’ and his reasons for banning it
from his ideal state (polizia, politeia) are to be found in the Socratic
dialogue known to modern readers as The Polizia (Politeia). The ‘Polizia’
(Politeia) is beautifully crafted in a series of carefully honed set-piece
speeches in which, and the irony is obvious, Plato demonstrates his skills as a
philosophical artist – the dialogue aimed at beauty, rather than truth. It is
difficult to say to what extent Plato puts words into or takes them out of the
mouth of Socrates. The historical Socrates never wrote anything himself. We can
at least be sure of Socrates’ insistence upon the imperative to pursue
justified true belief (knowledge) as distinct from mere belief or opinion
(doxa) and to seek understanding, as distinct from mere creed. These are after
all the goals by which Socrates measures the moral integrity of man’s
intelligence. When it comes to the standing of the product of an ‘ars’ in
Socrates’s moral landscape, we may wonder whether this marble worker who had
followed in his father’s ‘ars’ himself shares aristocratic Plato’s anti-thetical
view of the ‘artista’. In a dialogue recorded by Xenophon between Socrates and
Parrhasio, it is concluded that the product of an ‘ars’ cannot achieve beauty
by simply ‘reproducing’ (or imitating, or copying) an individual, particular, single,
naked male live model. He who pursues to give a product of an ‘ars’ must
instead select the best part of more than one particular, singular male naked
live model – this is not Adriano’s portraiture of Antino -- melding (or moulding) those parts (individua) together
in such a way as to transcend, by way of a universalium, nature itself (the
natural naked male live model) and turn the ‘re-presentation’ of a ‘beautiful’
(kalos) naked male live model into an ‘ideally’ beautiful naked male body. Aristotle.
ever practical, ever helpful, opposes Plato in arguing that, instead of being a
slave to Nature, man may create (poien) as nature itself created. In his
Poetics and Politics he recognises the civic role of the product of an ‘ars’,
as he praises the value of the products of the ‘ars’ of Polygnotos. “For
Polygnotos re-presents but tweaks a natural male body better than the natural
male body is. It’s an improving (perfection) on, rather than an imitation, of
‘imperfect’ nature of this or that particular naked male body – again this is
not Antino’s portraiture – To this product of the ‘ars’ Aristotle grants the
label of an ideal model – not the live model of imperfect nature. It is futile
to try to guess who said what when. Suffice it to say that the statuary-maker
is under pressure from various sides to justify the product of his ‘ars’ as a
proper exemplar that perfects the imperfection of the natural male live model,
reflecting the universal law of the kósmos. The artist has to look at
philosophical mathematics. There is a historic change in the re-presentation
(improved re-presentation, improvement) in the product of ‘ars’ of the body of
a naked live model. Ironically, the abstract concept behind a ‘youth’ or ‘kouros’
[e. g. marble 194.6 cm (h) Met Museum 32.11] with its ‘formulaic’ tendency to
convey the naked male form of a live model through a descriptive line and a block-like
(rather than waving) form gives way to contrapositum
(contrapposto), and a greater fluidity – if not ‘naturalism’ -- conjuring a three-dimensional
volume of live flesh. This ‘naturalistic’ figure type becomes the standard or
canon. The ‘canon’ itself (first canon, as we shall see – cf. Lisippo) referred
to the Doriforo of Policleto. Policleto obviously moulded and cast in bronze as
he was in front of the real ‘doriforo’ (name unknown), the canon (qua model
what exemplum) with copyists, notably in the copy of 212 com (h) at Naples –
Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Napoli, 1st century bc copy of
original of c. 440 bc, -- inv. 6011 The
canon was famous in antiquity for its elaborate system of measurements about
which Policleto wites a philosophical treatise known as ‘The Canon.’ To judge
from what philosophers say about the spear-bearer, it is an explanation of the
principle of proportion that Policleto declares to be the key to perfection in
the product of the ‘ars’ qua re-presentation of the body of the male live
model. The concept of ‘symmetria’ (commensuratio) is used to describe this
system of a measured proportion. To the ancient authors, however, it signified
a commensurability of parts measured in relation to one another and to the
whole. Thus, the length of a finger was calculated in relation to the hand and
the hand in relation to the whole arm and so on. Ideal beauty, based on
mathematical perfection was, therefore, quantifiable. The preoccupation with
numbers in idealised sculpture has strong links to the number-based aesthetics
of the Pythagorean school of mathematics, first anticipated in architecture.
Another link to the natural philosophy of the Ionian Enlightenment is the
deliberate balancing of opposite motifs. There was found a bio-mechanical
system of parts that were at once weight-bearing and weight-free, engaged and
disengaged, stretched and contracted, tense and relaxed, raised and lowered –
an overall balancing principle of contrapposto found in the statue Doryphoros
and in many classical statues extremely influential. Polykleitos trains at a
workshop (not an academy like Plato’s!) of Ageladas of Argos, along with Mirone.
Mirone’s statue [v. Museo Nazionale Romano, Roma, inv. 126371 – 155 cm (h) copy
of original of c. 460-450, marble] is said
to have more by way of ‘commensuratio’ about them than any other statues of his
generation. As with the Doryphoros so with Myron’s Discobolo, known only
through Roman copies, it is pretty difficult to hypothesise the exact system of
proportion that he uses. We detect the deployment of balanced opposites in the
composition. The creators of the doriforo and the discobolo share a common
regard for the live model that transcends the nature of the live model. Although
Polykleitos’ Canon and its physical embodiment, the original doriforo, are lost
– the most famous Roman copy was excavated ONLY AT THE END OF THE OTTOCENTO –
various literary sources handed over to the Renaissance the knowledge of them
and the classical principle that the beautiful model is based on proportion,
commensurability and mathematical perfection. This is the quest for the
beautiful model that is measured and defined within the premises of natural
philosophical mathematics. In the minds of commentators, the attribution of the
power of creation (poiesis) to the statue-maker likens him to a seer and affords
him a unique insight into his subject. It was said of Policleto that while his
skill is suitable for representing what Vico (and Carlyle) calls a ‘hero’
(Italian ‘eroe’ – cf. il culto dell’eroe), the imaginative power of Fidia –
author of the Parthenon’s sculptures, notably the Elgin marble of MARTE qua
simbolo della mascolinita – conjures a ‘deus’ (dio). His positive view of the
intuitive process of artistic creation (poiesis) becomes especially important
in Rome where copies of the great works of Greek classical sculpture are
reproduced in large numbers. ‘Re-produced’, that is, but not ‘re-plicated’ (cf.
replicatura). For no two copies are, by definition, ever exactly *the same*
(for one, the piece of marble is ‘another’). A Roman copyist, so-called, is,
mostly an ethnic [it. ennico] Greek. He probably saw his product as a variation
on a theme, or an improvisation (if not improvement) on the ‘original’, not a slavish
copy – plus, his Roman Mecenas couldn’t care less – connoisseurship was looked
own. A Roman vir has other things in mind, such as battle! It is through this
army of Roman copies that Italian artists acquire a fragmentary knowledge of
the proto-type (cf. Weber’s ideal type], the vast majority of which, in bronze,
as they should – for sculpting marble is different than moulding wax -- are
deliberately melted by Christians as blasphemous pagan, heathen, gods and
heroes. The spectre of the greatest mind of all antiquity, Plato, and his
condemnation of art always hover over the heads of artists and art lovers
alike. In the high empire of ancient Rome a neo-Platonist movement challenges Plato’s
extreme opinion and argues for the product of an ‘ars’ of being possessed of the
intellectually beautiful (even if first perceived through the senses – nihil
est in intellectu quod prior non fuerit in sensu. Plotino notes: ‘now it must
be noted that the wax brought under a hand
to a ‘beautiful’ ‘form’ or ‘shape’ (eidos, idea, morphe) is ‘beautiful’ not ‘he’
or qua wax – for so the crude block would be as ‘pleasant’ or pleasurable or
pleasing – but *qua* form, eidos, shape, morphe, or idea. This practical and
workable Aristotelian and neo-Platonic rather than the Platonic philosophy of
art was that adopted by most Italians (even if they let Ficino dreamed about!).
The paradoxical (feigned, ironic, taunting) superiority of the product of an
‘ars’ art to nature – as a selected, ideal, improved, correctio version of it (no
‘warts and all’) – has been a central premise of the “beau ideal” where ‘beau’
can be in the Romance languages both masculine and neuter (‘il bello’ – il
bello ideale) in the humanistic theory of art and especially in its
neo-classical incarnation. A statue is admired and enjoyed as the embodiment of
a moral aesthetic that can be applied also to a plaster cast. It serves both as
the paradigm of art training and as source of inspiration for artists for
centuries. For an introduction to ancient aesthetics and views on art, see
Tatarkiewicz 1970; Pollitt 1974. Selections of primary sources are included in
Pollitt 1983; Pollitt 1990. The main source for this famous sentence is Platone,
Theaetetus 151e. See also Diogenes Laertius, De Vitis ... philosophorum, 9.51.
3 Platone, Republic, 10, esp. 10.596E–597E. 4 Xenophon, Memorabilia, 3.10.1–5.
5 Aristotele, Poetica, 1448a1; Politica, 1340a33. See also Metafisica, 1.1,
981a. 6 Plinio, Naturalis Historia, 34.57–58. 7 Cicerone, Bruto, esp. 69–70,
296; Plinio, Naturalis Historia, 34.55; Galeno’s treatises, esp. De Placitis
Hippocratis et Platonis, 5, and De Temperamentis, 1.9; Quintiliano, Institutio
Oratoria, esp. 5.12.21 and 12.10.3–9; Vitruvio’s De Architectura, 3.1. 8
Quintiliano, Institutio Oratoria, 12.10.3–9. 9 Plotino, Enneads, 5.8.1.
14 ‘Nature Plus-Quam-Perfected’: -- the ‘Drawn from the Antique’ at the
Royal Academy. ‘Desegno dall’antico’, ‘desegno dalla natura’. In his inaugural lecture
as Professor of Painting at The Royal Academy of Arts in London, Opie arranged a
few headings, which included a general definition of painting, the imitation of
Nature, the idea of general beauty, the idea of general perfect beauty, the
idea of perfect beauty the true object of the highest style, as the aim of the
highest style, design, drawing, the most important part of painting, the uses
of knowledge of anatomy, symmetry and proportion the next in importance. great
excellence of the *ancients*, the ancient sculptor in those points; studying
antique statuary to advantage, perfection of the Art of painting under Vinci, Buonarroti,
and Sanzio. Opie’s outline, with its standardised categories, is a clear
example of ‘inglese italianato e un diavolo incarnato’ and a summary of a
time-honoured aesthetic tradition which indeed he is drawing from the antique!
Opie’s proposal of what constitutes ‘the high style’ is a direct continuation
of the humanistic theory of art, formulated in early Renaissance Florence and
expanded and modified in the succeeding centuries, mainly in Italy. At the core
of this tradition is the thesis that art imitates nature and, in art’s highest
manifestation, perfects nature by selecting her best parts, to create (poien,
design) a model of ideal beauty – drawn from the antique -- a universal standard
to which man aspires. Classical statuary plays a crucial role in this
theoretical framework. An antique statues is perceived, and often revered, as
works in which the process of this selection of the best parts of nature is accomplished.
An antique – and thus a sketch ‘drawn from the antique’ -- offers the ‘antique’
(not natural live) model from which the form, the pose, the gesture and the expression
of a naked male is appreciated, in its idealised anatomy and proportion. As the
theory evolves from the 16th century onwards, the three leading protagonists of
the High Renaissance, Vinci, Buonarroti and Sanzio – not mannerist Bernini,
such as Tasso is not in the canon as Ariosto is -- are placed on the same level
as the antique, as the first trio of non-antique or non-ancient (i. e. modern) artists
– cf. Hymns Ancient et Modern) whose statues equal, if not surpass, the antique
(but there was not ‘Drawn from Buonarroti!’). The humanistic theory of art
remains for centuries the philosophical aesthetics. It undergoes many
developments and was at times challenged. It is primarily through the medium of
‘desegno’, drawing, that one is educated in geometry and perspective – to learn
how to re-present space – and in anatomy and the male naked live model – to
learn how to deploy the naked male. ‘Drawn from the antique’ represents the
essential component of this educational method, initially as a convenient model
for the copying the male form, and then progressively as a bench-mark of perfection
whose appreciation one is supposed to assimilate before being exposed to
‘fallible Nature’, embodied by the naked male LIVE model with all its
imperfections – the profession being underpayed and carried out by Italians! – and
this or that unnecessary feature – however necessary this unnecessary feature
is for the photographer of Antino, before he photoshops! In its codified and
pedantic rigidity, this Vitruvian categorization reveals that, at the same time
as they held theoretical sway, by the beginning of the 19th century the
tradition that he espoused had become increasingly stifling. At the dawn of the
Modern era, a system based on the principle that art is a rational practice that
can be taught by precepts resting on a fixed aesthetic is progressively being
dismantled by those who advocate subjectivity, individual expression and the
conceptual freedom required by inventive genius. Although the normative
principle of the humanistic theory of art remains solidly established within the
academic programme, the creative forces of art are increasingly to be found ‘outside
Plato’s Academy’. With this epochal shift of aesthetic values, classical
statuary, unsurprisingly, suffered most. Precisely because of its status as a
model and standard of perfection in academic curricula, it inevitably
encountered the indifference, if not open hostility, of Marinetti (if not
Mussolini) and those avant-garde Italian artists who did not believe in the idealising
role of art and, increasingly, not even in its imitative one. The Antique,
which sustains and inspires creativity and diversity in art, offering an
immense repertory of forms, expressions and aesthetic principles, loses its
propulsive drive. To understand the pervasive role the classical statue or statuary group plays
in the education and inspiration of artists in the Early Modern period, that is
from the 15th to the early 19th century, we return to the theoretical
foundations and the practical concerns that create and sustain the conditions
for its immense success and eventual decline. After the Middle Ages, in which
the visual arts had been essentially symbolic, aiming to represent the
metaphysical and the divine, in the early Renaissance focus shifts to an art
that, as in antiquity, aims at a convincing ‘imitation’ of the external world,
the world of Nature, with man at its centre. The primary concern of early
Renaissance artists and art theorists is to set a rational rule for the
faithful (or improved) representation of space and the human figure on a
two-dimensional surface, free-standing, in the round. In his “De Pictura”, Alberti
establishes the principle of art as an intellectual discipline, focusing on
geometry, mathematical perspective and the representation of the naked male. The
philosophical conviction that ‘man is the scale and measure of all things’ is applied
to space: Alberti’s choice of viewpoint and scale in the perspective diagrams is
based on the *height* of a well-formed male and the units into which he is divided.
This philosophical position also accepts that the main aim of the art of
statue-making is the depiction of a man’s action, emotion and deed, what
Alberti called “la storia”. Naturally, the study and drawing of the LIVE model
in a work-shop, and later of anatomy and classical statuary in a studio and an academy
or club, are essential for this purpose. Although Alberti’s approach, and even
the literary structure of De Pictura, is based on classical models and
examples, his conception of art is ‘naturalistic’. For Alberti, to become
skilled in the visual arts ‘the fundamental principle will be that all steps of
learning should be sought from nature’ (“dalla natura”, not “dall’antico”). Earlier,
more practical treatises, like Cennino Cennini’s Libro dell’Arte advocates the
study of a painting produced by a master, a practice that encourages repetition
and which could eventually lead to artistic sterility. Alberti accepts the
copying of two-dimensional works by other artists only because ‘they have
GREATER STABILITY OF APPEARANCE than the living, live, lively, model’, but he
privileges the drawing of a statue because, being life-*like* (cf. ‘natura
morta’), it does not impose just ONE viewpoint on its copyist, but infinite –
which makes ‘drawn from the antique’ a fascinating reflection on the
draughtsman, who seeks, say, for rear views!
Hence, while the practice of the early workshop often involved the
copying of three-dimensional models or drawings of such models, it is as a
preparation for life-study (“DRAWN FROM LIFE”) rather than an end in itself. This
is is not to ignore the impact of antique proto-types on artists, which was
enormous. One need only think of Donatello’s Ganimede who was responding to
antique models from very early in the Quattrocento. But from a theoretical
point of view, for Alberti, the emphasis is on the full mastery of the natural
forms (‘DRAWN FROM LIFE’) rather than on the imitation of other works of art,
even those from antiquity. The artist’s goal is to achieve an illusionistic
translation of the external world onto the flat surface of a drawing (‘DRAWN
FROM LIFE’) or into the volumes and masses of sculpture – as in Italian
statuary not based on the Antique: Michelangelo’s Bacco, Bernini’s Enea, etc.
-- Nevertheless, in Alberti we find the roots of two intertwined concepts, both
originating in classical sources, which progressively support and justify the
practice of copying as in ‘drawn from the antique’. The ultimate point is to
create a ‘beautiful’ naked male by selecting the most ‘excellent parts . . .
from the most beautiful naked males. Every effort should be made to perceive,
understand and express beauty. To substantiate this principle, Alberti recalls
the episode of the celebrated painter of antiquity -- depicted by Vasari in his
fresco at his own palazzo in Arezzo, ‘Zeusi compone Elena dalle fanciulle di
Crotona’-- the Italian Zeuxis, who, in order to create Elena, the image of female
perfection, selects the most beautiful maidens from the city of Crotona and
unfairly goes to choose the best part from each. This silly anecdote – sexist,
since the male equivalent would be unthinkable --, derives from ancient
literary sources, and becomes one of the most recurrent adaggi of the art
treatise in the following centuries. Zeuxis embodies and clearly explains the
idea of art as a form of ‘perfected nature’. The beautiful (‘il bello’, for
Italians hardly use ‘bellezza’, unless you are Sorrentino) is based on a system
of a harmonic proportion. For Alberti, in the perfect male the single part – the
two hands, the head, the two legs, he torso, the back, etc. – is related
numerically to the other parts and to the whole (il totto) in the principle of commensurability or
syn-metron, literally the measurability by a common standard. The overall
result is harmonic perfection (‘ Just look in my direction! Ain’t that
perfection!’) which Alberti defines as ‘concinnitas’, a theory that Alberti
bases on Vitruvio’s De Architectura. Pro-portion, which Alberti covers in depth
in his “De Statua” becomes a major subject of philosophical aesthetic
speculation. Vinci and Dürer produce in-depth studies, and Vinci’s ‘uomo
vitruviano’ is the perfect expression of the theory of the mathematical
conception of the naked male [Vinci, Gallerie dell’Academia, Venezia, inv. 228
– Le proporzione dei corpo umano secondo Vitruvio, metal point, pen and brown
ink with touches of wash, 344 x 245 mm c 1490] For Alberti, one selects the
best from nature and reassembles the selection according to a system of
harmonic proportion ultimately resting on the mathematical relation THAT IS
rationally inferred from Nature itself. This principle is the cornerstone of
aesthetics. Although the central textual foundation for the concept that ‘il
bello’ is based on proportion, Policleto’s Canon, had been lost, Renaissance
artists and scholars are well aware through Vitruvio and other classical
writers that ancient artist base his work on this principle. Therefore, from
the 16th century onwards, and especially in the following two centuries, the
crucial appeal that an antique statue had for artists rested not only in its
aesthetic quality and form, but also on the very fact that it embodied the
intellectual principle of proportional perfection. The rationalistic (indeed
illuministic) approach of the Canova’s French academy (when moulding the wax of
Napoleon in nudita eroica) even provides students with manuals in which the
numerical proportion of a statue is carefully laid out. This idea-guided naturalistic
attitude of art theory, which had in any case been greatly modified in High
Renaissance practice, shifts towards an even more idealistic (hyper-idealistic,
not romantic) approach and, simultaneously, a more systematic one, laying the
ground plan for the classicist theory. Because most art theoreticians consider
their era to be a period of artistic decadence and excess after the great
achievements of the High Renaissance, and also because many of them focus on
the codifying of a rule that may be imposed in the academy, the model of
perfection is increasingly deemed mandatory (Dolce, Lomazzo, Armenini), the antique
that they feel inspired and guided the ‘buona maniera’ of Buonarroti and Sanzio
(whom the pre-raphaelites hated), became the standard by which a fault (errore)
of Nature or this or that affectation (say, the length of necks in Modigliani)
is corrected. The ‘drawn from the antique’ takes a decisive lead over the ‘drawn
from life’ (DESEGNO DALLA VITA), and the construction of taste – the lure of
the antique that had lured the antiques themselves, such as Adriano! Correspondingly,
in the classicist tradition that develops in Rome – the headquarters of the
French Academy at Villa Medici -- the Antique (l’antico) becomes the essential
model for the composition. This, definable as the depiction of episodes based
on Roman mythology or Roman history, with a moral value attached, is considered
from Alberti the highest form and final aim and receives the place of honour in
the academic hierarchy of the genres. Although a naturalistic and
anti-classicist tendency remains alive even within the academic system,
classicism establishes itself as the predominant aesthetic principle, as Opie’s
inaugural lecture as Chair of Painting (but not Chair of Sculpture – since
that’s a whole different animal!) at the Royal Academy attests. Its success
rests primarily on the fact that it represents an aesthetic approach that is
considered to express a universal and a ‘true’ principle. And this, because of its
rational nature, can be taught by rule, which suits the systematic attitude of
Enlightenment culture. The proliferation of the academy encourages the
penetration of this set of values even within contexts and cultures that until
then had been only superficially exposed to it. The humanistic theory of art,
clothed in a new and codified form, eventually reaches the most remote corners
of the world, with the antique army as the herald. At the centre of the
education of any artist in the Renaissance was the practice of ‘disegno,’ drawing
or design, considered to be one of the essential foundations of art from
Cennini onwards. ‘Disegno,’ (dall’antico, dalla vita), endowed with an
intellectual role by Vasari and other
theorists, as the manifestation of the idea and invention of the artist, becomes
the essential quality of the Roman and Florentine academies. Successively, it
assumed a central role in the theory of European academies as the expression of
the rational common denominator of the three sister arts: painting, sculpture
and architecture. Opie, himself a poor draughtsman – hence his teaching of
‘disegno’ --, still considered ‘Design, or Drawing, the most important part of
Painting’. Drawing after the Antique, or Drawing from the Antique, as a union
of intellectual medium and intellectual end, becomes integral to the learning
process and the activity of artists, along with ‘Drawn from Life’. The academy
is depicted, the studio, an artists copying from some original or drawing from a
cast, in situ in, usually, Rome or back at home. Whether he is drawing from the
antique on paper to learn how to represent outlines and chiaroscuro – the
effects of light on three-dimensional forms – or to assemble a repertory of the
body’s form, pose and expression, or to assimilate a system of ‘correct’
proportions and anatomy, no would-be member of the academy can avoid
confronting the lessons of the Antique, and of adjusting his creative process
in relation to it. Apart from the didactic and inspirational functions of drawing
from the antique (as opposed as from life), many other reasons justified the
practice. As a result of their pervasiveness, a studio ‘drawin from the
antique’ (disegnato dall’antico’) – which are innumerable – are difficult to
categorise because they are produced for different reasons, serve different purposes
and display different conceptions and relations to the antique. Nevertheless,
one might attempt a division. There is the didactic ‘drawn from the antique’: a
copy produced his education as an a course assignment at the Academy: a drawing
produced by a master in a workshop to provide the apprentice with an accessible
repertory of classical forms to copy. There is RECORD drawing: a sketch created
to serve as inspiration for a form, a pose, am expressios, a composition, a movement,
a proportion, etc., for its own artistic purpose. There is translation, a precisely
finished drawings intended to be engraved, usually conveying as much
information as possible about the statue’s form and pose. There is documentary
drawings, produced with the purpose of recording accurately the physical
appearance of an antiquities obviously including any damage the statue may have
undergone. To this category belong many drawings produced specifically for the antiquarian
collector, from the “Codex Coburgensis” to those of the famous ‘Paper Museum’
assembled by Pozzo. There is the marketable
drawing: a finished copy specifically produced to be sold on the market or
commissioned by a collector to fill his ‘paper museum’ of classical
antiquities. Examples are those by Batoni for Richard Topham, Esq. – The Topham
Collection --. There is the promotional drawing, a drawing made with the
specific purpose of promoting the acquisition of an item (statue or statuary
group), such as those by Jenkins to Townley – The Townley Collection. Naturally,
as with any categorisation, these divisions are a simplification and a drawing
may overlap two or more classes, such as this or that drawing by Goltzius, intended
to be engraved, but which also function as a repertory of an antique forms to
be used in the artist’s practice. Whatever their categories, all these drawings
followed the technical evolution of the medium, from the predominant metalpoint
and pen-and-ink to the black and red chalk. Athough pen-and-ink remains a
favoured medium, chalk becomes the choice for FULL-SIZE statuary, as a softer,
more pliable medium it allows a more sophisticated rendering of a tonal passage
and, therefore, of relief and anatomu. Red chalk especially offers the impossibility
of bringing the ANTIQUE (antico) to LIFE (vita), transforming or
transubstantiating inorganic matter into ‘warm flesh’. In artists’ workshops
one of the most important aspects of an apprentice’s training, aside from
mastering the manual procedures of painting, is copying works by the master and
other artists. This is intended as a means to shorten the process of learning
how to represent the THREE-DIMENSIONS onto two thanks to examples already
produced by others. This practice is described by Cennini, although still intended
only to train the apprentice to reproduce the master’s style and not yet Nature
or Life. An aapprentices could resort to copying model books and sketchbooks
already assembled by the master or by others. These were repertories of a drawing
of an animal, a plant, decorative details, a male nude at rest, a male nude in
action, usually produced as teaching tools, and it is in these collections on
paper that we find the earliest surviving drawings derived from classical
antiquities. The Antique is included mainly as a source of information on the anatomy,
its form, modelling, pose, expression, movementsand the interaction of all
t hese elements. Most of the early drawings that represent antique forms are
produced by artists active in Rome where the largest number of accessible
physical remains from antiquity is concentrated. AN ANCIENT FULL-SIZE STATUE IN
THE ROUND may have survived above ground. Among the most famous publicly
displayed examples are the ANTONINO, or pseudo-Constantine the Great. outside
the Lateran Palace, the Spinario, and the Camillo, both of which are moved from
the Lateran to the Campidoglio by Sesto IV; the Quirinal Horse Tamers, I
DIOSCURI, and the two Quirinal Recubantes or Rivers. Virtually no ancient
painting is known, and its appearance was conjectured from a description
(ecphrasis) in a literary sources, notably Pliny’s Naturalis Historia (esp.
book XXXV). It was only with the exploration at the end of the 15th century of
the buried interiors of the Domus Aurea of Nerone in Rome, known as grotte,
that artists access ancient examples, and from this time a wave of grotesque
motifs and decorations spread widely. More readily available is a sarcophagus
relief or a large imperial relief. A drawing may depict mainly this category of
ancient artefacts. They are popular because, with their complex, frieze-like
narratives, it inspires the compostion of a “storia” as Alberti notes. Among
the most frequently represented are the reliefs of sarcophagi and the imperial
reliefs of Trajan’s Column and the Arches of Titus and Constantine. The
subjects preferred by late Gothic or early Renaissance artists – Bacchic
themes, Amazons, the story of Adone, marine deities or ancient battles –
demonstrate an interest in the nude and in the depiction of movement, dynamism
and strong expressions. Although it is recorded that Donatello and Brunelleschi
copy antiquities during their stay at Rome, no drawings survive by either of
them to reveal their approach to the Antique. The earliest surviving drawings
of an antique is by artists in the workshops of Fabriano and Pisanello, when they
were in Rome working for Martino V in St John in Lateran. The drawings
correspond in many ways to the paintings. They show little awareness of the
formal principle of classical art, transforming a figure from a Roman
sarcophagus relief into a Gothic type. They often re-interpret the pose and,
sin! -- proportion of the original, even, as in the case of a sheet of a
fantasia in the Louvre, assembling figures from different s arcophagi. This
process of extra-polation, isolation and modification is common to many
drawings from the Antique. The draughtsman creates a visual repertories of
single figures, or isolated groups of figures which are easy to re-use in their
own compositions. From a teaching point of view, an isolated figure is probably
considered, at least in the model books and sketchbooks, to be more readily
assimilable by the apprentice in the workshop than a whole composition. A good
example of such an approach is seen in a drawing attributed to the so-called
‘Anonymous of the Ambrosiana’, from a sketchbook made in Rome in The original
model is a celebrated sarcophagus relief of the Muses, Minerva and Apollo then
in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. It was copied in drawings by several
later growing archaeological awareness, in parallel with the spread of
antiquarian studies and rising interest in the classical world and its physical
remains. On the other hand, artists display a free handling and more personal
approach to the original, as they move away from the restraints of the model
book. With the exception of Donatello, from whom he learned much, MANTEGNA is
the quattrocento artist who had the most complex and sophisticated relationship
to the antique. Mantegna’s approach is evident in the introduction of direct
quotations from ancient architecture, reliefs and sculptures in his paintings
and frescoes and in his adoption of a precise, highly sculptural painting
style. A drawing by MANTEGNA – or a copy after a drawing – executed during his stay
in Rome accurately renders a classical proto-type but with a vivacious freedom
in style. It represents one of the Trajanic reliefs inserted in the central
passage of the Arch of Constantine. MANTEGNA sketches it at an angle from the
right side and from below. He precisely records the relief’s damaged condition
by showing both the emperor and the helmeted soldier on the right without their
right hands. He interprets the composition freely, concentrating on the most
prominent actors and on the relief’s formal principle, specifically its
treatment of movement and emotion, qualities praised by Alberti as essential
for the construction of a “storia”. The flow from left to right is accentuated,
Trajan has windswept hair.The horse is shown galloping, less upright and
frontal. The mouths are wide open, as are those of the soldiers on the right,
expressing the intensity of emotion in the victory over the Dacians. A drawing
like this serves a two- fold purpose, as a study of a formal principle and a
record of antique costumes, armours, shields and helmets. Its organisational
lessons and visual references could then be re-used to demonstrate the artist’s
power of inventio and his erudite knowledge of the classical past, as Mantegna
indeed does at Mantova in his sequence of canvases of the Triumph of Caesars [Sarcophagus
of the Muses, with Apollo and Minerva, front, 2nd c. ad, marble,
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna, inv. I 171. Andrea Mantegna,
or circle of, Drawing after the Relief on the Arch of Constantine, end of the
15th century – beginning of the 16th, black chalk with brown ink, 273 × 189 mm,
Albertina, Vienna, inv. 2583r. Workshop of Pisanello, Three Nude Figures from
Ancient Roman Sarcophagi, c. 1431–32, silver point, pen and brown ink on
vellum, 194 × 273 mm, Louvre, Paris, inv. 2397]. artists, including Lippi and Franco
and it was engraved by Raimondi. The Ambrosiana draughtsman reproduces only a
few figures, changing their position and disregarding their interrelations and
the background, no doubt with the intention of assembling a range of drapery
studies that could be re-used in the future. The artist selects primarily
figures that offered the greatest variety and movement of cascading robes,
leaving the nude Apollo in the bottom right corner unfinished. Two tendencies,
apparently opposed but both symptomatic of a more profound understanding of the
antique, gains ground in sketchbooks and loose drawings. On one hand there was
a [Anonymous of the Ambrosiana, Figures from an ancient Roman Muses
Sarcophagus, c. 1460, metal point, pen and brown ink, heightened in white, on
pink prepared paper, 310 × 200 mm, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, inv. F. 214
inf.] A similar evolution is seen in drawings that reproduce FREE-STANDING
classical statuary. Not surprisingly, all are after the most famous statues
then visible in Rome which, given their size and anatomical detailing, were an
invaluable source for the study of the male body. The earliest examples are
again a group of drawings by Pisanello. They represent, among other figures,
the ANTONINO and one of the two Horse Tamers or Dioscuri on the Quirinal Hill. The
latter is especially relevant for our purpose, as the Dioscuri constitute the two
most complete free-standing nude in Rome. Both Dioscuri are copied repeatedly,
praised by contemporary written sources, and [Trajan overpowering Barbarians,
Roman, c. 117 ad, marble, Arch of Constantine, central arch, north façade, Rome
remained constant sources of inspiration for artists into the 19th century. In
a drawing of one of the Dioscuri, the draughtsman isolates the sculpture from
its context, and focuses exclusively on rendering the anatomy. The cloak on the
forearm is just outlined. Although it is an impressive achievement and while
the male nude is realised much more plausibly than those figures taken from
sarcophagus reliefs, the ELONGATION and SLIMMING
of the figure and the inaccurate rendering of the idealised anatomy betrays a Gothic
mindset. The same DIOSCURO is copied in a drawing by Gozzoli [ Equestrian
Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Roman, 161–180 ad, bronze, 424 cm (h), Capitoline
Museums, Rome, inv. MC3247. Workshop of Pisanello, Marcus Aurelius, c. 1431–32,
pen, brown ink and wash heightened in white on brown-orange prepared paper, 196
× 156 mm, CASTELLO SFORZESCO, Civico Gabinetto dei Disegni, Milan, inv. B 878
SC. One of the Two Dioscuri or Horse Tamers, Roman copy of the 2nd century ad,
after a Greek original of the 5th century bc, marble, 528 cm, Quirinal Square,
Rome] Pollaiuolo. Many are modelled on an ancient proto-type, like those being
handled and studied by the artists at Bandinelli’s academy. But ‘DISEGNO DALLA VITA’
from a posed apprentice is also widely practised and becomes increasingly
common in the final decades, especially in Florence. Another drawing by Gozzoli’s
circle shows the practice of setting a male naked LIVE MODEL in the pose of
(apres, after) “l’antico” – a contradiction: DISEGNO DALLA VITA E DALL’ANTICO. In
this case the obvious reference is the Spinario, the celebrated bronze antique
figure whose complex pose remains one of the most popular for a live model. The
use of the model book as a teaching tool disappeared but sketchbooks and the travel
book reproducing antiquities became more widespread. Their progressive
diffusion is one of the clearest indications of the spread of interest in the antique
and goes hand-in-hand with the formation of collections of antiquities and the
pursuit of antiquarian studies, such as Biondo’s influential “Roma Instaurata”,
a methodical guide to the monuments of Rome. Enthusiasm for classical art and a
more attentive study of its forms and principles is reflected in the increased
dynamism, pathos and complexity of the compositions that we can see in Italian
painting and sculpture in the work of Florentine artists like Pollaiolo,
Ghirlandaio and Lippi [Workshop of Benozzo Gozzoli, A Nude Young Man Seated on
a Block, His Right Foot Crossed over His Left Leg, c. 1460, metalpoint, over
stylus indications, grey-brown wash, heightened with white, on pink-purple
prepared paper, 226 × 150 mm, The British Museum, Department of Prints and
Drawings, London, inv. Pp, 1.7] probably executed when he was in Rome to assist
Fra Angelico in the St Nicholas Chapel in the Vatican Palace]. In this case the
drawing is again far from accurate, and the draughtsman combines the Dioscuro
with the horse held by his twin. Again the forms are isolated. As in the
earlier drawing the supporting cuirass and the strut between the right arm and
thigh are omitted as is the cloak on the forearm. The group is set against a
neutral backdrop and on the ground rather than on its pedestal. Although the
Dioscuro stands firmly, and although his anatomical structure, his surface
musculature and their modelling are rendered much more convincingly than in the
Pisanello drawing, the idealisation of the male is still not emphasised and we seem
to be looking at a real MALE taming his horse rather than at a heroic marble
statue. Although it is difficult to draw general conclusions based on such
exiguous surviving material, it seems safe to say that formost 15th-century
artists, classical free-standing statuary was seen as a model for the nude male,
its poses and movements. With notable exceptions, such as Donatello, artists
did not try to grasp the anatomical and formal principle of the original nor does
he aspire to recreate the process of idealisation innate in so many classical
nudes. For this reason, the drawings are often not immediately recognisable as
copies after the Antique (‘drawn from the antique’). The Antique could also be
copied inside the workshop using SMALL-SCALE three-dimensional models. We have
plenty of evidence about collections of antique statues, often fragments, and
the ownership of plaster casts by artists. Their presence in the work-shop is also
acknowledged in “De Sculptura” by Gaurico, who speaks of artists having
cabinets ‘filled with any sort of sculptures’ and ‘chests filled with casts’. Although
a cast may OBVIOUSLY BE TAKEN from a male naked live model, as described by
Cennini, others are ‘cast from the antique’, such as those mentioned by
Ghiberti and Squarcione, the teacher of Mantegna, whose workshop at Padova
contained a collection of antiquities. Casts and antiquities are part of the
working material of the bottega. They also serve to elevate the status of the
workshop to that of a STUDIO or STUDIUM, a place of cultivation of liberal
arts, the beginning of that process of the intellectual emancipation of the
artist that would be fully developed with the foundation of the academies. A
beautiful drawing of feet, part of a sketchbook by Gozzoli eloquently shows the
use of casts, in this case most likely taken from antique fragments, as
teaching tools in the bottega. We see here one of the earliest visual records
of a [Spinario, Roman, 1st century bc, bronze, 73 cm (h), Capitoline Museums,
Rome, inv. MC1186. Pisanello, or circle of, One of the Two Dioscuri or Horse
Tamers, c. 1431–32, silverpoint, pen and brown ink on vellum, 230 × 360 mm,
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, inv. F. 214 inf.10v. Benozzo Gozzoli (attr.), One
of the Two Dioscuri or Horse Tamers, c. 1447–49, metalpoint, grey-black wash,
heightened with lead white, on blue prepared paper, 359 × 246 mm, The British
Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London, inv. Pp, 1.18. Workshop of
Benozzo Gozzoli, Studies of Plaster Casts of Feet, c. 1460, silverpoint
heightened with white, on green prepared paper, 225 × 155 mm, Museum Boijmans
Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Benozzo Gozzoli Sketchbook, fol. 53] practice,
copying from a cast, that would expand exponentially. For the study of the naked
male and the three-dimensional form, a pupil could rely also on small models in
wax, CLAY, or bronze, provided by such sculptors as Ghiberti or Sanzio, Buonarroti,
and Rome as the Centre of the Study of the Antique. The following generation,
that of Buonarroti and Sanzio, sees a seismic shift in the approach to the antique.
They now attempted to equal or even surpass the antique by penetrating its
principles.The two titans of the High Renaissance had a radically different
approach towards the classical naked male form, but they both aime at
assimilating the ancient ‘mimetic’ or imitative standard of an idealised
naturalism, full mastery of the naked male, its anatomy and proportions, and
the convincing rendering of the EMOTION or EX-pression (or affect) of the soul.
Vinci expresses a deep interest in the Antique and is directly exposed to it
in Florence and in Rome. The classical naked male form is referenced in
many of his works, particularly in the unrealised project for an equestrian
statue of Francesco Sforza in Milan. But Vinci’s naturalism, based on empirical
observation, means that he always checks his ancient sources against the
scientific observation of the natural world. He remains a naturalist at heart,
famously stating that ‘he who copies a copy is Nature’s grandchild when he may been
her son’. On the other hand, from a practical point of view, Vinci also
acknowledges the usefulness of copying from a ‘good master’ and sculpture. While
for Vinci the Antique remains an interest secondary to Nature, Sanzio’s and
Buonarroti’s engagement with the antique is on an unprecedented level. The
immense impact that Sanzio and Buonarroti have on their own generation and on
Western art in the centuries that followed lies in the very fact that they are perceived
and celebrated as the first modern masters who had equalled, if not surpassed,
the ancients. Opie, lecturing on painting at the Royal Academy, proclaims the
‘perfection of the Arts under Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and
Raffaelle’, but their status as modern classics was already acknowledged during
their lifetime. Bembo elevates Buonarroti and Sanzio to the same pedestal of
the ‘ancient good masters’ and Vasari sustains his uncompromising panegyric of Buonarroti
by affirming that his Davide (Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence) surpasses in
beauty and measure even the best ancient monumental sculptures of Rome, in
particular the various Rivers and the Horse Tamers on the Quirinal. The Mondern,
now capable of providing an idealised nude more convincing than the most famous
surviving classical ones, outshines the Ancient. Artists of Sanzio’s and
Buonarroti’s generation have the advantage of benefiting from more, and more
readily available, ancient statuary, including those discovered in excavations
and those displayed in relatively accessible settings. However, both Vinci and
Buonarroti must already have been exposed to drawings, casts and models after
the Antique respectively in the workshops of Verrocchio and Ghirlandaio. Both
studied (although Vinci briefly) in the Giardino di San Marco, an informal
academy set up by Lorenzo il Magnifico to train artists specifically in drawing
and copying after the antique under the supervision of the sculptor Giovanni. Vasari
informs us that Buonarroti devoted himself obsessively to the task, and Condivi,
Buonarroti’ss biographer, emphatically states that the genius ‘having savoured
their beauty [...] never again goes to Ghirlandaio’s workshop or anywhere else,
but there he would stay all day, always doing something, as in the best school
for such studies’ As a pupil Sanzio probably did not receive a similar training
in the workshop of Perugino, who had less interest in the Antique. But some
drawings with reference to classical models survive and he certainly
participates in the sophisticated antiquarian environment in Florence, where he
moves. It is the impact of what Buonarroti and Sanzio see in Rome, where they
both moved that has the most far-reaching and radical impact on the evolution
of their art and their relationship with the anqique. Under the pontificates of
Rovere (Giulio II and Leone X, Rome establishes herself as the centre for the
study of the Antique. Many of the most celebrated collections of antiquities –
Medici, Farnese, Borghese, Ludovisi, Albani -- are formed or consolidated, such
as those of Riario, Maffei, and Della Valle
and later on the Cesi and the Sassi. The collection of antiquities at
the Campidoglio is enlarged with the transfer of the statues of the Rivers, the
Nile and the Tiber from the Quirinal and the Antonino from the Lateran, the
latter a statue so important for the symbolic imagery of Rome that Buonarroti
designs a square around it. However, the real centre of attention in the early
years of Buonarroti and Sanzio in Rome are the new discoveries emerging from
the soil of the city. Within a few years some of the statues that would attract
the attention of artists and connoisseurs for centuries to come are discovered,
[Anonymous engraver after Maarten van Heemskerck, The Antique Courtyard of the
Palazzo Della Valle, 1553, engraving, 289 × 416 mm, Rijksmuseum, inv.
RP-P-1996-38] provoking enormous enthusiasm among contemporaries: the Apollo del
Belvedere, the Laoconte, the Cleopatra, the Ercole Commodo, and the large
rivers Tevere and Nilo. By 1512 all could be admired, with the addition of the
Venere Felice in the Cortile Ottogono del casino della Villa del Belvedere nel
Monte Vaticano, a purpose-built space commissioned by Giulio II from Bramante,
the great interpreter of ancient Roman architecture. The Cortile, displaying
some of the most complete and prestigious sculptures from antiquity, soon
became the canonical Roman site for making a copy ‘drawn from the antique’. It
retains its unparalleled prestige, as the many drawings after its statues
eloquently attest. It is invaluable, as the Cortile del Belvedere offers them
the opportunity to study different male forms and positions and different sub-types
of ideal beauty at the same time: moving from the Apollo, to the strong and pronounced
muscular anatomy of Ercole Commodo. Two more statues are added to the
Courtyard: the Antino del Belvedere and the Torso del Belvedere. The Antino del
Belvedere is to become the canonical model for artists for the perfect
proportions of the naked male body. The Torso del Belvedere becomes one of the
most copied of all antiquities, a compulsory reference for the body of the
muscular male at rest, especially because of Buonarroti’s admiration for it and
the popular belief that he gives instructions to leave it unrestored. The
master’s praise of the evocative fragment became a leitmotif in artistic
treatises and literary sources to the point that it [Fig. 17. Hieronymous Cock
after Anonymous Draughtsman, The Capitoline Hill, 1562, etching and engraving,
155 × 212 mm, Metropolitan Museum, New York, inv. 2012.136.358] became known in
18th-century Britain as the ‘School of Michelangelo’. The Cortile del Belvedere,
the Campidoglio, and the collections in the various palazzi: Palazzo della Valle
and others, remain the privileged centres for copying the Antique in Rome. The
increasing number of accessible classical statues makes Rome a pole of
attraction, to congregate and to complete one’s education and gather on paper a
repertory of classical forms and motifs. This was a phenomenon central to the
development of art. It is evocatively
described by Bembo. Under Giulio II and Leone X both Buonarroti and Sanzio are
at the centre of the antiquarian debate and, as Bembo puts it, play an
essential role in their efforts to emulate and surpass the antique (they fail).
Indeed Vasari attributes the rise of the ‘bella maniera’, and the great
achievements of Sanzio and Buonarroti, to their familiarity and exposure to the
Belvedere statues. Even if Vasari’s words are a retrospective celebration aimed
at establishing the primacy of the Florentine and Roman schools, the spirit of
classical art permeates much of Buonarroti’s and Sanzio’s Roman production and
specific antique proto-types are evoked in many of their works. One need only
think of the inspiration Buonarroti derives from the Torso del Belvedere for
his Ignudi in the Sistine Chapel. Given their familiarity with classical
antiquity, it may seem strange therefore that very few drawings after classical
statuary by either Buonarroti or Sanzio survive. Many might have been
intentionally destroyed. Vasari recounts Buonarroti’s burning large numbers of
drawings, sketches [Fig. 18. Apollo del Belvedere, Roman copy of
the Hadrianic period (117–138 ad) after a Greek original of the 4th century bc,
marble, 224 cm (h), Vatican Museums, Rome inv. 1015 Laocoön, possibly a Roman
copy of the 1st century ad after a Greek original of the 2nd century bc,
marble, 242 cm (h), Vatican Museums, Rome, inv. 1064. Cleopatra, Roman copy of
the Hadrianic period after a Greek original of the 2nd century bc, marble, 162
(h), Vatican Museums, Rome, inv. 548] and cartoons so that none could see the
efforts of his creative process. Nonetheless, in the few surviving drawings
which bear direct references to classical models, one sees their tendency
towards ‘assimilating’ the spirit of antique forms rather than *slavishly* copying
them (as an amanuensis would). This attitude can be shown by comparing a
drawing by Aspertini after the Belvedere Cleopatra with one by Sanzio derived
from the same statue. Aspertini’s copy, paired on the facing page with one from
a relief from the Arch of Constantine, embodies the attitude typically seen in
a sketch- book: a more or less faithful rendering of the antique form, in this
case rather finished and accurate, that serves as a record. Sanzio’s drawing
represents a more evolved phase, when the ancient form takes a new shape: the
elegant and difficult pose of the body of the Cleopatra and the play of the
drapery over her intertwined [Aspertini, The Sleeping Cleopatra and a Relief
from Trajan’s Column, (verso) post 1496, pen and brown ink, over black chalk,
on two sheets conjoined, 254 × 423 mm, The British Museum, Department of Prints
and Drawings, London, Sanzio, Figure in the Pose of the Sleeping Cleopatra, c.
1509, pen and brown ink, 244 × 217 mm, Albertina, Vienna, inv. 219. Sanzio, The
Muse Calliope, detail from the Parnassus, c. 1509–10, fresco, Stanza della
Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Rome] legs are used as an inspiration for the muse Calliope
in his Vatican Parnassus. Sanzio nevertheless also produces some ‘record’
drawings. Nominated by Leo X as inspector of all the antiquities in and around
Rome and embarked on a project to reconstruct the aspect of ancient Roman
buildings based on precise architectural surveys of their remains. His method,
based on a precise analysis paired with ancient literary sources, remains
unmatched. His scholarly attitude towards classical art and his thorough
understanding of it are clearly expressed in a famous letter that he wrote to
Leo X with the help of the courtier Castiglione in which he appeals against the
destruction of classical monuments. At the same time, he provides an
outstandingly accurate description of the different styles of ancient sculpture
found on the Arch of Constantine. One of the very few surviving exact copies of
classical statues in Sanzio’s hand is indicative of his precise, almost [Hendrik
III Van Cleve, Detail from View of Rome from the Belvedere of Innocent VIII,
1550, oil on panel, 55.5 × 101.5 cm, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique,
Brussels, inv. 6904. Pseudo-Antino del Belvedere, Roman copy of the Hadrianic
period after a Greek original of the 4th century bc, marble, 195 cm (h),
Vatican Museums, Rome, inv. 907. Belvedere Torso, Greek or Roman, 1st century
bc, marble, 159 cm (h), Vatican Museums, Rome, inv. 1192] archaeological
approach to the Antique, and we can assume that he produced similar ones during
his period as inspector of Roman antiquities. It is a clear rendering of one of
the two horses from the Horse Tamers on the Quirinal, that we encountered in
Gozzoli’s study. There could not be a better comparison to demonstrate the
progress made in the understanding of classical statuary. Sanzio’s drawing is
‘scientific’. We clearly recognise that the horse is a piece of marble
sculpture, with a faithful record of its missing left leg and the joint between
the neck and the body. The horse is COPIED, i. e. DRAWN AT EYE LEVEL (Sanzio presumably
stood on a platform) and not seen from below, as in most other contemporary
views. This allows the proper study of the proportion of the sculpture, in a
way similar to an architectural elevation. Outstandingly, even the measurements
of the statue are recorded on the drawing, probably by one of his pupils,
making this the first surviving measured drawing of a classical statue. Incidentally
Sanzio’s drawing also shows the introduction of a new medium – red chalk –
which would become one of the preferred tools for drawing after the Antique. It
is likely, nevertheless, that Sanzio generally left making such specific
records of classical sculptures to the pupils of his large workshop, as several
surviving drawings in the hand of Romano and Polidoro da Caravaggio, among
others, attest. Some of these were probably intended to be engraved, as it is
in Sanzio's circle that we find the first printed images of celebrated statues
and reliefs, such as those of Raimondi, Marco [Sanzio The Right Horse of the
Horse Tamers on the Quirinal Hill, c. 1513, red chalk and pen and brown ink
over indentations with the stylus, 219 × 275 mm, National Gallery of Art,
Washington D.C., inv. 1993.51.3.a, Woodner Collection. Buonarroti, Study of an
Antique Torso of Venus, c. 1524, black chalk, 256 × 180 mm, The British Museum,
Departments of Prints and Drawings, London, inv. 1859,0625.570. Buonarroti, A
Youth beckoning; A Right Leg, c. 1504–05, pen and brown ink, black chalk, 375 ×
230 mm, The British Museum, Departments of Prints and Drawings, London, inv.
1887,0502.117. Romano
(attr.), Apollo del Belvedere, c. 1513–15, pen and brown ink, pencil, 316 × 155
mm, Albertina, Vienna, inv. 22449. Veneziano, Apollo
Belvedere, engraving, c. 1518–20, 269 × 169 mm, private collection. Dente and
Agostino Veneziano (c. 1490–after 1536; fig. 29). The print medium, which plays
a crucial role in disseminating the knowledge of the Antique is to be
increasingly used in work-shops and academies for training. One first copies
the Antique from a flat image, before turning to the third dimension of a cast or
an original. Sanzio’s approach towards the Antique, based on study,
measurement, reconstruction and dissemination, cannot be more distant from that
of Buonarroti, who constantly confronts the classical models with a challenging
spirit. Several anecdotes reported by contemporaries reveal his approach
towards antiquity. Boissard informs us that shortly after having seen the Laooconte
emerging from the ground of the Esquiline, Buonarroti enthusiastically comments
that it is ‘a singular miracle of art in which we should grasp the divine
genius of the sculptor rather than trying to make an imitation of it’.This
quotation is poignant for understanding the Platonic concept of divine
inspiration for Buonarroti. At the same time it shows clearly that his
relationship with the antique model was not based on a process of imitation but
rather on that of ‘aemulatio,’ a creative rivalry possible only after the
assimilation and internalisation of its principle. This approach is reinforced
in a celebrated passage from Vasari which became a recurrent leitmotif in
subsequent art literature – in which he reports that Buonarroti creates figures
of nine, ten or even twelve heads high, searching only for the overall grace in
the artistic creation, because in matter of the proportion, ‘it is necessary to
have the compass in the eyes and not in the hand, because the hands *work* and
the eyes *judge*’. Advocating the principle of grace, consistency of artistic
creation, and the artist’s own judgement, Buonarroti therefore disregards the
canon of *eight* heads comprising the male figure established by Vitruvio,
implicitly expressing a relation with the classical proto-type based on empathy
and intimate understanding of its form, rather than on a rational adherence to a
rule based on a number– an approach he replicates in his architecture. Buonarroti’s
surviving copies after classical statues can be counted on one hand, such as a
series of reproducing the torso of an antique Venus, probably made in
preparation for one of the female figures in the Medici Chapel. His free
relationship with the Antique emerges from many of his drawings, for instance
the Beckoning Youth, loosely inspired by the Apollo del Belvedere. Buonarroti evokes
the pose and aspect of the celebrated statue, but turns it into something new,
where the hint of movement of the original is dramatically accentuated and
balance is replaced by unstable dynamism. Sanzio and Buonarroti have been
discussed at length because their different attitudes towards classical forms
resurface constantly in Art. This polarity may be defined as assimilating the
principles of the Antique by sticking to its rules and system of proportions OR
assimilating the creative spirit of the Antique by breaking its rules. At the
risk of oversimplification we could argue that Reni and Poussin fall within the
first sphere and Rubens and Bernini in the second. It is not by chance that the
classicist credo that permeates the Italian and French academies for most of
their history elects *Sanzio* as their champion, while the eccentric and unruly
Buonarroti remains a figure more difficult to celebrate from a didactic point
of view. The Antique in Theory plays a Role in the Academic ‘Alphabet of
Drawing’. More statues emerge from the soil of Rome and those already
discovered are given new life and integrity by partial or full ‘restoration’. A
statue is usually unearthed in fragmentary states, as can be seen from the
evocative drawings of Roman collections by Heemskerck. Whether philologically
correct or not, the practice of restoration allows one to copy the naked male in
its entirety rather than in mutilated fragments. Celebrated restorations
included those of the Apollo del Belvedere and the Laooconte by MONTORSI on the
recommendation of Buonarroti. Among the excavated statues three must be
mentioned as they immediately became constant references for artists. The place
of honour goes to the Ercole Farnese. It provides an ideal model for the
muscular male at rest and copies after it become ubiquitous in artists’
work-shops and academies. The other two statues are discovered together in and
immediately entered the collection of the Villa Medici in Rome: I LOTTATORI,
representing two males in a complexly interlocked ‘syntagma’ or group.
I LOTTATORI are used often in later academies as a source for posing TWO LIVE
MODELS – SYNTAGMA DISEGNATO DALLA VITA (see cats 16 and 27b); and the Niobe Group
whose suffering expressions would be widely referenced as a source for drama
and pathos, for instance by Reni, among others. In time, a standard set of
ideal types (to use Weber’s term) begins to take shape, thanks to the diffusion
of bronze and plaster casts and, especially, of prints. After the loose sheets
of Raimondi, Dente and Veneziano, more systematic enterprises are launched.
Collections such as SPECVLVM ROMANÆ MAGNIFICENTIÆ by Lafréry or ANTIQVARVM STATVARVM URBIS ROMAE by
Cavalieri, play a crucial role in the wide dissemination of a canonical
selection of classical statues, thus attracting more and more artists to Rome
to study the originals. This tendency towards codification also affects the
relationship of artists and art writers with the Antique, as the imitation of
classical statuary is given theoretical underpinning. At the same time the
Antique acquires a clear role within the curricula of the emerging academies as
a teaching tool, systemising a practice that, as we have seen, is already
widely diffused within Renaissance workshops. Art theory in general goes
through a process of radical systematization. Many artists and writers feel that
rules are required to give ‘ars’ an intellectual frame-work that would lift its
status from ‘mechanical’ to ‘liberal’ arts – (as in M. A. Magister in Arts, MA
before DPhil Lit Hum) an ambition dating back to the writings of Alberti. Most
theoreticians and artists believe that a codified precept is also vital to
inculcating the ‘correct’ principle in an age that they considered to be one of
artistic corruption. Armenini speaks explicitly of the ‘pain’ that masters like
Sanzio and Buonarroti would have felt in seeing the art of his own time. And
Armenini, Lomazzo, Zuccaro and others, notwithstanding differences among them,
consider that the rule can be inferred from study of the best examples of the
great Renaissance masters and those of antiquity. The latter especially, it was
thought, would provide with correct proportions and anatomy and inculcate the ideal
standard. A foundation of this theoretical effort is provided by the
assimilation of Artistotle’s Poetica, the first reliable Latin translation of
which circulated widely. Since no comprehensive treatise on painting had [Cavalieri,
The Laocoön, engraving plate 4, from Antiquarum statuarum urbis Romae, Rome,
1585] readily found in his work. For him the best ancient sculptures embodied
the supreme quality of ‘grazia’, which cannot be attained by study but only by
judgement – a concept that remains one of the central tenets of Italian art
theory. Vasari’s Lives also proclaims the superiority of the Central Italian
School of painting, based on ‘disegno’ to the Venetian one, based on ‘colore’,
initiating a debate over the respective merits of the two traditions. Although
traditionally the Venetians aim at imitating nature directly on the canvas
through colour and therefore are less attached to the laborious practice of
drawing after the antique, classical statuary plays a role in the formation of
many Venetian painters, and casts are used in their workshops. Tintoretto, for
instance, owns a large collection of casts and reductions of ancient and modern
sculptures. The importance attached to the study of the Antique by all the
Italian schools of painting is shown by the fact that one of the very first
consistent formulations of the principle of the ‘imitation’ of classical
statuary is to be found in Dolce’s “Dialogo della pittura.” Dolce’s “Dialogo
della pittura” contains the strongest defence of the Venetian tradition against
the Vasarian point of view. It also contains, if not fully developed, most of
the fundamental elements of the artistic theory. Dolce clearly specifies that
in the search for the perfect proportion of the naked male, the artist should ‘*partly*
imitate nature’ and partly ‘the best marbles and bronzes of the antient [sic]
masters’, because through them he can ‘correct’ this or that defects of this or
that living form – the live model -- as they are ‘examples of perfect beauty’, an
ideal version of Nature. But in Dolce we find also a warning against regarding
the copying of ancient sculpture as an end in itself rather than the means by
which an artist creates his own ideal artistic forms – something already
stressed by Vasari in his Lives. An ancient statue is to be ‘imitated’ with
‘judgement’, to avoid turning a pleasing trait into a formula or, worse, an eccentricity.
This warning would be repeated frequently, notably, y Rubens and Bernini and it
could lead to open opposition to copying the Antique. Similar advice appears in
Armenini’s Veri Precetti della Pittura. Armenini’s “VERI PRECETTI DELLA
PITTURA” is quite systematic and offers one of the most articulated approaches
towards the role of the Antique in the artist’s education. Many of Armenini’s ideas
and much of his advice would becomes standard practice. In the chapter on
‘disegno’, Armenini states that to acquire the ‘bella’ or ‘buona
[The Farnese Hercules, Roman copy of the 3rd century ad of a Greek
original of the 4th century bc, marble, 317 cm (h), MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO
NAZIONALE, Napoli, inv. 6001. I LOTTATORI.
Roman copy of a Greek original of the 3rd century bc, marble, 89 cm (h), Uffizi,
Firenze, inv. 216. The Niobe, possibly Roman copy of a Greek original of the
4th century bc, marble, 228 cm (h), Uffizi, Firenze, inv. 294] survived from
antiquity, the Poetics, together with Orazio’s Ars Poetica, offer a theoretical
structure that could be transferred from the literary disciplines to visual art
– justified by Orazio’s celebrated motto ‘ut pictura poesis’, ‘as is painting
so is poetry’. More relevant from our perspective, Aristotle’s Poetica provides,
in several passages, an authoritative ancient source for the principle that art
may ‘perfect’ nature to create an ideal model – a concept implied but never
clearly defined by Alberti – and which constituted one of the most solid bases
for the classicist doctrine of art. This Aristotelian trend had a
counter-balance in a neo-Platonic tendency in which ideal beauty does not
derive from Nature but is infused in the mind of the artist by God, two
approaches that at times were combined by the same author, such as Lomazzo or
Zuccaro. But whether of Aristotelian or Platonic origins, or indeed a
combination of both, the principle of imitation of those works of art that had
already accomplished idealisation – particularly the antique statue – becomes one
of the leitmotifs of Italian art theory (v. Dorfles, “Natura e Artificio”). The
most important writer on art of the Renaissance, Vasari, firmly establishes the
primacy of disegno, design or drawing, as the intellectual part of art, the
‘parent’ of the three sister arts of architecture, sculpture and painting. In
his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects drawing is described
as the physical, sensible manifestation EX-pression of an idea, encompassing
‘all the objects in nature’. Although he does not provide a theoretical case
for drawing after the Antique, nonetheless passages referring to the impact
that classical statues have on artists are maniera’ of the great
Renaissance masters, the student needs fully to assimilate through drawing
those principles of the ancient statues that those Renaissance masters
themselves copy, as they embody the best of Nature. Armenini’s importance lies
also in the fact that he is the first to list the specific statues and reliefs to
copy and to praise the didactic use of plaster casts, of which he saw many
collections throughout Italy – testifying to a practice that must already have
been quite widespread. The imitation of the Antique also becomes a central
tenet of the earliest art academies. Deriving their name from the ancient
philosophical Academy (Hekademos) of Plato, an ‘accademia’ is intended as a venue
for the cultivation of the practical, but even more, the intellectual aspects
of art. Its role is conceived in parallel and not in opposition to the artist’s
workshop, where the apprentices is still supposed to learn art’s technical
rudiments. One of the first mentions of the word ‘accademia’ in conjunction
with art is found in the first object shown in this catalogue, the Accademia del
Belvedere run by BANDINELLI eengraved by Veneziano. This depicts an ‘accademia’
centred on disegno set up in the Belvedere, where Leo X gives him quarters. It
shows artists learning how to draw the naked male and it is significant that
the focus of their attention is a series of statuettes modelled after a classical
proto-type. This, and the later view of Bandinelli’s Florentine Academy, are
the very first examples of an iconographical genre: the image of an accademia,
workshop, studio, often created with a programmatic or didactic purpose,
showing pupils learning the different branches of art or going through
different stages in their education. Just glancing at the works illustrated in the
catalogue shows how the presence of the Antique becomes progressively relevant.
The centrality of disegno and the naked male is firmly stressed by the
institutional, more organised, ‘accademia’.. The first, and a model for all
future academies, was the aptly named ‘Accademia del Disegno,’ – or ‘dei
disegnanti’ -- founded in Florence by Cosimo de’ Medici on the initiative of
Vasari. Its aim is to emancipate the artist from guild control, and to affirm
the intellectual status of the art.The two most significant academies that
followed before the are ‘Gl’Incamminati’, or ‘Accademia degl’incamminati,
founded in Bologna by the three Carraccis, and the Accademia di San Luca in
Rome, relaunched and given a didactic curriculum under Zuccaro. These academies
– although there were significant differences among them, and often huge
discrepancies between the theory they supported and the everyday teaching they
practised – proposes a system that could give a broad education to aspiring
artists. This usually included the study of mathematics, geometry and
perspective, to teach the student how to represent space rationally; and of
anatomy, the antique and the live model, -- DISEGNO DALL’ANTICO, DISEGNO DALLA
VITA -- to teach him to master the correct depiction of the naked male. We can
see an idealised version of early academic practices in a complex and
fascinating drawing by Stradano,
engraved by Cort, where the stress is on anatomy, the Antique and on the three
arts of disegno. Similar practices are illustrated in an etching by Alberti
showing a structured curriculum of studies involving anatomical dissection,
geometry, the Antique and architectural drawing. These studies codify artistic
exercises (and give a bad name to ‘academic’) that had been current from the
early Renaissance onwards but important new teaching structures were
introduced. These include a rotating academic staff, a competition and a prize,
and an organised debate on artistic questions and they are supported especially
by the regulations of the Accademia di San Luca. Although we do not know to
what extent and how effectively these new structures functioned in the first
decades of the Roman institution, they soon spread to other academies, becoming
the model for the Académie Royale in Paris. All these institutions strongly
advocate the copy of the Antique, both in plaster reproduction or in the
original. The Accademia del Disegno supervises drawing from the Antique both in
the Academy and in the workshops where apprentices were trained. It also owns a
‘libreria’, which includes drawings, models of statues, architectural plans,
and ancient sculpture, all used as teaching tools. The Accademia di San Luca
lists the copying after the Antique in its first statutes and receives a donation of casts, while numerous
plasters – such as reliefs from Trajan’s Column, the bust and the head of the
Laocoonte, one of the Horse Tamers of the Quirinal, the Torso del Belvedere and
many other entire or in fragments – appear in its early inventories. The
importance accorded by Zuccaro, the founder of the Roman Academy’s curriculum,
to the thorough study of Rome’s most famous statues, emerges from his wonderful
drawing of his brother, Taddeo sketching the Laocoonte at the Belvedere. The
series to which this drawing belongs, produced around the same time as the
foundation of the Accademia di San Luca, illustrates the ideal training that am
artist should follow: imitation of the Antique and the works of Renaissance
masters, such as Sanzio’s Stanze and Loggie, Buonarroti’s Last Judgment and
Polidoro’s painted façades. Another sketch, by a Zuccaro follower, depicts Zuccaro
himself in the Accademia, surrounded by students sketching after the cast of an
ancient torso. The Carracci academy too, although primarily focused on
life-drawin (DISEGNO DALLA VITA), advocates study of the Antique and we know
that Carracci makes his collection of drawings, medals and casts available for
students. Early academies also codified a teaching model, defined as the
‘alphabet of drawing’ or the ‘ABC’ method, which, in a less regulated form, was
already established within work-shops and which would have a long-lasting
impact. This contributes significantly to giving the Antique a fixed place
within teaching curricula. Modelled on the learning of grammar, the ‘alphabet’ is
a sequence that encourage students to advance from elementary unity to complex
whole and from the simple and similar to the varied and different. The scheme
once again originated in Alberti, who advises a painter to follow the method
practiced by teachers of writing, from the alphabet to whole words. So the beginner
is supposed to learn first ‘the outlines of surfaces, then the way in which
surfaces are joined together, and after that the forms of all the members
individually; and they should commit to memory all the differences that can
exist in those members’. He recommends the same process for the study of the
male anatomy: starting from the bones, proceeding to the sinews and muscles,
and finally to the flesh and skin. An iincreased stress on the naked male means
that pupils often start from the eye, then assembles different parts of the
body in ever more intricate combinations, and finally reaches the whole naked
male, via the study of ancient sculpture AND the live model. Benvenuto [Workshop
of Federico Zuccaro, A Group of Artists Copying a Sculpture, c. 1600, 190 × 264
mm, pen, black and red chalk on prepared paper, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan,
inv. F 261 inf. n. 128, p. 125] Cellini reports that starting with the eye is
the common practice and advised, like Alberti, a similar process for the study
of anatomy. This process is reflected in the various images of early academies
or studios, such as Stradanus’ The Practice of the Visual Arts, where one pupil
is shown drawing an eye on his sheet, or Alberti’s Painters’ Academy where an artist
is presenting a similar drawing to his master. A parallel progression led the
student from simplicity to complexity in the depiction of outlines, surfaces,
chiaroscuro, poses and expressions: from copying objects in the same medium and
in two dimensions, to the imitation of three-dimensional figure. The process
usually starts with copying a drawing or print, then paintings, first in
grisaille and then in colour, moving onto ancient sculpture [PRELIMINARY to the
LIVE MODEL – drawn from life], either originals or casts, and, FINALLY, to the
live model. This progression, already outlined by Vinci in his treatise on
painting, and advocated also by Vasari, is codified by Armenini, the first to
list all its stages while simultaneously assigning a central role to classical
statuary in providing a model for ideal forms. Armenini delineates both the
progression from the eye to the whole body and from a drawing or print to the
live model (via the preliminary of the ‘drawn from the antique’, and warned the reader not to subvert this
order. The earliest academies applied this method and Zuccaro’s statutes of the
Accademia di San Luca, which are the most explicit, specifically mentioned the
‘alphabet’ or ‘ABC’ of drawing. It becomes standard practice in academies. The aim is, as most writers reiterated, to
assimilate this repertory of forms through constant study and the exercise of
memory, as to finally be able to create a form from imagination – for a
mythological heroic figure -- *independent* of any object of imitation
(IMITATUM). The ‘alphabet of drawing’ has its physical manifestation in the
publication of the drawing-book, conceived in the environment of the Carracci
academy, such as Fialetti’s “Il vero modo”. The diffusion of such manuals contributed
enormously to spreading the knowledge of the didactic role of the Antique to
artists who makes a grand tour to Rome a compulsory part of his education. Odoardo
Fialetti, Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del
corpo humano, Venice, c. 1608, etching, 100 × 140 mm, The Bellinheger Collection].
Rome establishes herself as the preeminent centre for anyone
eager to assimilate the principle of Italian art. The first significant artist,
and one of the greatest of all to do the tour to the Belvedere with the specific
educational intent, is Dürer. Durer spends the years in Rome. The impact of
classical statuary is evident in many of his prints and paintings, for example,
in his “Adam and Eve”. But the largest number of artists to travel to Rome
originates from the Low Countries. Coming from a powerful and influential
pictorial tradition that privileged an analytical representation of nature, and
having received little or no exposure to classical antiquity in their training,
Netherlandish artists seek especially to learn how to master the naked male
through the lessons of the Antique and the works of Sanzio and Buonarroti. Rome
offers also the opportunity of training in one of its many workshops and the
appealing possibility of benefiting from the system of commissions. Indeed the
‘fiamminghi’, as they are called in Rome, gain an increasing number of
commissions, eventually, in their turn, influencing the Roman art world. Some
of them stayed for long periods or moved permanently, such as Stradanus, Giambologna
– il ratto delle sabine, il mcurio di Medici -- or Tetrode. We know about the
Roman years of many of these artists mainly thanks to Mander’s “Schilderboeck”,
the earliest systematic account of Netherlandish and Northern European
painters, based on Vasari’s “Vite”. The approach of these artists towards the
Antique could be varied and multi-faceted. Most fill their sketchbooks with
drawings that served as a collection of forms to be re-used. Others, like
Spranger, according to Van Mander, aim to assimilate the principles of
classical art to establish a repertoires of forms and an attitude towards the
naked male that could be infused in their own creations, rather than spending
too much time in the physical act of drawing. Although ‘Mabuse’ is the first
Fleming to pass time in the peninsula, it was only with Scorel that the lesson
of antiquity was transmitted, through his work-shop at Utrecht. Of his various
pupils, Heemskerck is certainly the most prolific and versatile in copying
antique statuary. Two albums from the
years he spent in Rome are preserved in Berlin. They constitute one of
the largest surviving collections of copies after the Antique and are filled
with exceptional drawings in different media and size, offering an invaluable
opportunity to categorise the many different approaches to classical statuary
that can be described as record drawings. Many are topographical views of Rome
in which Heemskerck indulges in the depiction of architectural ruins and
sculptural fragments, and which he later reuses in imaginary landscapes. Some
of his views are poetic meditations on the colossal ruins of the city, physical
reminders of the passage of time, of human grandeur and fragility, a mood he
shared with other artists, such as Herman [Heemskerck, View of the Santacroce
Statue Court, 1532–37, pen and brown ink, 136 × 213 mm, Staatliche Museen zu
Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Heemskerck Album I,
fol. 29r] Posthumus. Other drawings are more or less accurate depictions of
classical statues in their physical locations, from the Belvedere to the Campidoglio,
to Roman private courtyards and gardens (figs 16 and 38), where the antiquities
are shown in their still fragmentary state. In numerous detailed drawings
focusing on single statues, we see Heemskerck’s different approaches to copying
the Antique and, correspondingly, the different media he employs to do so. His
drawings range from the precise pen-and-ink study, in which he faithfully
records the condition of celebrated statues, isolating the head as a physiognomic
type to a drawing where the whole statue is presented FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES, to
record the different poses and volumes of the naked male in space. He also makes
copies in which he exploits the softness of red chalk to study anatomical
details, assembling parts from different statues on the same sheet and focusing
on torsos and legs, sometimes even disregarding the face, the drapery or other
details. Finally, in yet other red chalk drawings he carefully records
decorative details from a statue or a relief. The variety of techniques
and handling deployed in these [Fig. 39. (top left) Maarten van Heemskerck,
Head of the Laocoön, 1532–36, pen and brown ink, 136 × 211 mm, Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Heemskerck
Album I, fol. 39r. Heemskerck, Two Studies of the Head of the Apollo Belvedere,
1532–36, pen and brown ink, 136 × 211 mm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Heemskerck Album I, fol. 36v. Heemskerck,
Three Studies of a Fragmentary Statue of a Crouching Venus in the Palazzo
Madama, 1532–36, pen and brown ink, 135 × 210 mm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Heemskerck Album I, fol. 06v. Heemskerck,
Studies of Three Torsos and a Leg from Classical Statues in the Casa Sassi,
1532–33, red chalk, 135 × 211 mm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Heemskerck Album I, fol. 51v. Heemskerck,
The Right Foot of the So-Called ‘Colossal Genius’, 1532–33, red chalk, 135 ×
208 mm, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Kupferstichkabinett, Heemskerck Album I, fol. 65v ] copies allowed him to
find appropriate solutions to the variety of problems posed by the style and
condition of the works that he copied. The result is a stunning visual
repertory that is easy to access and use, and which would inspire him when he
returned home. Several Frenchmen also established their residence in Rome. Many
of them, such as Beatrizet, Lafréry, or Dupérac, specialise in engraved views
of the city and its ancient remains, catering to a market increasingly
fascinated by Rome’s ruins and statues. In one engraving attributed to
Beatrizet, we find a rare image of an artist in the act of copying from ancient
statuary in situ – in this case the famous colossal “Grande Bellezza” Marforio,
at that time located in the Forum now in the courtyard of the Palazzo Nuovo of
the Campidoglio. The image clearly expresses the sense of awe that one feels in
front of the grandeur of the remains of Roman classical statuary. The
fragmentary condition of so much monumental sculpture inspired thoughts about
the fragility of the human condition and the ultimate insignificance of worldly
troubles, which, as the inscription on the print remarks, the old Marforio
‘does not consider worth a single penny’. It is against this backdrop that we
must consider Goltzius’ draughtsmanly activity in Rome, where he arrived almost
certainly on the recommendation of his friend Mander, who had already been in
Italy. Goltzius was then is celebrated as an [Fig. 44. Beatrizet (attr.), An
Artist Drawing the ‘Marforio’, 1550, engraving, 370 × 432 mm, published in
Antoine Lafréry’s Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae] engraver throughout Europe.
With Mander and Haarlem he establishes an academy in Haarlem. Although we know
almost nothing about this artistic association, it must have involved
discussions about the Antique and its representation among the three friends,
who had the advantage of direct access to Heemskerck’s Roman drawings, then
owned by Cornelisz. It is therefore significant that while in Rome, Goltzius takes
an approach to classical statuary that is very different from Heemskerck’s. Goltzius
concentrates from the beginning on *thirty* of the most famous classical
statues, of which 43 drawings in total survive. Goltzius’s drawings are highly
finished and unprecedentedly detailed, carefully recording the tonal passages
on the muscles of the statues. The viewpoint is almost always close and frontal
to the statue, or exploits the most dramatic or informative angle. Most importantly,
unlike almost all of his predecessors, who fill single pages of their
sketchbooks with details from unrelated sculptures, he devotes a full page to *each*,
a practice followed by Rubens. Goltzius’s intent from the beginning is clearly
to produce a drawing that may be transformed into an engravings capable of
surpassing in precision all previously published series, and which, in
faithfully reproducing the volume of the naked male, would also demonstrate his
renowned virtuosity in handling the burin. His set is intended for a market of
connoisseurs and collectors, but it is also likely that Goltzius wishes to
provide anyone with correct and detailed images of classical statues that they
could copy during their apprenticeships. Goltzius engraves only three plates,
one of which, significantly, shows an artist at work copying the celebrated
Apollo del Belvedere. A few years after Goltzius’s tour to Rome, Rubens arrives.
He spends two prolonged periods in Rome. Rubens constitutes a special case,
being the perfect embodiment of the humanistic ideal of the artist-scholar: the
son of a wealthy Antwerp family, highly educated in the classics and socially
accomplished, Rubens arrives in Rome already equipped with a thorough
understanding of the Antique and its literary sources, a passion he cultivates throughout
his life with his circle of scholarly friends and patrons. Rubens’s approach
towards classical statuary is therefore fascinating, complex and varied.
Rubens’ appetite for the most famous ancient statues must have been stimulated
already in Antwerp through the engravings by Raimondi and his pupils and
through those in the collections published by Lafréry and De Cavalieri. When in
Rome Rubens devotes himself completely to copying this or that original with
unique thoroughness, both to exercise his draughtsmanship and to create an
immense repertory of forms, to which he refers for inspiration throughout his
life. His approach towards classical statuary istwofold. One is purely intellectual,
focused on understanding the mathematical proportions and volumes of this or
that emblematic antique which he divides into different categories according to
muscular strength, to capture the very essence of their perfection. The other is
more direct: to study the statue exhaustively in order to assimilate its formal
principle For Rubens it is not only necessary to ‘understand the antique’, but
‘to be so thoroughly possessed of this knowledge, that it may diffuse itself
everywhere’. Unlike Goltzius, Rubens studies a statue over and over again,
copying it from many, and often unusual, points of view, devoting a single page
to each. No one before Rubens shows such a painstaking interest in
understanding the formal logic of a single statue intended as a whole. Rubens’s
focus on the naked male – to learn the principles of a perfect naked male – on specificslly ‘muscular’ masculine male
statues, such the Laocoonte, the Torso del Belvedere, and the Ercole Farnese
and his choice of the most favourable points of view, may reflect the specific
advice and examples given in Lomazzo’s Trattato and in Armenini’s Veri Precetti.
But, as Dolce and Armenini had already done before him, Rubens also cautions to
focus on the form and not on the matter of the statue, to avoid the ‘smell’ in a
drawing or a creation. Rubens is aware of the danger of transferring the
characteristics and limits of a three-dimensional medium (is flesh the medium
of the live model?) into another – drawing or painting. In a section titled “De
Imitatione Statuarum” of a larger theoretical notebook that he compiles over
several years, Rubens refers to painters who ‘make no distinction between the
form and the matter -- the ‘figura’ and the flesh, with the result
that ‘instead of ‘imitating’ living flesh from the life of nature, they
only represent marble tinged with various colours’. We can see Rubens’s genius
at re-vitalising the ‘inert’ substance of the antique model as if it were a
live model to be drawn from life, by applying his principle of inventive and
transformative imitation in most of his drawings after the Antique, for which
he uses soft chalk on rough paper better to ‘re-translate’ the substance back into
the natural living flesh, as if drawn from life. This is particularly evident
in muscular figures such as the Torso del Belvedere and the Laocoonte, which he
brings back to life, to the life Virgil instilled Laocoonte with, or Aiace had.
-- adopting a dramatic angle and a diagonal that completely abandons the
static [Rubens, The Back of the Belvedere Torso, c. 1601–02, red
chalk, 395 × 260 mm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 2002.12b] and
the academic frontal point of view of most academic drawings. This attention to
the qualities of the naked male skin and flesh, and the dynamism, pathos, and
drama that he learns mainly from classically Roman – but POST-classically
Greek] statuary is to become the main traits of his own art. In this he is following
in the footsteps of Buonarroti, who, not by chance, Rubens copied extensively,
focusing especially on the nudes of the Sistine Chapel and on his statues. Rubens
adopts a similar approach to the live model, which he often poses in attitudes
reminiscent of an antique – such as the Spinario, or the Wrestlers. Unsurprisingly,
he frequently cited the Laocoonte and the Torso, but the most recurrent is the
Spinario in the Campidoglio – even though the head is not the original one -- for
which several drawings of the complex pose made from different angles survive. The Spinario pose is already chosen by one of
the pupils of Gozzoli for this particular purpose of the antique-imitating live
model, and it remains one of the most popular, even, easiest, for posing the
live model – everyone has a thorn! -- Rubens’s drawings of the Spinario convey
the essence of Rubens’s attitude towards the ideal human form, and the
Spinario’s attitude towards his own thorn. By posing flesh as imitatiang
another substance imitating flresh, Rubens – or the artist who does this -- is
able to bypass the dangers of the ‘matter’ to focus only on the complex form and
pose of the original statue or statuary group or syntagma (think Lottatori!). Back
in Antwerp, Rubens retains until his death his drawings after the Antique,
bound together in separate books, as a distinctive part of the collection of
his house-museum, which hosted also numerous antiquities. They remain a
constant source of inspiration and they may also have been used as teaching
tools – as in the best tradition of Renaissance workshop practices – judging by
the copies deposited by his pupils in the cantoor, Rubens’s cabinet or studio.
The flux of artists coming to Rome did not cease, although most become
fascinated by the radical naturalism of Caravaggio and his followers, rather than
aiming at recreating the principles of classical art. A group of artists even
develops a successful speciality in the depiction of contemporary Roman street
life and everyday reality: a rustic tavern, a drinking scenes, brigands, street
vendors, charlatans and carnivals. The art of the ‘Bamboccianti’, so named
after their leader, Laer, dubbed ‘Bamboccio’, or ‘ugly puppet’, is fiercely
criticised as a debased form of art that deliberately chose the ‘worst’ of nature
(cf. verismo, and the customs of realistic naturalism) by the supporters of
classicism and history painting, such as Albani, Sacchi, and Rosa, as well as
by the philosophers of ‘ideal beauty’ such as Bellori. In contrast to the
Dutch, among the foreign communities in Rome, it was the French who are to take
the lead in the cause of classicism, the defence of Ideal Beauty and the copy
and study of the Antique. The contrasting attitudes of artists towards the
study of art in Rome is perfectly visualised in a canvas by Goubau, a Flemish
painter influenced by the Bamboccianti, who had been in Rome. On the right,
judicious [Rubens, Study of the Laocoön Seen from the Back, c. 1606–08, black
chalk, 440 × 283 mm, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, inv. 624, F 249 inf. n. 5,
p. 11. Rubens, Study of the Younger Son FIGLIO PIU GIOVANE of the Laocoön Seen
from the Back, black chalk, 444 × 265 mm, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, inv.
623, F 249 inf. n. 5, p. 11] artists under the supervision of a master are busy
at work among imaginary Roman ruins, copying and measuring an ancient statue or
a relief, among them the ERCOLE FARNESE; on the left the Bamboccianti indulge
in the pleasures of wine and music under the pergola of a rustic tavern. Nevertheless,
this wittily expressed opposition should not be taken too literally, as the
educational and inspirational role of classical statuary had been deeply
assimilated by artists of every inclination or aesthetic Many move between
genres and artistic currents such as the Flemish genre painter Lint, who
produced many drawings after the Antique while in Rome. Even those close to the
Bamboccianti clearly treasured the didactic role of classical statuary, as can
be seen in the depictions of workshops and artists at work by the Flemish Sweerts.
The Antique, and its didactic role in the Italian model of artistic education,
also made rapid progress in all of civilised Europe, supported by the
publication of Karel van Mander’s Schilderboeck. Knowledge was transmitted
mainly through drawings, drawing-books and plaster casts. These are used in the
drawing schools or private academies that proliferate, some of which were
founded by the same artists who had been exponents of the Bamboccianti in Rome.
These drawing schools often had to struggle against regulations by the guilds,
which remained the dominant associations for artists, dictating what goes on in
a workshop – the notable exception being the academy founded in Antwerp by
royal [Goubau, The Study of Art in Rome, 1662, oil on canvas, 132 × 165 cm,
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. 185] decree. But despite the heavy
hands of the guilds, many thriving workshops, while accepting individual
apprentices, adopt *Italian* academic practices, such as conducting classes for
groups of students, or implementing a training programme focused on drawing and
the mastery of the human form. This often included the ‘alphabet of drawing’,
as was the practice of Rembrandt’s studio in Amsterdam, in which many students were
taught annually, and of Rubens, who, as court painter, did not have to register
his apprentices with the Antwerp guild.142 According to Van Mander, another
studio famous for its educational efficacy was that of Abraham Bloemaert in
Utrecht (see cat. 11).143 During the second half of the century, other private
drawing schools or ‘colleges’ were founded, which cater for a clientele of
artists or the dilettanti giving them the chance to draw from casts and the
nude live model alongside their studio practice. Among the most famous are those
of Sweerts, opened in Brussels and of Bisschop in The Hague. Closely connected
with workshops’ and schools’ drawing practices was the proliferation of
drawing-books and artists’ manuals. Most of them were based on the example of
Odoardo Fialetti’s Il Vero Modo and Giacomo Franco’s De excellentia et
nobilitate delineationis (1611) sometimes re- printing parts of them.147 Like
their Italian predecessors, Netherlandish drawing-books focused on the human
form, on classical statuary, and on the different stages of the academic
learning process.148 The increasing importance of 38 39 the Antique
in the Netherlands is well expressed by the various Dutch translations of
François Perrier’s Segmenta (1638) – the most successful collection of prints
after classical statues of the 17th century (fig. 57 and cat. 16, figs 3–6) –
and by the equal success of its Dutch counterpart, Jan de Bisschop’s Icones
(1668, see cat. 13), explicitly compiled as a teaching tool.149 Antique models
were also copied by young Northern artists in three dimensions, thanks to the
proliferation of casts, as shown in the frontispiece of Abraham Bloemaert’s Konstryk
Tekenboek (c. 1650) – one of the most influential draw- ing-books of the second
half of the century (see cat. 11). Many studios and drawing schools owned
collections of casts, often of famous prototypes such as the Laocoön or the
Apollo Belvedere. Inventories of the studios of Cornelis Cornelisz. van
Haarlem, Hendrik van Balen (1575–1632), and Rembrandt, for instance, testify to
their presence.150 The diffusion of casts appears explicitly in the numerous
paintings depicting young artists at work, which became popular from the middle
of the century onwards (figs 49–53, see also cats 12 and 14). These works
constitute an individual iconographical genre that probably derives from
Fialetti’s striking etching (see cat. 10), which, as we have seen, was well known
and reprinted several times in the Netherlands.151 This genre was practised
mainly by Jacob Van Oost the Elder (1601–71, fig. 50), Wallerant Vaillant
(1623–77, fig. 51), Balthasar Van den Bossche (1681–1715) and Michael Sweerts
(fig. 52 and cat. 12), whose canvases tend to represent the ideal training
curricu- lum, where the copying of plaster casts after the Antique has the
place of honour.152 As ‘low’ genre paintings that celebrate the didactic role
of the Antique – traditionally considered to be essential for the lofty genre
of history painting rather than for scenes of daily life – they indirectly
attest to the ubiquitous penetration of classical models in all 17th-century
artistic practices. Incidentally they are also a direct visual source for the
most widely diffused typologies of classical statues in the North of Europe in
the 17th century: from busts of the Apollo Belvedere (figs 18 and 50), of the
Laocoön group, both father and sons (figs 19 and 51), and of the so-called
Grimani Vitellius (fig. 52), to reduced copies of the Spinario (figs 15 and
49), the Belvedere Antinous (figs 22 and 51), the Venus de’ Medici (figs 53 and
56), and the Farnese Hercules (see fig. 32 and cat. 14). Also frequently
depicted are busts of Niobe (see fig. 34 and cat. 12), reduced copies of the
Wrestlers (fig. 33) and the Borghese Gladiator (fig. 54). The Italian and the
French Academies in the Seventeenth Century and the Establishment of Classicism
The 17th century witnessed dramatic changes of attitude towards the study of
the Antique in terms of codification, diffusion and theoretical debate; at the
same time it saw the formulation of a style heavily dependent on classical
sculp- ture, setting the stage for the final affirmation of classicism as a
pan-European phenomenon in the following century. The selection of the most
significant antique statues, begun in the 16th century, was further refined,
especially in the cos- mopolitan antiquarian environment of Rome. Excavations
continued and some of the new discoveries immediately joined the canon of ideal
models. Three of them, in particu- lar, were ubiquitously reproduced and copied
in studios and academies: the Borghese Gladiator (fig. 54), discovered in 1611,
which soon became the preferred model for the anatomy of the muscular man in
action; the Dying Gladiator (fig. 55), first mentioned in 1623, whose complex
pose could be drawn from different angles and which offered an ideal of heroic
pathos expressed in the moment of death; and finally, the Venus de’ Medici (fig.
56), first recorded in 1638 but possibly known in the late 16th century, which
rapidly became the most admired embodiment of the graceful female body.153 New
collections gradually replaced earlier ones and a few families succeeded in
acquiring some of the newly discovered statues that had gained canonical
status. The magnificent urban palaces and suburban villas of the Medici,
Farnese, Borghese, Ludovisi and Giustiniani attracted an increasing number of
visitors and artists, becoming privileged centres for the study of the Antique,
and family names became attached to certain statues, as the Farnese Hercules or
the Venus de’ Medici testify.154 Some of these, such as the Palazzo Farnese
(see cat. 21), and the Casino Borghese retained their status as ‘private museums’
until the end of the 18th century. Prints continued to play a vital role in the
dissemination of images of classical statues throughout Europe. They were
produced predominantly in Rome, where, as in the 16th century, French
printmakers played a prominent role along- side Italian antiquarians and
engravers.155 Among others, the publications of François Perrier (1594–1649)
and the duo comprising the antiquarian and theoretician Giovanni Pietro Bellori
(1613–96) and the engraver Pietro Santi Bartoli (1615– 1700), offered artists
and the educated public a choice of Fig. 54. Agasias of Ephesus, Borghese
Gladiator, c. 100 bc, marble, 199 cm (h), Louvre, Paris, inv. Ma 527 Fig. 55.
Dying Gladiator, Roman copy of a Pergamene original of the 3rd century bc, marble,
93 cm (h), Capitoline Museums, Rome, inv. MC0747 Fig. 49. (top left) Jan
ter Borch, The Drawing Lesson, 1634, oil on canvas, 120 × 159 cm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, inv. SK-A-1331 Fig. 50. (top right) Jacob van Oost the Elder, The
Painter’s Studio, 1666, oil on canvas, 111.5 × 150.5 cm, Groeningenmuseum,
Bruges, inv. 0000.GRO0188.II Fig. 51. (bottom left) Wallerant Vaillant, The
Artist’s Pupil, c. 1668, oil on canvas, 119 × 90 cm, Bonnefantenmuseum,
Maastricht, inv. 673 Fig. 52. (bottom centre) Michael Sweerts (attr.), Boy
Copying a Cast of the Head of Emperor Vitellius, c. 1658–59, oil on canvas,
49.5 × 40.6 cm, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, inv. 72-65 Fig. 53. (bottom
right) Pieter van der Werf, A Girl Drawing and a Boy near a Statue of Venus, 1715,
oil on panel, 38.5 × 29 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. SK-A-472 40 41
the ‘best’ ancient statues and reliefs; the authority of their selections
lasted throughout the 18th century. For full-length statues, crucial was the
appearance in 1638 of Perrier’s Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum (fig.
57 and cat. 16 figs 3–6), a collection of prints which in many ways fulfils
what Goltzius had intended to publish four decades earlier (see cats 6–7).156
Offering good quality reproductions and different points of view– three for the
Farnese Hercules and four for the Borghese Gladiator, for instance – Perrier’s
images were essential in focusing the attention of artists on a selected number
of models considered exemplary in anatomy, proportions, poses and expressions.
Reprinted and trans- lated several times, the success of the Segmenta was
immense and it was used in studios and academies as a teaching tool for almost
two centuries, as we have seen earlier in the Netherlands. As late as 1820 John
Flaxman was still recom- mending the use of Perrier to his students at the
Royal Academy.157 Such publications were the results of the antiquarian and
theoretical interests of a French-Italian classicist milieu that flourished in
the first half of the century in Rome.158 Innumerable French artists now spent
time in the city, filling sketchbooks with copies after the Antique and
Renaissance Fig. 56. Venus de’ Medici, Greek or Roman copy of the 1st century
bc of a Greek original of the 4th century bc, marble, 153 cm (h), Uizi,
Florence, inv. 224 Fig. 57. François Perrier, Venus de’Medici, plate 81, from
Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum, Rome, 1638 masters, and devoting
increasing space to the study of Raphael.159 Two of the most relevant figures
in this context were the great French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), who
resided in Rome between 1624 and 1665 (with a brief sojourn in France in
1640–42), and his friend and biographer Giovanni Pietro Bellori, possibly the
most influential art writer of the century, who deserves to be called the pro-
tagonist in the theoretical formulation of classicism. Of similar significance
was the scholar, antiquarian, collector and patron Cassiano dal Pozzo
(1588–1657), a friend of both Poussin and Bellori – and patron of the former –
who assem- bled a vast encyclopaedic collection of drawings divided by themes,
a ‘Paper Museum’, with sections devoted to classi- cal antiquity commissioned
from several contemporary artists.160 Classicism found probably its clearest
and most influen- tial formulations in a landmark discourse composed by Bellori
and delivered in 1664, the year before Poussin’s death, in the Roman Accademia
di San Luca: the ‘Idea of the painter, the sculptor and the architect, selected
from the beauties of Nature, superior to Nature’ (see Appendix, no. 11).
Bellori’s theoretical statement, published as a prologue to his Vite in 1672,
was to become enormously influential in defining and disseminating the central
tenets of the classicist ideal (see cat. 15).161 Joining Aristotelian and
neo-Platonic premises, Bellori’s Idea advocates in the selection of the best
parts of Nature according to the right judgement of the artist in order to
create ideal beauty – a concept that we have already encountered many times.
According to Bellori, the Idea had been embodied in art at several periods of
history and he traced its development according to a scheme of peaks and
descents. It took shape first and foremost in the ancient world and was revived
in modern times by Raphael, who is accorded nearly divine status. After the
decadence and excesses of Mannerism, it was revitalised by the Bolognese
Annibale Carracci (1560–1609) and by his pupils and follow- ers, notably
Domenichino (1581–1641). Their flame was kept alive in Bellori’s time by Poussin
and Carlo Maratti (1625– 1713), a protégé of Bellori, who fashioned himself as
the new Raphael and whose Academy of Drawing is the most program- matic
representation of the principles of Roman classicism (see cat. 15). Bellori’s
classicism, heir of the rich debates of the first half of the century, can be
defined as a codification and defence of an idealistic style and of moralising
history painting against the radical naturalism introduced by Caravaggio and
his followers, whose slavish dependence on Nature and choice of low subjects
were seen to undermine the intellectual premises of art. On the other hand,
Bellori also confronted the excesses and liberties of the Baroque, whose
representatives, according to him, leaned towards artificiality and despised
the ‘ancient purity’.162 Classicism in many ways was based on the princi- ples
laid down by the art theory of the second half of the 16th century, as it
shared with it a fundamental premise: the neces- sity of the defence of what
was perceived as the ideal path of art – the ‘bella maniera’ – against
contemporary artistic trends which were considered erroneous or even
noxious.163 The classicist theoretical approach further reinforced the practice
of copying: it reinstated the intellectual value of drawing while providing a
selected group of correct models to follow, with the Antique and Raphael on the
loftiest pedestal. These premises were embraced by the Italian and French
academies, and became the basis of most of the European academies of the following
century – Opie’s words to the young pupils of the Royal Academy in 1807 still
reiterate their fundamental tenets. Although the debate was at times fierce –
as for instance within the Accademia di San Luca in the 1630s – a strict
division of 17th-century artists into classicist, naturalist and Baroque
categories would be arbitrary and inaccurate, as many of them moved between
currents and at times incor- porated elements of each in their own creations.
Indeed, artists of all allegiances copied, studied and took inspiration from
the Antique. We know from surviving drawings and contemporary written sources
that ‘classicist’ artists such as Annibale Carracci, Poussin and Maratti copied
antique statues (figs 58–61), yet an equal number of ‘Baroque’ Fig. 58. Annibale
Carracci, Head of Pan from the marble group of Pan and Olympos in the Farnese
Collection, 1597–98, black chalk heightened with white chalk on grey-blue
paper, 381 × 245 mm, Louvre, Paris, inv. 7193 artists, such as Rubens
(figs 45–47 and cat. 9), Pietro da Cortona (1596–1669, fig. 62) and Bernini
(figs 63–64) spent as much time in absorbing the principles of the Antique.164
Nevertheless their approaches towards the Antique could be very different.
Poussin, the intellectual and antiquarian painter par excellence, copied
hundreds of details from classical sculpture, especially reliefs and
sarcophagi, to give archaeo- logical consistency to his art, so that his
paintings would represent classical histories with the maximum of
accuracy, 42 43 Fig. 59. Nicolas Poussin, Equestrian Statue of Marcus
Aurelius, c. 1630–32, pen and brown ink and brown wash, 244 × 190 mm, Musée
Condé, Chantilly, inv. AI 219; NI 264 Fig. 60. Carlo Maratti, The Farnese
Flora, c. 1645–70, black chalk, 294 × 159 mm, The Royal Collection, Windsor
Castle, inv. 904377 Fig. 61. Carlo Maratti, or Studio of, The Farnese Hercules,
c. 1645–70, red chalk, 292 × 165 mm, The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, inv.
904382 Fig. 62. Pietro da Cortona, The Trophies of Marius, c. 1628–1632, pen,
brown ink, brown wash, heightened in white, on blue sky prepared paper, 518 ×
346 mm, The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, inv. RL 8249 integrity and power,
an approach in several ways similar to that of Mantegna and Raphael. Bernini,
arguably the greatest 17th-century sculptor, spent his youth obsessively
copying the ancient statues in the Belvedere (see Appendix, nos 9–10) and in
his old age recommended that students of the Académie Royale in Paris begin
their studies by copying casts of the most famous classical statues before
approaching Nature (see Appendix, nos 9–10). But Bernini’s attitude towards
ancient statuary was poles apart from that of Poussin (whom he nevertheless
highly admired): he assimilated its principles in order to create his own
independent forms, at times deviating radically from the classical model – an
atti- tude that we have already seen in Michelangelo and Rubens. To develop
their own style and avoid a slavish dependency on the Antique – something
already stressed by Dolce, Armenini and Rubens (Appendix, nos 4, 6, 8) – he
advised his students to combine and alternate ‘action and contemplation’, that
is to alternate their own production with the practice of copy- ing (Appendix,
no. 10). A wonderful example that allows us to follow Bernini’s creative
process of transforming of the antique model is provided by a study of the
torso of the Laocoön, the unbalanced and twisted pose of which he then
ingeniously adapted in reverse for the complex attitude of his Daniel (figs
63–66). A recollection of the Laocoön is further- more recognisable in Daniel’s
powerful expression (fig. 66).165 A practical outcome of the French and Italian
theoretical formulation of a classicist doctrine was the foundation in 1648 of
the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris, followed in 1666 by
that of the Académie de France in Rome – the latter intended to give
prize-winning students the opportunity to study the Antique in situ and to
provide 44 Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) with copies of classical and Ren- aissance
statues.166 The foundation of the French Académie in Paris is a turning point
in the history of the teaching of art, as its codified programme – based on
Italian examples, and especially the Roman Accademia di San Luca – would
constitute the basis for the academies that spread over the Western world in
the 18th and 19th centuries. Founded by several artists, most of whom had spent
periods in Rome such as Charles Le Brun (1619–90), the Paris Académie was
supported by the monarch and candidates could apply for admission only after
they had trained in a workshop. Its regulations aimed at full intellectual
develop- ment for its students to prepare them for the creation of the highest
genre, history painting, or the grande manière. Although its curriculum was
rather loosely organised and, in the first tw o decades of its history,
fairly tolerant in its aesthetic positions, during the 1660s the Académie was
drastically reformed by the powerful Minister and Super- intendent of Buildings
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83) and by Le Brun to become an institution in the
service of the absolutist policy of Louis XIV, with a codified version of
classicism as its official aesthetic. The rationalistic nature of French
17th-century culture meant that the Académie conceived of art as a science that
could be taught by rules. This was explicitly stated by Le Brun in 1670,167 and
efforts were concentrated in clarifying and applying most of the precepts
already devised by the early Italian academies and theoreticians. If a student
followed these precepts correctly he – and only he, as the institution was
limited to male pupils until the late 19th century – would be able to
assimilate the principles of ideal beauty and create grand art.168 The future
European success of this regimented version of the humanistic theory of art
rested exactly in its rational nature, as a clear system of rules easy to
export and replicate, offering at the same time a safe path towards ‘true’ and
universal art. Pupils were supposed to follow the ‘alphabet of drawing’, from
copying drawings, to casts and statues, to the live model, which remained the
most difficult task and one reserved for the most advanced students. Regular
lectures on geometry, perspective and anatomy were provided. As in Federico
Zuccaro’s statutes for the Accademia di San Luca, professors rotated monthly to
supervise the life class, prizes were awarded to students and regular debates
were initiated on the principles of art – the celebrated so-called Conférences,
regularly held from 1667 onwards on the advice of Colbert, although they
faltered by the end of the century to be revived only a few decades later.169
Other aspects of the reforms of the 1660s included the division of the drawing
course into lower classes, devoted to copying, and higher classes, for Fig. 63.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Study of the Torso of the Father in the Laocoön group, c.
1650–55, red chalk heightened with white on grey paper, 369 × 250 mm, Museum
der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig, inv. 7903 Fig. 64. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Two
Studies for the Statue of ‘Daniel’, c. 1655, red chalk on grey paper, 375 × 234
mm, Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig, inv. 7890 Fig. 65. Gian Lorenzo
Bernini, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, c. 1655, terracotta, 41.6 cm (h), Vatican
Museums, Rome, inv. 2424 drawing from the live model. Competitions were further
structured to lead towards the highest reward, the famous Grand Prix or Prix de
Rome, which allowed the winners to spend between three and five years at the
Académie de France in Rome, to complete their education and to assimilate the
principles of the greatest ancient and modern art. The official doctrine of the
Paris Académie was distilled and diffused by André Félibien (1619–95), the most
promi- nent French art theorist of the period, in his preface to the first
series of Conférences held in 1667 and published in 1668. Félibien offered a
clear structure for the hierarchy of genres that would be associated with
academic painting for the next two centuries: at the bottom was still life, followed
on an ascending line by landscape, genre painting, portraiture and finally by
history painting, for which the study of the Antique, of modern masters and of
the live model were considered necessary.170 The first Conférences reveal in
their subjects and approach the central tenets of the Parisian Académie:
paintings by Raphael, Poussin, Le Brun and the Laocoön were meticulously
analysed in their parts according to strict rules: invention, expression,
composition, drawing, colour, proportions etc. Some Conférences were devoted to
specific parts of painting: one given by Le Brun in 1668, on the ‘passions of
the soul’, which was printed posthumously and translated into several
languages, constituted the basis for the study of facial expres- sions until well
into the 19th century.171 The Antique remained one of the favourite subjects to
be dissected by the academicians. After the 1667 Conférence on the Laocoön (see
Appendix, no. 12),172 praised as the ideal model for drawing and for the
‘strong expressions of pain’,173 many more followed specifically devoted to the
Farnese Hercules, Belvedere Torso, Borghese Gladiator, and Venus de’ Medici,
the ultimate selected canon of sculptures.174 Conférences were also given on
the study of the Antique in general.175 Sébastien Bourdon’s (1616–71)
Conférence sur les proportions de la figure humaine expliquées sur l’Antique,
in 1670 advised students to fully absorb the Antique from a very early age,
measure precisely its proportions and control ‘compass in hand’ the Fig. 66.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, 1655–57, marble, over
life-size, Chigi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome 45 live model
against classical sculptures, as they are never arbitrary – a method, according
to Bourdon, approved by Poussin.176 This extreme rationalistic approach, based
on the actual measurement of the Antique, which, as we will see, would generate
opposition, was put into practice by Gérard Audran (1640–1703), engraver and
‘conseiller’ of the Académie (Appendix, no. 13). His illustrated treatise of
1682 (figs 72–73) provided students with the carefully measured proportions of
the antique statues that they were supposed to follow and became a standard
reference work in many languages, continuously republished until 1855. While the
Académie de France in Rome must have started accumulating casts after the
Antique from early on – the inventory of 1684 lists a vast collection of
statues, reliefs, busts, etc.177 – it is not entirely clear how readily the
students of the Académie in Paris had access to casts or copies in the first
decades of the institution’s history. Bernini, in his 1665 visit, explicitly
advised the formation of a cast collection for the Parisian Académie, and some,
among them a Farnese Hercules, were ordered or donated in the following
years.178 But although students certainly copied casts already in Paris, full
immersion in the practice was reserved for the period they spent in Rome.179
‘Make the painters copy everything beautiful in Rome; and when they have finished,
if possible, make them do it again’ Colbert tellingly wrote in 1672 to Charles
Errard (c. 1606–9 – 1689), the first Director of the Académie de France in
Rome.180 In Rome a similar practice was encouraged in the Accademia di San
Luca, which, like its Parisian counterpart, was significantly reformed in the
1660s, perhaps a sign of the increasingly important reversal of influence, from
France to Italy. From the beginning of the presidency of Carlo Maratti in 1664,
a staged drawing curriculum, competitions and lectures were implemented and new
casts were ordered (see cat. 15).181 Some twenty years later the Accademia
received the donation of hundreds of casts of antique sculp- tures from the
studio of the sculptor and restorer Ercole Ferrata (1610–86).182 Sharing the
same values and similar curricula, in 1676 the Accademia di San Luca and the
Parisian Académie Royale were formally amalgamated and on occa- sion French
painters even became principals of San Luca – Charles Errard in 1672 and 1678,
and Charles Le Brun in 1676–77.183 But the Italians could never feel wholly
comforta- ble with the extreme rationalisation of art characteristic of so much
French theory.184 After the publication of the French Conférences, debates were
held in defence of the Vasarian tradi- tion and of the value of grace,
judgement and natural talent against the rules and the overly rational analysis
of art and the Antique by the French.185 The engraving by Nicolas Dorigny
(1658–1746) after Carlo Maratti is the most eloquent 46 visual expression of
this intellectual confrontation that con- tinued into the 1680s (cat. 15). Some
of the most doctrinal aspects of the Parisian academy also generated an
internal counteraction and the supporters of disegno, classicism and Poussin,
headed by Le Brun, were challenged by the promot- ers of Venetian colore and
Rubens, led by the artist and critic Roger de Piles (1635–1709) and by the
painter Charles de la Fosse (1636–1716). The battle between ‘Poussinisme’ and
‘Rubénisme’ – a new incarnation of the debate started more than a century
earlier by Giorgio Vasari and Lodovico Dolce – captured the imagination of the
French academic world between the end of the 17th and the first decade of the
18th centuries. The victory of the Rubénistes led the way to a freer,
anti-classicist and more painterly aesthetic and to the eventual affirmation of
the Rococo in French art.186 But the next century would also witness the
triumph of the classicist ideal, as its principles spread all over Europe. The
Antique Posed, Measured and Dissected Given the rationalistic approach of
French artists and theo- rists to the Antique – ‘compass in hand’ – it does not
come as a surprise that, during the 17th century, they actually started to
measure ancient statues in order to tabulate their pro- portions. And as well
as measuring statues they began to merge the study of anatomy with study of the
Antique to provide young students with ideal sets of muscles to copy. Such
efforts produced a series of extremely influential drawing-books filled with
fascinating and disturbing images, in which ancient bodies are covered by nets
of numbers or flayed and presented as living écorchés. In a way it was
inevitable that the study of human propor- tions applied by Alberti, Leonardo
and Dürer to living bodies Fig. 67. Peter Paul Rubens, Study of the Farnese
Hercules, c. 1602, pen and brown ink, 196 × 153 mm, The Courtauld Gallery,
Samuel Courtauld Trust, London, inv. D.1978.PG.427.v, Fig. 68. Charles Errard,
Antinous Belvedere, plate on p. 457 in Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Le vite de’
pittori scultori e architetti moderni, Rome, 1672 would eventually be merged
with the study of the ideal bod- ies of ancient statues, to test Vitruvius’
assertion that ancient artists worked according to a fixed canon (Appendix, no.
1). The main problem was that the canonical proportions of 5th-century bc
sculpture had been disregarded from the 3rd century bc onwards. Furthermore, as
we now know, most of the ‘perfect’ Greek statues were actually modified Roman
copies of lost originals. The measuring efforts of 17th- century art theorists
were therefore for the most part in vain, as most of the revered marbles did
not embody the principles of commensurability and overall harmonic proportion
that they believed they did. Although we have seen that Raphael had already
initiated the practice of measuring statues (fig. 27), the first to refer
explicitly to this exercise is Armenini in his 1587 De veri precetti della
pittura, in which a chapter is devoted specifically to the ‘measure of man
based on the ancient statues’.187 Rubens also devoted much attention to trying
to discover the perfect num- bers and forms of ancient statues, dividing for
instance the Farnese Hercules, the strongest type of male body, according to
series of cubes, the most solid of the perfect forms (fig. 67).188 Not
surprisingly, Poussin’s approach to the Antique in Rome was similar, and we
know from Bellori that he and the sculptor François Duquesnoy (1597–1643)
‘embarked on the study of the beauty and proportion of statues, measuring them
together, as can be seen in the case of the one of Anti- nous’ – two
illustrations of which he published in Poussin’s life in his Vite (fig. 68).189
But the first artist to provide accurate drawings of the most famous statues
was the future founding director of the Académie de France in Rome, Charles
Errard, who, later, also provided the measured Antinous illustrations for
Bellori’s Vite (fig. 68). In collaboration with the theorist Roland Fréart de
Chambray (1606–76), and most likely inspired by Poussin, he executed in 1640 a
series of intriguing measured red chalk drawings today preserved at the École
des Beaux-Arts in Paris (figs 69–71).190 Produced only two years after the
publication Fig. 69. Charles Errard, or collaborator,
Measured Drawing of the Belvedere Antinous, 1640, red chalk, pencil, pen and
brown ink, 430 × 280 mm, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, inv.
PC6415, no. 27 Fig. 70. Charles Errard, Measured Drawing of the Laocoön, 1640, red
chalk, pen and brown ink, 430 × 280 mm, École nationale supérieure des
Beaux-Arts, Paris, inv. PC6415, no. 11 Fig. 71. Charles Errard, Measured
Drawing of the Venus de’Medici, 1640, red chalk, pencil, pen and brown ink, 430
× 280 mm, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, inv. PC6415, no. 28
47 of Perrier’s successful Segmenta, Errard’s drawings were clearly
intended to be published and to present young artists with a set of certain and
ideal proportions on which they could base their own figures. A similar search
for discipline was undertaken by Fréart de Chambray, and later by other
theorists, among the remains of ancient architecture, which involved an even
more intense effort to discover their ‘perfect’ proportions. Although a few of
Errard’s drawings were published in 1656 by Abraham Bosse – the first professor
of perspective of the Parisian Académie Royale – the first successful manuals
appeared in the 1680s, as a result of the theoretical debates on the
proportions of ancient statues held in the Académie during the previous
decade.191 By far the most influential was a manual we have already
encountered, Gérard Audran’s Proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les plus
belles figures de l’antiquité, published in 1683 (Appendix, no. 13). This
provided a fully ‘classicised’ drawing-book, following the ‘alphabet of
drawing’ from the measured eye, nose and mouth of the Apollo Belvedere (fig.
72), to whole canonical statues, such as the Laocoön (fig. 73). Audran’s book,
republished several times in various languages, became the model for many
similar publications that appeared during the 18th and early 19th centuries and
espoused a practice embraced by many artists. Examples from different nations
include a Dutch manual, where, fascinatingly, the Apollo Belvedere is presented
according to Vitruvian principles (fig. 74; see also fig. 2 and Appendix, no.
1); drawings by the sculptor Joseph Nollekens (1737–1823; fig. 75); and
measured notes drawn by Antonio Canova over an engraving of the Apollo
Belvedere from a didactic series of prints after the Antique (fig. 76).192 In
addition to being carefully measured, antique bodies were also dissected. If
classical statues displayed perfect anat- omies, then, it was thought, they
would offer an ideal starting point for young students to study bones and
muscles. Combining the study of the Antique with that of anatomy was intended
to reinforce the familiarity of young artists with ancient canonical models,
now also analysed from the inside. Students until then had trained mainly on
the immensely influential De humani corporis fabrica, published by Andrea
Vesalius in 1543, and on the anatomical treatises that were based on it, but
from the late 17th century new ‘classicised’ manuals appeared.193 The first,
Anatomia per uso et intelligenza del disegno..., based on drawings by Errard,
was published in 1691 by Bernardino Genga (1655–1720), professor of anatomy at
the Académie de France in Rome.194 Probably conceived much earlier, the set of
engravings included fascinating and somewhat morbid images of the skeletons of
classical statues (figs 77–78; although these were not eventually included in
the book) and several different views of the muscles of the strongest types of
ancient prototypes, the Laocoön, the Borghese Gladiator, the Farnese Hercules
and the Borghese Faun (figs 79–80).195 Genga and Errard’s Anatomia was a model
for several similar books which appeared in the 18th and early 19th centuries
to satisfy the needs of the increasingly classicistic curricula of European
academies. Not surprisingly, only male antiquities, and usually the most
muscular ones, were illustrated, both for reasons of decorum and also because
the Fig. 74. Jacob de Wit, Measured ‘Apollo Belvedere’, plate 8 in Teekenboek
der proportien van ‘t menschelyk lighaam, Amsterdam, 1747 Fig. 75. Joseph
Nollekens, Measured Drawing of the ‘Capitoline Antinous’, 1770, pen and brown
ink over traces of black chalk, 431 × 292 mm, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, inv.
DBB 1460 Fig. 76. Giovanni Volpato and Rafaello Morghen, Measured ‘Apollo
Belvedere’, engraving (with inscribed measures in pencil, red chalk, pen and
brown ink by Antonio Canova), post 1786, plate 35 in Principi del disegno. Tratti dall
più eccellenti statue antiche per il giovanni che vogliono incamminarsi nello
studio delle belle arti, Rome, 1786, Museo Civico, Bassano del Grappa, inv. B 42.69 Audran, Measured Details of the ‘Apollo Belvedere’, plate 27
in Les Proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les plus belles figures de
l’antiquité, Paris, 1683 Fig. 73. Gérard Audran, Measured ‘Laocoön’, plate 1 in
Les Proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les plus belles figures de
l’antiquité, Paris, 1683 48 49 Fig. 77. (above left) After
Charles Errard, The Skeleton of the ‘Laocoön’, c. 1691, engraving, 328 × 198
mm, Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, Paris, Album Maciet 2-4 (4) Fig. 78.
(above centre) After Charles Errard, The Skeleton of the ‘Borghese Gladiator’,
c. 1691, engraving, 334 × 280 mm, Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, Paris,
Album Maciet 2-4 (1) Fig. 79. (above right) After Charles Errard, Anatomical
Figure of the ‘Borghese Gladiator’, c. 1691, plate 51 in Bernardino Genga and
Charles Errard, Anatomia per uso et intelligenza del disegno . . ., Rome, 1691
Fig. 80. (left) After Charles Errard, Anatomical Figure of the ‘Laocoön’, c.
1691, plate 43 in Bernardino Genga and Charles Errard, Anatomia per uso et
intelligenza del disegno . . ., Rome, 1691 male body was believed to
provide more anatomical infor- mation compared to the female one. One of the
most dis- turbingly accurate, printed in two colours to distinguish the muscles
from the bones, is the Anatomie du Gladiateur combatant ... published in 1812
by the military surgeon Jean- Galbert Salvage (1772–1813). Although this
provided a precise anatomical analysis of the head of the Apollo Belvedere
(fig. 81), its main focus was on the anatomy of the Borghese Gladiator analysed
in all its parts (fig. 82). The accuracy of the manual’s plates made it
extremely influential throughout Europe.196 Fig. 81. Nicolaï Ivanovitch Outkine
after Jean-Galbert Salvage, Muscles and Bones of the Head of the ‘Apollo
Belvedere’, engraving in two colours, plate 1 in Jean Galbert Salvage, Anatomie
du Gladiateur combatant ..., Paris, 1812 Fig. 82. Jean Bosq after Jean-Galbert
Salvage, Anatomical Figure of the ‘Borghese Gladiator’, engraving in two
colours, plate 6 in Jean Galbert Salvage, Anatomie du Gladiateur combatant ...,
Paris, 1812 50 The stress on anatomical precision also produced a spectacu- lar
three-dimensional écorché of the Borghese Gladiator created by Salvage in 1804
and acquired as a teaching tool in 1811 by the École des Beaux-Arts, where it
remains (fig. 83).197 An earlier model, which had served as inspiration for
Salvage, was the gruesomely naturalistic écorché posed as the Dying Gladiator
(see fig. 55) made by William Hunter (1718– 83), the professor of anatomy at
the Royal Academy of Arts in London, in collaboration with the sculptor
Agostino Carlini. Casted on the body of an executed smuggler, it was aptly
Latinised as Smugglerius.198 The Antique found its way into academic anatomical
manuals for students throughout the 19th century, and its pervasiveness was
enormous, extending even beyond Western culture. A plate with a flayed Laocoön
from the popu- lar Anatomie des formes extérieures du corps humain, published
in 1845 by Antoine-Louis-Julien Fau (fig. 85), served as inspira- tion for a
popular artists’ manual produced in Japan at the end of the century, resulting
in an extraordinary image which fuses the Western canon and the Japanese
woodblock print tradition of the Ukiyo-e (fig. 86).199 The osmosis between the
Antique and other disciplines of the academic curriculum gained ground also in
the study of the live model. We have seen that already in the 15th century it
was common practice to pose apprentices in imitation of ancient sculpture (see
fig. 14), and great artists like Rubens often returned to this expedient (see
cat. 9). But the practice became increasingly diffused within the codified
curricula of French and Italian academies during the 17th and 18th centuries
(figs 87–89). Recommended by several Fig. 83. Jean-Galbert Salvage, Écorché of
the ‘Borghese Gladiator’, 1804, plaster, 157 cm (h), École nationale supérieure
des Beaux-Arts, Paris, inv. MU11927 Fig. 84. (top left) William Pink after
Agostino Carlini, Smugglerius, c. 1775 (this copy c. 1834), painted plaster,
75.5 × 148.6 cm, Royal Academy of Arts, London, inv. 03/1436
Fig. 85. (middle left) M. Léveillé, Anatomical Figure of the
‘Laocoön’, lithography, plate 24 in Antoine-Louis-Julien Fau, Anatomie des
formes extérieures du corps humain, Paris, 1845 Fig. 86. (middle right) Anatomical Figures of the ‘Laocoön’ and of a Small Child,
woodblock print, plate in Kawanabe Kyo-sai, Kyosai Gadan, 1887
Fig. 87. (bottom left) Antoine Paillet, Drawing of a Model Posing as the
‘Laocoön’, 1670, black and white chalk on brown paper, 580 × 521 mm, École
nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris, inv. EBA 3098 Fig. 88. (bottom
centre) Giuseppe Bottani, Drawing of a Model in the Pose of the ‘Lycean Apollo’
Type, c. 1760–70, red and white chalks on red-orange prepared paper, 423 × 270
mm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, inv. 1978-70-197 Fig. 89. (bottom right)
Jacques-Luois David, An Academic Model in the Pose of the ‘Dying Gaul’, 1780,
oil on canvas, 125 × 170 cm, Musée Thomas Henry, Cherbourg, inv. MTH 835.102
51 academicians, posing the live model with the same tension and flexing
of muscles as the ancient statues encouraged students to correct their drawings
after fallible Nature against the perfection of the antique examples and to
derive universal principles from particular living models (see cats 16 and
27b).200 The Eighteenth Century and the Diffusion of the Classical Ideal The
seeds planted by 17th-century classicist theory fully blossomed during the 18th
with the affirmation of Neo- classicism in the second half of the century.
Supported by and supporting the exponential diffusion of academies – from some
nineteen in 1720 to more than 100 in 1800 – the cult of the Antique spread to
the four corners of Europe, from St Petersburg to Lisbon and beyond.201 The
‘true style’, as classicism was often called in the 18th century, was inextri-
cably linked with many of the values of Enlightenment culture: in an age in
search of order and universal principles, the appeal of the rational and
‘eternal’ ideals embodied by classical statuary proved irresistible. At the
same time they provided a useful tool for existing political powers and a for-
midable one for new authorities in search of legitimisation. The new academies
based their curricula mainly on that of Paris and Rome, and the didactic role
assigned to the Antique was physically imported through an army of plaster
casts – the ‘Apostles of good taste’ – as Denis Diderot called them, which
became the most recognisable trademark of the newly founded institutions (fig.
90).202 The progressive method of the ‘alphabet of drawing’ definitively
established itself as the basis of the training of European artists well into
the 20th century. Not necessarily followed in practice, as students often
wanted to rush to the copy of the live model, its didactic value was, in Fig.
90. After Augustin Terwesten, The Life Academy at the Royal Academy of Fine
Arts in Berlin, engraved vignette on p. 217 from Lorenz Beger, Thesaurus
Brandenburgicus Selectus..., vol. 3, Berlin, 1701 theory, supported by the vast
majority of academies.203 The plate illustrating the entry on ‘Drawing’ in
Diderot and D’Alembert’s epochal Encyclopédie significantly focuses on the
three steps, being followed in different media (fig. 91).204 While the French
model was spreading throughout Europe during the first half of the century,
ironically the Parisian Académie itself underwent a period of crisis. After the
death of Colbert in 1683 and of Le Brun in 1690, the royal institution became
decreasingly relevant in determining the direction of the national school of
painting. Financial constraints and the waning of royal patronage coincided
with the fact that the vital forces of French art were becoming less interested
in adhering to the precepts of the Académie. A change in taste under the
regency of Philippe d’Orléans (r. 1715–23) favoured the so-called petite
manière, a form of painting dealing with light-hearted subjects – ‘bergeries’,
‘fêtes galantes’ – against the grande manière. Partly as a conse- quence, the
traditional curriculum of the Académie, centred on the study of the human
figure to prepare for history painting, was increasingly neglected.205 But
things changed radically in 1745 with the appointment of Charles-François- Paul
Le Normant de Tournehem – the uncle of Madame de Pompadour – as Surintendant
des Bâtiments du Roi, the official protector of the Académie Royale on behalf
of the king. He initiated a reform involving the reinvigoration of royal
patronage, the re-establishment of Conférences and, more generally, a series of
initiatives aimed at re-establishing the leading role of the Académie and of
history painting in the French art world.206 The principles of Le Normant’s
reform, supported by the influential antiquarian and theorist Comte de Caylus
(1692–1765) and visualised by Charles-Joseph Natoire’s beautiful drawing (cat.
16), paved the way for the final affirmation of the grande manière in the
second half of the century, despite the continuing clamour of dissenting
voices. If Paris progressively became the centre of the modern art world, Rome
retained its status as the ‘academy’ of Europe Fig. 91. Benoît-Louis Prévost
after Charles-Nicolas Cochin the younger, A Drawing School, plate 1,
illustrating the entry ‘Dessein’ from Denis Diderot and Jean Le Ronde
D’Alambert, Encyclopédie ..., Recueil de planches, sur les sciences, les art
libéraux, et les arts méchaniques ..., Paris, 1763, vol. 20 where a thriving
international community of artists congre- gated to round off their education
in the physical and spirit- ual presence of the Antique and the great
Renaissance masters.207 The crucial role that Rome occupied in 18th- century
culture is evoked in the words of the most famous art critic of the age and the
champion of classicism Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68): ‘Rome’ he wrote in
his letters ‘is the high school for all the world, and I also have 208 been
purified and tried in it’. Of course, artists and travel- lers had visited the
city to study its art for at least two centu- ries, but the 18th century
represented Rome’s golden age as the traveller’s ultimate destination. The
Grand Tour – as the trip to Italy and to Rome was known – became a social and
cultural phenomenon that included artists, antiquarians, collectors and, in
general, members of European elites.209 It generated an industry of
collectibles that travellers could bring back to their homeland, and an army of
original ancient statues and modern copies in all media was exported, alongside
portraits and paintings of various kinds that would powerfully recall the time
spent by their owners in the eternal city. Among the most fascinating and
systematic evocations of Rome are a series of celebrated canvases by Giovanni
Paolo Panini (1691–1765), where ‘the best of the best’ of Roman sites and
antiquities are gathered together in imaginary galleries. In the foreground of
fig. 92, (see also cat. 20, fig. 5) artists are busy drawing and measuring with
their compasses a selected choice of canonical classical statues – a reminder
of one of the most widespread artistic activities in the city.210 The demands
of the Grand Tour ‘industry’ also generated a specific category of ‘marketable
drawings’ after the Antique destined to fill the ‘paper museums’ of collectors
and anti- quarians all over Europe. They were mainly produced for collectors
and travellers from Britain, a nation that became increasingly important in the
study of the Antique through- out the century. Among the most famous drawings
were those produced in the workshop of the entrepreneurial painter Francesco
Ferdinandi Imperiali (1679–1740) in the 1720s by various painters and
draughtsmen – among them Giovanni Domenico Campiglia (1692–1775; see cats
19–20) and the young Pompeo Batoni (1708–87; fig. 93).211 Created for the
extensive collection of the antiquarian Richard Topham 52 53 Fig.
92. Giovanni
Paolo Panini, Roma Antica, 1754–57, oil on canvas, 186 × 227 cm, Staatsgalerie
Stuttgart, inv. Nr 3315 (1671–1730), Batoni’s red chalk drawings
are among the most extraordinary produced in the 18th century. With their
preci- sion, attention to detail, fidelity to the originals and frontal
viewpoint, they encapsulate many of the typical qualities of this category of
drawings. Their manner continues and devel- ops some of the characteristics
already seen in the classicist drawings of Carlo Maratti, of whom Batoni was
the natural artistic heir (figs 60–61). Growing interest in the classical past
was also supported by massive expansion in antiquarian publications, such as
the monumental Antiquité expliquée (Paris, 1719–24) by the Abbé Bernard de
Montfaucon, an illustrated encyclopaedia of the Antique for the use of the
European educated public. Artists could also benefit from an increase in
printed collec- tions of classical statues.212 Paolo Alessandro Maffei and
Domenico de Rossi’s Raccolta di Statue Antiche e Moderne (1704) set new
standards of accuracy, and it was followed by the various sumptuous volumes
devoted to the antiquities of the Grand Ducal collection in Florence and of the
Capitoline Museum in Rome (see cats 19–20). With its wealth of patrons,
artistic competitions, acade- mies and artists’ studios, many displaying
collections of casts, Rome also offered an unrivalled opportunity to learn and
practice the arts of disegno.213 The classicist direction given to the
Accademia di San Luca by Giovanni Pietro Bellori and Carlo Maratti, was
sanctioned by the Pope Clement XI (r. 1700–21) who in 1702 established papal-
supported competitions, the celebrated Concorsi Clementini, which thrived
especially during the second half of the century (see cat. 20).214 Open to all
nationalities, the Concorsi Fig. 93. Pompeo Batoni, Drawing of the Ceres of
Villa Casali, c. 1730, red chalk, 469 × 350 mm, Eton College Library, Windsor,
inv. Bn. 3, no. 45 were divided into three classes of increasing difficulty,
the third and lowest class being reserved for copying, usually after the
Antique (see cat. 20, fig. 4). This reinforced, as nowhere else in Europe, the
study of classical statuary as the cornerstone of the artist’s education,
giving to Italian and foreign artists alike the chance to be rewarded publicly
in sumptuous ceremonies held in the Capitoline palaces, even in early stages of
their careers. The cosmopolitan atmos- phere of the Accademia di San Luca is
reflected in the fact that among its Principals were several foreigners, such
as the Frenchman Charles-François Poerson (elected 1714) or the Saxon Anton
Raphael Mengs (1771–2) and the Austrian Anton von Maron (1784–6). The Accademia
was also open to leading women painters such as Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757) or
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842), although they were not allowed to
attend meetings. Crucial for artistic education was the opening of the
Capitoline as a public museum in 1734, thanks to the enlight- ened policy of
Pope Clement XII (r. 1730–40).215 One of the main reasons behind the papal
decision was specifically to support ‘the practice and advancement of young
students of the Liberal Arts’ through the copy of the Antique.216 An evocative
vignette inserted in the Musei Capitolini – the first sumptuously illustrated
catalogue of the collection – reflects the popularity of its cluttered rooms
among artists of all nations (see cat. 20). With the opening in the Capitoline
of the Accademia del Nudo in 1754 – specifically devoted to the study of the
live model and controlled by the Acca- demia di San Luca – the museum became a
sort of ideal academy where art students could copy concurrently from the
Antique, Old Masters paintings and the live model.217 Apart from the Capitoline
and other traditional places, such as the Belvedere Court or the aristocratic
palaces where original antiquities could be studied in situ (cat. 21), the
other favoured locus for the study of the Antique in the city was the Académie
de France in Rome, which owned the largest collection of plaster casts in
Europe. Although the Académie, like its Parisian counterpart, had gone through
a troubled period in the early decades of the century – the Prix de Rome was
cancelled for lack of funds in 1706–8, 1714 and 1718–20 – its role was revamped
and its practices drastically reformed under the directorship of Nicholas
Vleughels (1668–1737) between 1725 and 1737.218 The casts were redisplayed in
Palazzo Mancini, the Académie’s prestigious new location on the Corso, and integrated
for didactic purposes with the study of the live model (see cat. 16). The
collection of the Académie served as an example for similar institutions
throughout Europe, as its arrangement of many copies side- by-side was
considered ideal for the assimilation of classical forms. With the advancing
neo-classical aesthetic, their flawless white appearance was even preferred for
didactic purposes above the originals: young students could concen- trate on
their purified forms, without the signs of time shown by real antiquities. No
other nation had as many members in Rome as France, both as pensionnaires of
the Académie and permanent residents (see cats 17–18, 21).219 The long
directorship of Charles-Joseph Natoire, between 1751 and 1775, greatly devel- oped
and expanded the copying of antiquities that had been reinstated by Vleughels.
But Natoire also encouraged the creation of ‘classical’ landscapes of the Roman
campagna, following the principles established by the great 17th-century French
landscapists: Poussin, Dughet and Claude.220 Natoire and his most gifted and
prolific pupil, Hubert Robert (1733– 1808), who spent more than a decade in
Rome between 1754 and 1765, produced a series of drawings in which copy- ing in
the city’s museums and palaces is splendidly evoked (figs 94–97 and cat.
17).221 Focused in particular on the Capitoline collection, Robert’s images are
among the most fascinating products of a genre – that of the artist drawing in
situ surrounded by classical statues – that, as we know, goes back to the 16th
century (see cat. 5 and fig. 44). Robert specialised in evocative views of the
remains of ancient Rome, with artists and wanderers lost among their crumbling
grandeur. In many ways he recaptured the spirit of wonder and meditation on the
ruins of the city expressed by 16th-century Northern artists, such as Maarten
van Heemskerck, Herman Posthumus, and Nicolas Beatrizet (fig. 44).222 Boosted
by the enthusiasm generated by the unearthing of the remains of Herculaneum and
Pompeii in 1738 and 1748, in the second half of the century the ‘true style’ of
Neo-classicism firmly established itself, spreading from the international
community in Rome to the whole of Europe. Significant figures in the
formulation of the new taste were the architect and engraver Giovanni Battista
Piranesi (1720– 78), whose lyrical etchings and engravings of ancient and
modern Rome established – and sometimes created – the image of Rome among a
European public, and the art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whose
powerful descriptions of classical statues inspired generations of artists and
travellers, firmly establishing a new classicist doctrine in European taste.223
More than ever before, artists now aimed not only at assimilating the
principles of classical sculpture, but at recreating its formal aspect, as a
universal standard of perfection to which any great artist should aspire.
54 55 Fig. 94. Charles-Joseph Natoire, Artists Drawing in the Inner
Courtyard of the Capitoline Museum in Rome, 1759, pen and brown ink, brown and
grey wash, white highlights over black chalk lines on tinted grey-blue paper,
300 × 450 mm, Louvre, Paris, inv. 3931381 Robert, The Draughtsman at the
Capitoline Museum, c. 1763, red chalk, 335 × 450 mm, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie
de Valence, inv. D. 80 Fig. 96. Hubert Robert, Antiquities at the
Capitoline Museum, c. 1763, red chalk, 345 × 450 mm, Musée des Beaux-Arts et
d’Archéologie de Valence, inv. D. 81 Fig. 97. Hubert Robert, The Draughtsman of
the Borghese Vase, c. 1765, red chalk, 365 × 290 mm, Musée des Beaux-Arts et
d’Archéologie de Valence, inv. D28 As Winckelmann famously
stated in his Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks (1755):
‘There is but one way for the moderns to become great, and perhaps unequalled;
I mean, by imitating the ancients’ (see Appendix, no. 15). Although in 1775 new
regulations for the Académie de France in Rome stressed again the centrality in
the curriculum of study of the live model, most pupils now favoured the study
of the Antique, an evident sign of the evolution of taste towards a new radical
classicism.224 Of all the artists converging on Rome, Jacques-Louis David
(1748–1825), was one of the most prolific in making copies after the
Antique.225 Leaving Paris in 1775 with the firm resolution of maintaining his
independence and avoiding the seductions of the Antique, his arrival in Rome,
according to his own words, opened his eyes.226 He started his artistic
education again by spending the next five years as a pension- naire obsessively
copying from modern masters and classical statues, reliefs and sarcophagi with
an attention to detail that recalls Poussin’s approach to antiquity (fig.
98).227 Generally speaking, between the end of the 18th century and the
beginning of the 19th, artists copying from the Antique concentrated
progressively on the outlines of statues rather than on the modelling or the
chiaroscuro, as the neo-classical aesthetic valued the purity of the line over
any other pictorial element, accentuating the stress on disegno inaugurated by
Vasari more than two centuries before. Fig. 98. Jacques-Louis David, Drawing of
a Relief with a Distraught Woman with Her Head Thrown Back, 1775/80, pen and
black ink with gray wash over black chalk, 196 × 150 mm, National Gallery of Art,
Washington D.C., Patrons’ Permanent Fund1998.105.1.bbb But coinciding with
David’s residence in Rome, other interpretations of the Antique started to
emerge within a circle of artists that included Tobias Sergel (1740–1814) and
Thomas Banks (1735–1805) and which revolved around the Swiss painter Henry
Fuseli (1741–1825).228 The approach of this ‘Poetical circle’ was utterly
anti-academic and prefigures some of the principles that would be embraced by
Romantic artists a few years later. For them ancient sculptures were
embodiments of the emotions of the artists who created them, rather than models
of ideal beauty and proportional perfection. Fuseli’s extraordinary drawing,
The Artist Moved by the Grandeur of Antique Fragments (cat. 22), which he
produced immediately after leaving Rome in 1778, perfectly expresses this more
empathic and meditative relation with classical antiquity and its lost
grandeur. The attitude of Fuseli and his friends represents a turning point in
the relation of the artist with ancient statuary, stressing the creative genius
of the artist, his or her individuality and, in general, the subjective values
of art: all principles that would contribute to the decline of the classical
model in the following century. The Antique in Britain: The eighteenth century
Of the various nationalities of artists resident in Rome during the 18th
century, the British were among the most numerous. Britain had arrived late on
the international artistic stage. Until the late 17th century, several factors,
including the theological disapproval of pagan and Catholic imagery of large
sections of Protestant society, had made Britain, outside the confined
patronage of the Court, a virtual backwater in the visual arts. There was no
established national school of painting or sculpture and no academy; painters
were tied to the craft guild of the Painter Stainers’ Company; it was illegal
to import pictures for sale, and there was no proper art market.229 However, by
a century later, things had changed radically: following the nation’s dramatic
political liberalisa- tion and economic expansion, Britain had one of the most
dynamic national art schools in Europe and a Royal Acad- emy, founded in 1768.
Several hundred thousand artworks – including a multitude of original antiquities
and copies – had been imported to adorn the urban townhouses and country
mansions of the upper classes; and London had become the centre of the
international art market, displacing Antwerp, Amsterdam and Paris.230 The new
ruling class that had emerged from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 embraced
classicism, defined as the ‘Rule of Taste’; at the same time artists started
gathering to form private academies where they could study together and where
beginners could receive at least some training, based, 56 57 of course,
on the continental model, with the copy after the Antique as one of its
cornerstones.231 Many British artists also travelled to Rome, where they
participated in the Concorsi of the Accademia di San Luca or attended the
Accademia del Nudo in the Capitoline and several built national and interna-
tional reputations thanks to their success in the city.232 In Rome,
furthermore, artists encountered British travellers and potential future
patrons. Plaster casts must already have been relatively widely available
during the first half of the 18th century.233 Drawings after classical
sculptures survive by British artists who did not travel to Italy: among them
some fascinating, rough, early studies by Joseph Highmore (1692–1780), possibly
from casts in the Great Queen Street Academy – which operated under Sir Godfrey
Kneller and Sir James Thornhill between 1711 and 1720 – where he enrolled in
1713 (fig. 99).234 But the insular situation of the British art world, where
many painters struggled in vain to create a modern and national school and
genre of painting, plus an innate distrust of cultural models imported from the
Continent, especially France, meant that copying the Antique encountered strong
criticism. The most vociferous opponent was William Hogarth, who, as director
of the second St Martin’s Lane Academy from 1735, became increasingly hostile
to a curriculum based on the French Académie model and to history painting in
general, although, paradoxically, he demonstrated great admiration for a few
classical statues in his writings (see Appendix, no. 14).235 His war against
fashionable imported taste and didactic principles is well Fig. 99. Joseph
Highmore, Study of a Cast of the Borghese Gladiator, Seen from Behind, c. 1713,
graphite, ink and watercolour on paper, 354 × 230 mm, Tate, London, inv. T04232
expressed by the celebrated first plate in his Analysis of Beauty, where the
Antique, anatomy and the study of proportions evocated in the centre of the
composition are surrounded by vignettes illustrating Hogarth’s own aesthetic
ideas (fig. 100).236 But despite such discontented voices, fascination with the
Antique would only intensify, and educational curricula based on French or
Italian models would gradually impose themselves. In 1758, a ‘continental’
enterprise was launched by the 3rd Duke of Richmond with the opening of a
gallery attached to his house in Whitehall ‘containing a large collec- tion of
original plaister casts from the best antique statues and busts which are now
at Rome and Florence’.237 With a curriculum based on the ‘alphabet of drawing’
and under the directorship of the Italian painter Giovanni Battista Cipriani
(1727–85) and the sculptor Joseph Wilton (1722–1803) – the first Englishman to
receive, in 1750, the prestigious first prize of the Accademia di San Luca –
the gallery was set up specifically with the didactic purpose of training
youths on the basis of the Antique (fig. 101).238 To compensate for the absence
of a national Academy, a semi-formal system developed probably inspired by the
joint model of the Accademia di San Luca and the Capitoline, where many British
artists had worked.239 Students would have started by copying drawings, prints
and parts of the body in the private drawing school set up in 1753 by the
entrepreneur and drawing master William Shipley (1714– 1803); they would then
progress to the Duke of Richmond’s Academy when they were ready to study
three-dimensional forms; finally they would proceed to the study of the live
model in the second St Martin Lane’s Academy.240 Competi- tions were set up and
the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, which was
founded Fig. 100. William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty (Plate 1), 1753,
etching and engraving, 387 × 483 mm, private collection, London Fig. 101. John
Hamilton Mortimer, Self-portrait with Joseph Wilton, and an Unknown Student
Drawing at the Duke of Richmond’s Academy, c. 1760–65, oil on canvas, 76 × 63.5
cm, Royal Academy of Arts, London, inv. 03/970 in 1754, awarded prizes for the
best drawings after casts and copies, several of which survive in the
institution’s archive (figs 102–03).241 The continental system also reached
cities outside London. For example, academies and artists’ societies were set
up in Glasgow – in an image of the Foulis Academy of Art and Design founded
there in 1752 we see the familiar presence of the Borghese Gladiator (fig. 104)
– and in Liverpool (see cat. 24).242 But it was with the foundation of the
Royal Academy in London in 1768 that Britain finally had a national institution
with a formal curriculum based on continental models (see cats 25–27). Directed
by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) – its first president between 1768 and 1792 –
the Academy had a teaching structure that centred on the Antique or ‘Plaister’
Academy and the Life Academy, to which students would progress after having
practised for years on plaster casts.243 To advance from one stage to another,
they had to supply a presentation drawing showing their skills in depicting
antique forms: one by the young Turner (1775–1851), who enrolled in the Academy
in 1789 as a boy of fourteen, proba- bly belongs to this category (cat. 27a).
Several evocative images testify to the study of the growing collection of
plaster casts, both in daylight and at night (fig. 105 and cats 25–27),244
while the Life Academy is evoked in the famous painting by Johan Zoffany
(1733–1810) which shows the first academicians in discussion around two male
models – one glancing at us in the pose of the Spinario – surrounded by
familiar plaster casts of classical and Renaissance sculpture (fig. 106). In
the background, on the right, an écorché appears among the other casts, to
remind us that anatomy lessons were delivered in the Academy by the physician
William Hunter (1718–83). By bringing together plaster casts, anatomy and the
study of the live model, Zoffany’s image declared unmistakably the Royal Academy’s
affinity with continental academic models of teaching. The two female members,
Mary Moser (1744–1819) and Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807) are evoked through
their portraits, as their presence in the Life Academy was considered
improper.245 A system of discourses, competitions and exhibitions, complemented
and completed the teaching curriculum. The official theoretical line of the
Academy, fixed in Reynolds’ celebrated Discourses – which were delivered
between 1769 and 1790 – was a distillation of the idealistic theory of the
previous centuries and included frequent references to the Antique (see
Appendix, no. 17). Reynolds’ highest praise was reserved for the Belvedere
Torso, which embodied the Fig. 102. William Peters, Study of a Cast of the ‘Borghese
Gladiator’, c. 1760, pencil, black and white chalk on coloured paper, 410 × 450
mm, Royal Society of Arts, London, inv. PR/AR/103/14/621 Fig. 103. William
Peters, Study of a Cast of the ‘Callipygian Venus’, c. 1760, pencil, black and
white chalk on coloured paper, 525 × 355 mm, Royal Society of Arts, London,
inv. PR/AR/103/14/669 58 59 Fig. 104. David
Allan, The Foulis Academy of Art and Design in Glasgow, c. 1760, engraving, 134
× 168 mm, Mitchell Library, Glasgow, inv. GC ILL 156 Fig. 105. Anonymous
British School, The Antique School of the Royal Academy at New Somerset House,
c. 1780–83, oil on canvas, 110.8 x 164.1 cm, Royal Academy of Arts, London,
inv. 03/846 Fig. 106. Johan Zofany, The Portraits of the Academicians of the
Royal Academy, 1771–72, oil on canvas, 100.1 × 147.5 cm, The Royal Collection,
Windsor Castle ‘superlative genius’ of ancient art, and this judgement is
reflected in the official iconography of the Royal Academy, as the Torso
appeared, significantly below the word ‘Study’, on the silver medals awarded in
the Academy’s competitions (see cat. 27a).246 The muscular fragment reappears
as well in one of the female allegories of Invention, Composition, Design and
Colour, commissioned by the Royal Academy from Angelica Kauffman in 1778 to
decorate the ceiling of the Academy’s new Council Chamber and to provide a
visual manifesto for Reynolds’ theory of art (fig. 107).247 Showing her wit and
erudition, Kauffman’s Design is a significant image, as she took the
traditional personification of Disegno, depicted as male (the word is masculine
in Italian), and transformed it into a woman copying the ideal male body –
thereby asserting the right of women to study the Antique and pursue a
traditional artistic career. Although increasingly questioned by anatomists and
by a growing number of artists, plaster casts were used in the Academy’s
curriculum well into the 19th century and beyond. In London the didactic role
of original sculptures and casts was also exploited outside official institutions.
This was the case of the antiquities assembled by the influential antiquar- ian
and collector Charles Townley (1737–1805) at his house on 7 Park Street, which
became a sort of alternative academy where artists, amateurs – and also women –
could study the statues he had imported from Italy (cat. 28).248 Another
private space set up with the specific intention of training young architects
in the study of the Antique was the house- academy established by Sir John
Soane (1754–1837) at No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields (cat. 29). In the labyrinthine
spaces of Soane’s interiors, which were constantly enlarged to house Fig. 107.
Angelica Kaufman, Design, 1778–80, oil on canvas, 130 × 150.3 cm, Royal Academy
of Arts, London, inv. 03/1129 his growing collections, he obsessively
juxtaposed paintings, architectural fragments, copies of celebrated classical
statues, drawings and objects of all sorts.249 Architecture, sculpture and
painting were seamlessly integrated to create a whole and to express the
qualities of ‘variety and intricacy’, advocated by Reynolds in his 13th
Discourse (1786). This variety was intended to stimulate the imagination of
Soane’s students – in 1806 he was appointed the Royal Academy’s Professor of
Architecture – and to invite would-be architects not to limit themselves but to
train in the three sister arts, as recommended by Vitruvius.250 Academic
training continued as students gathered to copy the Antique in the newly built
galleries of the British Museum,251 but, as the 19th century progressed, its
authority faded dramatically as young artists looked increasingly to the modern
world for their inspiration. Dissenting Voices and Seeds of Decline The linear
evolution of the classical ideal from the early Renaissance to the beginning of
the 19th century was in reality punctuated by several opposing voices. But none
of them, with rare exceptions, ever questioned the greatness and authority of
classical art. What was at times disputed was the didactic value of copying
from the Antique or the slavish dependence on its forms demonstrated by some of
the most dogmatic devotees of classicism. We have seen that even in the 16th
century, art critics like Vasari, Dolce and Armenini had warned against
excessive dependence on classical forms and had advocated an independent and
creative approach based on the artist’s own judgement. Rubens and Bernini too
had warned against the ‘smell of stone’ in painting or psycho- logical
dependence on the model. This balanced approach to the Antique would become a
leitmotif among later genera- tions of art theorists. Furthermore, artistic
traditions outside Central Italy had always demonstrated a good dose of
scepticism towards the dependence of the Florentine and Roman schools on the
forms and ideals embodied by classical statuary. One of the most intelligent
expressions of this attitude is the famous woodcut by Nicolò Boldrini, almost
certainly after an original drawing by Titian, in which Laocoön and his sons
are transformed into three monkeys and set in a bucolic landscape (fig.
108).252 In this complex image Titian, one of the greatest creative geniuses of
the Renaissance, who him- self had a profound and fruitful relationship with
the Antique, was presumably issuing an ironic statement against the faithful
artistic imitation of the classical models – a behav- iour similar to that of
mimicking monkeys. Fig. 108. Nicolò Boldrini after Titian, Caricature of the
Laocoön, c. 1540–50, woodcut, 267 × 403 mm, private collection In the 17th
century the pernicious effect on painting from too-slavish imitation of
sculptural forms would be summa- rised by the Bolognese art theorist Carlo
Cesare Malvasia (1616–93) with the specific neologism ‘statuino’ or ‘statue-
like’ (see cats 9 and 15).253 But during the 17th and 18th centuries even the most
outspoken critics of the perfection of the Antique, such as the champion of
colore versus disegno Roger de Piles, or the defender of a modern and
independent artistic language like Hogarth, always demonstrated great
admiration for classical statues, especially in terms of their proportions (see
Appendix, no. 14).254 According to Bellori, the only great master who showed no
interest at all in them was the ultra-naturalist Caravaggio. In a famous
passage of his Vite, the champion of classicism reported that Caravaggio
expressed ‘disdain for the superb marbles of the ancients and the paintings of
Raphael’ because he had decided to take ‘nature alone for the object of his
brush’. ‘Thus’, Bellori continues, ‘when he was shown the most famous statues
of Phidias and Glycon so that he might base his studies on them, his only
response was to gesture toward a crowd of people, indicating that nature had
provided him with masters enough’.255 But this anecdote must not be taken too
literally, as it certainly contains Bellori’s defence of idealism against the
dangers of the unselective imitation of Nature, as repre- sented by Caravaggio
and his followers. In fact, although it is not immediately obvious, Caravaggio
had a profound under- standing of antique forms, and was deeply conscious of
High Renaissance prototypes by Michelangelo (his namesake) and by Raphael. Even
if Bellori’s account of Caravaggio had been accurate, such a radical attitude
would have to be considered an exception in the long period covered here. In
the 18th century criticism of the academic curriculum, in particular that of
the Parisian Académie, and the art that it produced, increased. But, once
again, two of its sternest 60 61 critics, Diderot and David,
had an immense admiration for classical statuary and Diderot’s attack was
directed at the codified and repetitive nature of academic practices, in
particular the drawing lessons, and at the slavish dependence on the Antique at
the expense of Nature of most of his contemporaries, not at classical models as
such (see Appen- dix, no. 16).256 Significantly David, who played a crucial
role in the closure of the Parisian Académie in 1793 during the French
Revolution, would become the hero of the refounded École des Beaux-Arts in the
19th century. More significant criticism came from the students forced to copy
casts for sessions on end. The great French painter Jean-Siméon Chardin
recalled the frustration that many artists must have felt by being forced to
follow the oppressive ‘alphabet of drawing’, as powerfully evoked in his
recollections (see also cat. 26): We begin to draw eyes, mouths, noses and ears
after patterns, then feet and hands. After having crouched over our portfolios
for a long time, we’re placed in front of the Hercules or the Torso, and you’ve
never seen such tears as those shed over the Satyr, the Gladiator, the Medici
Venus, and the Antinous [...]. Then, after having spent entire days and even
nights by lamplight, in front of an immobile, inanimate nature, we’re presented
with living nature, and suddenly the work of all preceding years seems reduced
to nothing.257 But even the painter of still-lifes and domestic genre scenes
Chardin recognised the greatness of the original statues. The appeal of the
forms and principles of the Antique was still supreme within an aesthetic
system – the humanistic theory of art – that placed the representation of
mankind and its most noble behaviours at the centre of the artistic mission,
and this was true even for painters, like Chardin, who did not abide by the
academic hierarchy of genres. The real beginning of the decline of the
authority of the Antique started when these premises began to be challenged by
artists who felt at odds with a conception of art that they perceived as
increasingly inadequate. Romanticism landed a first, but eventually fatal, blow
by challenging the rationalistic, idealistic and supposedly ‘universal’
principles of classicism, in the name of subjective emotion and individ- ual
genius. The drastic changes imposed by industrialisation and urbanisation
accelerated the process. Opie’s outline of what constitutes art, with which
this essay began – a pedantic and codified version of Reynolds’ aesthetic –
came to be perceived as increasingly irrelevant by students exposed to urban life
in London, Paris or any other modern city, as the words of the painter James
Northcote (1746–1831) in 1826 clearly express (see Appendix, no. 19). But if
various ‘progres- sive’ avant-gardes rejected more decisively the principles of
classicism and academic art, one need only remember that artistic education
remained almost everywhere based on the traditional curriculum and that casts
were used in academies and art schools until a few decades ago. Some of the
greatest modern painters, such as Cézanne, Degas, Van Gogh and Picasso, spent
portions of their youth copying plaster casts. And, as the last part of this
exhibition shows (cats 32, 34–35), with mass-production casts became ever more
available to wider audiences, including women and the bourgeoisie, entering the
realm of the private home, often in a reduced format. But an assault on the
canonical status of many of the most famous sculptures also came from another
‘academic’ direction, as a new archaeological precision recognised them as more
or less accurate Roman copies of Greek originals. If art education remained
solidly structured around the traditional curriculum, becoming more and more
conserva- tive, the creative forces of European art placed themselves firmly
outside the academic system, and principles of ideal imitation would become
progressively irrelevant. An image that perfectly visualises the dawn of the
new aesthetic era, and an ideal conclusion to our journey, is a painting
produced by Thomas Couture as a satire against the Realist fashion of the
mid-19th century (fig. 109) – a preparatory study for which is in the Katrin
Bellinger collection.258 Couture, who ran a successful studio in Paris,
described his own painting in his Methodes et Entretiens d’Atelier published in
1867: I am depicting the interior of a studio of our time; it has nothing in
common with the studios of earlier periods, in which you could see fragments of
the finest antiquities. At one time, you could see the head of the Laocoön, the
feet of the Gladiator, the Venus de Milo, and among the prints covering the
walls there were Raphael’s Stanze and Poussin’s Sacraments and landscapes. But
thanks to artistic progress, I have very little to show [...] because the gods
have changed. The Laocoön has been replaced by a cabbage, the feet of the
Gladiator by a candle holder covered with tallow or by a shoe [...]. As for the
painter [...], he is a studious artist, fervent, a visionary of the new
religion. He copies what? It’s quite simple – a pig’s head – and as a base what
does he choose? That’s less simple, the head of Olympian Jupiter.259 Couture’s
image, wherein a once revered antique frag- ment of the Olympian god, Jupiter,
has been relegated to a mere stool and the object of study is now the severed
head of a pig, encapsulates the decline of the Antique in the 19th century and
the shift of interest from the ‘ideal’ to the ‘real’. Little did Couture kn0w
that in a few decades not only the traditional role of imitation would be
subverted, but that the principle of imitation itself – formulated by Alberti
four hundred years before – would be questioned in favour of expressive or
abstract values, leaving even less space for the previously revered Laocoön,
Borghese Gladiator and the Venus de Milo. The Antique continued its life in the
20th century in many, often unexpected ways: quoted, subverted and
deconstructed by many avant-garde artists; in the official art of totalitarian
regimes; in the ironic and playful, but often shallow game of post-modernism;
and even, one may say, in much of the aesthetic of fashion advertisement. The
relation of the classical model and ideal with modernity is a story that still
needs to be written fully and would be a fascinating subject for another
exhibition. Fig. 109. Thomas Couture, La Peinture Réaliste, 1865, oil on panel,
56 × 45 cm, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Hoare 1809, p. 11. See also
Opie 1809, pp. 3–52. The italics are the author’s. On the Renaissance or
humanistic theory of art good overviews are: Lee 1967; Schlosser Magnino 1967;
Blunt 1978; Williams 1997; Barasch 2000, vol. 1. Anthologies of primary sources
in English translation are: Gilbert 1980; Gilmore Holt 1981–82; Harrison, Wood
and Gaiger 2000. Alberti 1972. See also M. Kemp’s introduction, in Alberti
1991, pp. 1–29. Although initially circulating only in manuscript form,
Alberti’s treatise had an immense impact on artists and successive art
theoreticians. The first Latin (Basel, 1540) and Italian (Venice, 1547)
editions, and subsequent ones, influenced the earliest academies such as
Vasari’s Accademia del Disegno, founded in 1563. The first French translation
(Paris 1651) took shape in the environment of the French Académie Royale,
founded just three years before (1648). The first English translation (London,
1726) was motivated by the aspirations of English artists towards the
foundation of a national academy based on continental standards. Innumerable
transla- tions and editions contributed to the diffusion of Albertian
principles well into the 19th century. See Alberti 1991, pp. 23–24. Alberti
1972, p. 53 (book 1, chap. 18). Alberti quotes Protagoras, probably through
Diogenes Laertius, De Vitis ... philosophorum, 9.51: Alberti 1991, p. 53, note
11. On the sources and structure of De Pictura see especially Spencer 1957 and
Wright 1984. Alberti 1972, p. 97 (book 3, chap. 55). Ibid., p. 101 (book 3, chap.
58). Ibid., p. 99 (book 3, chap. 55). Ibid., p. 99 (book 3, chap. 56).
Albertis’s sources are Cicero, De inventione, 2.1.1–3 and Pliny, Naturalis
Historia, 35.36 (with differences in detail). Alberti 1972, p. 75 (book 2,
chap. 36). See also Alberti 1988, p. 156 (book 6, chap. 2) and pp. 301–09 (book
9, chaps 5–6), esp. p. 303. On the theory of proportions see Panofsky 1955; R.
Klein’s introduction to ‘De Symmetria’ in Gaurico 1969, pp. 76–91; Gerlach
1990. On Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man see Kemp 2006, pp. 71–136; Salvi 2012, with
previous bibliography. Other ancient surviving sources on the Canonical ideal
are Cicero, Brutus, esp. 69–70, 296; Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 34.55; Galen’s
treatises, esp. De 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Placitis Hippocratis
et Platonis, 5, and De Temperamentis, 1.9; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria,
esp. 5.12.21 and 12.10.3-9; Vitruvius’ De Architectura, 3.1. For Alberti’s
concept of historia, see Alberti 1972, pp. 77–83 (chaps 39–42). The clearest
definition of history painting according to the academies of the 17th and 18th
centuries is provided by Félibien 1668, Preface (not paginated). The Codex
Coburgensis is preserved in the Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg: see Wrede and
Harprath 1986; Davis 1989. Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum is divided between
several collections but mainly concen- trated in the Royal Collection, Windsor
Castle and the British Museum, London: see Herklotz 1999; Claridge and Dodero
forthcoming. Macandrew 1978; Connor Bulman 2006; Windsor 2013. London and Rome
1996–97, pp. 257–69; Bignamini and Hornsby 2010. General introductions to
drawing techniques in the Renaissance and beyond are Joannides 1983, pp. 11–31;
Bambach 1999, esp. pp. 33–80; Ames Lewis 2000a; Petherbridge 2010; London and
Florence 2010–11. See Ames-Lewis 2000b, pp. 36–37. Recent general introductions
to drawing after the Antique and the training of young artists in the 15th
century include Rome 1988a; Ames-Lewis 2000b, pp. 35–60, 109–40; Jestaz
2000–01; Chapman 2010–11, pp. 46–60. More focused on the 16th century is Barkan
1999. Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 252–55, no. 55 (Marcus Aurelius), 308–10, no.
78 (Spinario), 167–69, no. 16 (Camillus), 136–41, no. 3 (Horse Tamers);
Buddensieg 1983; Nesselrath 1988; Rome 1988a, pp. 232–38 (Marcus Aurelius);
Paris 2000–01, pp. 200–25 and pp. 417–20, nos 221–24 (Spinario); Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 223–25, no. 176 (Marcus Aurelius), 254–56, no. 203
(Spinario), 192–93, no. 192 (Camillus), 172–75, no. 125 (Horse Tamers). Dacos
1969; Morel 1997; Miller 1999. Alberti calls the relief of a sarcophagus in
Rome representing the death of Meleager a historia, specifically praising it as
a source for the compositio: see Alberti 1972, pp. 74–75 (chap. 37). Cavallaro
1988b; Cavallaro 1988c; Scalabroni 1988. Cavallaro 1988b; Scalabroni 1988;
Bober and Rubinstein 2010, passim. On Brunelleschi
and Donatello’s Roman trip see the famous account by Antonio di Giannozzo
Manetti: Manetti 1970, pp. 53–57. See also Vasari’s anecdote of Donatello
producing a pen drawing after a sarcophagus that he saw in Cortona on his way
back from Rome to Florence: Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 3, pp. 151–52.
See also Micheli 1983, p. 93. On the drawings after the Antique produced in the
workshops of Gentile of Pisanello see: Degenhart and Schmitt 1960; Cavallaro
1988a; Degenhart and Schmitt 1996, pp. 81–117; Paris, 1996, Appendix IX, ‘Le
“Carnet de voyage dessins sur parchemin”’, pp. 465–67; Cavallaro 2005. 26 Rome
1988a, pp. 95–96, no. 24 (A. Cavallaro); Paris 1996, pp. 180–81, no. 100. 27
See Rome 1988a, pp. 158–59, no. 51, see also pp. 155–56, no. 49; Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, p. 87, no. 38. 28 Wegner 1966, pp. 88–89, no. 228; Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 86–87, no. 38. 29 Weiss 1969. 30 London and New York 1992,
pp. 445–48, no. 145 (D. Ekserdjian); Paris 2008–09b, pp. 378–79, no. 159 (C.
Elam); Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 207, no. 158iii (158c). 31 Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 207–08, no. 158iii. 32 Alberti 1972, pp. 80–81 (chap. 41).
33 See Lightbown 1986, pp. 140–53, 424–33; Elam 2008–09. 34 For the drawing
after the Marcus Aurelius see Rome 1988a, pp. 232–33, no. 80 (A. Nesselrath);
Rome 2005, p. 263, fig. II.10.7, pp. 267–68, no. II.10.7 (A. Nesselrath). For
the drawing after the Horse Tamers see Rome 1988a, pp. 211–12, no. 61 (A.
Nesselrath); Paris 1996, pp. 153–54, no. 84; Rome 2005, p. 334, fig. III.8.1,
pp. 338–39, no. III.8.1 (A. Cavallaro). 35 On the fame of their nudity see the
contemporary comments by Angelo Decembrio in his De Politia litteraria, written
in the central decades of the 15th century: Baxandall 1963, p. 312. For other
mentions in contemporary written sources see Nesselrath 1988, pp. 196–97. 36
Nesselrath 1988, p. 197, fig. 61; Cole Ahl 1996, p. 6, pl. 1; Ames-Lewis 2000b,
p. 120, fig. 57; Cavallaro 2005, p. 330; London and Florence 2010–11, pp.
118–19, no. 14 (M.M. Rook). On Gozzoli and the Antique see Pasti 1988. 37 For a
notable exception see Gozzoli’s faithful drawing of a fragmentary classical
Venus: Pasti 1988, p. 137, fig. 38; Ames-Lewis 2000b, p. 121, fig. 59. 38 For a
general overview see Weiss 1969, pp. 180–202; Ames-Lewis 2000b, pp. 52–60,
79–85. 39 Gaurico 1969, pp. 62–63; Gaurico 1999, pp. 142–43, providing a less
accurate translation. 40 Cennini 1933, vol. 2, pp. 123–31. 41 Fiocco 1958–59;
Lightbown 1986, p. 18; Favaretto 1999. On Ghiberti’s col- lection of casts see
Ames-Lewis 2000b, p. 81, with previous bibliography. 42 Ames-Lewis 1995. 43
Fusco 1982; Ames-Lewis 2000b, pp. 52–55. 44 Ragghianti and Dalli Regoli 1975;
Ames-Lewis 2000a, pp. 91–123; Forlani- Tempesti 1994. 45 Ames-Lewis 1995, pp.
394, 397, fig. 10. For the practice see Schwartz 2000–01. 46 For an overview
see Nesselrath 1984–86. Lists of sketchbooks are provided in Nesselrath 1993,
pp. 225–48 and Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 473–96. 47 The first printed
edition of Biondo’s Roma Instaurata was published in Rome in 1471: Weiss 1969,
esp. pp. 59–104. 48 On Michelangelo’s and Raphael’s attitude towards the
Antique the bibliogra- phy is vast. For Michelangelo good surveys are Agosti
and Farinella 1987 (pp. 12–13, note 3, with the most exhaustive bibliography to
date); Florence 1987; Haarlem and London 2005–06, pp. 58–68; Parisi Presicce
2014. On Raphael: Becatti 1968; Jones and Penny 1983, pp. 175–210; Burns 1984
(p. 399, footnote 2, with exhaustive bibliography to date); Nesselrath 1984;
Dacos 1986. 49
Clark 1969b; Marani 2003–04; Marani 2007. 50 Leonardo 1956, vol. 1, p. 51, no.
77. 51 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 45, no. 59, p. 64, no. 112. 52 Bettarini and Barocchi
1966–87, vol. 6, p. 21. On other sources on the para- gone between
Michelangelo and the ancients see Florence 1987, pp. 107–08. 53 Elam
1992; Florence 1992; Joannides 1993; Baldini 1999–2000; Paolucci 2014. 54
Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 6, pp. 9–12; Condivi 1998, pp. 10–11;
Condivi 1999, p. 10. 55 Knab, Mitsch and Oberhuber 1984, pp. 51–54; Ferrino
Padgen 2000. 56 See Franzoni 1984–86; Cavallaro 2007; Christians 2010. A list
of collec- tions with essential bibliography is providedalso in Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 497–507. 57 For the Nile and the Tiber see Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 112–13, no. 65. 58 The Apollo Belvedere was discovered in
1489, the Laocoön in 1506, the Cleopatra in the first decade of the 16th
century, the Hercules Commodus in 1507, the Tiber in 1512 and Nile probably in
1513: see Haskell and Penny 1981, respec- tively pp. 148–51, no. 8, pp. 243–47,
no. 52, pp. 184–87, no. 24, pp. 188–89, no. 25, pp. 310–11, no. 79, pp. 272–73,
no. 65; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, respectively pp. 76–77, no. 28, pp. 164–68,
no. 122, pp. 125–26, no. 79, pp. 180–81, no. 131, pp. 113–14, no. 66, pp.
114–15, no. 67. The discovery date of the Venus Felix is not known, but it was
placed in the Belvedere Courtyard in 1509: Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 323–25,
no. 87; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 66–67, no. 16. For the Belvedere
Courtyard see Brummer 1970; Winner, Andreae and Pietrangeli 1998. The first
mention of the Belvedere Antinous-Hermes is in 1527 and it was placed in the
Belvedere Courtyard by 1545; the Belvedere Torso is recorded from 1432 and by
the middle of the 16th century it was displayed in the Courtyard: see Haskell
and Penny 1981, respectively pp. 141–43, no. 4 and pp. 311–14, no. 80; Bober
and Rubinstein 2010, respectively p. 62, no. 10 and pp. 181–84, no. 132. The
first mention of Michelangelo’s praise of the Torso is in Aldrovandi 1556, p.
121. For a selection of other primary sources see Barocchi 1962, vol. 4, pp.
2100–03; Agosti and Farinella 1987, pp. 43–44. For the Torso as ‘School of
Michelangelo’ see Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 313. Schwinn 1973, pp. 24–37.
Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 6, p. 108. Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p.
126, no. 79. Joannides 1983, p. 192, no. 240r; Knab, Mitsch and Oberhuber 1984,
p. 615, no. 375. In this drawing Raphael also references Michelangelo’s Sistine
Adam. Golzio 1971, pp. 38–40, 72–73; Nesselrath 1984. The original Italian is
in Camesasca 1994, pp. 257–322 (esp. pp. 290–98); Shearman 2003, pp. 500–45.
For an English translation, see Holt 1981–86, vol. 1, pp. 289–96. See also
Frommel, Ray and Tafuri 1984, p. 437, no. 3.5.1. (H. Burns and H. Nesselrath).
Nesselrath 1982, p. 357, fig. 37; Frommel, Ray and Tafuri 1984, p. 422, no.
3.2.10 (A. Nesselrath); Jaffé 1994, p. 187, no. 315 617*. For the few other surviving
Raphael drawings after Roman antiquities see Frommel, Ray and Tafuri 1984, p.
438, no. 3.5.3 (A. Nesselrath). Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 172–75, no. 125.
This consideration is already in Jones and Penny 1983, p. 205. The practice of
measuring classical statues would become widespread from the 17th century
onwards: see pp. 46–49 in the present volume. A good selection is in Mantua and
Vienna 1999. Check also Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 473–96. Oberhuber 1978;
Mantua and Vienna 1999; Viljoen 2001; Pon 2004. Boissard 1597–1602, vol. 1, pp.
12–13, translated by Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 165. According to a letter
by Francesco da Sangallo of 1567, Michel- angelo and Giuliano da Sangallo were
sent by the Pope to witness and comment upon the unearthing of the Laocoön on
the Esquiline in 1506: Fea 1790–1836, vol. 1, pp. cccxxix–cccxxxi, letter XVI.
Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 6, p. 109. An opinion then appropri- ated
by Vasari himself in the introduction to his chapter on Sculpture: Bettarini
and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 1, pp. 84–86. This was repeated later by many
authors see for instance Lomazzo 1584, p. 332, reprinted in Lomazzo 1973–74,
vol. 2, p. 288. Wilde 1953, pp. 79–80, nos 43–44, pls lxx–lxxi; Agosti and
Farinella 1987, pp. 33–36, figs 11–14; Tolnay 1975–80, vol. 2, pp. 51–53, nos
230–34; Florence 2002, pp. 150–51, nos 2–5 (P. Joannides); Haarlem and London
2005–06, pp. 64–66. Wilde 1953, pp. 9–10, no. 4, pl. vi; Tolnay 1975–80, vol.
1, pp. 58–59, no. 48; Haarlem and London 2005–06, pp. 88–89, 285, no. 13. On
the restoration of classical statues, see Rossi Pinelli 1984–86; Howard 1990;
Pasquier 2000–01a. Specifically on Montorsoli’s restorations: Haskell and Penny
1981, pp. 148, 246; Vetter 1995; Nesselrath 1998b; Winner 1998; Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 77, 165. See Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 229–32, no. 46;
Gasparri 2009–10, vol. 3, pp. 17–20, no. 1. On the Wrestlers see Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 337–39, no. 94; Cecchi and Gasparri 2009, pp. 62–63, no. 50
(71). For the Niobe Group see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 274–79, no. 66;
Cecchi and Gasparri 2009, pp. 316–26, nos 596 (1251) (1–14). On Guido Reni
using the Niobe Group as a source for the expression of many of his figures see
Bellori 1976, p. 529. See Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 16–22. Haskell and Penny
1981, pp. 16–22. On Lafréry see Chicago 2007–08. On Cavalieri see Pizzimano
2001. See Lee 1967, esp. pp. 3–16; Blunt 1978, esp. pp. 137–59; Barasch 2000,
vol. 1, pp. 203–309. Armenini 1587, pp. 136–37 (book 2, chap. 11). Lee 1967, p.
7, note 23. See also Weinberg 1961, pp. 361–423. The first commentary appeared
only in 1548 and the first Italian translation in 1549. Horace, Ars Poetica,
361. See Lee 1967, esp. pp. 3–9. Aristotle, Poetics, see esp. 9; 15.11; 25.1–2;
25.26–28. Lomazzo 1590, see esp. chap. XXVI; Zuccaro 1607. On this see Lee
1967, pp. 13–14; Panofsky 1968, esp. pp. 85–99; Blunt 1978, pp. 137–59. Also in
Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 1, p. 110. The definition of Disegno was
added only to the second edition of the Lives in 1568. On Vasari and the
Antique see Barocchi 1958; Cristofani 1985. Puttfarken 1991; Rosand 1997, pp.
10–24. Walters 2014, p. 57. Whitaker 1997. See for instance Vasari’s comments
in the lives of Andrea Mantegna and Battista Franco: Bettarini and Barocchi
1966–87, respectively vol. 3, pp. 549–50 and vol 5, pp. 459–61. Armenini 1587,
see esp. pp. 59–60 (book I, chap. 8), pp. 86–89 (book II, chap. 3). See also
Lomazzo’s treatment of the Antique: Lomazzo 1584, p. 481 (book VI, chap. 64).
General surveys about the development of European academies include Pevsner
1940; Goldstein 1996. See also Levy 1984; Olmstead Tonelli 1984; Boschloo 1989.
On images of academies see Kutschera-Woborsky 1919; Pevsner 1940, passim; Roman
1984. On the Florentine Accademia del Disegno see Pevsner 1940, pp. 42–55;
Goldstein 1975; Dempsey 1980; Wa ́zbin ́ski 1987; Barzman 1989; Barzman 2000.
On the Carracci Academy see Dempsey 1980; Goldstein 1988, esp. pp. 49– 88;
Dempsey 1989; Feigenbaum 1993; Robertson 2009–10. On the Accademia di San Luca
the bibliography is vast. On its early history see Pevsner 1940, pp. 55–66;
Pietrangeli 1974; Lukehart 2009. On the teaching in the first decades of the
Accademia see Roccasecca 2009. On Alberti’s print see Roccasecca 2009, p. 133.
Olmstead Tonelli 1984. Alberti 1604, esp. pp. 2–15. Jack Ward 1972, pp. 17–18;
Olmstead Tonelli 1984, pp. 96–97. On the donation of the Salvioni collection of
casts in 1598 see Missirini 1823, p. 73. On the inventories see Lukehart 2009,
Appendix 7, esp. pp. 368–69, 371–73, 379–80. On the drawing see Bora 1976, p.
125, no. 126. Malvasia 1678, vol. 1, p. 378; Goldstein 1988, esp. pp. 49–50. On
this see Meder 1978, vol. 1, pp. 217–95; Amornpichetkul 1984; Bleeke- Byrne
1984; Roman 1984, p. 91; Bolten 1985, p. 243. Alberti 1972, p. 97 (book 3,
chap. 55). Alberti 1972, p. 75 (book 2, chap. 36). Cellini 1731, pp. 156–59.
Leonardo 1956, vol. 1, p. 45, chaps 59–61, and esp. p. 64, chap. 112; Bettarini
and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 1, p. 112; Armenini 1587, pp. 51–59, esp. p. 57
(book 1, chap. 7); See Bleeke-Byrne 1984. Armenini 1587, see esp. p. 86 (book
2, chap. 3). The necessity of exercising one’s memory recurs in Alberti
(Alberti 1972, p. 99, book 3, chap. 55); Leonardo (Leonardo 1956, vol. 1, p.
47, chaps 65–66); Vasari (Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 1, pp. 114–15);
Cellini (Cellini 1731, p. 157); and Armenini (Armenini 1587, p. 53, book 1,
chap. 7). Gombrich 1960; Rosand 1970; Maugeri 1982; Amornpichetkul 1984; Bolten
1985. On Dürer in Italy see Rome 2007. Dacos 1995;
Meijer 1995; Dacos 1997; Dacos 2001. Van Mander 1994-99, vol. 1, pp. 342–45
(fols 271r–v). See Meijer 1995, p. 50, note 18. Dacos 1995, pp. 19–20; Dacos
2001, pp. 23–34. Hülsen and Egger 1913–16; Veldman 1977; Dacos 2001, pp. 35–44;
Bartsch 2012; Christian 2012; Veldman 2012. On Beatrizet see
Bury 1996; on Lafréry see Chicago 2007–08; on Dupérac see Lurin 2009. For the
print attributed to Beatrizet see Paris 2000–01, pp. 378–79, no. 184 (C.
Scailliérez). On the Marforio see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 258–59, no. 57;
Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 110–11, no. 64. ‘I disagi e li
affanni tutti del mondo non stima un quattrino’. On the
so-called Haarlem Academy see Van Thiel 1999, pp. 59–90. Veldman 2012, p. 21,
with previous bibliography. Reznicek On Rubens in Rome and his approach to the
Antique see esp. Stechow 1968; Jaffé 1977, pp. 79–84; Muller 1982; Van der
Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 41–81; Muller 2004, pp. 18–28; London 2005–06, pp.
88–111. Jaffé 1977, p. 79; Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, p. 42, note 6.
Copies of Lafréry’s Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae and De Cavalieri’s
Antiquarum statuarum urbis Romae, are listed in Rubens’ son Albert’s library:
Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, p. 42, note 6. It is most likely that they were
originally in Peter Paul’s possession, although we do not know whether he
acquired them before, during or after his Italian years. See Van der Meulen
1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 69–74. Armenini 1587, see esp. pp. 59–60 (book I, chap.
8), pp. 86–89 (book II, chap. 3). On the ultimate Aristotelian character of
this principle see Muller 1982. See also Cody 2013. On Rubens’ handwritten
Notebook, lost in a fire in Paris in 1720, but known through several
transcriptions and partial publications see Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, esp.
p. 71, note 11 and pp. 77–78, note 44, with previous bibliography; Jaffé and
Bradley 2005–06; Jaffé 2010. On the drawing after the Torso see Van der Meulen
1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 70–71, vol. 2, pp. 56–59, nos 37–39; New York 2005a, pp.
140–44, no. 34. On the Laocoön drawings see: Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 2, p.
98, no. 81, vol. 3, fig. 153 (father), vol. 2, pp. 103–04, no. 93, vol. 3, fig.
164 (son); London 2005– 06, pp. 90–91, nos 24 (son), 25 (father); Bora 2013.
The question of whether he copied the original Laocoön in Rome, or a cast
derived from it, possibly Federico Borromeo’s in Milan, remains open: see Van
der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, p. 48; London 2005–06, pp. 90–91, no. 25. Muller 2004, p. 22; Edinburgh 2002, pp. 43–46, nos 8–14; Wood 2011, vol. 1,
pp. 129–241; Cody 2013. Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 80–81. Muller 2004, p. 22. On Rubens’ collection see Antwerp 2004, with
previous bibliography. Jaffé 1977, p. 80; Healy 2004. On the Bamboccianti see
Briganti, Trezzani and Laureati 1983; Cologne and Utrecht 1991–92; Rome and
Paris 2014–15. On
the fierce criticism by artists see Malvasia 1678, vol. 2, pp. 267 (Sacchi),
268–69 (Albani); Cesareo 1892, vol. 1, pp. 223–55 (Rosa); Castiglione 2014–15. On Bellori’s condemna- tion see Bellori 1976, p. 16. On Goubau see
Briganti, Trezzani and Laureati 1983, pp. 295–99. On the painting see Paris
2000–01, pp. 382–83, no. 188 (J. Foucart); Cappel- letti 2014–15, pp. 48–50.
Vlieghe 1979. On other Dutch artists copying the Antique in Rome in the 17th
century see Van Gelder and Jost 1985, pp. 35–36. Already at the beginning of
the 17th century Karel Van Mander explicitly laments the poor state of the
visual arts in the Netherlands, blaming the ‘shameful laws and narrow rules’ by
which in nearly all cities save Rome ‘the noble art of painting has been turned
into a guild’: Van Mander 1994–99, vol. 1, pp. 264–65 (fol. 251v). See also
Bleeke-Byrne 1984. On the Antwerp Academy see Pevsner 1940, pp. 126–29; Van
Looij 1989. See Emmens 1968, pp. 154–59; Bleeke-Byrne 1984, pp. 30, 38, notes
76–77. Van Mander 1994–99, vol. 1, pp. 448–49 (fol. 297v); Bolten 1985, p. 248.
De Klerk 1989. Bolten 1985, pp. 248–50. For Bisschop’s school see Van Gelder
1972, p. 11. Bolten 1985. Bolten 1985, pp. 119, 131, 133–34, 141, 143, 153,
157, 188–207, 243–56; Walters 2009, vol. 1, p. 79. Bolten 1985, pp. 159–60.
Also many Dutch theoretical treatises on the art of painting and drawing
insisted on the human form and on the stages of the learning process. For
instance William Goeree’s influential Inleydinge tot de al-gemeene
Teycken-Konst, Middelburgh, 1668, revised and reprinted many times, lays out
the five stages of artistic training: copy of prints, drawings, paintings,
plaster casts and the life model (pp. 31–37). See Bleeke- Byrne 1984, p. 34 and
note 45; De Klerk 1989, p. 284. On Perrier’s diffusion in the Netherlands see
Bolten 1985, pp. 257–58; Van Gelder and Jost 1985, pp. 51–52; Van der Meulen
1994–95, p. 76. For Van Haarlem’s 1639 inventory see Van Thiel 1965, pp. 123,
128; Van Thiel 1999, p. 84, and Appendix II, pp. 254–255, 257, 270–71, 273. For
van Balen’s 1635 and 1656 inventories, see Duverger 1984–2009, vol. 4, pp.
200–11. For Rembrandt’s 1656 bankruptcy inventory see Strauss and Van der
Meulen 1979, pp. 349–88. For Rembrandt’s use of statues, casts and models, see
Gyllenhaal 2008. See also cat. 23 in this catalogue, note 18. For the use of
plaster casts in 17th- and 18th-century artists’ studios in Antwerp and
Brussels, see Lock 2010. Also collections of original antiquities were formed
in the 17th century, especially in the Southern Netherlands and in Antwerp: Van
Gelder and Jost 1985, pp. 35–50, esp. p. 35, note 65. 64 65 151 For a
copy in reverse, dated 1639, see Bolten 1985, pp. 133–34, and p. 138, fig.a.
152 On Jan ter Boch’s painting (fig. 49) see Paris 2000–01, pp. 401–02, no. 207
(J. Foucart). On Van Oost the Elder’s painting (fig. 50), see Antwerp 2008, p.
77, no. 20 (S. Janssens). On Vaillant’s painting (fig. 51), see MacLaren 1991,
vol. 1, p. 440, note 8; Amsterdam 1997, p. 349, fig. 2. On the painting attrib-
uted to Sweert (fig. 52) see Waddingham 1976–77; Amsterdam 1997, pp. 348–52,
under no. 74; Paris 2000–01, pp. 400–01, no. 206 (J. Foucart); Houston and
Ithaca 2005–06, pp. 134–36, no. 40 (J. Clifton), where the painting is
attributed to Wallerant Vaillant. On Balthasar Van den Bossche’s paintings of
artists’ workshops see Mai 1987–88; Paris 2000–01, pp. 402–03, no. 208 (J.-R.
Gaborit and J.-P. Cuzin); Lock 2010. 153 For the Borghese Gladiator see Haskell
and Penny 1981, pp. 221–24, no. 43; Paris 2000–01, no. 1, pp. 150–51 (L.
Laugier); Pasquier 2000–01c. For the Dying Gladiator see Haskell and Penny
1981, pp. 224–27, no. 44; Mattei 1987; La Rocca and Parisi Presicce 2010, pp.
428–35. For the Venus de’ Medici, see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 325–28, no.
88; Cecchi and Gasparri 2009, pp. 74–75, no. 64 (137). 154 See Haskell and
Penny 1981 esp. pp. 23–30. On the Medici collection of classical sculptures see
Cecchi and Gaspari 2009. On the Farnese’s see Gasparri 2007. On the Borghese’s:
Rome 2011–12; on the Ludovisi’s: Rome 1992–93; on the Giustiniani’s Rome
2001–02. 155
Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 16–22; Coquery 2000; Picozzi 2000. 156 Picozzi
2000; Laveissière 2011; Di Cosmo 2013; Fatticcioni 2013. 157 Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 21; Goldstein 1996, p. 144; Coquery 2000,
pp. 43–44. On Perrier’s success in the Netherlands see Bolten 1985, pp. 257–58;
Van Gelder and Jost 1985, pp. 51–52; Van der Meulen 1994–95, p. 76. 158 Boyer
2000; Montanari 2000; Rome 2000a; Bonfait 2002; Bayard 2010; Bayard and
Fumagalli 2011. 159 Bertolotti 1886; Bousquet 1980; Coquery 2000. 160 Herklotz
1999; see also the ongoing catalogue raisonné of Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Paper
Museum: http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/research/projects/ cassiano 161 For the text
of Bellori’s Idea see Bellori 1976, pp. 13–25, and for an English translation
see Bellori 2005, pp. 55–65. On it see Mahon 1947, esp. pp. 109– 54, pp.
242–43; Panofsky 1968, pp. 103–11; Bellori 1976, esp. XXIX–XL; Barasch
2000, vol. 1, pp. 315–22; Cropper 2000. 162 Bellori 1976, p. 299. 163 See
Barasch 2000, vol. 1, pp. 310-72. 164 Bellori
mentions many of these artists devoting time and efforts in the copying of
celebrated classical statuary, such as the Farnese Hercules, the Belvedere
Torso, the Niobe Group, the Borghese Gladiator: Bellori 1976, pp. 75, 90–91
(Annibale Carracci), pp. 529–30 (Guido Reni), p. 625 (Carlo Maratti). For
Rubens, Bernini and Cortona see Bellori 1976, p. XXXI. For Annibale Carracci
and the Antique see also Weston-Lewis 1992. For his drawing (fig. 58) see
Washington D.C. 1999–2000, p. 177, no. 50 (G. Feigenbaum). For Poussin and the
Antique the literature is vast: see Bull 1997; Bayard and Fumagalli 2011; Henry
2011, with previous literature. For his drawing (fig. 59) see Rosenberg and
Prat 1994, vol. 1, pp. 312–13, no. 161. For Maratti’s drawings (figs 60–61) see
Blunt and Cooke 1960, p. 63, nos 378, 380. On Pietro da Cortona and the Antique
see Fusconi 1997–98. Some of his drawings after the Antique were commissioned
for the Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo. On the drawing (fig. 62) see Rome
1997–98, p. 71, no. 2.4 (G. Fusconi). 165 Wittkower 1963; Princeton, Cleveland
and elsewhere 1981–82, pp. 159–73; New York 2012–13, pp. 234–38, no. 25. 166 Pevsner 1940, pp. 82–114; Goldstein 1996, pp. 40–45. On the Académie
Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris see Vitet 1861; Montaiglon 1875–92;
Hargove 1990; Tours and Toulouse 2000; Michel 2012. On the Académie de France in Rome see Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912;
Lapauze 1924; Henry 2010–11; Coquery 2013, pp. 173–219, with previous
bibliography. 167 Montaiglon 1875–92, vol. 1, p. 346. 168 Women were admitted
to the Académie, then named École des Beaux- Arts, only in 1896 and allowed to
enrol for the Prix de Rome in 1903: Goldstein 1996, p. 61. 169 Montaiglon
1875–92, vol. 1, pp. 315–17. 170 Félibien 1668, Preface (not paginated). 171 Le
Brun 1698. On it see Montagu 1994. 172 Félibien 1668, pp. 28–40; Lichtenstein
and Michel 2006–12, vol. 1.1, pp. 127–35. 173 Félibien 1668, Preface (not
paginated). 174 Lichtenstein and Michel 2006–12, see esp. vols 1-2, passim. 175
Lichtenstein and Michel 2006–12, vol. 1.1, pp. 316–22, 374–77; vol. 1.2, pp.
667–71; vol. 2.2, p. 583. 176 Lichtenstein and Michel 2006–12, vol. 1.1, pp.
374–77. See also Goldstein 1996, p. 150. 177 Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912,
vol. 1, pp. 129–32. 178 Montaiglon 1875–92, vol. 1, p. 293 (for a Venus donated
by Chantelou in 1665), pp. 300, 330–31 (for the cast of the Farnese Hercules
ordered in 1666 and delivered in 1668), p. 366 (for several casts after ancient
reliefs and statues copied for the Académie from the Royal collection on the
order of Colbert). 179 See Foster 1998; Schnapper 2000 and Macsotay 2010. 180
Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912, vol. 1, p. 36. 181 Goldstein 1978, esp. pp.
2–5. 182 Golzio 1935. 183 Boyer 1950, p. 117; Goldstein 1970; Bousquet 1980,
pp. 110–11; Goldstein 1996, pp. 45–46. 184 Mahon 1947, pp. 188–89. 185
Missirini 1823, pp. 145–46 (chap. XCI); Mahon 1947, p. 189; Goldstein 1996, p.
46. 186 Teyssèdre 1965; Puttfarken 1985; Montagu 1996; Arras and Épinal 2004.
187 Armenini 1587, pp. 93–99, esp. p. 96 (book 2, chap. 5). 188 See esp. Van
der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 69–75; Muller 2004, esp. pp. 18–21; Jaffé and
Bradley 2005–06; Jaffé 2010. For the drawing (fig. 67) see Van der Meulen
1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 71–72, notes 11, 14, 16 with previous literature. Rubens
applied this method to several other statues. 189 Bellori 1976, pp. 451,
473–77, ; Bellori 2005, p. 311, and for the plates pp. 334–37. See Rome 2000b,
vol. 2, pp. 403–04, no. 9 (V. Krahn); Henry 2011; Coquery 2013, p. 361, nos G.
179–80. 190 The surviving 39 drawings are today preserved in an ‘Album de
dessins et mesures de statues romaines...’ at the École nationale supérieure
des Beaux-Arts in Paris: Coquery 2000, pp. 48–50; Paris 2000–01, pp. 389–90,
no. 195; Coquery 2013, pp. 37–40; Stanic 2013. For the three drawings repro-
duced here see Coquery 2013, p. 281, no. D114 (Laocoön), p. 283, no. D130
(Belvedere Antinous), p. 283, no. D131 (Venus de’Medici). 191 Bosse 1656. See the Conférences by Sébastien Bourdon, Charles Le Brun, Henri Testelin,
Michel Anguier, etc.: Lichtenstein and Michel 2006–12, vol. 1.1, esp. pp.
161–66 (Charles Le Brun), 316–33 (Charles Le Brun), 332–35 (Michel Anguier),
374–77 (Sébastien Bourdon); vol. 1.2, pp. 636–38 (Michel Anguier), 667–71
(Henry Testelin). 192 On De Wit’s Teekenboek (fig. 74) see Bolten 1985,
pp. 82–86. On Nollekens’ drawing (fig. 75) see Blayney Brown 1982, p. 484, no.
1460; Nottingham and London 1991, pp. 58–59, no. 31 (Venus de’ Medici); Lyon
1998–99, pp. 123–24, no. 101. On Volpato’s and Morghen’s print annotated by
Canova (fig. 76) see Rome 2008, p. 144, no. 25, with previous bibliography. 193
On the study of anatomy in the Renaissance and the 17th century see Schultz
1985; Ottawa, Vancouver and elsewhere 1996–97; London, Warwick and elsewhere
1997–98; and the excellent essays in Paris 2008– 09a, esp. Carlino 2008–09. On
the combination of the study of anatomy and of the Antique between the 17th and
19th centuries see esp. Schwartz 2008–09. 194 Paris 2000–01, pp. 391–92, no.
197; Coquery 2013, pp. 195–200; Paris 2008–09a, pp. 222–23, no. 79. 195 For the
skeletons (figs 77–78) and anatomical figures (figs 79–80) of the Laocoön and
Borghese Gladiator see Coquery 2013, respectively p. 384, no. G.416, p. 383,
no. G.413, p. 381, no. G.400, p. 382, no. G.408. A series of Conférences at the
Académie Royale in Paris had been devoted to the Antique and anatomy: see esp. Lichtenstein and Michel 2006–12, vol. 1.2, pp. 581–93 (Pierre Monnier, ‘Sur
les muscles du Laocoon’, 2 May 1676). 196 See Paris
2000–01, pp. 393–94, no. 199, with previous bibliography; Paris 2008–09a, pp.
226–27, no. 85. 197 See Paris 2000–01, pp. 392–93, no. 198, with previous
bibliography; Paris 2008–09a, pp. 226–27, no. 82. Sauvage also made écorchés of
other classical prototypes. 198 The original cast appears to have been
destroyed. The écorché preserved at the Royal Academy of Arts is a 19th-century
copy by William Pink: see Postle 2004, esp. pp. 58–59, with previous
bibliography. 199 See Jordan and Weston 2002, p. 97, fig. 4.7. 200 For the
practice see Paris 2000–01, pp. 415–29; Schwartz 2008–09; London 2013–14, pp.
62–69. On Paillett’s drawing (fig. 87) see London 2013–14, p. 21, pl. 1, p. 96,
no. 1. For Bottani’s (fig. 88) see Philadelphia 1980– 81, pp. 59–60, no. 47.
For David’s painting (fig. 89) see Rome 1981–82, pp. 101–02, no. 25. 201 202
203 204 205 206 207 Pevsner 1940, pp. 140–41. On the diffusion of academies in
the 18th century see Boschloo 1989, passim. A good recent overview is Brook
2010–11. Diderot’s remark appeared in an article in the Correspondance
littéraire, philos- ophique et critique, no. 13, 1763: ‘Sur Bouchardon et la
sculpture’, p. 45. See an English translation in Diderot 2011, p. 19. On the
diffusion of casts in the 18th century see Haskell and Penny 1981, esp. pp.
79–91, chap. 11; Rossi Pinelli 1984; Rossi Pinelli 1988; Pucci 2000a;
Frederiksen and Marchand 2010. London 2013–14, pp. 36, 46–47. See the explanatory
text for the plate: Diderot and D’Alembert 1762–72, vol. 20, entry ‘Dessein’,
pp. 1–20, esp. pp. 2–5. See also Michel 1987, pp. 284, 288. Locquin 1912, pp.
5–13; Toledo, Chicago and elsewhere 1975–76; Plax 2000. Locquin 1912, pp. 5–13;
Schoneveld-Van Stoltz 1989, pp. 216–28, with previ- ous bibliography. Excellent
introductions to the art world of Rome in the 18th century are the essay
contained in Philadelphia and Houston 2000 (see esp. Barroero and Susinno 2000)
and in Rome 2010–11b. Goethe 2013, vol. 2, p. 373. Overviews on the Grand Tour
are Black 1992; London and Rome 1996–97; Chaney 1998; Black 2003. On Panini’s
painting see London and Rome 1996–97, pp. 277–78, no. 233; Philadelphia and
Houston 2000, p. 425, no. 275, with previous literature. Macandrew 1978; Connor
Bulman 2006; Windsor 2013, with previous bibliography. Haskell and Penny 1981,
esp. pp. 23–30, 43–52; Paris 2010–11, with previous bibliography. On drawing in
Rome in the 18th century see Bowron 1993–94; Percy 2000, with previous bibliography.
On collections of casts in private academies see Bordini 1998, p. 387. On the
Concorsi see Cipriani and Valeriani 1988–91; Rome, University Park (PA) and
elsewhere 1989–90; Cipriani 2010–11. On the early years of the Capitoline as a
public museum see Arata 1994; Franceschini and Vernesi 2005; Arata 2008. See Arata
1994, p. 75. On the Accademia del Nudo see Pietrangeli 1959; Pietrangeli 1962;
MacDonald 1989; Barroero 1998; Bordini 1998. Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 62–63; Raspi Serra 1998–99; Macsotay 2010; Henry 2010–11. The
main source for Vleughels’ reform, rich in information on the study of the
Antique in the Académie under his directorship, is Montaiglon and Guiffrey
1887–1912, vols 7–9, passim (for description of the collection of casts see
vol. 7, pp. 333–37). Boyer 1955; Loire 2005–06, pp. 75–81. Caviglia-Brunel
2012, pp. 115–63. For Natoire’s drawing (fig. 94) see Paris 2000–01, p. 372,
no. 177; Caviglia- Brunel 2012, pp. 415–16, no. D.558. On Robert’s drawings
(figs 95–96) see Paris 2000–01, pp. 373–74, nos 178–79; Rome 2008, pp. 132–33,
nos 12–13; Ottawa and Caen 2011–12, pp. 22–23, nos 1a–1b. For fig. 97 see Paris
2000– 01, p. 384, no. 190. On Robert in Rome see Rome 1990–91. On Piranesi and
his influence on artists see Fleming 1962; Wilton Ely 1978; Rome, Dijon and
elsewhere 1976; Brunel 1978. On Winckelmann see Potts 1994, with previous
bibliography. Henry 2010–11. For David in Rome see Rome 1981–82. For his
drawings after the Antique see Sérullaz 1981–82; Rosenberg and Prat 2002, passim,
esp. vol. 1, pp. 391– 746, vol. 2, pp. 754–866. Sérullaz 1981–82, p. 42. For
David’s drawing (fig. 98) see Rosenberg and Prat 2002, p. 499, no. 642. See
Pressly 1979; Valverde 2008; Busch 2013. On all these aspects see Pears 1988,
esp. pp. 1–26. As general introductions see Denvir 1983; Solkin 1992; Brewer
1997; Bindman 2008. On the ‘Rule of Taste’ see Lipking 1970; Barrell 1986, esp.
1–68; Pears 1988, pp. 27–50; Ayres 1997. For a recent overview see Aymonino
2014. On academies in Britain before the foundation of the Royal Academy see
Bignamini 1988; Bignamini 1990. See MacDonald 1989. An excellent introduction
to the use of the Antique in artists’ education in 18th-century Britain is
Postle 1997. For casts in Britain in the first half of the 18th century see:
Bignamini 1988, p. 59, note 63, p. 65, p. 77, note 9, p. 81, note 65, p. 88, p.
103. Einberg and Egerton 1988, pp. 64–71. Kitson 1966–68, esp. pp. 85–86;
Postle 1997, esp. pp. 83–84. See Paulson 1971, vol. 2, pp. 168–71; Nottingham
and London 1991, p. 62, no. 37. Coutu 2000, p. 47; Kenworthy-Browne 2009. On
Mortimer’s painting see Nottingham and London 1991, p. 45, no. 11, with
previous bibliography. MacDonald 1989. Allan 1968, pp. 76–88; Bignamini 1988,
p. 108; Postle 1997, pp. 85–87; Coutu 2000, p. 52; Kenworthy-Browne 2009, pp.
43–44. Ibid. On the Glasgow Foulis Academy see Pevsner 1940, p. 156; MacDonald
1989, pp. 84–85; Fairfull-Smith 2001. On the Royal Academy see Hutchison 1986.
On its regulations see also Abstract 1797. On the Antique School at the Royal
Academy (fig. 105) see Nottingham and London 1991, p. 43, no. 7; Rome 2010–11b,
p. 432, no.V.6. On Zoffany’s painting see New Haven and London 2011–12, pp.
218–21, no. 44, with previous bibliography. For the medal see Hutchison 1986,
p. 34. On Kauffman’s painting see Rome 2010–11b, pp. 325, 432–33, no. V.7. For
Townley see particularly Coltman 2009. On Soane’s collection of plaster casts
see Dorey 2010. De Architectura, 1.1, esp. 1.1.13; Watkin 1996. Jenkins 1992,
pp. 30–40. Venice 1976, pp. 114–15, no. 49. Malvasia 1678, vol. 1, pp. 359,
365, 484. On the 17th-century neologism ‘statuino’ see Pericolo’s forthcoming
article. See De Piles 1677, pp. 253–54; De Piles 1708, esp. pp.
128–38. Bellori 1976, p. 214; Bellori 2005, p. 180. See Pucci 2000a; Bukdahal 2007 Diderot 1995, p. 4. See also Haskell and
Penny 1981, p. 91. Boime 1980, pp. 330–35, pl. ix.47. Couture 1867, pp. 155–56.
6609a, pp. 226–27, no. 85. 197 See Paris 2000–01, pp. 392–93, no. 198, with
previous bibliography; Paris 2008–09a, pp. 226–27, no. 82. Sauvage also made
écorchés of other classical prototypes. 198 The original cast appears to have
been destroyed. The écorché preserved at the Royal Academy of Arts is a
19th-century copy by William Pink: see Postle 2004, esp. pp. 58–59, with
previous bibliography. 199 See Jordan and Weston 2002, p. 97, fig. 4.7. 200 For
the practice see Paris 2000–01, pp. 415–29; Schwartz 2008–09; London 2013–14,
pp. 62–69. On Paillett’s drawing (fig. 87) see London 2013–14, p. 21, pl. 1, p.
96, no. 1. For Bottani’s (fig. 88) see Philadelphia 1980– 81, pp. 59–60, no.
47. For David’s painting (fig. 89) see Rome 1981–82, pp. 101–02, no. 25. Pevsner
1940, pp. 140–41. On the diffusion of academies in the 18th century see
Boschloo 1989, passim. A good recent overview is Brook 2010–11. Diderot’s
remark appeared in an article in the Correspondance littéraire, philos- ophique
et critique, no. 13, 1763: ‘Sur Bouchardon et la sculpture’, p. 45. See an
English translation in Diderot 2011, p. 19. On the diffusion of casts in the
18th century see Haskell and Penny 1981, esp. pp. 79–91, chap. 11; Rossi
Pinelli 1984; Rossi Pinelli 1988; Pucci 2000a; Frederiksen and Marchand 2010.
London 2013–14, pp. 36, 46–47. See the explanatory text for the plate: Diderot
and D’Alembert 1762–72, vol. 20, entry ‘Dessein’, pp. 1–20, esp. pp. 2–5. See
also Michel 1987, pp. 284, 288. Locquin 1912, pp. 5–13; Toledo, Chicago and
elsewhere 1975–76; Plax 2000. Locquin 1912, pp. 5–13; Schoneveld-Van Stoltz
1989, pp. 216–28, with previ- ous bibliography. Excellent introductions to the
art world of Rome in the 18th century are the essay contained in Philadelphia
and Houston 2000 (see esp. Barroero and Susinno 2000) and in Rome 2010–11b.
Goethe 2013, vol. 2, p. 373. Overviews on the Grand Tour are Black 1992; London
and Rome 1996–97; Chaney 1998; Black 2003. On Panini’s painting see London and
Rome 1996–97, pp. 277–78, no. 233; Philadelphia and Houston 2000, p. 425, no.
275, with previous literature. Macandrew 1978; Connor Bulman 2006; Windsor
2013, with previous bibliography. Haskell and Penny 1981, esp. pp. 23–30,
43–52; Paris 2010–11, with previous bibliography. On drawing in Rome in the
18th century see Bowron 1993–94; Percy 2000, with previous bibliography. On
collections of casts in private academies see Bordini 1998, p. 387. On the
Concorsi see Cipriani and Valeriani 1988–91; Rome, University Park (PA) and
elsewhere 1989–90; Cipriani 2010–11. On the early years of the Capitoline as a
public museum see Arata 1994; Franceschini and Vernesi 2005; Arata 2008. See Arata
1994, p. 75. On the Accademia del Nudo see Pietrangeli 1959; Pietrangeli 1962;
MacDonald 1989; Barroero 1998; Bordini 1998. Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 62–63; Raspi Serra 1998–99; Macsotay 2010; Henry 2010–11. The
main source for Vleughels’ reform, rich in information on the study of the
Antique in the Académie under his directorship, is Montaiglon and Guiffrey
1887–1912, vols 7–9, passim (for description of the collection of casts see
vol. 7, pp. 333–37). Boyer 1955; Loire 2005–06, pp. 75–81. Caviglia-Brunel
2012, pp. 115–63. For Natoire’s drawing (fig. 94) see Paris 2000–01, p. 372,
no. 177; Caviglia- Brunel 2012, pp. 415–16, no. D.558. On Robert’s drawings
(figs 95–96) see Paris 2000–01, pp. 373–74, nos 178–79; Rome 2008, pp. 132–33,
nos 12–13; Ottawa and Caen 2011–12, pp. 22–23, nos 1a–1b. For fig. 97 see Paris
2000– 01, p. 384, no. 190. On Robert in Rome see Rome 1990–91. On Piranesi and
his influence on artists see Fleming 1962; Wilton Ely 1978; Rome, Dijon and
elsewhere 1976; Brunel 1978. On Winckelmann see Potts 1994, with previous
bibliography. 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239
240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259
Henry 2010–11. For David in Rome see Rome 1981–82. For his drawings after the
Antique see Sérullaz 1981–82; Rosenberg and Prat 2002, passim, esp. vol. 1, pp.
391– 746, vol. 2, pp. 754–866. Sérullaz 1981–82, p. 42. For David’s drawing
(fig. 98) see Rosenberg and Prat 2002, p. 499, no. 642. See Pressly 1979;
Valverde 2008; Busch 2013. On all these aspects see Pears 1988, esp. pp. 1–26.
As general introductions see Denvir 1983; Solkin 1992; Brewer 1997; Bindman
2008. On the ‘Rule of Taste’ see Lipking 1970; Barrell 1986, esp. 1–68; Pears
1988, pp. 27–50; Ayres 1997. For a recent overview see Aymonino 2014. On
academies in Britain before the foundation of the Royal Academy see Bignamini
1988; Bignamini 1990. See MacDonald 1989. An excellent introduction to the use
of the Antique in artists’ education in 18th-century Britain is Postle 1997.
For casts in Britain in the first half of the 18th century see: Bignamini 1988,
p. 59, note 63, p. 65, p. 77, note 9, p. 81, note 65, p. 88, p. 103. Einberg
and Egerton 1988, pp. 64–71. Kitson 1966–68, esp. pp. 85–86; Postle 1997, esp.
pp. 83–84. See Paulson 1971, vol. 2, pp. 168–71; Nottingham and London 1991, p.
62, no. 37. Coutu 2000, p. 47; Kenworthy-Browne 2009. On Mortimer’s painting
see Nottingham and London 1991, p. 45, no. 11, with previous bibliography.
MacDonald 1989. Allan 1968, pp. 76–88; Bignamini 1988, p. 108; Postle 1997, pp.
85–87; Coutu 2000, p. 52; Kenworthy-Browne 2009, pp. 43–44. Ibid. On the
Glasgow Foulis Academy see Pevsner 1940, p. 156; MacDonald 1989, pp. 84–85;
Fairfull-Smith 2001. On the Royal Academy see Hutchison 1986. On its
regulations see also Abstract 1797. On the Antique School at the Royal Academy
(fig. 105) see Nottingham and London 1991, p. 43, no. 7; Rome 2010–11b, p. 432,
no.V.6. On Zoffany’s painting see New Haven and London 2011–12, pp. 218–21, no.
44, with previous bibliography. For the medal see Hutchison 1986, p. 34. On
Kauffman’s painting see Rome 2010–11b, pp. 325, 432–33, no. V.7. For Townley
see particularly Coltman 2009. On Soane’s collection of plaster casts see Dorey
2010. De Architectura, 1.1, esp. 1.1.13; Watkin 1996. Jenkins 1992, pp. 30–40.
Venice 1976, pp. 114–15, no. 49. Malvasia 1678, vol. 1, pp. 359, 365, 484. On
the 17th-century neologism ‘statuino’ see Pericolo’s forthcoming article. See De Piles 1677, pp. 253–54; De Piles 1708, esp. pp. 128–38. Bellori
1976, p. 214; Bellori 2005, p. 180. See Pucci 2000a;
Bukdahal 2007 Diderot 1995, p. 4. See also Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 91. Boime
1980, pp. 330–35, pl. ix.47. Couture 1867, pp. 155–56. 66 67. Primary Sources
On The Antique. Rome to copy its antiquities as a source of inspiration, a
phenomenon that increased over the subsequent four hundred years. Bembo is, in
addition, one of the earliest writers to rank Raphael and Michelangelo on the
level of artists from antiquity. Excerpt from P. Bembo, Prose . . . della
volgar lingua, Venice, 1525, p. XLII r (translation Michael Sullivan). At all times of day [Rome] witnesses the arrival of artists from near
and far, intent on reproducing in the small space of their paper or wax the
form of those splendid ancient figures of marble, sometimes bronze, that lie
scattered all over Rome, or are publicly and privately kept and treasured, as
they do with the arches and baths and theatres and the other various sorts of
buildings that are in part still standing: and hence, when they mean to produce
some new work, they aim at those examples, striving with their art to resemble
them, all the more so since they believe their efforts merit praise by the
closeness of resemblance of their new works to ancient ones, being well aware
that the ancient ones come closer to the perfection of art than any done
afterwards. These have succeeded more than others, Messer Giulio [de’ Medici],
your Michelangelo of Florence and Raphael of Urbino [...] so outstanding and
illustrious that it is easier to say how close they come to the good old
masters than decide which of them is the greater and better artist. 4. Ludovico
Dolce (1508–68) on the necessity for artists copying from antique statues to
learn how to correct the defects of Nature and to aim for perfect beauty. In
his treatise Dialogo della pittura . . . (1557), the humanist, writer and art
theorist Lodovico Dolce upheld a strong defence of the Venetian school of
painting, based on colour, against the Florentine and Roman ones, based on
drawing, supported by Giorgio Vasari. At the same time he included one of the
earliest theoretical statements on the necessity to study the Antique as a
model of idealised nature and perfect beauty – especially in the study of the
proportions of the human figure. However, in Dolce, one finds also a warning
against the indiscriminate copying of classical sculptures – which should
always be imitated with the correct artistic judgement to avoid eccen-
tricities – a principle that would become a leitmotif in subsequent art
literature, as shown here in excerpts from Rubens (no. 8) or Bernini (no. 10).
For Dolce a slavish dependence on the Antique can lead to the excesses of
Mannerism. Exerpts
from Ludovico Dolce, Dialogo della pittura intitolato l’Aretino . . ., Venice,
1557, pp. 32r–33r. The following translation is from the first English
edition: Aretin: A Dialogue on Painting. From the Italian of Ludovico Dolce,
London, 1770, pp. 127–32. Whoever would do this [to form a justly proportioned
figure] should chuse the most perfect form he can find, and partly imitate
nature, as Apelles did, who, when he painted his celebrated Venus emerging from
the sea [...] [p. 128] drew her from Phryne, the most famous courtesan of the
age; and Praxiteles also formed his statue of the Venus of Gnidus, from the
same model. Partly he should imitate the best marbles and bronzes of the [p.
129] antient masters, the admirable perfection [p. 130] of which, whoever can
fully taste and posses, may safely correct many defects of Nature herself, and
make his pictures universally pleasing and grateful. These contain all the
perfection of the art, and may be properly proposed as examples of perfect
beauty. [...] [p. 131] Proportion being the principal foundation of design, he
who best observes it, must always be the best master in this respect: and it
being necessary to the forming of a perfect body, to copy not only nature but
the antique, we must be careful that we do this with judgement, lest we should
imitate the worst parts, whilst we think we are imitating the best. We have an
instance of this, at present, in a painter, who having observed that the [p.
132] antients, for the most part, designed their figures light and slender, by
too strict an obedience to this custom, and exceeding the just bounds, has
turned this, which is a beauty, into a very striking defect. Others have
accustomed themselves in painting heads (especially of women) to make long
necks; having observed that the greatest part of the antique pictures of Roman
ladies have long necks, and that short ones are generally ungrace- ful; but by
giving into too great a liberty, have made that which was in their original
pleasing, totally otherwise in the copy. 5. Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) on drawing
as the intellectual foundation of all arts; on grace, and on the classical
sculptures in the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican as the source for the
‘beautiful style’ of High Renaissance masters. Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the
Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects – published first in 1550 and
in an expanded edition in 1568 – is arguably the most influential example of
art literature of the Renaissance. Vasari’s biographies of the most famous
modern artists set the standard for a progressive conception of the history of
art, with the Florentine and Roman schools representing its culmination. At the
start of his essay on painting, in a section added to the 1568 edition of the
Lives, he provides a definition of disegno, drawing, to give a theoretical
underpinning to his defence of the Central Italian schools of painting.
Vasari’s conception of drawing as the first physical manifestation of the
artist’s idea – the intellectual part of art common to painting, sculpture and
architecture – would provide the founda- tion for the centrality of drawing in
the curriculum of future acade- mies. In another passage to be found in both
editions, Vasari praises the best ancient sculptures, as they embodied the
supreme quality of grazia, or grace, which cannot be attained by study but only
by the judgement of the artist – a concept that remained one of the central
tenets of Italian art theory for the next two centuries. He attributes the rise
of the modern manner or ‘bella maniera’, and the great achievements of Raphael
and Michelangelo, to their familiarity and exposure to the best examples of
classical sculpture in the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican. Excerpts
from Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori et
architettori, Florence, 1568, part 1, p. 43. The
following translation is from Vasari on Technique, ed. G. Baldwin Brown, trans.
L. S. Maclehose, London, 1907, pp. 205–06. 69 SOURCE #1 VITRUVIO (80–70 bc –
post c. 15 bc) On harmonic proportions as the principle of ideal beauty. Marcus
Vitruvius Pollio’s De Architectura, c. 30–20 bc, is the only complete treatise
on classical architecture to have survived from antiquity and its impact on
Western architecture from the Renaissance onwards is paramount. Manuscript
copies of the treatise circulated widely in the 15th century and were well
known to Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Donatello and to
subsequent generations of early Renaissance artists and architects. The first
printed Latin edition appeared in 1486, followed by a more popular version in
1511 (edited by Fra Giovanni Giocondo). Italian translations appeared in 1521
(by Cesare Cesariano) and in 1556 (edited and translated by Daniele Barbaro
with illustrations by Andrea Palladio). The first chapter of book 3, provided
architects and artists with an authoritative account of the principle of
harmonic proportions based on commensurability which had inspired ancient sculptors
and paint- ers in search of ideal beauty. The celebrated passage on the perfect
proportions of the human body was visualised by Leonardo in his ‘Vitruvian Man’
(see p. 17, fig. 2). The following translation is from the first integral
English edition: The Architecture of M. Vitruvius Pollio. Translated from the
Original Latin, by W. Newton Architect, London, 1771, book 3, chapter 1, pp.
45–46: ‘On the Composition and Symmetry of Temples’.1 The composition of
temples, is governed by the laws of symmetry; which an architect ought well to
understand; this arises from pro- portion, which is called by the Greek,
Analogia. Proportion is the correspondence of the measures of all the parts of
a work, and of the whole configuration, from which correspondence, symmetry is
produced; for a building cannot be well composed without the rules of symmetry
and proportions; nor unless the members, as in a well formed human body, have a
perfect agreement. For nature as so composed the human body, that the face from
the chin to the roots of the hair at the top of the forehead, is the tenth part
of the whole height; and the hand, from the joint to the extremity of the
middle finger, is the same; the head, from the chin to the crown, is an eight
part; [...] the rest of the members have their measures also proportional; this
the ancient painters and statuaries strictly observed, and thereby gained
universal applause. [...] The central point of the body is the navel: for if a
man was laid supine with his arms and legs extended, and a circle was drawn
round him, the central foot of the compasses being placed over his navel, the
extremities of his fingers and toes would touch the circumferent line; and in
the same manner as the body is adapted to [p. 46] the circle, it will also be
found to agree with the square; for, if the measure from the bottom of the feet
to the top of the head is taken, and applied to the arms extended, it will be
found that the breadth is equal to the height, the same as in the area of a
square. Since, therefore, nature has so composed the human body, * All
sentences in Italics are by the present author throughout. 68 that the members
are proportionate and consentaneous to the whole figure, with reason the
ancients have determined, that in all perfect works, the several members must
be exactly proportional to the whole object. 1 The Latin word ‘symmetria’ of
Vitruvius’ text has often been translated in English with ‘symmetry’, while
commensurability – the mathematical relation between the part and the whole within
a given body or building resulting in overall harmonic proportions – would be a
better translation. 2. Cennino d’Andrea Cennini (c. 1370–c. 1440) on drawing as
the foundation of art and on the advantage for young artists of copying from
other masters. Written around 1390 possibly in Padua, Cennini’s Il Libro
dell’Arte is the first art treatise composed in Italian. Although mainly
concerned with practical advice to painters, Cennini also devoted some of the
chapters to the education of the young artist, ofering the first written
evidence of the importance of drawing in the apprenticeship of the aspiring
painter, and especially the copying of works by other artists. Later, in early
Renaissance workshop practices, this increasingly included antique sculpture.
Although not published until 1821, manuscript copies of the Libro circulated
widely in the 16th and 17th centuries, evidenced by the fact that references to
it and passages from it reappear in subsequent art treatises. Excerpts
from Cennino Cennini, Il Libro dell’Arte, ed. F. Brunello, Vicenza, 1971
(translation, present author). [P. 6, chapter 4] The
foundations and the principles of art, and of all these manual works, are
drawing and colouring. [P. 27, chapter 27] If you want to progress further on
the path of this science [...] you must follow this method: [...] take pain and
pleasure in constantly copying the best things that you can find done by the
hands of the great masters. And if you are in a place where many masters have
been, so much better for you. But I will give you some advice: be careful to
imitate always the best and the most famous; and progressing every day, it
would be against nature that you will not eventually be infused by the master’s
style and spirit. 3. Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) on artists going to Rome to copy
the Antique, and on Michelangelo and Raphael having equalled the ancient
masters. Italian scholar, poet, literary theorist, collector and cardinal,
Pietro Bembo was a central figure in the cultivated antiquarian milieu at the court
of Pope Leo X (r. 1513–21) and a personal friend of Raphael and Michelangelo.
His Prose . . . della volgar lingua, a treatise published in 1525, but composed
over the previous two decades, contains one of the earliest and most eloquent
reports of artists converging on Seeing that Design, the parent of our
three arts, Architecture, Sculpture and Painting, having its origin in the
intellect, draws out from many single things a general judgement, it is like a
form or idea of all the objects in nature, most marvellous in what it
compasses, for not only in the bodies of men and of animals but also in plants,
in buildings, in sculpture and in painting, design is cognizant of the
proportions of the whole to the parts and of the parts to each other and to the
whole. Seeing too that from this knowledge there arises a certain conception
and judgement, so that there is formed in the mind that something which
afterwards, when expressed by the hands, is called design, we may conclude that
design is not other than a visible expression and declaration of our inner
conception and of that which others have imagined and given form to their idea.
And from this, perhaps, arose the proverb among the ancients ‘ex ungue leonem’
when a certain clever person, seeing carved in a stone block the claw only of a
lion, apprehended in his mind [p. 206] from its size and form all the parts of
the animal and then the whole together, just as if he had had it present before
his eyes. Excerpts
from Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori et
architettori, Florence, 1568, part 3, vol. 1, pp. 2–3 of the Preface
(unpaginated). The following translation is from Lives of the Most
Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects by Giorgio Vasari, ed. and trans. by
G. du C. de Vere, London 1912–14, vol. 4, pp. 81–82. [Fifteenth-century
artists] were advancing towards the good, and their figures were thus approved
according to the standards of the works of the ancients, as was seen when
Andrea Verrocchio restored in marble the legs and arms of the Marsyas in the
house of the Medici in Florence. But they lacked a certain finish and finality
of perfection in the feet, hands, hair, and beards, although the limbs as a
whole are in accordance with the antique and have a certain correct harmony in
the proportions. Now if they had had that minuteness of finish which is the
perfection and bloom of art, they would also have had a resolute boldness in
their works; and from this there would have followed delicacy, refine- ment,
and supreme grace, which are the qualities produced by the perfection of art in
beautiful figures, whether in relief or painting; but these qualities they did
not have, although they give proof of diligent striving. That finish, and that
certain something that they lacked, they could not achieve so readily, seeing
that study, when it is used in that way to obtain finish, gives dryness to the
manner. After them indeed, their successors were enabled to attain to it
through seeing excavated out of the earth certain antiquities cited by Pliny as
amongst the most famous, such as the Laocoön, the Hercules, the Great Torso of
the Belvedere, and likewise the Venus, the Cleopatra, the Apollo, and an
endless number of others, which, both with their sweetness and their severity,
with their fleshy roundness copied from the great beauties of nature, and with
certain attitudes which involve no distortions of the whole figure but only a
movement of certain parts, [p. 82] and are revealed with a most perfect grace,
brought about the disappearance of a certain dryness, hardness, and sharpness
of manner, which had been left to our art by the excessive study [...]. 6.
Giovan Battista Armenini (c. 1525–1609) on assimilating the principles of the
Antique through constant drawing as a safe guide for artistic creation. Giovan
Battista Armenini’s De veri precetti della pittura (1587), consti- tutes one of
the most systematic art treatises of the second half of the 16th century. In it
we find the clearest formulations of a progressive method of learning, later
defined as the ‘alphabet of drawing’ (see no. 7), and of the necessity of
assimilating the principles of the Antique through drawing. Armenini is also
the first to provide a proper canon of sculptures and reliefs in Rome that
students should copy and to praise the didactic use of plaster casts. Excerpts
from Giovan Battista Armenini, De veri precetti della pittura, Ravenna, 1587,
book 1, ch. 8, pp. 61–63. The following translation is from G. B. Armenini, On
the True Precepts of the Art of Painting, ed. and trans. by J. Olszewski, New
York, 1977, pp. 130–34. [To obtain a good style] it is the general and
universal rule only to draw those things which are the most beautiful, learned
and most like the good works of ancient sculptors. Having familiarised him-
self with them through continual study, the student must know these things so
thoroughly that when the occasion demands he can reproduce one or more of these
compositions. He must be so familiar with them that whatever is good in the old
works will be marvellously reflected in his rough sketches, as well as in
finished drawings, and consequently in large paintings [...]. For the con-
tinual drawing and copying of things which are well made ensures that one has a
proper guide to follow and executes his own work very well. [...] In order that
you may fully know the basis of art, make it the foundation of your own works,
and learn how to recognise excellence with certainty, particularly in figures,
we shall place before you as principal models some of the most famous ancient
sculp- tures which most closely approach the true perfection of art and are
still intact in our own days. [p. 131] For it is well known that the ancients
who fashioned these statues first chose the best that nature offered in diverse
models and then, guided by their excellent judgement, combined the best
perfectly into one work. [...] These ancient statues are as follows: the
Laocoön, Hercules, Apollo, the great Torso, Cleopatra, Venus, the Nile, and
some others also of marble, all of them to be found in the Belvedere in the
papal palace in the Vatican. Some others are scattered throughout Rome and
among the [p. 132] foremost is the Marcus Aurelius in bronze, now in the square
of the Campidoglio. Then there are the Giants of Monte Cavallo, and the
Pasquino, and others not as good as these. Also well known because of the
histo- ries depicted thereon are those in the arches with very beautiful manner
of half and low relief as in the two columns, the Trajan and the Antonine,
which still stand, even though time is hostile to human work. [...] And even
though this study we have been discussing is not in the power of all students,
since as is well known not all can stay in Rome labouring long and at great
expense, yet even they have many of these works in their own homes. I am
speaking of those copies of the originals fashioned by the masters in plaster
or other material. I have seen a wax copy of the Roman Laocoön, not larger than
two spans, but one could say that it was the original in small size. Still, if
those parts that are modelled in gesso from these works can be obtained, they
are better without doubt since every detail is there precisely as in the
marble, so that they can be scrutinised and serve the student’s needs
excellently. Also, they are very convenient because they are light and easily
handled and transported. And, as for price, one can say it is very cheap, that
is, in comparison with the originals. Therefore, with such excellent aids
available, there is no excuse for anyone who really wishes to learn the good
and ancient path. I have seen studios and chambers in Milan, Genoa, Venice,
Parma, Mantua, Florence, Bologna, Pesaro, Urbino, Ravenna and other minor
cities full of such well formed copies. Looking at these, it seemed to me that
they were the very works found in Rome. Nor is any beautiful living model
excluded from these, and the closer it is to the aforementioned [p. 133]
sculptures, the better it may be considered to be, but this is rarely the case.
Now, with so many examples and reasons, such as these, I believe [p. 134] you
should have a good idea of all that you must consider and observe carefully. 7.
The ‘alphabet of drawing’ and the role of the Antique in the first orders and
statutes of the Roman Accademia di San Luca (1593). The first ‘orders and
statutes’ of the Roman Accademia di San Luca, laid out by Federico Zuccaro (c.
1541–1609) in 1593 and published by Romano Alberti (active 1585–1604) in 1604,
codified a progressive method in learning how to draw the human figure,
considered as the central subject of art: from details, like the eye, to the
whole body. This ‘alphabet of drawing’, based on Renaissance workshop
practices, would become enormously influential in the teaching of art in Europe
well into the 20th century. The Antique had a crucial role in it, as it gave
students the possibility to learn how to approach the third dimension of the
human body through models of idealised beauty, anatomy and proportions, and the
role of ancient statuary is clearly specified in another passage of the
Accademia’s rules and regulations. Excerpts from Romano Alberti, Origine, et
progresso dell’Academia del Dissegno, de’ Pittori, Scultori, et Architetti di
Roma, Pavia, 1604, pp. 5–8 (translation, present author). [P. 5] Another hour will be devoted to practice and to teaching drawing
to young students, showing them the way and the good path of study, and for
this purpose we have appointed twelve Academicians, one for each month of the
year, in charge of taking particular care and responsibility in assisting the
students in this task. [...]. The Principal will order the young students to
produce something by their hand, while he will draw himself, and he will award
his resulting drawings to the best students. The first figures – to start from
the Alphabet of Drawing (so to speak) – will be the A, B, C: eyes, noses,
mouths, ears, heads, hands, feet, arms, legs, torsos, backs and other similar
parts of the human body, as well as any other sort of animals and figures,
architectural elements, and reliefs in wax, clay and similar exercises. [P. 8]
[The Academician in charge] will start instructing the students in what to
study, assigning to each of them a different task according to his individual
disposition and talent: some will draw from drawings, others from cartoons or
from reliefs; others will copy heads, feet, hands; others will go out during
the week drawing after the antique or the facades by Polidoro, or land- scapes,
buildings, animals and other similar things; other students in convenient times
will draw after live models, and they must copy them with grace and judgement.
Others will do exercises in architecture and in perspective, following its
correct and good rules, and the best students shall always be rewarded [...].
8. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) on the usefulness and dangers of copying from
the Antique. The great Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens spent two extended
periods in Rome, between 1601 and 1602 and from late 1605 to late 1608, with
short interruptions. His erudite approach towards the Antique and his desire to
assimilate its principles resulted in many extraordinary drawings after
classical statues, mostly in black and red chalk. In his theoretical treatise,
De Imitatione Statuarum (‘On the Imitation of Statues’), c. 1608–10, he warned
against the dangers of slavishly copying the Antique and transferring the
characteristics and limits of one medium – marble – into another – drawing or
painting. Although Rubens’ manuscript remained unpublished in his lifetime, it
was owned by the influential French art theorist Roger de Piles (1635–1709),
who first published it in his Cours de peinture par principles, Paris, 1708,
pp. 139–47. The following translation is from the first English edition: Roger
de Piles, The Principles of Painting, London, 1743, pp. 86–92. To some painters
the imitation of the antique statues has been extremely useful, and to others
pernicious, even to the ruin of their art. I conclude, however, that in order
to attain the highest perfection in painting, it is necessary to understand the
antiques, nay, to be so thoroughly possessed of this knowledge, [p. 87] that it
may diffuse itself everywhere. Yet it must be judiciously applied, and so that
it may not in the least smell of stone. For several ignorant painters, and even
some who are skilful, make no distinction between the matter and the form, the
stone and the figure, the necessity of using the block, and the art of forming
it. It is certain, however, that the finest statues are extremely beneficial,
so the bad are not only useless, but even pernicious. For beginners learn from
them I know not what, that is crude, liny, stiff, and of harsh anatomy; and
while they take themselves to be good proficient, do but disgrace nature; since
instead of imitating flesh, they only represent marble tinged with various
colours. For there are many things [p. 88] to be taken notice of, and avoided,
which happen even in the best statues, without the workman’s fault: especially
with regard to the difference of shades [...]. [p. 89] He who has, with
discernment, made the proper distinctions in these cases, cannot consider the
antique statues too attentively, nor study them too carefully; for we of this
erroneous age, are so far degenerate, that we can produce nothing like them. 70
71 9. Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) described as a young boy devoting
his days to copying the statues in the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican. In
1713 Gianlorenzo Bernini’s son Domenico (1657–1723) published a biography of
his father that constitutes, with Filippo Baldinucci’s Vita del cavaliere . . .
Bernino (MS. 1682), one of the most important sources on the life and art of
the great Baroque sculptor and architect. A passage describing the impact of
the art of Rome on Gianlorenzo, after his arrival from his native Naples,
vividly evokes the dedication and devotion of the young sculptor in
assimilating day and night the principles of the great classical examples in
the Belvedere Courtyard – especially the Antinous Belvedere, the Apollo
Belvedere and the Laocoön. Excerpts from Domenico Bernini, Vita del
cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Rome, 1713, pp. 12-13. The following translation is from Domenico Bernini, The Life of Gian
Lorenzo Bernini, ed. and trans. by F. Mormando, University Park (PA), 2011, p.
101. There now opened before him in Rome a marvellous field in which to
cultivate his studies through the diligent observation of the precious remains
of ancient sculpture. It is not to be believed with what dedication he
frequented that school and with what profit he absorbed its teachings. Almost
every morning, for the space of three years, he left Santa Maria Maggiore,
where Pietro, his father, had built a small comfortable house, and travelled on
foot to the Vatican Palace at Saint Peter’s. There he remained until sunset,
drawing, one by one, those marvellous statues that antiquity has conveyed to us
and that time has preserved for us, as both a benefit and dowry for the art of
sculpture. He took no refreshment during all those days, except for a little wine
and food, saying that the pleasure alone of the lively instruction supplied by
those inanimate statues caused a certain sweetness to pervade his body, and
this was sufficient in itself for the maintenance of his strength for days on
end. In fact, some days it was frequently the case that Gian Lorenzo would not
return home at all. Not seeing the youth for entire days, his father, however,
did not even interrogate his son about this behaviour. Pietro was always
certain of Gian Lorenzo’s whereabouts, that is, in his studio at Saint Peter’s,
where, as the son used to say, his girlfriends (that is, the ancient statues)
had their home. The specific object of his studies we must deduce from what he
used to say later in life once he began to experience their effect on him.
Accordingly, his greatest attention was focussed above all on those two most
singular statues, the Antinous and the Apollo, the former miraculous in its
design, the latter in its workmanship. Bernini claimed, however, that both of
these qualities were even more perfectly embodied in the famous Laocoön of
Athen0dorus, Hagesander, and Polydorus of Rhodes, a work of so well-balanced
and exquisite a style that tradition has attributed it to three artists,
judging it perhaps beyond the ability of just one man alone. Two of these three
marvellous statues, the Antinous and the Laocoön, had been discovered during
the time of Pope Leo X amid the ruins of Nero’s palace in the gardens near the
church of San Pietro in Vincoli and placed by the same pontiff in the Vatican
Palace for the public benefit of artists and other students of antiquity. 10.
Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) on the formative role of ancient sculpture in
the education of young artists. In 1665 Bernini visited France at the
invitation of Louis XIV to discuss designs for the completion of the Palais du
Louvre. His five-month stay was recorded by his guide Paul Fréart, Sieur de
Chantelou in his lively Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France. The
advice given by Bernini on his visit to the Académie Royale de peinture et de
sculpture is among the clearest statements on the formative role assigned to
antique statuary in the education of young artists in 17th- century Rome. At
the same time it reveals the opinion of the great Baroque sculptor on the
dangers of copying from classical models without also involving independent
inspiration and artistic creations. The manuscript of the Journal du voyage du
cavalier Bernin en France par M. de Chantelou was published for the first time
by Ludovic Lalanne in a series of articles in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in
1877–84 (a new edition by M. Stanic ́ was published in Paris in 2001). The
following translation is from Paul Fréart de Chantelou, Diary of the Cavaliere
Bernini’s Visit to France, ed. by A. Blunt, trans. by M. Cornbett, Princeton,
1985, pp. 165–67. 5 September: The Cavaliere worked as usual, and in the
evening went to the Academy [...] [p. 166]. The Cavaliere glanced at the
pictures round the room: they are not by the most talented mem- bers. He also
looked at a few bas-reliefs by various sculptors of the Academy. Then, as he
was standing in the middle of the hall sur- rounded by members, he gave it as
his opinion that the Academy ought to possess casts of all the notable statues,
bas-reliefs, and busts of antiquity. They would serve to educate young
students; they should be taught to draw after these classical models and in
that way form a conception of the beautiful that would serve them all their
lives. It was fatal to put them to draw from nature at the beginning of their
training, since nature is nearly always feeble and niggardly, for if their
imagination has nothing but nature to feed on, they will be unable to put forth
anything of strength or beauty; for nature itself is devoid of both strength or
beauty, and artists who study it should first be skilled in recognis- ing its
faults and correcting them; something that students who lack grounding cannot
do [...] [p. 167]. He said that when he was very young he used to draw from the
antique a great deal, and, in the first figure he undertook, resorted
continually to the Antinous as his oracle. Every day he noticed some further
excellence in this statue; certainly he would never have had that experience
had he not himself taken up a chisel and started to work. For this reason he
always advised his pupils, and others, never to draw and model without at the
same time working either at a piece of sculpture or a picture, combining
creation with imitation and thought with action, so to speak, and remarkable
progress should result. For support of his contention that original work was
absolutely essential I cited the case of the late Antoine Carlier, an artist
known to most of the members of the Academy. He spent the greater part of his
life in Rome modelling after the statues of antiquity, and his copies are
incomparable: and they had to agree that, because he had begun to do original
work too late, his imagination had dried up, and the slavery of copying had in
the end made it impossible for him to produce anything of his own. 11. Giovanni
Pietro Bellori (1613–96): his ‘Idea of the painter, the sculptor and the
architect, selected from the beauties of Nature, superior to Nature’ as the
manifesto of the classicist doctrine. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, a central figure
in 17th-century art theory and the champion of classicism, delivered his
epochal speech, the ‘Idea’, in front of the Roman Accademia di San Luca in 1664
and later published it as a preface to his influential Vite of 1772. In this he
provided one of the clearest and most influential systematisations for the
concept of the idealistic mission of art, already formulated by various
Renaissance art theorists such as Dolce, Vasari, Armenini and Zuccaro. Joining
Aristotelian and neo-Platonic premises, for Bellori God’s perfect Ideas become
corrupted in our world because of accidents and the innate imperfection of the
‘matter’. The role of ‘noble’ artists is therefore to aim at recreating the
perfection of the original divine ideas in their works by selecting the best
parts of nature. Classical statues ofer the best guide and example for the
modern artists as they are the result of this process of selection already
achieved by ancient artists. In the final paragraph quoted here, Bellori
stresses the value of the imitation of the Antique against some contemporary
artists and theorists, like the Venetian painter and writer Marco Boschini
(1605–81), who criticised the practice. Excerpts from Giovan Pietro Bellori,
Le vite de’ pittori scultori e architetti moderni, Rome, 1672, pp. 3–13. The following translation is from G. P. Bellori, The Lives of the Modern
Painters, Sculptors and Architects: a New Translation and Critical Edition, ed.
by H. Wohl, trans. by A. Sedgwick Wohl, introduction by T. Montanari,
Cambridge, 2005, pp. 57–61. [P. 57] The supreme and eternal intellect, the
author of nature, looking deeply within himself as he fashioned his marvellous
works, established the first forms, called Ideas, in such a way that each
species was an expression of that first Idea, thereby forming the wondrous
context of created things. But the celestial bodies above the moon, not being
subject to change, remained forever beautiful and ordered, so that by their
measured spheres and by the splendour of their aspects we come to know them as
eternally perfect and most beautiful. The opposite happens with the sublunar
bodies, which are subject to change and to ugliness; and even though nature
intends always to make its effects excellent, nevertheless, owing to the
inequality of matter, forms are altered, and the human beauty in particular is
confounded, as we see in the innumerable deformities and disproportions that
there are in us. For this reason noble painters and sculptors, imitating that
first maker, also form in their minds an example of higher beauty, and by
contemplating that, they emend nature without fault of colour or of line. This
Idea, or rather the goddess of painting and sculpture [...], reveals itself to
us and descends upon marbles and canvases; originating in nature, it transcends
its origins and becomes the original of art; measured by the compass of the
intellect, it becomes the measure of the hand; and animated by the imagination
it gives life to the image. [P. 58] Now Zeuxis, who chose from five virgins to
fashion the famous image of Helen that Cicero held up as an example to the
orator, teaches both the painter and the sculptor to contemplate the Idea of
the best natural forms by choosing them from various bodies, selecting the most
elegant.1 For he did not believe that he would be able to find in a single body
all those perfections that he sought for the beauty of Helen, since nature does
not make any particular thing perfect in all its parts. [...] Now if we wish
also to compare the precepts of the sages of antiquity with the best of [p. 59]
those laid down by our modern sages, Leon Battista Alberti teaches that one
should love in all things not only the likeness, but mainly the beauty, and
that one must proceed by choosing from very beautiful bodies their most praised
parts.2 [...] Raphael of Urbino, the great master of those who know, writes
thus to Castiglione about his Galatea: In order to paint one beauty I would
need to see more beauties, but as there is a dearth of beautiful women, I make
use of a certain Idea that comes to into my mind.3 [P. 61] It remains for us to
say that since the sculptors of antiquity employed the marvellous Idea, as we
have indicated, it is therefore necessary to study the most perfect ancient
sculptures, in order that they may guide us to the emended beauties of nature;
and for the same purpose it is necessary to direct our eye to the contemplation
of other most excellent masters; but this matter we shall leave to a treatise
of its own on imitation, to meet the objections of those who criticise the
study of ancient statues. 1 Cicero, De inventione, II, 1, 1–3. 2 Alberti 1972,
p. 99 (book 3, chap. 55). 3 Quoted the first time in Pino 1582, vol. 2, p. 249.
12. A Conférence of the Parisian Académie Royale de peinture et de sculpture on
the artistic excellence of the Laocoön, 1667. Among the celebrated seven
Conférences given at the Académie in 1667, devoted to the analysis of famous
paintings of the Italian and French schools, the third, held by the sculptor
Gerard van Opstal (1594–1668), was specifically dedicated to the Laocoön.
Opstal’s approach, in which each aspect of the famous statue, from its anatomy,
to its proportions, character and expressions, is discussed in detail, clearly
expresses the analytical and didactic approach of the Académie to the Antique. Excerpts from André Félibien, Conférences de l’Académie Royale de Peinture
et de Sculpture, pendant l’année 1667, Paris, 1668, pp. 28–40. The following translation is from the first English edition: Seven
Conferences held in the King of France’s Cabinet of Paintings . . ., London,
1740, pp. 33–42 (pagination is discontinuous). [Gerard van Opstal] examined all
the Parts of this Figure in order to shew the Excellence of it: and observed
with what Art the Sculptor had given in a large Breast and Shoulders, all the
Parts of which are expressed with a great deal of Exactness and Tenderness. He
also took Notice of the Height of the Hips, and the Nervousness of the Arms:
the Legs neither too thick nor too lean but firm 72 73 and well muscled;
and in general he observed that in all the other Members, the Flesh and Nerves
were expressed with as much strength and sweetness as in Nature herself, but in
Nature well formed. [...] [p. 34]. He did not forget to shew likewise the strong
Expressions which appear in this admirable Figure, where Grief is not only
diffused over the Face, but also over all the other Parts of the Body, and to
the Extremities of the Feet, the Toes of which violently contract themselves.
[p. 35] As every thing about this Statue is contrived with surprising Art,
every one will own that it ought to be the chief study of Painters and
Sculptors: But which they should not consider chiefly as a Model that only
serves to design by; they ought to observe exactly all the Beauties, and
imprint on their Minds an Image of all that is excellent in it: because it is
not the Hand that is to be employed if one desires to make himself perfect in
this Art, but Judgement to form these great Ideas and Memory carefully to
retain them. But as those strong Expressions cannot teach one to design after a
Model, because we cannot put such a Person in a State where all the Passions
are in him at once, and it is likewise difficult to copy them in Persons who
are really active because of the quick Motion of the Soul: It is therefore of
great Importance for Artists to study Causes, and then to try with how great
Dignity [p. 30] they can represent their Effects, and we may aver that it is
only to these fine Antiques they must have recourse since there they will meet
with Expressions which it will be difficult to draw after nature. [P. 31] Every
one will agree that it is from this Model [that] we may learn to correct the
Faults which are commonly found in Nature; for here all appears in a State of
Perfection [...]. 13. Gérard Audran (1640–1703) on the perfect proportions of
antique sculptures. Gérard Audran, engraver and conseiller of the Parisian
Académie Royale, published the most popular illustrated manual on the measured
proportions of selected canonical ancient statues in 1682 (see p. 48, figs
72–73). We find in the Preface one of the clearest expressions of the
rationalistic attitude of the Académie: the Antique here represents an
infallible standard of perfect proportions, which Audran has made available,
‘compass in hand’, for young artists, providing them with precise references on
which to base their own figures. Excerpts from Gérard
Audran, Les proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les plus belles figures de
l’antiquité, Paris, 1683, pp. 1-4 of the Preface (unpaginated). The following translation is from The Proportions of the Human Body,
measured from the most Beautiful Statues by Mons. Audran . . ., London,There
will be, I think, but little occasion to enlarge upon the Necessity of a
perfect Knowledge of the PROPORTIONS, to every Person conversant in Designing;
it being very well known, that without observing them they can make nothing but
mon- strous and extravagant Figures. Everyone agrees to this Maxim generally
consider’d, but everyone puts it differently in practice; and here lies the
Difficulty, to find certain Rules for the Justness and Nobleness of the
Proportions; which, since Opinions are divided, may stand as an infallible
Guide, upon whose Judgement we may rely with Certainty. This appears at first
very easy; for since the Perfection of Art consist in imitating Nature well, it
seems as if we need consult no other Master, but only work after the Life;
nevertheless, if we examin the Matter farther, we shall find, that very few
Men, or perhaps none, have all their Parts in exact Proportion without any
Defect. We must therefore chuse what is beautiful in each, taking only what is
called the Beautiful Nature. [...] I see nothing but the Antique in which we
can place an entire confidence. These Sculptors who have left us those
beautiful Figures [...] have in some sort excell’d Nature; for [...] there
never was any Man so perfect in all his Parts as some of their Figures. They
have imitated the Arms of one, the Legs of another, collecting thus in one
Figure all the Beauties which agreed to the Subject they represented; as we see
in the Hercules all the Strokes that are Marks of Strength; and in the Venus
all the Delicacy and Graces that can form an accomplished Beauty. [...] [p. 2].
I give you nothing of myself; everything is taken from the Antique: but I have
drawn nothing upon the Paper till I had first mark’d all the Measures with the
Compasses, in order to make the Out-Lines fall just according to the Numbers.
14. William Hogarth (1697–1764) against fashionable taste and the uncritical
cult of the Antique. The celebrated painter and engraver William Hogarth played
a crucial role in establishing an English school of painting in the 18th
century. As director of the second St Martin’s Lane Academy from 1735, he
became increasingly hostile to a curriculum based on the French Académie model.
In his theoretical treatise The Analysis of Beauty, published in 1753, he
attacked the idealistic concept of art – as a selection of the best parts of
nature – in favour of a more naturalistic approach. At the same time he
disputed the validity of studies on proportion such as those produced by Dürer
and Lomazzo in the 16th century. Hogarth retained a bold independent-minded
position towards the Antique, criticising the slavish reverential attitude of
connoisseurs and men of taste, while recognising the greatness of certain
antiquities. Their peculiar elegance, according to Hogarth, is the expression
of the ‘serpentine line’, the central principle of his own aesthetic. Excerpts
from William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, London, 1753. [P. 66] We have all
along had recourse chiefly to the works of the ancients, not because the
moderns have not produced some as excellent; but because the works of the
former are more generally known: nor would we have it thought, that either of
them have ever yet come up to the utmost beauty of nature. Who but a bigot,
even to the antiques, will say that he has not seen faces and necks, hands and
arms in living women, that even the Grecian Venus doth but coarsely imitate?
[p. 67] And what sufficient reason can be given why the same may not be said of
the rest of the body? [P. 77, ‘On Proportions’] Notwithstanding the absurdity
of the above schemes [of Dürer and Lomazzo], such measures as are to be taken
from antique statues, may be of some service to painters and sculptors,
especially to young beginners [...] [p. 80]. I firmly believe, that one of our
common proficients in the athletic art, would be able to instruct and direct
the best sculptor living, (who hath not seen, or is wholly ignorant of this
exercise) in what would give the statue of an English-boxer, a much better
proportion, as to character, than is to be seen, even in the famous group of
antique boxers, (or some call them, Roman wrestlers) so much admired to this
day. [P. 91] As some of the ancient statues have been of such singular use to
me, I shall beg leave to conclude this chapter with an observation or two on
them in general. It is allowed by the most skilful in the imitative arts, that
tho’ there are many of the remains of antiquity, that have great excellencies
about them; yet there are not, moderately speaking, above twenty that may be
justly called capital. There is one reason, nevertheless, besides the blind veneration
that generally is paid to antiquity, for holding even many very imperfect
pieces in some degree of estimation: I mean that peculiar taste of elegance
which so visibly runs through them all, down to the most incorrect of their
basso-relievos: [p. 92] which taste, I am persuaded, my reader will now
conceive to have been entirely owing to the perfect knowledge the ancients must
have had of the use of the precise serpentine-line. But this cause of elegance
not having been since sufficiently understood, no wonder such effects should
have appeared mysterious, and have drawn mankind into a sort of religious
esteem, and even bigotry, to the works of antiquity. 15. Johan Joachim
Winckelmann (1717–68) on the Antique. Winckelmann, the greatest art historian
of the 18th century, moved to Rome from Dresden in 1755 and soon established
himself as one of the leading antiquarians and scholars of Europe. His powerful
and intimate descriptions of ancient sculptures, especially those in the
Belvedere Courtyard, had a tremendous impact on the European public and
contributed decisively to the difusion of the classical ideal and the airmation
of the neo-classical aesthetics. His analysis of Greek art provided a stylistic
classification of antiquities by period, stressing the importance of contextual
conditions such as the climate and political freedom of the ancient Greek city
states. This revolutionised the approach to the Antique and contributed to the
establishment of a modern art historical method. He recommended to artists the
imitation of ancient statuary as the only way to achieve perfection, in both
aesthetic and moral terms. Excerpts from Johan Joachim Winckelmann, Gedanken
über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst,
ed. by C. L. von Ulrichs, Stuttgart, 1885, pp. 6–12, 24. The following
translation is from the first English edition: J. J. Winckelmann, Reflections
on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks . . ., trans. by Henry Fuseli,
London, 1765. [P. 1] To the Greek climate we owe the production of Taste, and
from thence it spread at length over all the politer world. [P. 2] There is but
one way for the moderns to become great, and perhaps unequalled; I mean, by
imitating the antients. And what we are told of Homer, that whoever understands
him well, admires him, we find no less true in matters concerning the antient,
especially the Greek arts. But then we must [p. 3] be as familiar with them as
with a friend, to find Laocoon as inimitable as Homer. By such intimacy our
judgment will be that of Nicomachus: Take these eyes, replied he to some paltry
critick, censuring the Helen of Zeuxis, Take my eyes, and she will appear a
goddess. With such eyes Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Poussin considered the
performances of the antients. They imbibed taste at its source; and Raphael
particularly in its native country. We know, that he sent young artists to
Greece, to copy there, for his use, the remains of antiquity. [...] Laocoon was
the standard of the Roman artists, as well as ours; and the rules of Polycletus
became the rules of art. [P. 4] The most beautiful body of ours would perhaps
be as much inferior to the most beautiful Greek one, as Iphicles was to his
brother Hercules. The forms of the Greeks, prepared to beauty, by the influence
of the mildest and purest sky, became perfectly elegant by their early
exercises. Take a [p. 5] Spartan youth, sprung from heroes, undistorted by
swaddling-cloths; whose bed, from his seventh year, was the earth, familiar
with wrestling and swimming from his infancy; and compare him with one of our
young Sybarits, and then decide which of the two would be deemed worthy, by an
artist, to serve for the model of a Theseus, an Achilles, or even a Bacchus
[...] [p. 6]. By these exercises the bodies of the Greeks got the great and
manly Contour observed in their statues, without any bloated corpulency. [P. 9]
Art claims liberty: in vain would nature produce her noblest offsprings, in a
country where rigid laws would choak her progressive growth, as in Egypt, that pretended
parent of sciences and arts: but in Greece, where, from their earliest youth,
the happy inhabitants were devoted to mirth and pleasure, where narrow-
spirited formality never restrained the liberty of manners, the artist enjoyed
nature without a veil. [P. 30] The last and most eminent characteristic of the
Greek works is a noble simplicity and sedate grandeur in Gesture and
Expression. As the bottom of the sea lies peaceful beneath a foaming surface, a
great soul lies sedate beneath the strife of passions in Greek figures. ’ Tis
in the face of Laocoon this soul shines with full lustre, not confined however
to the face, amidst the most violent sufferings. 16. Denis Diderot (1713–84) on
the excessive dependence on the Antique at the expense of the study of Nature.
Philosopher, polymath and editor of the Encyclopédie, Diderot is one of the
central figures of the French Enlightenment. His celebrated art criticism was
directed towards the biennial Salons organised by the Académie Royale de
peinture et de sculpture in Paris, and covered the period from 1759 to 1781.
His review of the 74 75 1765 Salon included a section on sculpture in
which he criticised Winckelmann’s semi-religious dependence on the Antique and
instead urged artists to return to the study of Nature, as the source of all
excellence in art, classical statues included. Diderot’s ‘naturalistic’ and
anti-academic approach – already difused into European art theory at least from
the 17th century onwards – became predominant in the 19th century. Nevertheless,
Diderot had an immense admiration for classical sculpture in itself; for him it
represented the best result of that fruitful study of Nature and freedom of
artistic creativity that he advocated for contemporary French art. Diderot’s
review of the Salon of 1765 was written for Melchior Grimm’s Correspondence
littéraire, which circulated in manuscript form. It was printed for the first
time in Jacques-André Naigeon, Oeuvres de Denis Diderot publiés sur les
manuscrits de l’auteur, 15 vols, Paris, 1798, vol. 13, pp. 314–16. This
translation is from Diderot on Art – 1: The Salon of 1765 and Notes on
Painting, ed. and trans. by J. Goodman, New Haven and London, 1995, pp. 156–57.
I am fond of fanatics [...] [p. 157]. Such one is Winckelmann when he compares
the productions of ancient artists with those of modern artists. What doesn’t
he see in the stump of a man we call the Torso? The swelling muscles of his
chest, they’re nothing less than the undulation of the sea; his broad bent
shoulders, they’re a great concave vault that, far from being broken, is
strengthened by the burdens it’s made to carry; and as for his nerves, the
ropes of ancient catapults that hurled large rocks over immense distances are
mere spiderwebs in compari- son. Inquire of this charming enthusiast by what
means Glycon, Phidias, and the others managed to produce such beautiful,
perfect works and he’ll answer you: by the sentiment of liberty which elevates
the soul and inspire great things; by rewards offered by the nation, and public
respect; by the constant observation, study and imitation of the beautiful in
nature, respect for poster- ity, intoxication at the prospect of immortality,
assiduous work, propitious social mores and climate, and genius [...]. There is
not a single point of this response one would dare to contradict. But put a
second question to him, ask him if it’s better to study the antique or nature,
without the knowledge and study of which, without a taste for which ancient
artists, even with all the specific advantages they enjoyed, would have left us
only medio- cre works: The antique! He’ll reply without skipping a beat; The
antique! [...] and in one fell swoop a man whose intelligence, enthusiasm, and
taste are without equal betrays all these gifts in the middle of the Toboso.
Anyone who scorns nature in favour of the antique risks never producing
anything that’s not trivial, weak, and paltry in its drawing, character,
drapery, and expression. Anyone who’s neglected nature in favour of the antique
will risk being cold, lifeless, devoid of the hidden, secret truths which can
only be perceived in nature itself. It seems to me that one must study the
antique to learn how to look at nature. 17. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) on
the role of the Royal Academy and on the study of the Antique. Sir Joshua
Reynolds, the foremost portrait painter in England in the 18th century, served
as first president of the Royal Academy between 1768 and 1792. His fifteen
Discourses on Art, delivered to the students and members of the Academy between
1769 and 1790, became widely popular in Britain and abroad. They represent a
distillation of the idealistic and academic art theory of the previous
centuries in support of the ‘Grand manner’, mixed with his personal views, such
as Reynolds’ huge admiration for Michelangelo. The Discourses range from
didactic guidelines for the Academy to more theoretical discussions, and
references to the Antique can be found throughout, especially in Discourse 10,
devoted to sculpture. Excerpts from Discourses of Art. Sir Joshua Reynolds, ed.
by R. R. Wark, New Haven and London, 1997. [P. 15] Discourse 1 (1769): The
principal advantage of an Academy is, that, besides furnishing able men to
direct the student, it will be a repository for the great examples of the Art.
These are the materials on which genius is to work, and without which the
strongest intellect may be fruitlessly or deviously employed. By studying these
authentic models, that idea of excellence which is the result of the
accumulated experience of past ages may be at once acquired; and the tardy and
obstructed progress of our predecessors may teach us a shorter and easier way.
The student receives, at one glance, the principles which many artists have
spent their whole lives in ascertaining; and, satisfied with their effect, is
spared the painful investigation by which they come to be known and fixed. [P.
106] Discourse 6 (1774): All the inventions and thoughts of the Antients,
whether conveyed to us in statues, bas-reliefs, intaglios, cameos, or coins, are
to be sought after and carefully studied: The genius that hovers over these
venerable reliques may be called the father of modern art. From the remains of
the works of the antients the modern arts were revived, and it is by their
means that they must be restored a second time. However it may mortify our
vanity, we must be forced to allow them our masters; and we may venture to
prophecy, that when they shall cease to be studied, arts will no longer
flourish, and we shall again relapse into barbarism. [P. 177] Discourse 10
(1780): As a proof of the high value we set on the mere excellence of form, we
may produce the greatest part of the works of Michael Angelo, both in painting
and sculpture; as well as most of the antique statues, which are justly esteemed
in a very high degree [...]. But, as a stronger instance that this excellence
alone inspires sentiment, what artist ever looked at the Torso without feeling
a warmth of enthusiasm, as from the highest efforts of poetry? From whence does
this proceed? What is there in this fragment that produces this effect, but the
perfec- tion of this science of abstract form? A MIND elevated to the
contemplation of excellence perceives in this [p. 178] defaced and shattered
fragment, disjecti membra poetae, the traces of superlative genius, the
reliques of a work on which succeeding ages can only gaze with inadequate
admiration. 18. The Encyclopédie by Denis Diderot (1713–84) and Jean-Baptiste
le Rond d’Alembert (1717–83) on the advantages for artists to go to Rome to experience
the Antique and modern works of art. The second edition of Diderot’s and
D’Alembert’s epochal Encyclopédie included an entry on the Académie de France
in Rome, in which the role and mission of the institution is celebrated in
superlative terms. A period in Rome was still considered, even by the
anti-academic Diderot, to be essential for young artists to round of their
education in the physical and spiritual presence of the Antique and the great
Renaissance masters. This apology and defence of the Roman Académie was also
perhaps intended to counter the opinion of those, such as the sculptor
Etienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–91), who judged the trip to Rome no longer
necessary, given the quantity of plaster casts available in France. Excerpt from D. Diderot and J.-B. le Rond D’Alembert, Encyclopédie ou
dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des metiers . . ., new ed.,
Geneva, vol. 1, 1777, pp. 238–39 (translation Barbara Lasic). The French Academy in Rome is a school of painting that King Louis XIV
established in 1666, et one of the most beautiful institu- tions of this great
monarch for the glory of the kingdom and the progress of the fine arts [...].
It was one of the greatest causes for the perfection of art in France [...];
thus Le Brun thought that young Frenchmen who intended to study the fine arts
should go to Rome and spend some time there. This is where the works of
Michelangelo, Vignola, Domenichino, Raphael and those of the ancient Greeks
give silent lessons far superior to those that our great living masters could
give [...]. Italy has the uncontested advantage and glory of having the richest
mine of antique models that can serve as guides to the modern artists, and
enlighten them in the quest for ideal beauty; of having revived in the world
the arts that had been lost; of having produced excellent artists of all types;
and finally of having given lessons to other people to whom it had previously
given laws [...] [p. 139]. Italy is for artists a true classical land as an
Englishman calls it. Everything there entices the eye of the painter,
everything instructs him, everything awakens his attention. Aside from modern
statues, how many of those antiques, which by their exact proportions and the
elegant variety of their forms, served as models to past artists and must serve
to those of all centuries, does not the superb Rome contain amid its walls?
Although there are in France some very fine statues like the Cincinnatus and a
few others, we can state, without fear of being mistaken, that there are none
of the first rate, or of those that the Italians call preceptive and that can
be put in parallel with the Apollo, the Antinoüs, the Laocoon, the Hercules,
the Gladiator, the Faun, the Venus and many more that decorate the Belvedere,
the Palazzo Farnese, the Borghese grounds and the gallery of Florence. The
gallery Giustiniani alone is perhaps richer in antique statues than the entire
French kingdom. 19. James Northcote (1746–1831) on the decline of the Antique
as a model and on the thirst for novelty in art. The pungent and lively
conversations between the writer and art critic William Hazlitt (1778–1830),
and the painter James Northcote, were published in various articles in The New
Monthly Magazine in 1826 and then collated in 1830, causing scandal for their
frankness among contemporaries. The passage selected is one of the most
revealing testimonies on the growing dissatisfaction with the Antique and the
widespread demand for new forms of art. Excerpts from William Hazlitt,
Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A., London, 1830, pp. 51–53. ‘Did you
see Thorwaldsen’s things while you were there? A young artist brought me all
his designs the other day, as miracles that I was to wonder at and be delighted
with. But I could find nothing in [p. 52] them but repetitions of the Antique,
over and over, till I was surfeited.’ ‘He would be pleased at this.’ ‘Why, no!
that is not enough: it is easy to imitate the Antique: – if you want to last,
you must invent something. The other is only pouring liquors from one vessel
into another, that become staler and staler every time. We are tired of the
Antique; yet at any rate, it is better than the vapid imitation of it. The
world wants something new, and will have it. No matter whether it is better or
worse, if there is but an infusion of new life and spirit, it will go down to
posterity; otherwise, you are soon forgotten. Canova too, is nothing for the
same reason – he is only a feeble copy of the Antique; or a mixture of two
things the most incompatible, that and opera-dancing. But there is Bernini; he
is full of faults, he has too much of that florid, redundant, fluttering style,
that was objected to Rubens; but then he has given an appearance of flesh that
was never given before. The Antique always looks like marble, you never for a
moment can divest yourself of the idea; but go up to a statue of Bernini’s, and
it seems as if it must yield to your touch. This excellence [p. 53] he was the
first to give, and therefore it must always remain with him. It is true, it is
also in the Elgin marbles; but they were not known in his time; so that he
indisputably was a genius. Then there is Michael Angelo; how utterly different
from the Antique, and in some things how superior!’ 76 77. CATALOGUE. Notes to
the reader support. All drawings and prints are on paper. measurements:
Mesurements of all works, both exhibited and reproduced as comparative
illustrations, are given height before width, in millimeters for drawings and
prints and in centimeters for paintings and sculpture. inscriptions: Recto and
verso indications for inscriptions are given only for drawings. For prints it
is assumed they are on the recto. Abbreviations: u.l.: upper left; u.c.: upper
centre; u.r.: upper right; c.l.: centre left; c.r.: centre right; l.l.: lower
left; l.c.: lower centre; l.r.: lower right. The original spelling is always
respected. provenance: Provenance is given in chronological sequence, as
completely as possible. Collectors’ names are given as listed in Lugt
(abbreviated L., L. suppl.) literature/exhibitions: Prints are included in the
Exhibition references when the actual impression catalogued here was shown;
when another impression was exhibited, it is mentioned under Literature. For
exhibition catalogue entries included in the Literature and Exhibition
references, the author or authors are given only when their initials are
specified at the end of the entry. Otherwise it is assumed that the entry was
written by the compilers of the catalogue. If an object has been illustrated in
a publication, a figure or plate number is included. If the object has been
illustrated without a figure or plate number, ‘repr.’ is used. If nothing is
specified, the object was not illustrated. For exhibition catalogues, only the
catalogue number is provided, as it is assumed that it was reproduced.
Otherwise, ‘not repr.’ is used. #1 Agostino dei Musi, called Agostino
Veneziano (Venice c. 1490–after 1536 Rome) After Baccio Bandinelli (Gaiole,
near Chianti 1493–1560 Florence) The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli in Rome 1531
Engraving, state II of III 274 × 299 mm (plate), 278 × 302 mm (sheet) Inscribed
recto, l.c., on front of table support: ‘ACADEMIA . DI BAC: / CHIO . . MDXXXI.
/. A. V.’ selected literature: Heinecken 1778–90, vol. 2, p. 98; Bartsch
1803–21, vol. 14, pp. 314–15, no. 418; Pevsner 1940, pp. 38–42, fig. 5; Ciardi
Duprè 1966, p. 161; Wittkower 1969, p. 232, fig. 70; Oberhuber 1978, 314.418,
repr.; Florence 1980, p. 264, no. 687; Roman 1984, pp. 81–84, fig. 62;
Weil-Garris Brandt 1989, pp. 497–98, fig. 1; Landau and Parshall 1994, p. 286,
fig. 304; Barkan 1999, pp. 290–98, fig. 5.12; Fiorentini 1999, pp. 145–46, no.
29; Munich and Cologne 2002, p. 319, no. 110; Thomas 2005, pp. 3–14, figs 1–3;
Hegener 2008, pp. 396–403 and 624–25, pl. 228; Antwerp 2013, p. 26, repr.;
Florence 2014, pp. 528–29, no. 77. BRANDIN . provenance: Elizabeth
Harvey-Lee, North Aston (Oxfordshire), from whom acquired in 1995. IN . / ROMA
. / IN LUOGO . DETTO / . BELVEDERE . / exhibitions: Not previously
exhibited. The Bellinger Collection, inv. no. 1995-047 This renowned print by
Agostino Veneziano after a design by Baccio Bandinelli, the Florentine sculptor
and draughts- man, depicts Bandinelli’s academy for artists in the Belvedere in
Rome, where he was granted the use of rooms by Pope Leo X (r. 1513–21) and Pope
Clement VII (r. 1523–34).1 We are informed of this by the prominent inscription
below the table, which renders this engraving a particularly appropri- ate work
to begin this catalogue, because as well as being the first known
representation of artists copying from statuettes modelled after antique
prototypes, it is the first recorded use of the word ‘accademia’ in conjunction
with art and the training of artists.2 This term had previously been used to
describe informal gatherings of men to discuss liberal or intellectual
subjects, such as philosophy or literature.3 Though the scene does not depict
an art academy in the modern sense – the origins of which are found some thirty
years later in Vasari’s Accademia del Disegno4 – Bandinelli made the
association between art and intellectual endeavour very clear. His design
focuses on the fundamental elements of a young artist’s training, namely,
intensive study and copying of the antique sculptures in miniature scattered
around the room, replicated on the artists’ tablets. It is there- fore evident
that artistic academies were from the beginning conceived of as humanistic
educational institutions, reliant, among other things, on ancient statues as
sources of inspira- tion. There is a conspicuous absence here of drawing from
life, which would later become one of the central elements of Italian and
French academic practices.5 The scene also places emphasis on disegno, a word
that encompasses much more than its mere translation as ‘drawing’. It comprises
the intellectual capacity to create any kind of art, including painting and
sculpture, as well as drawing itself.6 In Bandinelli’s own words, his was an
‘Accademia par- ticolare del Disegno’.7 In the print exhibited here, the almost
claustrophobic room and closely bunched apprentices imply that study was a
collaborative endeavour in Bandinelli’s academy, with discussion among the
students encouraged in order that they might better comprehend the objects of
their study, and capture them more effectively on paper. Bandinelli himself is
seated on the right, wearing a fur-lined collar, holding a statuette of a
female nude for his students’ contem- plation. The results of their efforts are
drawn on paper placed on drawing boards, using quills and ink pots; what
appears to be a blotter rests on the near edge of the table. The noctur- nal
setting evokes an atmosphere of mystery and a sense that the central candle,
with its forcefully radiating light, has, as well as a physical function, a symbolic
one, to illuminate the secrets of art and disegno. The theme of drawing at
night recurs throughout this exhibition (cats 2, 23, 24, 34) and reflects a
persistent belief that such a setting is essential for stimulating the
introspection necessary for artistic success. It also implies diligence and
commitment, the ability and will to continue working through day and night,
that is required from a master artist.8 For these reasons, a candle or lamp
often symbolises ‘Study’, as seen in Federico Zuccaro’s allegorical drawing
(see cat. 5, fig. 5). It also reveals a didactic reliance on artificial light
as preferable to natural light to emphasise the contours of the sculptures and
the contrasts of their planes, thereby facilitating the copying process, an
idea earlier espoused by Leonardo da Vinci (with whom the young Bandinelli had
personal contact) and later by Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71).9 There is a
striking interplay of the shadows cast by the candlelight on the back walls,
with the heads of both statues 80 81 and artists overlapping one another.
This may refer to a well- known passage from Pliny’s Natural History: ‘The
question as to the origin of the art of painting is uncertain but all agree that it began with tracing an
outline around a man’s shadow’.10 The central figure on the rear shelf casts an
improbable shadow, as the hand held perpendicular to the body is reflected on
the wall as upright and perpendicular to the ground. This was corrected in a
copy after the second state (British Museum, London), which is slightly
smaller.11 The design of this copy is more crudely executed than the original,
and there are a number of significant changes to the scene that are unique to
this plate, which suggests that it was created by someone other than
Bandinelli.12 This demonstrates the relative freedom of printmakers to make
adjustments to designs, and may help us to infer that this print was especially
popular; such changes would have necessitated a new plate, which would imply
that demand outstripped the supply, or that the original plate was under
especially tight control by a single owner.13 The male and female statues on
the table are the focus of the artists’ devotion, and are reminiscent of Apollo
and Venus, specifically of the Venus Pudica type.14 They are probably inspired
by the famous statues of the Apollo Belvedere (see p. 26, fig. 18 and cat. 5,
fig. 1) and Venus Felix (fig. 1), which stood in the Belvedere Court and were
constantly used by artists as ideal models.15 They would have been easily
acces- sible to Bandinelli while lodging at the Belvedere. The male figures may
alternatively be types after Hercules, a figure Fig. 1. Venus Felix and Cupid,
c. 200 ad, marble, 214 cm (h), Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican Museums, Rome,
inv. 936 that is prevalent throughout Bandinelli’s work (see cat. 3). In fact,
Maria Grazia Ciardi Duprè identified the upper left male figure on the shelf as
a bronze statuette of Hercules Pomarius, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
London, and on that basis suggested the statuette be newly attributed to
Bandinelli.16 Many subsequent scholars have accepted this,17 but the
differences in the two figures’ poses leaves the present author unconvinced, and
it seems more likely that the figures in the print are generic, idealised
types. In an almost meta-narrative, the intense focus on antique statuary is
echoed even by the central male statuette, as he gazes at a miniature statuette
poised on his own outstretched palm, which twists back to face him, returning
his gaze (fig. 2). The three statues arrayed on the shelf along the back wall –
two male and one female – are all of the same type as those on the table, and
may be either copies or casts of them in wax or clay. The statuettes probably
represent objects sculpted by Bandinelli himself referencing the Antique;
Vasari tells us that while using the rooms at the Belvedere, Bandinelli made
‘many little figures [. . .] as of Hercules, Venus, Apollo, Leda, and other
fantasies of his own’.18 One of these survives in bronze, a Hercules Pomarius
at the Bargello, in Florence (fig. 3), and it resembles the figures in the
engraving.19 The produc- tion of small models in wax, clay or bronze –
many modelled on ancient prototypes – for young artists to practice drawing in
the workshop, was already common in the 15th century. Several were created, for
instance, by Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. 1381–1455) and Antonio Pollaiuolo (c.
1431–98).20 They Fig. 2. Detail of Veneziano’s engraving, statue gazing at an
even smaller statuette Fig. 3. Baccio Bandinelli, Hercules Pomarius, c. 1545,
bronze, 33.5 cm (h), Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, inv. 281 Bronzi
served the purpose of familiarising young artists with the forms and poses of
antique models, allowing them to learn how to draw the three-dimensional human
figure from different angles on a flat surface. The juxtaposition of the
statuettes with several antique-style pots and vessels in the engraving
reinforces the connection between Bandinelli’s ‘academy’ and the classical
past, as does the fragment of a foot on the book that serves as a plinth for
the male figure on the right. The statuettes are positioned so that each faces
a slightly different direction, enabling the viewer to observe them from all
angles, just as the artists are instructed to do. Our participation is further
encouraged by the figure on the far left and by Bandinelli: both gaze outward
and seem to acknowledge our presence. The viewer is thus accorded a role as a
fellow student among the apprentices learning from Bandinelli in his academy.
This link with the academy was less explicit in the original version of
Bandinelli’s design. Ben Thomas drew attention to the first state of the print
(Ashmolean Museum, Oxford),21 in which the inscription – so prominent below the
table in the print exhibited here – was presented only in an abbreviated form
on the tablet hanging on the wall at the far right, without the word
‘academia’, and with only Veneziano’s monogram and the date 1530, a year
earlier than the present engraving. This tablet, deprived of the inscription in
the later states, became an awkwardly superfluous element of the composition.
Also missing in the first state are the drawings on the sheets of the artists
gathered around the table. In changing these elements in the second state, as
represented here,22 Bandinelli deliberately ensured there was no possibil- ity
of misinterpreting this as a literary, rather than artistic, endeavour; it also
serves as propaganda for the artist himself, as a dissemination of not only his
powers of design, but his role as a teacher and an innovator. This makes it all
the more surprising that on the current print, his name is inscribed as
‘Bacchio Brandin.’ rather than Bandinelli. He adopted the Bandinelli surname in
1529 to align himself with a noble family from Siena, thereby making himself
eligible for the Order of Santiago, which he was awarded by Emperor Charles V
in 1530.23 The inscription dates the print to 1531, after his adoption of this
new genealogy, and so must reflect an error on the part of the engraver,
Veneziano.24 In his self-portrait, seated at the table, Bandinelli also does
not wear the insignia of the Order of Santiago, as he does in his other
self-portraits (cats 2 and 3), and so the design for this print most likely
dates prior to the granting of this award in 1530. Tommaso Mozzati suggested a
date earlier than 1527, when the sack of Rome forced both artists to flee the
city, Veneziano to Mantua, Bandinelli first to Lucca and then Genoa.25 The
inscription itself tells us the design was made in Rome, depicting a room in
the Belvedere. If Veneziano engraved the design after the two artists went
their separate ways, it could explain how the mistake in nomenclature was allowed
to occur.26 Bandinelli’s relentless self-promotion and willingness to rewrite
his family tree to achieve noble status can be explained by his upbringing. His
father, Michelangelo di Viviano (1459–1528), was a prominent goldsmith in
Florence, but the family had lost much of its wealth and prestige by the time
his son was born in October 1493.27 As Bandinelli’s three siblings left home or
died young, he was essentially the only child, charged with restoring the
family’s social standing. His father encouraged his training as an artist from
an early age, as an apprentice within his own workshop. Bandinelli also worked
with the sculptor Gian Francesco Rustici (1474–1554), learning from him the
process of model- ling sculptures in wax and clay for casting into bronze. This
association no doubt provided the opportunity to meet Rustici’s collaborator at
the time on St John the Baptist Preaching (Florence Cathedral, Baptistry),
Leonardo da Vinci (1452– 1519). Bandinelli was a staunch Medici supporter, even
throughout the family’s exile, and this cemented his financial success as soon
as two Medici popes came to power (Giovanni de’ Medici as Leo X in 1513 and
Giulio de’ Medici as Clement VII in 1523). However, it also inspired rabid
criticism from many Florentines, who were Republican by nature. 82
83 Our view of him is also coloured by Vasari’s biography, in which
Bandinelli is treated as the villain to his heroic rival, Michelangelo.28 Such
a bias is perhaps not completely unwar- ranted, as all three prints on display
here by Bandinelli reflect his insistence not only on publicising his own
image, but in vaunting his abilities as both a teacher of the next generation
of artists, as well as having a special and privi- leged relationship to the
Antique. This betrays the arrogance 29 that is also evident in his writings,
and may well have contributed to the negative opinions of his character that
persist to this day. rh 1 Vasari tells us that Bandinelli was given use of the
Belvedere (Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 5, pp. 246, 250) but he never
mentions an academy (Barkan 1999, p. 290). This engraving and cat. 2, as well
as Bandinelli’s own account in his autobiographical Memoriale (which exists in
a single manuscript in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, Cod. Pal.
Bandinelli 12, and is transcribed in Colasanti 1905 and Barocchi 1971–77, vol.
2, pp. 1359– 1411) are the only evidence we have for the existence of
Bandinelli’s academy. 2 A less explicit link between art and the term
‘accademia’ is found on engravings after Leonardo da Vinci’s designs of knot
work, which are inscribed ‘Academia Leonardi Vinci’ (see Pevsner 1940, p. 25;
Roman 1984, p. 81; and Goldstein 1996, p. 10 and frontispiece). For Bandinelli
as the first to use this word in conjunction with art training, see Pevsner
1940, p. 39; Barkan 1999, p. 290; Munich and Cologne 2002, p. 319 under no.
110; Thomas 2005, p. 8; Hegener 2008, pp. 401 and 403. 3 Visual arts were
regarded as applied disciplines rather than liberal arts and thus unsuitable for
intellectual discussion (Pevsner 1940, pp. 30–31; Goldstein 1996, p. 147;
Cologne and Munich 2002, p. 319 under no. 110; Thomas 2005, pp. 8–9). 4
Although Vasari was the instigator and organiser of the Accademia, officially
it was opened in 1563 by Cosimo de Medici (Pevsner 1940, p. 42). For more about
the Accademia see Goldstein 1975; Waz ́bin ́ski 1987; Barzman 1989; Barzman
2000. 5
Goldstein 1996, chap. 8; Barkan 1999, p. 292; Costamagna 2005. 6 Goldstein
1996, p. 14. 7 Barocchi 1971–77, vol. 2, pp. 1384–85. 8 Roman 1984, p. 83; Munich and Cologne 2002, p. 319; Thomas 2005,
pp.6–7. 9 Weil-Garris 1981, pp. 246–47, note 39; Barkan 1999, p. 292; Hegener
2008, p. 401. 10 ‘De picturae initiis incerta [...] quaestio est [...] omnes
umbra hominis lineis circumducta, itaque primam talem’: Pliny the Elder, Nat.
Hist., 35.5. See Pliny 1999, pp. 270–71. 11 The British Museum print’s
inventory number is V,2.136. 12 Some changes are: the removal of Veneziano’s
monogram, the underlining of ‘Belvedere’ in the inscription and the figure
sketches on the artists’ sheets (Thomas 2005, p. 12). 13 Thomas 2005, p. 12. 14
For other statues of the Venus Pudica type known in the early Renaissance, see
Tolomeo Speranza 1988. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Hegener
2008, p. 401. For Venus Felix, see Spinola 1996–2004, vol. 1, p. 97, PN 23 and
fig. 14 on p. 98. Ciardi Duprè 1966, p. 161. The inventory number of the
statuette is A.76-1910. Or they have at least restated Ciardi Duprè’s thesis
without contestation. This includes Fiorentini 1999, p. 145; Thomas 2005, p.
11, note 21; and Hegener 2008, p. 403. Paul Joannides disagrees and attributes
the statuette in the Victoria and Albert Museum to Michelangelo, saying that it
in turn inspired Bandinelli to create his own version of Hercules Pomarius, now
in the Bargello, in Florence (fig. 3), which is widely accepted as by
Bandinelli (Joannides 1997, pp. 16–20). Volker Krahn also expressed doubt that
it is by Bandinelli (Florence 2014, p. 374). ‘Fece molte
figurine [...] come Ercoli, Venere, Apollini, Lede, ed altre sue fantasie’
(Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 5, p. 251). See Florence 2014, pp. 372–75, no. 32. Fusco 1982; Ames-Lewis 2000b, pp.
52–55. See also Aymonino’s essay in this catalogue, pp. 22–23. Thomas 2005, p.
11. The print’s inventory number is WA1863.1759. There is also a third state
owned by the Davison Arts Center of Wesleyan University, CT, in which the
publisher Antonio Salamanca’s name is added at the bottom right (Thomas 2005,
p. 12). Bartsch noted only one state (the second), but was also aware of the
copy of the second state discussed here (Bartsch 1803–21, pp. 314–15, no. 418).
The sheet exhibited here may repre- sent a later impression of the second
state, as the underlining of ‘Belvedere’ has become so worn that it is only
visible below the first ‘el’ and the ‘r’. There is some debate as to when
Bandinelli received this honour. Scholars usually agree on 1529, but in his
autobiography, Bandinelli said it occurred in the same year as the emperor’s coronation,
which was in February 1530. According to Weil-Garris Brandt, the confusion
arose because the Florentine year ended in March (Weil-Garris Brandt 1989, p.
501, note 26). Ben Thomas agrees with her and says the emperor sent news of the
honour to Bandinelli from Innsbruck, after departing from Bologna on 22 March
1530 (Thomas 2005, p. 9 and note 12). This is perhaps not the only print to
exhibit such a mistake, as Bandinelli, in his Memoriale, bemoaned a similar
error that had to be corrected on a print of his Martyrdom of St Lawrence
(Barocchi 1971–77, vol. 2, p. 1396). However, this complaint itself is
inaccurate, as the inscription of ‘Baccius Brandin. Inven.’ on the St Lawrence
print would have been a correct appella- tion at the time of its execution in
1524, well before Bandinelli’s adoption of his new name. Such an anachronism
has prompted speculation that the Memoriale is not actually by Bandinelli, but
rather a forgery by one of his descendants (Thomas 2005, p. 10); nevertheless,
it represents a familial dissatisfaction with the dissemination of Bandinelli’s
designs once removed from his control. Minonzio 1990, p. 686 and Florence 2014,
p. 528 under no. 77. However, by 1530, the date on the first state of this
print, both Veneziano and Bandinelli had returned to Rome (Thomas 2005, p. 11).
This does not preclude Veneziano from having engraved the design during their
separa- tion. It is unlikely that the design was executed at this later date
because of the absence of the insignia of the Order of Santiago; even if the
image were retrospective, it seems unlikely that Bandinelli would miss an
opportunity for self-aggrandisement. For Bandinelli’s biography, see
Bandinelli’s own Memoriale (see note 1), Vasari’s account in Bettarini and
Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 5, pp. 239–76, and more concise surveys in Weil-Garris
1981, pp. 224–42 and Waldman 2004, pp. xv–xxviii. Weil-Garris 1981, p. 224.
Pevsner 1940, p. 42. 2. Enea Vico ( Parma 1523–1567 Ferrara) After Baccio
Bandinelli (Gaiole, near Chianti 1493–1560 Florence) The Academy of Baccio
Bandinelli c. 1545/50 Engraving, state II of III 314 × 486 mm (sheet) Inscribed
recto, u.r., on left page of open book: ‘Baccius / Bandi: / nellus / invent’;
on right page: ‘Enea vi: / go Par: / megiano / sculpsit.’ Inscribed verso, l.
c., on additional paper fragment, now attached, in pencil: ‘Eneas Vico ca 1520
– ca 1570 / Nagler XXII/515 bl 49 / Ein Hauptblatt’; and below, in pencil, ‘B.
Vol 15 B 305 No. 49’; l.l. in pencil: ‘£ 3013 60’ [the rest illegible]
provenance: Venator et Hanstein, Cologne, 3 November 1998, lot 2722, from whom
acquired. selected literature: Heinecken 1778–90, vol. 2, pp. 98–99; Bartsch
1803–21, vol. 15, pp. 305–06, no. 49; Passavant 1860–64, vol. 6, p. 122, no.
49; Pevsner 1940, pp. 40–42, fig. 6; Ciardi Duprè 1966, pp. 163–64, fig. 26;
Goldstein 1975, p. 147, fig. 1; Weil-Garris 1981, pp. 235–36, fig. 14; Roman
1984, pp. 84–87, fig. 66; Spike 1985, 305.49-I and 305.49-II, repr.; Landau and
Parshall 1994, p. 286, fig. 303; Barkan 1999, pp. 290–98, fig. 5.13; Fiorentini
1999, pp. 146–47, no. 30; Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, pp. 86–88, no. 21; Thomas
2005, pp. 12–14, fig. 5; Hegener 2008, pp. 404–12 and 625–26, pl. 232; Compton
Verney and Norwich 2009–10, p. 18, fig. 15; Florence 2014, pp. 530–31, no. 78.
84 85 exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Katrin Bellinger collection, inv.
no. 1998-039 This print by Enea Vico after a design by Baccio Bandinelli
depicts a scene similar to that in his earlier self-styled acad- emy (cat. 1),
but it has been expanded and amplified: the table which occupies all of the
space in Agostino Veneziano’s engraving has been moved to the right side of
Vico’s print, and the perspective is widened to allow a larger room to come
into view. The number of apprentices has grown from six to twelve, the books
from one to six and the antique sculptures from five to ten. The style of the
print, as well as Vico’s chronology, suggest that it is not the Belvedere acad-
emy that is depicted here, but a second academy, established by Bandinelli some
twenty years later after his return to Florence in 1540.1 As in the earlier
print, the classical figu- rines appear to be generalised interpretations of
antique statuary rather than exact copies of specific models, although they
have been diversified here by the addition of a horse’s head and a bust of a
Roman emperor on the shelf. Added to the fragments strewn about the room are
skeletons and skulls, which are now given a status equal to classical sources
as inspiration for artists. These refer to the growing tendency to study the
anatomy of the human body in Italian work- shops around the mid-16th century,
mainly through skele- tons, a practice that was codified by Benvenuto Cellini
(1500–71) some twenty years later in his Sopra i Principi e l’ Modo d’Imparare
l’Arte del Disegno, in which he advised artists to copy anatomical parts in
order to attain skill as draughts- men.2 While Bandinelli’s representation is
one of the first to document the spread of anatomical study among young
artists, the practice was formalised in the second half of the 16th century in
the curricula of the first academies, where sophisticated anatomy lectures were
given and dissections were performed.3 Both antique sculptures and skeletons
became common elements in subsequent representations of artists’ workshops,
studios and academies, as seen in Stradanus’ studio image and Cort’s engraving
after it (cat. 4). This is also reflected in an etching by Pierfrancesco
Alberti of a painter’s studio or academy (fig. 1), which shows a more
structured curriculum of studies involving anatomical dissection, geometry, the
Antique and architectural drawing, closely reflecting the disciplines taught in
the earliest Italian academies, particularly the Roman Accademia di San Luca.4
The light source is another difference between the two prints after Bandinelli.
The single candle in Veneziano’s engraving has become three forcefully
radiating fires, with the candle on the table now partially dissolving the face
of the student standing to its right. The importance of studying at night, and
the diligence and introspection this implies, is again a primary theme. Another
engraving after a Bandinelli design, The Combat of Cupid and Apollo,5 also
places impor- tance on fire as a source of not only visual illumination, but as
a symbol of philosophical and spiritual revelation. The recurrence of this
motif has been regarded as indicative of Bandinelli’s neo-Platonic leanings;
the flame symbolises divine Reason and its power to defeat the darker, profane
vices of the human condition, allowing man to perceive true, celestial beauty,
even while bound to the terrestrial realm.6 Indeed, the very concept of an
academy is closely inter- twined with Neo-Platonism, as it was widely
considered that the first academy founded since the end of classical times was
that of Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) in Florence, which was specifically based on
the philosophy and teachings espoused by Plato.7 Bandinelli himself is
again represented, but he now stands at the far right, instructing the two
students who face him. He also now wears the cross of St James, as befits a
knight of the Order of Santiago, which he was awarded in 1530, and which is
seen in his other self-portrait (cat. 3). The same insignia is placed
prominently above the fireplace between the two cupids. Bandinelli’s design
therefore takes on a more propagandistic role, and has been described by some
scholars as a ‘manifesto’ for his academy.8 The staging here stresses
Bandinelli’s nobility, humanism and sophistication, while the importance of
copying from antique sculpture is rather downplayed, with the casts relegated
to the margins of the scene. None of the artists is now looking at the casts;
their focus is instead inward, as best exemplified by the figure who sits at the
centre of the composition, with his head in his hand. Only one of the students’
drawings is visible, on the tablet of the standing apprentice at the centre of
the scene, and the female nude emerging from his stylus is unrelated to any of
the sculptures surrounding him, although clearly referring to a model
all’antica. She must therefore be a product of his mind, and so the emphasis
here is on the artist’s memory and imagination; the skeletons and antique
sculptures were essential for building his graphic vocabulary of the human
form, but they have been discarded now that he has successfully internalised
them and no longer needs to copy them directly.9 The exercise of memory was one
of the central principles of the pedagogical practices of the Italian Renaissance,
going back as far as Leon Battista Alberti (1404– 72) and Leonardo
(1452–1519).10 Giorgio Vasari (1511–74), in his Vite explicitly recommended
that ‘the best thing is to draw men and women from the nude and thus fix in the
memory by constant exercise the muscles of the torso, back, legs, arms and
knees, with the bones underneath. Then one may be sure that, through much
study, attitudes in any position can be drawn by help of the imagination
without one having the living forms in the view’.11 The importance of memory
was also stressed by Cellini in his treatise.12 There are three states of this
print, differentiated by the inscriptions.13 In the first state, the
inscription identifying Bandinelli as the designer on the left page of the book
on the upper right is included, as is the address of the Roman pub- lisher,
Pietro Palumbo, below the sleeping dog in the lower centre (not seen here). In
the second state, Enea Vico’s name is added on the right-hand page of the same
book, in a differ- ent script. In the final state, the name of Palumbo’s
successor as the publisher of this print, Gaspar Alberto, is added below the
skulls in the lower centre. Nicole Hegener believed there was an additional
state between the first and second, repre- sented by a version at Yale in which
Agostino’s Veneziano’s name was inscribed on the right-hand page of the book
before it was replaced by Vico’s.14 However, it was noted in 2005 that this was
added by hand in pen-and-ink, and was therefore just a modification of the first
state of the print.15 The print exhibited here was also believed to be a
unique 86 87 Fig. 1. Pierfrancesco Alberti, Painters’ Academy, c.
1603–48, etching, 412 × 522 mm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1952-373
example of a state between the first and second, as both Bandinelli’s and
Vico’s names are present on the book, but Palumbo’s is missing.16 However,
close examination of the verso reveals extensive abrasion over the area where
Palumbo’s address would have been. The inscription was therefore erased from
this sheet, and does not reflect any changes to the original plate. It must,
therefore, be an example of the second state, which was subsequently altered
for an unknown reason. Palumbo’s name on the first state also makes the dating
of this print difficult. On stylistic grounds, most scholars date it to c.
1545/50,17 but Palumbo was not active 1731: Cellini 1731, pp. 155–62 (on the
study of the bones and muscles, pp. 157–62). See Olmstead Tonelli 1984, esp. p.
101. See also Schultz 1985; Ottawa, Vancouver and elsewhere 1996–97; London,
Warwick and elsewhere 1997–98; Carlino 2008–09. Roman 1984, p. 91. See
Appendix, no. 7 for the statutes of the Accademia di San Luca. Repr. in
Panofsky 1962, fig. 107. Panofsky 1962, pp. 148–51. Goldstein 1996, p. 14. For
the neo-Platonic movement during the Renais- sance, see Panofsky 1962, chap. 5.
Compton Verney and Norwich 2009–10, p. 18; Florence 2014, p. 520. Thomas 2005,
pp. 13–14; Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p. 87. Alberti 1972, pp. 96–99 (book
3.55); Leonardo 1956, vol. 1, p. 47, chap. 65–66. See also Aymonino’s essay in
this catalogue, p. 33. Brown 1907, p. 210; Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol.
1, pp. 114–15. Cellini 1731, p. 157. Bartsch mistakenly conflated the second
and third states and therefore only listed two states (Bartsch 1803–21, vol.
15, pp. 305–06). He was corrected by Passavant (1860–64, vol. 6, p. 122, no.
49) and this is accepted by subsequent scholarship (i.e. Thomas 2005, p. 13).
Hegener 2008, p. 405. Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p. 88, note 1. See also
Florence 2014, p. 530. Venator et Hanstein sale, Cologne, 3 November 1998, lot
2722. Pevsner remarks on the characteristic ‘Mid-Cinquecento Mannerism’ of
Vico’s print in contrast to Veneziano’s style, which is reminiscent of Raimondi
(Pevsner 1940, p. 40). The following agree on the approximate dates c. 1545/50:
Weil-Garris 1981, p. 235; Thomas 2005, p. 13; Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p.
86; Florence 2014, p. 530. Fiorentini suggested c. 1550 because after that date
Vico used ‘sculptere’ on his works, rather than ‘sculpsit’ as here (Fiorentini
1999, p. 147). However, the form of Vico’s inscription as ‘Enea Vigo’ on this
print is completely unique, as his other extant works are signed either ‘E.V.’,
‘Enea Vico’ or variations on ‘AENEAS VICUS’ (Thomas 2005, p. 13). Therefore we
must be very cautious in making any assumptions based on this particular
inscription. London 2001–02, p. 230. He continued working until c. 1586.
Florence 2014, p. 531. 3. Anonymous, 16th-century Italian Artist After Niccolò
della Casa (Lorraine fl. 1543–48) After Baccio Bandinelli (Gaiole, near Chianti
1493–1560 Florence) Self-Portrait of Baccio Bandinelli, Seated 1548 Engraving,
416 × 306 mm
Datedl.c.:‘1548’;inscribedl.r:‘A.S.Excudebat.’;inscribedl.c.inpencil:‘No
7.’andbelowtor.inpencil:‘No 7’. With the initials of the publisher, probably
Antonio Salamanca (1478–1562). provenance: Léon Millet, Paris (his stamp, not
in Lugt, in blue ink on the verso: ‘Léon Millet / 13 rue des Abbesses’ and
below, printed in black ink: ‘12 Mars 1897’);1 Bassenge, Berlin, 3 December
2003, lot 5155, from whom acquired. selected literature: Heinecken 1778–90,
vol. 2, p. 90; Bartsch 1854–76, vol. 15, pp. 279–80; Nagler 1966, vol. 1, p.
542, under no. 1266; Le Blanc 1854-88, vol. 3, p. 414, nos. 1–2; Steinmann
1913, pp. 96-97, note 8; Florence 1980, pp. 264, 266, no. 690; Los Angeles,
Toledo and elsewhere 1988–89, p. 76–77, no. 20; Fiorentini 1999, pp. 153–54,
no. 34, fig. 34 (see also pp. 150–53, under no. 33); Fiorentini and Rosenberg
2002, p. 37, fig. 20, pp. 38, 42, 44; Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, pp. 32–34,
no. 1 (J. Clifton); Hegener 2008, pp. 391–96, version II, fig. 57, p. 617–18,
no. 16 (see also pp. 380–91, under version I); Florence 2014, pp. 526–27, no.
76 (T. Mozzati). before c. 1562 at Sant’ Agostino in Rome, Bandinelli’s death.
Tommaso Mozzati speculated that Bandinelli transferred his design to Vico
before 1546, when the engraver left Florence for Rome, and that the publication
may have been delayed by a deteriorating relationship between the two
artists.19 If Vico intentionally withheld the design until after Bandinelli’s
death, it might explain how Palumbo became its first publisher more than a
decade later. 1 2 Pevsner 1940, pp. 40–41; Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p. 86.
This engrav- ing, cat. 1 and Bandinelli’s own writings in his Memoriale are the
only evidence we have for the existence of his academies (see cat. 1, note 1).
Weil-Garris 1981, pp. 246–47, note 39. Cellini’s fragmentary treatise was
probably written during the last two decades of his life but published only 88
89 which post-dates rh exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Katrin Bellinger
collection, inv. no. 2003-020 This engraving reproduces, in reverse and with
variations in detail, an unfinished engraving by Niccolò della Casa, based on a
lost drawing by Bandinelli.2 It is unclear why the Della Casa engraving, which
is known in only a few impressions, was never finished. The present engraving
is smaller than its model, resulting in a few compositional differences. It was
attributed to Nicolas Beatrizet (c. 1507/15–1573) by Erna Fiorentini and
Raphael Rosenberg and while this was accepted by James Clifton, it was rejected
by Nicole Hegener and Tommaso Mozzati.3 Until further information comes to
light, it is perhaps safer to attribute it to an unidentified Italian engraver
working in Rome in the mid-16th century. Hegener identified a further state
with the added inscription at centre right, ‘effigies / Bacci Bandinelli sculp
/ florentini’ and Karl Heinrich von Heinecken mentioned yet another without
inscriptions (untraced).4 If Bandinelli’s self-portrait inserted among his
students in his academies (cats 1–2) emphasises his role as teacher and mentor,
this image speaks of a solitary and relentless self-promoter.5 By 1548, the
engraving’s date, Bandinelli had achieved great success. He had served two
Popes, Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici) and Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici), for
whom he had carried out several important commissions including the
classicising Orpheus and Cerberus (Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence, c. 1519)
modelled after the Apollo Belvedere, the monumental Hercules and Cacus (Piazza
della Signoria, Florence, 1523–34) and the papal tombs in Santa Maria sopra
Minerva (1536–41).6 He was currently serving the Grand Duke Cosimo I de’
Medici. And yet, it was Baccio’s close alliance with the Medici, coupled with
his on- going rivalry with Michelangelo, a staunch anti-Medicean Republican,
and others, like Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71) that denied him the full respect
and admiration of his Florentine contemporaries. His intense competitiveness
and difficult character only exacerbated his contemporaries’ widespread dislike
of him.7 Projecting strength, power and authority, this arresting image,
clearly intended for circulation, was no doubt Baccio’s attempt to right those
perceived wrongs.8 By fusing motifs from his own work with motifs from antique
sculpture – absorbed and recast – Bandinelli sought to elevate his status and
rank and to assert his position while defending his work by associating it with
the art of Greece and Rome.9 The multi-layered and intertexual combination of
themes and references that resulted contributes to the engraving’s enigmatic
allure and demands careful interpretation. Significantly, it is the first image
in the exhibition to demon- strate how Antique imagery could be used by an
artist to promote his own art and his own achievements. The engraving shows us
a man of great physical presence, seated as though enthroned. His elevation is
enhanced by a rich costume – the luxurious fur-lined cloak nonchalantly slides
off one shoulder – more typical of an aristocrat than an artist. Emblazoned on
his chest is the cross of St James, the emblem of the prestigious 12th-century
Spanish military Order of Santiago, conferred on Bandinelli in 1530 by the Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V who over- ruled protests that it was unmerited.
Bandinelli took great pride in the honour, justifiably, since he was the only
artist to be awarded the cross of St James, which he included in other
self-portraits (see cat. 2).10 Immediately below the sharp lower point of the
cross his prominent codpiece protrudes through the folds of his tunic, an
unsubtle reference to his virility. His ‘progeny’ – a selection of his small
models and statu- ettes – are seen throughout. Proprietorially and prominently
cradled, and elevated on its own column base, is the figure of Hercules, the
son of Zeus, who heroically carried out the Twelve Labours. Hercules played a
central role in Bandinelli’s work.11 His near obsession with the demi-god, the
embodi- ment of strength in the face of adversity, is demonstrated in Hercules’
constant appearance – in bronze, marble, stucco and drawing – throughout
Bandinelli’s career.12 And since Hercules was the mythical founder of Florence
and an exemplum much favoured by the Medici, in linking his own image so
closely to the hero, Bandinelli was also referencing his association with his
native city and its ruling house.13 Hercules was the perfect foil to David,
another protector of Florence, and to represent the hero gave Baccio the
opportu- nity to display his mastery of the muscular male nude in heroic and
often violent action. Bandinelli also holds a rather different figure of
Hercules in the della Casa engraving, c. 1544 and in his grand painted
self-portrait of c. 1550 (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) he proudly
displays a preparatory drawing for the Hercules and Cacus his most spectacular
and ambitious sculpture.14 This colossal group, – a pendant to Michelangelo’s
David – and a commission that he had taken away from Michelangelo, brought him
considerable fame despite the unfavourable reception that it received on its
unveiling in 1534.15 In effect, Hercules was Bandinelli’s calling card and his
prominence in his self-portraits is unsurprising.16 Small-scale, classicising
models made in wax and terra- cotta such as those seen here and in his other
prints (cats 1–2), were central to Bandinelli’s work as tools for teaching, and
as preparation for large-scale sculpture; many were translated into bronze, as
independent statuettes.17 Here, for example, the pose of the male nude seen
from behind standing in contrapposto at the right anticipates that of Adam in
Baccio’s Adam and Eve group of 1551 (Bargello, Florence).18 Perhaps because
Bandinelli was still working out the pose or perhaps to give the figure the
aura of a damaged antique, the left arm is missing below the elbow; several of
the other figurines in the engraving derive from the Antique but have been, as
it were, naturalised into Bandinelli’s own idiom. On equal footing with the
statuette of Hercules that he holds are the two standing female nudes on the
left, also elevated on a column shaft. They derive from the Cnidian Venus of
the 4th century bc, among the most famous works of the Greek sculptor,
Praxiteles, which was probably known Fig. 1. Baccio Bandinelli, A
Standing Female Figure, c. 1515, red chalk, 410 × 242 mm, private collection,
Switzerland Fig. 2. Giulio Bonasone, Saturn Seated on a Cloud Devouring a Statue,
c. 1555–70, etching and engraving, 254 × 154 mm, The British Museum, Department
of Prints and Drawings, London, H,5.137 Fig. 3. Anonymous, Ferrarese School,
Fortitude, playing card, c. 1465, engraving, 179 × 100 mm, The British Museum,
Department of Prints and Drawings, London, 1895,0915.36 90
91 Fig. 4. Amico Aspertini, Lion Attacking a Horse, pen and light
brown ink, 107 × 146 mm, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichtkabinett, Berlin, KdZ
25020 to Bandinelli through a Roman copy.19 Intent on demonstrat- ing his full
knowledge of the statue Baccio presents one woman frontally, while the other,
headless, is seen from behind.20 Slim and regularly proportioned, the Cnidian
Venus was Bandinelli’s preferred female type and examples abound in his
sculpted and graphic work.21 A highly finished red chalk drawing (private
collection Switzerland, fig. 1) compares well with the engraved nude on the
left.22 The foreground is occupied with further statuettes: another Hercules
stands on a pedestal on the left and five male torsos are scattered on the
ground at his feet. While they loosely evoke the Antique – the two on the lower
left, for example, recall the Belvedere Torso (p. 26, fig. 23), they have
become generalised.23 Headless and limbless, like antique fragments, they
suggest once more that Bandinelli was equating his work with that of the
ancients. The lion has been interpreted diversely and Bandinelli may well have
intended multi-layered interpretation. It has widely been seen as a heraldic
Medici lion (marzocco) and, as such, a reference to Bandinelli’s favoured
position with the Medici as well as his loyalty to their regime.24 Interpreted
as devour- 25 ing a lower thigh and knee, the lion has also been seen as a
symbol of the artist’s prowess in sculpture. A more complex explanation
suggests a link with Saturn devouring a boulder, a subject illustrated in a
print by Giulio Bonasone (fig. 2), which is accompanied by the motto, ‘in
pulverem reverteris’ (‘unto dust shalt thou return’).26 As such, Bandinelli is
not merely subjugating a wild animal but also triumphing over Time.27 More
simply, the lion may also refer to Bandinelli’s favourite hero, Hercules, who
conquered the Nemean lion, or evoke Fortitude whose traditional attributes were
a lion and a broken column, here transformed into a plinth (fig. 3).28 Finally,
it may be that Bandinelli was again referencing the Antique: the Lion Attacking
a Horse – part of a colossal Hellenistic group (Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome)
– in Bandinelli’s day, a limbless fragment on the The fragment was considered
‘of such excellence that Michelangelo judged it to be most marvellous’.31 There
has been much speculation about Bandinelli’s pose in the engraving. It might,
in fact, refer to the Belvedere Torso,32 as ‘restored’ in an engraving by
Giovanni Antonio da Brescia (1485–1525) of c. 1515 (fig. 5).33 The arrangement
of his legs is also close, in reverse to that of Laocoön, (p. 26, fig. 19), a
direct copy of which, in marble (c. 1520–25, Florence, Uffizi) com- missioned
by Leo X, was one of Baccio’s greatest successes.34 His preparatory drawing for
the sculpture also in the Uffizi (fig. 6) shows him seated in a comparable pose
as seen here.35 Once again, therefore, we see the sculptor referencing and
promoting his own work, employing the associative authority of Antique imagery.
In sum, Bandinelli presents himself here not only with the strength and
fortitude of a modern Hercules who successfully vanquished his adversaries but
also as the greatest, most recognisable hero- martyr and father from antiquity,
Laocoön, with his sculpted ‘offspring’ triumphant. Weil-Garris 1981, pp.
236–37. For the painting, see O. Tostmann, in Florence 2014, pp. 510–13, no.
69, repr.; Mozzati 2014, pp. 458–63. For a full discussion of the statue, see Vossilla
2014, pp. 156–67, repr.; Florence 2014, p. 573, no. VII. For Herculean imagery
in the engraving, see Hegener 2008, pp. 382–86, 389–91, 395–96. Barkan 1999, p.
304; Krahn 2014, pp. 324–31. As first observed by Bruce Davis in Los Angeles,
Toledo and elsewhere 1988–89, p. 77. For the sculpture, see D. Heikamp, in
Florence 2014, pp. 314–15, no. 22, repr. He also appears, in adapted form, in
other works by the sculptor (Fiorentini 1999, p. 152). First noted by B. Davis,
in Los Angeles, Toledo and elsewhere 1988–89, p. 77; Barkan 1999, pp. 308–09,
fig. 5.19. One half expects to see to a third figure to complete the ‘Three
Graces’. On the use of this double-view and his drawings that may relate to
these figures, see Fiorentini 1999, pp. 151–52. Barkan 1999, pp. 309–12; V.
Krahn, in Florence 2014, pp. 356–59, no. 28. B. Davis in Los Angeles, Toledo
and elsewhere 1988–89, p. 77. The drawing was formerly with Yvonne Tan Bunzl
(Bunzl 1987, no. 5, repr.; see also V. Krahn, in Florence 2014, p. 356, fig.
1). Other copies by Bandinelli after the same statue, one in red chalk, the
other, in pen and ink, are on a double- sided sheet in in the Biblioteca Reale,
Turin (Bertini 1958, p. 17, no. 37; Barkan 1999, p. 311, figs. 5.21, 5.22). The
same Cnidian Venus type occurs at left in his drawing, Four Female Nudes, in
the Art Gallery of Toronto, 2006/432 (repr. in Aldega and Gordon 2003, p. 8,
no. 1). A woman very similar to that engraved at left both in pose, body type
and hairstyle, appears on a sheet in the Louvre, formerly classed as Bandinelli
and now given to Giovanni Bandini (1540–1599), Viatte 2011, pp. 246–47, R2,
repr. Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p. 34. Of course, they could also be a
further Herculean reference, as the Torso was in the Renaissance believed to be
that of Hercules (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 313). Fiorentini 1999, p. 150,
followed by Hegener 2008, p. 388, considered one of the torsos, the second from
the left, to be based on the torso of a satyr now in the Villa Barbarini,
Castel Gandolfo, Rome, which was in the Ciampolini collection in the
Renaissance (Liverani 1989, pp. 92, no. 34, 94–95, figs. 34.1–4). Given the
differences in pose, the present author cannot accept this view. Bandinelli
adapted the pose of the Torso Belvedere for his red chalk drawing, A Nude Man,
Seated on a Grassy Bank in the Courtauld Gallery, as noted by Ruth Rubinstein
(Cambridge 1988, pp. 26–27, no. 8, repr.); see also Barkan 1999, pp. 308–09,
fig 5.17. Hegener 2008, p. 383. Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p. 34. T. Mozzati,
in Florence 2014, p. 527, who reports that this view is shared by Mino
Gabriele. That author notes (repeating Massari 1983, p. 125) that the concept
is paralleled in a passage from Ovid’s Metamorphosis (15.236–38). However, it
is also part of a famous passage from Genesis 3:19: ‘In the sweat of thy face
shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou
taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’ For the print, see
Massari 1983, vol. 1, p. 125, no. 223, repr. T. Mozzati, in Florence 2014, p.
527, who also considers that Bandinelli holds a complete statuette, not a
fragment like the others in the print, as a modern manifestation of classicism.
Zucker 1980, p. 185, no. 53-A (136), repr.; Zucker 2000, p. 47, .036a. See also
Ripa’s illustrated edition of 1603 (Buscaroli 1992, pp. 142–44, repr.).
Fiorentini 1999, p. 151; Hegener 2008, p. 383. For the statue: Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 250–51, no. 54, fig. 128; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp.
236–37, no. 185. Faietti and Kelescian 1995, pp. 220–21, no. 4; Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, p. 237, fig. 185a. Aldrovandi 1556, p. 270, cited and
translated by Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 236. As proposed by Hegener (2008,
pp. 380, 382, 389–90) who considered his arms to be based on those of Christ in
Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. Zucker 1980, p. 78, no. 5 (100), repr.; Zucker
1984, pp. 350–51, .028, repr. The pose also anticipates Bandinelli’s God the
Father sculpture of the 1550s in S. Croce, Florence (Florence 2014, pp. 595–98,
no. XVIII, repr.). Although intended as a gift for François I, it never reached
its intended recipient and remained with the next Pope Clement VII, in
Florence. Bober and Rubinstein 2010,pp. 165–66, no. 122b. Capecchi (2014, pp.
129–55) provides a thorough account of the project. D. Cordellier, in Paris
2000–01, pp. 237–40, no. 74, repr. 29 Aspertini (1472–1552) (fig.4;
Kupferstichtkabinett, Berlin).30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 avl Rhea Blok
has noted (e-mail, 12 August 2014) that the same collector’s mark is found on
Henri Mauperché’s etching, L’Ange conseillant Tobie, with A. et D. Martinez
(Paris 2003, p. 5, no. 20) and a print by Vincenzo Mazzi (Stage Set from the
Caprici Teatrali, Bologna, 1776) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
66.500.27. It also appears on the reverse of the drawing by Hubert Clerget, La
Maison de Boucher, rue Carnot à la Ferte-Bernard, with C. J. Goodfriend, New
York, in 2014. Fiorentini 1999, pp. 150–53, no. 33; Fiorentini and Rosenberg
2002, p. 36, fig. 19; Hegener 2008, pp. 380–91, version I, fig. 221, p. 617,
no. 15. J. Clifton in Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, pp. 32–34, no. 1; Hegener
2008, p. 391; Mozzati in Florence 2014, pp. 526–27, no. 76. Erna Fiorentini
previously attributed it to Casa with a query (1999, p. 153). Hegener 2008 p.
618, no. 17, fig. 226; Heinecken (1778–90, vol. 2, p. 90). For his portraiture
and use of it for self-promotion, see Weil-Garris 1981, pp. 237–38; Weil-Garris
Brandt 1989; Mozzati 2014, pp. 452–63. Florence 2014,
p. 568, no. III; p. 573, no. VII; pp. 576–81, nos IX.-X. (R. Schallert). The Orpheus and his copy of the Laocoön (ibid., p. 571,
no. V) earned his reputation as ‘a great young talent who can export the
Belvedere’. (Barkan, 1999, p. 279). His personality is revealed in his letters
and the lengthy account in Vasari’s Lives (Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol.
5, pp. 238–76). See also Weil-Garris 1981, pp. 223–24; Weil-Garris Brandt 1989,
p. 497. Along with the date, 1548, the engraving bears the initials and
inscription, ‘A.S.Excudebat.’, presumably Antonio Salamanca, the leading
publisher of prints in Rome in the mid-16th century (Fiorentini and Rosenberg
2002, p. 38). Many of the prints he published were of Roman antiquities. See
London 2001–02, p. 233; Pagani 2000; Witcombe 2008, pp. 67–105. Weil-Garris
1981, p. 231; Weil-Garris Brandt 1989, p. 497. For a fundamental discussion of
Bandinelli and the Antique, see Barkan 1999, pp. 271–408. Weil-Garris Brandt
1989, pp. 497, 499–500. Weil-Garris 1981, p. 237. See V. Krahn, in Florence
2014, pp. 372–75, cat no. 32 who further notes the similarity between the
Hercules appearing in outline leaning on his club at right in the unfinished
print by Niccolò della Casa (Fiorentini and Rosenberg 2002, p. 36, fig. 19),
and Bandinelli’s Hercules with the Apple of the Hesperides, c. 1545, in the
Bargello in Florence (ibid., pp. 372–75, cat. no. 32, repr.). There are many
other engraved representations of Hercules subjects by or based on Bandinelli,
who evidently planned a series, as noted by Roger Ward (in Cambridge 1988, p.
74, under cat. no. 42). See also M. Zurla, in Florence 2014, pp. 388–93, cat.
nos 37–39. Weil-Garris 1981, p. 237; Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p. 34.
Campidoglio – freely interpreted by artists like Amico 92 93 Fig.
5. Giovanni Antonio da Brescia (fl. 1490–1519), The Belvedere Torso with Legs
and Feet, as Hercules, c. 1500–20, engraving, 166 × 103 mm, The British Museum,
Department of Prints and Drawings, London, 1845,0825.258 Fig. 6. Baccio
Bandinelli, Laocoön, pen and brown ink, 1520s, 417 × 265 mm, Uizi, Florence,
inv. 14785 F (recto) 4a. Jan van der Straet, called Johannes Stradanus
(Bruges 1523–1605 Florence) The Practice of the Visual Arts 1573 Pen and brown
ink with brown wash and white heightening with touches of grey, incised for
transfer 436 × 293 mm Inscribed recto, l.c., in pen and brown ink, in reverse
sense: ‘io stradensis flandrvs in 1573 cornelie cort excv’ provenance: Sir H.
Sloane bequest, 1753. literature: Hind and Popham 1915–32, vol. 5, p. 182, no.
1; Ameisenowa 1963, p. 58; Wolf-Heiddeger and Cetto 1967, p. 171, no. 73, repr.
on p. 431; Heikamp 1972, p. 300 and fig. 1 on p. 302; Heidelberg 1982, p. 29,
no. 52, pl. 1 on p. 17; Sellink 1992, p. 46; Rotterdam 1994, pp. 195–99 (in
Dutch), pp. 200–05 (in English), fig. a on p. 204; Baroni Vannucci 1997, pp.
63–64, 247, no. 313, repr. on p. 246. exhibitions: Florence 1980, p. 213, no.
523, not repr. (G. G. Bertelà); London 1986, no. 144, repr. on p. 193 (N.
Turner); Ottawa, Vancouver and elsewhere 1996–97, pp. 148–49, no. 39 (M.
Kornell); London, Warwick, and elsewhere 1997–98, pp. 19, 25, 119, no. 142 (D.
Petherbridge and L. Jordanova); London 2001–02, p. 21, no. 4 (M. Bury); Bruges
2008–09, pp. 227–28, no. 20 (A. Baroni). The British Museum, Department of
Prints and Drawings, London, SL,5214.2 exhibited in london only 4b. Cornelis
Cort (Hoorn 1533–before 1578 Rome) After Jan van der Straet, called Johannes
Stradanus (Bruges 1523–1605 Florence) The Practice of the Visual Arts 1578
Engraving State I of II1 432 × 295 mm Inscribed recto, l.c., on wooden box:
‘Cornelius Cort fecit. / 1578’; along bottom: ‘Illmo et Exmo Dn ́o Iacobo
Boncompagno Arcis Praefecto, ingenior, ac industriae fautori, Artiú nobiliú
praxim, á Io, Stradési Belga artifiosè expressá, Laureti’ Vaccarius D.D. Romae
Anno 1578.’; u.r.: ‘PICTVRA’; c.l. on table in background: ‘FVSORIA’; u.c.
below statue: ‘STATV ARIA’; l.l. on table: ‘ANATOMIA’; below statue of horse:
‘SCVLPTVRA’; c.r. on book on table: ‘ARCHITECTVRA’; r. on paper on table:
‘Typorum eneorum / INCISORIA’; l.c. on stool: ‘Tyrones pi / cture’. provenance:
possibly entered Rijksmuseum collection late 19th century (L.2228)2 literature:
Hind and Popham 1915–32, vol. 5, p. 182; Bierens de Haan 1948, p. 199, no. 218,
fig. 53; Hollstein 1949–2001, vol. 5, p. 58, no. 218, repr.; Ameisenowa 1963,
p. 58; Wolf-Heiddeger and Cetto 1967, pp. 171–72, no. 74, repr. on p. 431;
Heikamp 1972, p. 300, fig. 2 on p. 302; Strauss 1977, vol. 1, pp. 278–79,
repr.; Florence 1980, p. 213; Parker 1983, pp. 76–77, repr. (as state II);
Roman 1984, pp. 88–91, fig. 69; Strauss and Shimura 1986, p. 249, 218.199;
Liedtke 1989, p. 190, no. 53, repr. on p. 191; Sellink 1992, p. 46, fig. 18 on
p. 47; Rotterdam 1994, pp. 195–99 (in Dutch), pp. 200–205 (in English), no. 69;
Ottawa, Vancouver and elsewhere 1996–97, pp. 148–51, no. 40; Baroni Vannucci
1997, pp. 63–64, 436, no. 772; Sellink and Leeflang 2000, part 3, pp. 118–19,
no. 210; London 2001–02, pp. 18–21, no. 3; Munich and Cologne 2002, pp. 321–22,
no. 112; Wiebel and Wiedau 2002, p. 154, repr. on p. 155; Perry Chapman 2005,
p. 116, fig. 4.7 on p. 117. exhibitions: Vienna 1987, p. 320, no. VII.25 (M.
Boeckl); Amsterdam 2007, no. 5 (C. Smid and A. White); Bruges 2008–09, no. 21
(A. Baroni); Compton Verney and Norwich 2009–10, pp. 18–19, no. 16. their
careers in Italy. Jan van der Straet was born in Bruges in 1523, but we know
very little of his life before he arrived in Italy around 1545.4 He settled in
Florence but worked in both Rome and Naples, and became a close collaborator of
Giorgio Vasari (1511–74), assisting him in the decoration of the Palazzo
Vecchio and at Poggio a Caiano. Like Vasari, Van der Straet was immensely
versatile, working on paintings and portraits, making cartoons for tapestries
and creating hundreds of designs for prints. He died in Florence in 1605, and
is better known to posterity by the Italianised version of his name, Johannes
Stradanus. He nevertheless maintained his Flemish identity by signing his works
with variations of ‘FLANDRUS’, as seen in the exhibited drawing; however, it is
difficult to decipher, because Stradanus wrote the inscrip- tion in reverse.
This is clear evidence that the drawing was intended as a design for a print.
All the figures use their left hands, which is further proof, as are the clear
indentation lines made to transfer the design to the plate. Stradanus’
inscription is dated 1573, and includes the name of the Dutch- man Cornelis
Cort, who would engrave the drawing five years later, in 1578.5 Cort is first
documented working in the printing house of Hieronymous Cock (c. 1510–70) in
Antwerp, around 1553, before he travelled to Italy in 1565.6 At first he worked
in Venice, where he formed a famous partnership with Titian (c. 1488–1576), but
he later moved to central Italy. Cort probably met Stradanus in 1569 in
Florence, where the Medicis had requested his presence to engrave their family
tree.7 In the engraving, Cort moved his own name to the block at the centre
foreground, where he also inscribed the date 1578. Stradanus’ inscription was
replaced by one from the publisher, Lorenzo Vaccari (active 1575–87),
dedicating the work to Giacomo Boncampagni, Prefect of the Castel Sant’Angelo
and son of the newly appointed Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572–85).8 Cort made
several further changes to Stradanus’ design, the most obvious of which are the
inscriptions added to clarify the various activities being conducted around the
room. Thus we can identify the three arts of disegno taking place in one
institution, with painting (‘PICTVRA’) on the wall, sculpture (‘STATVARIA’ and
‘SCVLPTVRA’) on the plinths in the centre, and architecture (‘ARCHITECTVRA’),
which is given short shrift, repre- sented only by the man seated at the table
before the Venus, holding a pair of dividers. The architect is in fact overshad-
owed by the unusual addition beside him of a seated engraver, whose burin rests
on the corner of the table next to the more prominent inscription ‘Typorum
eneorum INCISORIA’. Michael Bury thought this focus on engraving was added at
Cort’s urging,9 but Stradanus, as the inventor of more than 560 designs for
prints, may himself have decided to place unprecedented emphasis on the graphic
arts.10 Of the three genres of painting – landscape, portraiture and history
paint- ing – the latter was considered the most admirable, and so it is
appropriate that the painting on the wall depicts an ancient battle scene.
Sculpture is depicted hierarchically, with prom- inence given to the grand
marble sculptures atop the plinth, distinguished from the lesser arts of wax
modelling and bronze casting, embodied by the rearing horse below. While the
older bearded masters are at work within their individual disciplines, their
true purpose is to guide the next generation of artists – the young,
clean-shaven students scattered around the room. The foreground is therefore
occupied with training exercises, as the pupils learn to draw after the Antique
and the human body before attempting the loftier projects of sculpture and
painting, exemplified in the upper back registers of the scene. The role of the
Antique is actually more prominent in the print than in the drawing, as the
statuette of Venus – which, like the statuettes in Bandinelli’s academies (cats
1 and 2), is probably all’antica rather than an antique original – meets the
gaze of a young pupil, whose quill is poised to draw her. This same youth in
Stradanus’ design has already filled his sheet with repeated sketches of eyes.
This reflects a different practice, referred to as the ‘alphabet of drawing’,
in which students were encouraged to start with the smallest part of the human
body, usually the eyes, gradually building up a repertoire of the individual
parts before assembling them into more complex configurations. In the same way,
a writer must first learn the alphabet and how to form indi- vidual letters
into words before being able to construct sentences. Benvenuto Cellini
(1500–71) described this as a common practice: ‘The teachers would put a human
eye in front of those poor and most tender youths as their first step in
imitating and portraying; this is what happened to me in my childhood, and
probably happened to others as well’ . 1 1 His statement is corroborated not
only by Stradanus’ drawing, but by a similar youth in Pierfrancesco Alberti’s
(1584–1638) etching of a studio (cat. 2, fig. 1) and by a sheet of eyes from
Odoardo Fialetti’s (1573–1638) drawing-book (p. 34, fig. 37). Stradanus
repeated the youth and his drawing of eyes in another design for a print, which
appeared in a series called Nova Reperta, published by Philips Galle (1537–
1612) in the 1590s (fig. 1). This ‘A B C ’ technique of drawing, as well as the
important role of the Antique, were codified in Federico Zuccaro’s (c.
1540–1609) first statutes for the Accademia di San Luca, ‘re-founded’ in Rome in
1593.12 The idea of progressing from simple elements to a complex whole
originated with Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), and he recommended a similar
method for the study of human anatomy, starting with the bones before adding
muscles and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-BI-6381 exhibited in haarlem only This
crowded, idealised vision of a workshop for training artists is the natural
successor to the earlier academies depicted by Baccio Bandinelli (cats 1 and
2). The Antique still plays a prominent role, seen in the large marble statues
in the centre depicting Rome personified next to the river god Tiber, both
based on the well-known sculptures in the Capitoline,3 and by the statuette of
a Venus Pudica type with her back to us standing on the table in the foreground.
Equal importance, however, is accorded to the study of anatomy, 94 and the
young pupils in the foreground focus their attention on the skeleton and
cadaver suspended from ropes and pulleys. This reflects the later 16th-century
emphasis on the study of anatomy as an integral part of the artist’s education,
a tendency that was already evident in the skeletons added to Bandinelli’s
second academy print (cat. 2), and which is fully realised in this scene. The
drawing and print catalogued here were produced in close collaboration by two
Northern artists who both made 95 96 97 finally flesh.13 The
students in Stradanus’ drawing are dili- gently following these instructions by
examining the bones of a skeleton, while a bespectacled tutor flays the arm of
a corpse to grant them a view of the musculature. Regardless of which object
they are studying, all the pupils are engaged in drawing, considered to be the
essential element in their education. Stradanus’ design is therefore an
allegory of the ideal academy, in which all of the arts are improbably combined
under one roof to offer the most well-rounded and comprehensive instruction to
the next generation of artists. Detlef Heikamp, however, believed it to
represent a specific academy, the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, and to be the
pendant to another drawing by Stradanus, now in Heidelberg, depicting the
Accademia del Disegno in Florence (fig. 2).14 Most other scholars disagree,
however, as the Accademia di San Luca was not officially founded until 1593,
exactly 20 years after the drawing was made.15 The drawing also predates a
Breve issued by Pope Gregory XIII in 1577, urging the foundation of such an
academy.16 Heikamp was correct, however, in pointing out the Roman symbolism of
this drawing, evident in the grand statue of Rome personified, based
iconographically on Minerva, flanked by the river god Tiber and the she-wolf
suckling Romulus and Remus. The Heidelberg drawing, by contrast, is decidedly
Florentine, showing Brunelleschi’s dome, the river god of the Arno and the
Florentine lion, the Marzocco. However, the two drawings are very different
Fig. 2. Johannes Stradanus, Allegory of the Florentine Academy of Art, c.
1569–70, pen and brown ink, brown wash and white heightening, 465 × 363 mm,
Kurpfälzisches Museum der Stadt Heidelberg, Inv. Nr. Z 5425 in size,17 and the
consensus of opinion is that they are not a pair, representing separate
allegorical, idealised Roman and Florentine teaching traditions.18 Stradanus
himself was a founding member of the Accademia del Disegno, which opened in
1563 in Florence. The study of anatomy was a central precept of the Acca-
demia, and, while acting as a consul in the winter of 1563, Stradanus was
responsible for organising a dissection for the students.19 His experience
guiding and shaping young Florentine artists must have informed his designs.
Perhaps Stradanus was compelled to portray such an academy in which the three
arts of disegno are exalted and glorified in order to allay growing concerns
about the status of art and artists.20 Alessandra Baroni made the radical
proposal that Cort was the driving force behind the project, and that it was
conceived around 1569 when he and Stradanus were both working in Florence.21
The Medicis commissioned Cort to engrave their family tree, and while he was in
Florence he created a series of prints with Florentine and Medici themes,
including engravings of tombs in the Medici Chapel. Cort may have undertaken
these projects on his own initiative, and the Heidelberg drawing would have
made a fitting addition to the series. An engraving of it, however, was never
executed, perhaps because a receptive audience could not be found, but in Rome
four years later, Cort may have found a more conducive atmosphere and convinced
Stradanus to resume the endeavour. Whatever the motiva- tion, the design proved
very popular, as evidenced by the existence of two early copies of the
engraving, the first of 22 which was published in Venice around 1580. Clearly,
Italian audiences were fascinated by the subject of art and the requisite
training necessary for its creation, in which the Antique played a pivotal
role. The second state was printed 200 years later, when the plate came into
the possession of Carlo Losi, who changed the date on it to 1773 (Bruges 2008–09,
p. 229). I am grateful to Erik Hinterding, Curator of Prints at the
Rijksmuseum, for his correspondence regarding this provenance. Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 89–90, no. 42 and pp. 113–14, no. 66. Janssens 2012, pp.
9–10. Karel van Mander’s biography of Van der Straet is very brief (Van Mander
1994–99, vol. 1, pp. 326–29). A better source is Borghini 1584, pp. 579–89.
There is an excellent chronology of his life, including lists of the related
archival documents, in Baroni Vannucci 1997, pp. 446–51. The inscription
‘CORNELIS CORT EXCV’ suggests that Cort had intended to publish the print
himself. He may have struggled to do so, explaining the five-year gap between
the date of the drawing and the pub- lication of the print, and it was
published by another man, Lorenzo Vaccari (Bruges 2008–09, pp. 228–29). It may
even have been published post- humously, as Cort died in 1578 (Sellink and
Leeflang 2000, part 3, p. 119). For Cort’s biography, see Thieme-Becker
1907–50, vol. 12, pp. 475–77. Cock was also the first publisher with whom
Stradanus worked, in 1567, and they had a long partnership (Baroni 2012, p.
91). Bruges 2008–09, p. 228. Boncompagni was appointed to this post in 1572,
and in April 1573 was promoted to Governor General of the Church. It is strange
that the inscrip- tion added to the print in 1578 refers to Boncompagni by the
lesser title of Prefect, which Michael Bury took as proof that the print was
more likely to have been executed in 1573, the same year as the drawing. He
thought it possible that the ‘3’ had simply been changed to an ‘8’ in the date
1578 on the stool; however there are no extant 1573 versions of the print
(London 2001–02, pp. 18, 21). London 2001–02, p. 18. Leesberg 2012a, p. 161.
Amornpichetkul 1984, p. 117 and Cellini 1731, p. 141. Cellini went on to say he
considered this a ‘poor method’ but he agreed on the means of building up the
bones of a skeleton in order to draw a successful nude. See also Aymonino’s
essay in this catalogue, pp. 33–34. Appendix, no. 7. Alberti 1972, p. 75 (book
2, chap. 36) and p. 97 (book 3, chap. 55). Heikamp 1972, p. 300. It is true
that for decades the idea for such an institution had been simmer- ing,
especially at the behest of Federico Zuccaro, a founding member of the
Accademia del Disegno in Florence. He was unhappy with its tenets and sought
reforms, eventually simply founding the Accademia di San Luca instead (Pevsner
1940, pp. 59–60). Heikamp’s theory has been rejected in London 2001–02, p. 21
and Bruges 2008–09, p. 226. The Pope decried the level of decadence in
contemporary art and blamed it on defective training of young artists, arguing
that if they had been properly instructed in both art and religion, they would
not sink to such lows (Pevsner 1940, p. 57). The Heidelberg drawing is much
larger and measures 465 × 363 mm. The figures in the Heidelberg drawing also
all use their left hands, so it must have been intended for a print; however,
no such print has come to light (London 2001–02, p. 21). Ottawa, Vancouver and
elsewhere 1996–97, p. 148. Rotterdam 1994, p. 200. Bruges 2008–09, pp. 226–27.
Bruges 2008–09, p. 229. For a list of the copies, see Sellink and Leeflang
2000, part 3, p. 119. For the practice of copying after Stradanus’ prints, see
Leesberg 2012a. 98 99 Fig. 1. Published by Philips Galle after a
design by Johannes Stradanus, Color Olivi, plate 14 in Nova Reperta series, c.
1580–1600, engraving, 201 × 271 mm, private collection 5. Federico
Zuccaro (Urbino c. 1541–1609 Rome) Taddeo in the Belvedere Court in the Vatican
Drawing the Laocoön c. 1595 Pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over
black chalk and touches of red chalk, 175 × 425 mm Inscribed recto in brown pen
and ink by the artist on the building in the background: ‘le camore di
Rafaello’; on the figure’s tunic in capital lettering, ‘THADDEO ZUCCHARO’;
numbered u.r. in brown ink: ‘17’. provenance: Gilbert Paignon Dijonval
(1708–92); Charles-Gilbert, Vicomte Morel de Vindé (1759–1842), see L. 2520;
Samuel Woodburn (1786–1853), 1816; Thomas Dimsdale (1758–1823), see L. 2426;
Samuel Woodburn, 1823; Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), L. 2445; Samuel
Woodburn, 1830; Sold Christie’s, London, 4 June 1860, part of lot 1074; bought
by Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872); Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick (1856–1938); Dr A.
S. W. Rosenbach (1876–1952), 1930; Philip H. and A. S. W. Rosenbach Foundation
until 1978; The British Rail Pension Fund, 1978; Their sale, Sotheby’s, New
York, 11 January 1990, lot 17; Finacor, Paris; Their sale, Christie’s, London,
28 January 1999, part of lot 35 (no. 17), from whom acquired. selected
literature:1 Rossi 1997, p. 64; Acidini Luchinat 1998, vol. 1, pp. 14, 16, 22,
fig. 20; vol. 2, p. 225; Paul 2000, pp. 5–6, fig. 1; Paris 2000–01, pp. 379–80,
under no. 185 (C. Scailliérez); Silver 2007–08, p. 86; Lukehart 2007–08, p.
105; Cavazzini 2008, p. 50, fig. 26; Tronzo 2009, pp. 49, fig. 6, 52–54;
Deswarte-Rosa 2011, pp. 27–28, 31, fig. 4; Pierguidi 2011, pp. 29–30, fig. 3;
Luchterhandt 2013–14, pp. 38–39, fig. 11. exhibitions: London 1836, p. 11, no.
17, not repr.; Los Angeles 1999 (no catalogue); Rome 2006–07, pp. 159–60, no.
51 (M. Serlupi Crescenzi); Los Angeles 2007–08, pp. 24, 33–34, no. 17 (see
also, pp. 7, 40, 70, 86, 127). Fig. 1. Apollo Belvedere, Roman copy of the
Hadrianic period (117–138 ad) from a Greek original of the 4th century bc,
marble, 224 cm (h), Vatican Museums, Rome inv. 1015 Fig. 2. Laocoön, possibly a
Roman copy of the 1st century ad after a Greek original of the 2nd century bc,
marble, 242 cm (h), Vatican Museums, Rome, inv. 1064 The J. Paul
Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 99.GA.6.17 exhibited in london only Look here, O
Judgment, how he observes the antique and Polidoro’s style as well as Raphael’s
work he studies. (Ecco qui, o Giuditio, osservando Va de l’antico, e Polidoro
il fare E l’opre insiem di Rafael studiando)2 The series of twenty drawings by
Federico Zuccaro of his older brother, Taddeo (1529–66), is a unique treasure
of Renaissance drawing.3 With cinematic realism and narrative flair, the
drawings tell the story of Taddeo’s travails and even- tual success as a young
artist in Rome in the 1540s. It begins with his heart-rending departure at
fourteen from the family home in S. Angelo in Vado, a provincial town in the
Marches, and his arrival in the Eternal City. There Taddeo sets about following
the prescribed course of study typical for any aspir- ing painter of the
period. First, he apprentices with a local painter, performing menial tasks –
preparing pigments and household chores – and finding time to draw, mostly only
at night. After being mistreated by the painter’s wife, he escapes to discover
Rome for himself. He assiduously copies statues and reliefs from classical
antiquity and the work of contem- porary masters including the frescoes in the
Logge and the Stanze of the Vatican by Raphael, the Last Judgment by
Michelangelo and façade paintings by Polidoro da Caravaggio. After much focused
and disciplined study, he triumphs victoriously with his first major success:
the painted façade of Palazzo Mattei (1548). And this is where the story ends
(Taddeo would die prematurely of illness at the age of thirty-seven). In this
drawing, number seventeen, we enter the story in medias res. Here Taddeo,
affectionately identified by name on his tunic, is at Vatican Belvedere Statue
Court studying the most iconic antique sculptures of the day: the Apollo
Belvedere on the left (fig. 1; see also pp. 25–26), the Nile and Tiber in the
centre and the object of his attention, possibly the most famous work in the
collection, the Laocoön on the right (fig. 2; see also pp. 25–26).4 With his
back turned, we peer voyeuristi- cally over his shoulder as he draws intently.
He has settled in for a day of intense study; his meagre sustenance, a small
loaf of bread and flask of wine on the ground next to him, has remained
untouched. The notion of the artist drawing inces- santly with little to eat or
drink anticipates the vivid descrip- tion of the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini
(1598–1680) who as a boy spent dawn to dusk at the statue court making copies.5
Significantly, this is the earliest known image of an artist at work at the
Belvedere, the most important and certainly the most influential collection of
classical antiquities assem- bled in the Renaissance.6 Given its unique
accessibility – unlike the collections housed in private aristocratic palaces –
it provided a sanctuary for the unencumbered study of antique statuary, which
also included recently excavated works. Thus, it served a key role in providing
an artistic instruction not just direct but exhilaratingly au courant. It also
meant that the sculptures displayed there would become famous as their images
were disseminated through prints and drawings. When Taddeo visited the
sculpture court in the 1540s, it had undergone a major renovation.7 In 1485,
under Pope Innocent VIII (r. 1484–92), a private villa was built on the hill
behind the old Vatican place, named the Belvedere (‘fair view’), for its
position. In 1503, Pope Julius II (r. 1503–13) commis- sioned the architect,
Donato Bramante (1444–1514), to incor- porate the house with the Vatican
complex thereby creating an enclosed rectangular garden courtyard, the Cortile
del Belvedere, to display his expanding antiquities collection. Wishing it to
be accessible to the public, the Pope had Bramante construct a spiral staircase
that enabled visitors to arrive at the courtyard directly, without having to
enter the palace proper.8 The courtyard was an enchanted world filled with
orange trees, fountains, an elegant loggia, and displayed in the centre of the
court, the colossal marble statues of the Nile and Tiber mounted as fountains.9
Statues including the celebrated Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoön were
displayed in especially created niches.10 Maarten van Heemskerck’s drawing in
the British Museum, c. 1532–33 (fig. 3), the earliest known view of the
Cortile, gives a sense of the space and the disposition of the sculpture
displayed there.11 Immediately evident is that Federico’s al fresco evocation
bears little resemblance to Heemskerck’s and to other con- temporary descriptions
of the courtyard. The setting is now a sun-drenched rise with a vista,
no t an enclosed garden, and the statues are freed from the confines of
their niches. And yet in other ways Federico has gone to lengths to convince us
of the time period – 1540s – as we will see. In fact, so well-known was this
space that Federico needed only to refer to it in short-hand. The statues
depicted would have been instantly recognisable to any viewer and Taddeo’s
location in the Belvedere understood. Since its discovery in January of 1506 in
the ground of a private vineyard on the Esquiline near the remains of the
so-called Baths of Titus, the Laocoön group, comprising the ill-fated Trojan
priest and his two sons violently struggling to free themselves from two serpents
who devour them, was immediately venerated.12 While still in the ground, the
architect and antiquarian, Giuliano di Sangallo, sent to inspect it by Pope
Julius II, identified it as the famous statue singled out by Pliny the Elder as
‘of all paintings and sculptures the most worthy of admiration’ (Natural
History 36.37–38).13 It was installed in the Belvedere in a chapel-like
recess.14 The sculpture’s fame was instant and far-reaching. Entranced by it,
Michelangelo proclaimed it an inimitable miracle.15 Collectors eagerly sought
copies, commissioning Jacopo Sansovino (1486–1570), Baccio Bandinelli (see cat.
3) and others to make replicas of various sizes in bronze, marble, wax,
terracotta, even gold.16 For artists, its effect was manifold. It provided an
anatomical model for the male nude that was strong, forceful and capable of
dynamic movement. The range of ages and emotions conveyed and symbolised –
fear, agony, heroism in death – also inspired emulation. Fig. 3. Maarten van
Heemskerck (1498–1574), View of the Belvedere Sculpture Court, c. 1532–36/37,
pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, 231 × 360 mm, Department of Print and
Drawings, British Museum, London, 1946,0713.639 100 101 102
103 Epitomising human suffering, the statue became a model for portraying
martyrs from Christendom, especially in the Counter-Reformation.17 For
centuries that followed artists would imitate and infuse this muscular body
type and expres- sions in their work (cat. 16). The group’s influence endured
well into the 19th century.18 When the Laocoön was first discovered, his right
arm and that of his youngest son on the left were missing, as were among other
losses the fingers of the eldest son’s right hand. By the 1530s, the missing
appendages were restored including a terracotta arm by the sculptor, Giovanni
Antonio Montorsoli (1507–63).19 Federico’s drawn version is something of an
enigma. In some respects it appears pre-restoration: the fingers of the eldest
son on the right are still missing. But he has included part of the previously
absent right arm of the son on the left but made him hand-less. Laocoön is
shown with his right arm restored but it is out of view so the angle cannot be
determined. In any case, it seems that Federico has attempted to represent the sculpture
as he thought Taddeo and others of his generation might have first seen it,
undoubt- edly to create an air of authenticity. It is possible that he
consulted print sources such as Marco Dente da Ravenna’s ( f l . 1515–27)
Laocoön of c. 1520–23, which makes a compelling comparison.20 The perfect foil
for the Laocoön is the commanding figure of the Apollo Belvedere anchoring the
composition on the left.21 So instantly recognisable was he that Federico
needed only to indicate his lower half. Discovered at S. Lorenzo in Panisperna
in 1489, the statue was acquired by Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of S.
Pietro in Vincoli, the future Pope Julius II, who displayed it in the garden of
his palace next to SS. Apostoli.22 After he became Pope, it was brought to the
Vatican in 1508 and installed in a niche in the Belvedere cortile in 1511.
Based on a lost Greek bronze original, it became one of the most famous statues
to survive from antiquity and was copied by innumerable artists (see cats 6,
25, 26).23 If the Laocoön exemplified the powerful male nude body in action,
the Apollo encapsulated the qualities of its counterpart, the perfect male
youth: elegant, graceful, confident and restrained; in repose yet poised for
action. As the god Apollo he was thought to have just discharged his arrow at
the python of Delphi (see cat. 6) or else, to be on the verge of killing the
sons of Niobe with his arrows, as punishment for her boasting.24 Praised by
Vasari for its instructive importance, every aspiring artist visited the Apollo
in the Belvedere.25 The statue retained immense popularity in the centuries
that followed.26 Federico’s abbreviated description of the Belvedere Courtyard
is a clever device as it allows him to combine several episodes of Taddeo’s
self-education in the same 104 drawing and a highly sophisticated continuous
narration.27 All show Taddeo studying the Antique in various forms – free-
standing statues, narrative reliefs and contemporary works in an all’antica
style. So while the most prominent Taddeo is at work copying the Belvedere
statues, a second Taddeo is visible in the distance, perched on a window ledge
copying Raphael’s celebrated Stanze frescoes in the papal apartments in the
Vatican.28 At the far left is Trajan’s Column of 113 ad under which are
figures, including an artist sketching the famous reliefs carved on the column
shaft, presumably Taddeo again. These monuments were very distant from one
other and yet, countering this artificial structure, Federico has striven for
local historical accuracy. For example, he shows the column as it would have
appeared in Taddeo’s day, omitting the bronze statue of St Peter at the top
that was added by Sixtus V in 1588.29 Lightly sketched in the left distance is
the dome of the Pantheon and on the far right, what appears to be the Mausoleum
of Augustus of 28 bc identifiable by the trees on the summit.30 Another drawing
from the series (fig. 4) further demon- strates the importance Federico
attributed to copying after the Antique, one of the pillars of artistic education.31
It shows Taddeo studying a relief – perhaps the right-hand front section of a
Muse sarcophagus of a type similar to an example now in the Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna (p. 20, fig. 5).32 Having already sketched the figures –
possibly a Muse holding a mask and Apollo – in black chalk, he is about to go
over the contours with pen and ink. Resting on the relief is the armless body
of a male youth similar in type to the Torso of Apollon Sauroktonos, the
so-called Casa Sassi Torso now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples.33
In the back- ground, in another example of continuous narration, Taddeo copies
façade paintings by Polidoro da Caravaggio, who, specialising in monochrome
frescoes imitating marble or bronze reliefs, represented another type of
contemporary all’antica style, one which would exert an enormous influence on
Taddeo’s own approach to painting.34 It is significant that Federico executed
the Taddeo series in the mid-1590s, around the time that he established a
reformed Accademia di San Luca of which he was elected president in 1593.
Learning to draw by copying the work of others – the Antique, Michelangelo,
Raphael and Polidoro da Caravaggio – was already a key phenomenon of
Renaissance workshop practice. Federico codified this practice further by
making such a disciplined approach to drawing central to the curricu- lum.35
Successful learning also required virtue and hard work – fatica – both physical
and intellectual, and such quali- ties are extolled in Federico’s drawings of Taddeo.36
According to the guidelines Federico wrote for the academy, students were
required to ‘go out during the week drawing after the antique’ (see Appendix,
no. 7).37 It is significant that in the final image of the series (fig. 5), an
allegorical personification of Study – represented by a young man diligently
copying an antique male torso with other sculptures – flanks the left side of
the Zuccaro family emblem.38 He is joined by Intelligence on the right. Along
with training, Federico was also concerned with the welfare of young artists
and proposed reforms to the artists’ academy in Florence, the Accademia del
Disegno.39 At his death in 1609, he intended the family palace, the Palazzo
Zuccari (now the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History)
to house young, struggling artists in Rome, so that they would not suffer as
Taddeo had.40 Appropriate in subject matter, the drawings may well have
prepared a complex arrangement of paintings for the walls of the palace’s Sala
del Disegno.41 This might account for the present drawing’s unusual dumbbell
format.42 Regardless of its intended purpose, the Early Life of Taddeo series,
a touching tribute to one brother from another, sends a clear message. Drawing,
especially after the Antique in all its various forms, was the cornerstone of
artistic education in 16th-century Italy and was to become a canonical activity
throughout Europe in the centuries that followed. As one of the first great
illustrations of this phenomenon in practice, the present drawing is an ideal
visual representation of this exhibition’s theme. avl Fig. 4. Federico
Zuccaro, Taddeo Drawing after the Antique; in the Background Copying a Façade
by Polidoro, c. 1595, pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash, over black chalk
and touches of red chalk, 423 × 175 mm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles,
99.GA.6.12 Fig. 5. Federico Zuccaro, Allegories of Study and Intelligence
Flanking the Zuccaro Emblem, c. 1595, pen and brown ink, brush with brown wash,
over black chalk and touches of red chalk, 176 × 425 mm, The J. Paul Getty
Museum, Los Angeles, 99.GA.6.20 105 1 Additional bibliography for
the drawings in the series up to 1999 is given in the catalogue of the
Christie’s sale, London, 28 January 1999, p. 70, lot 35. 2 This poem written by
Federico Zuccaro to accompany this drawing appears on the back of another sheet
in the series (Los Angeles 2007–08, p. 34, no. 18, 40). Translation by J.
Brooks (ibid., pp. 33–34). 3 The Early Life of Taddeo series, acquired by the
J. Paul Getty Museum in 1999, was the subject of an exhibition and in-depth
catalogue by J. Brooks (Los Angeles 2007–08). 4 For the Tiber and the Nile see
Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 272–73, no. 65 and pp. 310–11, no. 79; Klementa
1993, pp. 9–51, nos A1–A39, pls 1–18; pp. 52–71, nos B1–B15, pls 19–23. 5 See
Appendix, no. 9. 6 For essential reading on the Cortile and its history, see
Ackerman 1954; Brummer 1970; Coffin 1979, pp. 69–87; Haskell and Penny 1981,
pp. 7–11; Nesselrath 1994, pp. 52–55; Nesselrath 1998a, pp. 1–16. 7 See Coffin
1979, pp. 69–87; Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 7. 8 Coffin 1979, p. 82. 9 For the
two Rivers, see above, note 4. 10 For statues in their niches, see Haskell and
Penny 1981, p. 11, fig. 4, and Bober and Rubinstein 2010, fig. 122c. 11 First published
as Heemskerck in Winner and Nesselrath 1987, p. 867; see also M. Serlupi
Crescenzi, in Rome 2006–07, pp. 148–49, no. 37. For a sense of the atmosphere,
see the painting by Hendrik III van Cleve (1524–89), 1550, in the Musées Royaux
des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels (M. Serlupi Crescenzi, in Rome 2006–07,
pp. 146–47, no. 34), see Aymonino’s essay in this catalogue, p. 26, fig. 21. 12
For the group, see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 243–47, no. 52; Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 164–68, no. 122, Pasquier 2000–01b and the exhibition
catalogue devoted to it, Rome 2006–07. 13 Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 243; M.
Buranelli, in Rome 2006–07, pp. 127–28, no. 13. 14 Coffin 1979, p. 82; Haskell
and Penny 1981, p. 243. 15 Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 165, see also
Aymonino’s essay in this catalogue, p. 28. 16 Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 244
and Settis 1998, pp. 129–60. 17 Ettlinger 1961, pp. 121–26; Brummer 1970, pp.
117–18; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 166. 18 For the statue’s critical
reception, see Bieber 1967; Brilliant 2000; Décultot 2003 and Rome 2006–07. 19
Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 246–47; Nesselrath 1998b, pp. 165–74; Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, p. 165. Montorsoli’s additions were removed in 1540 when
Primaticcio made a mould of the group unrestored to prepare a cast in bronze
for Francis I (Rome 2006-07, pp. 150–51, no. 40). The additions were then put
back. 20 Oberhuber 1978, p. 50, no. 353 (268); T. Schtrauch, in Rome 2006–07,
pp. 152–53, no. 42. 21 For their juxtaposition, see Tronzo 2009, pp. 49–55. 22
According to a document published by Fusco and Corti 2006 (Appendix I, 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 p. 309, doc. 112; see also
pp. 52–56). For the statue, see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 148–51, no. 8;
Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 76–77, no. 28. In 1532–33 Montorsoli replaced
the existing right arm and restored the hands (Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p.
77). Federico presents it in its restored state with bow. Haskell and Penny
1981, p. 150. Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 76; Vasari’s preface to Part III of
the Lives, 1568 ed. (Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 4, p. 7). See
Roettgen 1998, pp. 253–74. He employs the same device in other drawings in the
series (Los Angeles 2007–08, p. 7). Federico indicates the location on the
drawing itself with the inscription, le camore di Rafaello (the rooms of
Raphael). Another drawing in the series shows him copying the frescoes in the
loggia of the Villa Farnesina, see Los Angeles 2007–08, pp. 20, 32, no. 13. For
the column, its reliefs and history, see Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 208–10,
no. 159. Francesco Soderini purchased the Mausoleum in 1546 in order to
transform the tomb into a garden museum with antique statuary. See Riccomini
1995, especially p. 267, fig. 91 (Etienne Du Pérac’s engraving, 1575) and p.
271, fig. 95 (Alò Giovannoli’s engaving, 1619) and Riccomini 1996. Los Angeles
2007–08, pp. 19, 31–32, no. 12. For essential reading on Taddeo, Federico and
the antique and the absorption of it in their work, see Silver 2007–08, pp.
86–91. Wegner 1966, pp. 88–89, no. 228, plates 11–12. Los Angeles 2007–08, p.
31. In Taddeo’s time the torso (CensusID 159347 and Ruesch 1911, p. 158, no.
491) was in the courtyard of the Sassi family palace displayed in a niche as
seen in Heemskerck’s famous view reproduced in etching (Paris 2000–01, pp.
360–62, no. 169, entry by C. Scailliérez). For Polidoro and the Zuccari, see
Los Angeles 2007–08, pp. 71–77. Armenini had already advised artists to copy
Polidoro’s frescoes (1587, p. 58, book 1, chap. 7). Alberti 1604, p. 7. See
also Armenini, 1587, pp. 52–59 (book 1, chap. 7). See also Aymonino’s essay in
this catalogue, pp. 32–33 Rossi 1997, pp. 66–68. Alberti 1604, p. 8
(‘e chi andarà frà la settimana dissegnando all’antico’), cited and translated
in Silver 2007-08, p. 86). Los Angeles 2007–08, pp. 27,
35, no. 20. Ibid., p. 2. Ibid. For previous arguments on the topic and a
fascinating hypothetical recon- struction of the Sala del Disegno, see Strunck
2007–08, pp. 113–25. The shape is adapted slightly in a version of the present
drawing in the Uffizi, Florence, of similar dimensions (Paris 2000–01, pp.
379–80, no. 185 (entry by C. Scailliérez), believed by Gere to be autograph
(1990, under no. 17) but by Brooks as unlikely to be and the present author
agrees. See Los Angeles 2007– 08, p. 45, note 48, where two other copies are
also noted: Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid 7656 and the other sold Phillips,
London, 9 July 2001, lot 148. 6. Hendrick Goltzius (Bracht-am-Niederrhein
1558–1617 Haarlem) a. The Apollo Belvedere 1591 Black and white chalk on blue
paper indented for transfer; 388 × 244 mm provenance: Queen Christina of Sweden
(1626–89)1; Cardinal Decio Azzolini (1623–89); Marchese Pompeo Azzolini
(1654–1706); Don Livio Odescalchi (1658–1713); purchased from the Odescalchi
family by the Teylers Foundation, 1790. selected literature: Reznicek 1961,
vol. 1, p. 326, no. 208, vol. 2, fig. 170; Van Regteren Altena 1964, fig. 19,
pp. 101–02, no. 32; Miedema 1969, pp. 76–77; Brummer 1970, pp. 70–71, repr.; Stolzenburg
2000, pp. 426–27, repr., p. 439, no. 173; Brandt 2001, p. 148; Hamburg 2002, p.
114, repr. under no. 33; Amsterdam, New York and elsewhere 2003–04, p. 269,
repr.; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 77, under no. 28; Leesberg 2012b, vol. 2,
p. 370 under no. 380; Göttingen 2013–14, pp. 22–23, fig. 6; Nichols 2013a, pp.
56, 84, fig. 54; Veldman 2013–14, p. 105. exhibitions: Münster 1976, p. 138,
no. 111, p. 140, repr. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. no. K III 23 exhibited in
haarlem only b. Apollo Belvedere 1592 Engraving, 412 × 300 mm State II of II
Inscribed on the base of the statue: ‘HG sculp. APOLLO PYTHIUS Cum privil. Sa.
Cæ. M.’. With the address of the printer at right ‘Herman Adolfz excud.
Haerlemens.’. Inscribed with two lines in the lower margin, at centre: ‘Statua
antiqua Romae in palatio Pontificis belle vider / opus posthumum HGoltzij iam
primum divulgat. Ano. M.D.C.X.VII.’.2 Two Latin distichs by Theodorus
Schrevelius in margin l.l. and l.r.: ‘Vix natus armis Delius Vulcaniis /
Donatus infans, sacra Parnassi iuga’ / ‘Petii. draconem matris hostem spiculis
/ Pythona fixi: nomen inde Pythii. Schrevel’.3 Numbered in l.l. corner: ‘3’.
Published by Herman Adolfsz. (fl. 1607) in 1617 provenance: P. et D. Colnaghi
Co., London, from whom acquired in 1854. literature: Bartsch 1854–76, vol. 3,
p. 45, no. 145; Hirschmann 1921, pp. 60–61, no. 147; Hollstein 1949–2001, vol.
8, p. 33, no. 147.II, repr.; Strauss 1977, vol. 2, pp. 566–67, no. 314, repr.;
Leesberg 2012b, vol. 2, p. 370, no. 380, pp. 373–74, repr. exhibitions: Not
previously exhibited. The British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings,
London, 1854,0513.106 106 107 It was undoubtedly at the urging of Karel van
Mander (1548– 1606), his friend and fellow Haarlem artist, that Hendrick
Goltzius left for Rome in 1590 in order to study the remnants of classical
antiquity and the works of modern Italian masters.4 He was already thirty-two
years old. Northern artists usually went south when they were much younger,
sometimes even half that age. The tradition of artists travel- ling from
Northern Europe to Italy, eager to learn, had begun almost a century earlier
with Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse (c. 1472–1532). Other well-known Dutch artists
who had derived inspiration from antique remains in Rome and who had produced
drawings after them, were Jan van Scorel (1495–1562) and above all, Maarten van
Heemskerck (1498– 1574), also a native of Haarlem.5 Like these artists Goltzius
travelled to Rome as a mature draughtsman, eager to deepen his knowledge and
see with his own eyes the works of art of which he had heard so much. It was
probably family obligations and his flourishing print workshop that had delayed
his Italian trip for so long. Finally in 1590–91, hoping for relief from the
consumptive state of his health, Goltzius made the long anticipated journey.6
We know from Van Mander that on arriving in Rome, Goltzius concentrated almost
exclusively on drawing the most important classical sculptures carefully and
industri- ously.7 Goltzius was now a celebrity, for his prints had spread his
fame throughout Europe, but he travelled largely incognito. In Rome, for
example, he donned rustic garb in order to blend in with pupils and amateurs
drawing from the Antique. According to Van Mander, they looked at him pityingly
until they saw what he was capable of, whereupon they started asking him for
advice.8 Although this story may be a topos – art-loving Italy values a gifted
outsider – it is not hard to imagine such an encounter when one considers
Goltzius’ Roman drawings.9 Forty-three of Goltzius’ drawings after thirty
different classical statues survive, plus one after Michelangelo’s Moses; all
are preserved in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem.10 In the short time at
Goltzius’ disposal – he was only in Rome for seven months – he managed to copy
all the most impor- tant sculptures, in both public and semi-public
locations 108 109 such as churches and papal palaces, and in
some private collections.11 He must have prepared thoroughly for his drawing
expedition and have studied travel books and prints before his departure.
Certainly at his disposal would have been Maarten van Heemskerck’s Roman
sketchbook, now in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, but then owned by his fellow
Haarlem artist, Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem (1562–1638) (see p. 35, figs
39–43 and cat. no. 8).12 Strikingly Goltzius’ selection more or less
corresponded with the antique statues described in travel literature.13
Evidently, a canon of the most outstanding classical statues in Rome had
already been established and disseminated to the North and although this canon
would later be expanded, most of the statues drawn by Goltzius in 1591
continued to remain popular models for artists in subsequent centuries (see
cat. nos 14–16, 21, 25–27 and 31). Goltzius did not make his drawings merely as
an exercise. The artist and printshop owner was well aware of the importance of
those statues for their reproductive potential. He must have envisaged a series
of engravings from the very outset and that is why he went to such lengths to
select the most celebrated and, by then, canonical sculptures. The series he
had in mind would have rivalled existing print series of antique sculptures in
Rome, such as Antoine Lafréry’s Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, published
between 1545 and 1577 (fig. 1), or Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri’s Antiquarum
Statuarum Urbis Romae, published between the 1560s and the 1590s.14 Cavalieri’s
reproductions were printed on small plates, without backgrounds, and
incorporated little information about the sculptures in their locations; the
lighting is not consistent and there is a lack of naturalism in the statues’
rendering. While the differences between Lafréry’s reproductions and what
Goltzius planned to create are less striking, the burin technique is more
refined in Goltzius’ works, his rendering of the statues more realistic and his
prints fractionally larger; moreover, he generally represented the statues from
closer vantage points, thereby creating more engaging compositions.15 What
audience did Goltzius have in mind when he produced his drawings and his
prints? While Cavalieri and Lafréry’s publications were mainly intended for
antiquaries and art lovers, Goltzius seems to have aimed at a broader audience
encompassing artists as well as amateurs. This is supported by his
emphasis on anatomical precision and the sculptures’ three-dimensional
character, rather than accu- racy of reproduction – he sometimes omitted
inscriptions, for example (see cat. 8); the presence of the draughtsman in the print
displayed is also significant in this connection. Goltzius’ project was timely
for around this period a market seems to have been developing for prints after
110 publication, but found himself overwhelmed with other projects. In most of
his drawings after antique sculpture, Goltzius began with a sketch in black and
white chalk on bluish-grey paper, like this drawing of Apollo Belvedere. The
trial-and- error lines by the figure’s legs and waist suggest that he had
difficulty deciding on a vantage point. He would then have used a stylus to
indent the contours of that sketch onto a second sheet of paper, on which he
subsequently produced an extremely precise drawing of the statue. That second
version in red chalk, unfortunately now lost, would have served as the model
for the engraver. Teylers Museum has both drawings for the Farnese Hercules
Seen from Behind (see cat. 7a and fig. 2) but at some point Goltzius’ second
version of the Apollo Belvedere was separated from the group that ended in the
Teylers Museum,20 for in the early 18th century it belonged to the famous
collector Valerius Röver (1686– 1739) of Delft,21 and was listed in his
inventory: ‘The Apollo, with red chalk, transferred to the copper by Goltzius,
which print is herewith attached, fl. 3:10’.22 The engraving is in the same
direction as the black chalk drawing, and the size of the statue is identical
in both.23 The most striking difference between them is the rendering of
volume. The statue appears a little flat in the drawing, while in the print it
is highly sculptural, with a keenly observed interplay between light and shade
across the form lending relief and depth to the engraving. As noted above,
Goltzius would have developed these features in the lost red chalk version of
the subject. It may be that this lost drawing also incorporated the draughtsman
seen in the lower right corner of the print, and the large cast shadow on the
left, accessories and details that Goltzius tended to vary from work to work.
In any event, these added elements reinforce the sense of depth; the
draughtsman also conveys an idea of the scale of the statue (see cat. 7). But
perhaps Goltzius added the young draughtsman for yet another reason. His
rendering of this figure is so direct, so true to life, that it appears to be a
portrait. The two small figures in his reproduction of the Farnese Hercules are
also represented in a fashion which suggests that these too are portraits (cat.
7, fig. 4). It seems that in Rome Goltzius asked a local artist, Gaspare Celio
(1571–1640), to draw copies of both classical and modern artworks for him and
they may have drawn some works together.24 Could this figure be Celio? Pure
speculation, of course, for remarkably little is known about this mysterious
individual.25 At any rate the figure of the draughtsman is seated exactly as
Goltzius must have positioned himself, although at a different angle, employing
the same technique (n.b. the porte-crayon), the same format paper and probably
the same travel board. And this may point to another reason for Goltzius’
introduction of the young draughtsman: to emphasise the didactic inten- tion of
the series and to convey the message that these prints allowed artists to draw
the finest Roman sculptures, just like the draughtsman in the image, without having
to go to Rome. Whatever the reason for this figure’s inclusion, his presence
demonstrates – as does Van Mander’s story of Goltzius amidst younger artists –
that during this period the copying of antique sculptures in Rome was very
widespread. The Apollo Belvedere is a Roman copy of a Greek original by
Leochares from c. 330–320 bc. The copy probably dates from the reign of Hadrian
(117–138 bc). In the late 15th cen- tury the Apollo was in the collection of
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, who, as Pope Julius II, placed it in the
Belvedere, where it was displayed in the small Cortile delle Statue (see p. 26,
fig. 21 and cat. 5). The Apollo Belvedere soon became one of the most famous
sculptures in the collection and was drawn by many artists. Prints of the sculpture
by Agostino Veneziano (c. 1518–20, see p. 28, fig. 29), Marcantonio Raimondi
(c. 1530) and Goltzius himself (c. 1617), among others, ensured that its fame
spread throughout Europe. However, the Apollo’s prestige began to fade in the
19th century and nowadays the sculpture, while well-known to art historians is
less appreciated by the general public.26 Fig. 1. Anonymous engraver
after Marcantonio Raimondi, published by Antoine Lafréry, Apollo Belvedere,
1552, engraving, 323 × 228 mm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-H-232 antique
statues for artists to employ as models. Between 1599 and 1616 Goltzius’
stepson Jacob Matham published the first known printed sketchbook after the
Antique, Verscheijden Cierage,16 intended, according to its title page, for an
interna- tional public of artists and amateurs.17 And it seems likely that
Goltzius envisaged the same international audience for his projected series,
perhaps particularly young students in Northern Europe – and no doubt his own
pupils – who were not able to undertake the trip to Rome but could use his
engravings as models.18 It was probably in 1592, soon after his return from
Italy, that Goltzius embarked on the print series, engraving after his own
drawings three of the statues: the Farnese Hercules Seen from Behind (cat. 7),
Hercules and Telephus and this Apollo Belvedere. It is unlikely that Goltzius
was disappointed with the results but he progressed no further with the project
and never officially printed the plates which were published posthumously in
1617, bearing the address of the Haarlem publisher Herman Adolfsz.19 We do not
know why Goltzius did not publish these prints in his lifetime but it may have
been the result of excessive ambition. He probably hoped to market a much
longer series of prints in a single 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 mp
I. M. Veldman revealed the Rudolf II provenance for Goltzius’ Roman portfolio
to be a myth. A more logical provenance might be, as Veldman suggests, through
Jacob Matham (1571–1631), Theodor Matham (1605/06– 76), Joachim von Sandrart
(1606–88) and/or Pieter Spiering (1594/97–1652): Veldman 2013–14, pp. 109–13.
‘An antique statue in Rome, in the Pope’s Belvedere Palace; a work by H.
Goltzius that is now being published posthumously for the first time, in the
year 1617’. ‘Barely born, I, Apollo of the island of Delos, received arms from
Vulcan; I sought the sacred heights of Parnassus; with my arrows I pierced the
dragon Python, my mother Leto’s enemy; thus it is that I bear the name
“Pythian”’. I wish to thank Professor Ilja Veldman, who generously put at my
disposal her Goltzius entries for the forthcoming catalogue of the 16th-century
Netherlandish drawings in the Teylers Museum, which she is preparing with
Yvonne Bleyerveld. For the early tradition of Northern European artists going
to Rome (includ- ing Gossaert, Van Scorel and Van Heemskerck), see Brussels and
Rome 1995. Van Mander 1994–99, vol. 1, pp. 388–89 (fol. 282 verso).
Ibid., pp. 390–91 (fol. 283 recto). Ibid. Luijten
2003–04, p. 123. Reznicek 1961, vol. 1, pp. 89–94, pp. 319–46, nos 200–38;
245–48. From the 1689–90 inventory of Goltzius drawings owned by Queen
Christina of Sweden it is known that Goltzius also produced (now lost) drawings
of two famous antique figures, the Spinario (now in the Capitoline Museums,
Rome, see p. 23, fig. 15) and the Farnese Bull (now in the Museo Archeologico
Nazionale, Naples); see Stolzenburg 2000, p. 437, nos. 140–41, p. 440, no. 180
and Veldman 2013–14, p. 101. Veldman 2012, pp. 11–23. Reznicek 1961, p. 90; Brandt
2001, p. 136. Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 18; Brandt 2001, p. 136. Brandt 2001,
pp. 143–46. Fuhring 1992, pp. 57–84. 111 17 Ibid., pp. 64–65, p. 76, pl.
1. 18 It is tempting at this point to think of the ‘Haarlem Academy’, of which
Goltzius was a member before his departure for Italy as a true academy, where
artists could draw from life and presumably also after sculptures. However, in
all probability this ‘academy’ comprised no more than three artists: Karel van
Mander, Cornelis Cornelisz. and Goltzius. See also cat. 8. 19 Leesberg 2012b,
vol. 2, pp. 368–75, nos 378–80; Luijten 2003–04, pp. 119–20. 20 For the
provenance of the drawings see Stolzenburg 2000 and Veldman 2013–14. 21 Van
Regteren Altena 1964, pp. 101–02, under no. 32. 22 ‘De Apollo, met rootaarde,
door Goltzius int koper gebragt, welke print hierbij gevoegt is, f 3:10.’ See
the manuscript catalogue by Valerius Röver in the Amsterdam University Library,
inv.no. II A 18: Catalogus van boeken, schilderijen, teekeningen, printen,
beelden, rariteiten [1730], portefeuille 2, no. 3. 23 In view of the incomplete
right hand and the missing left hand it seems likely that the sheet has been
trimmed on the right and left, and possibly at the top as well. 24 Baglione
1642, p. 377. 25 26 All we really know is that Celio must have drawn a copy of
Raphael’s fresco, The prophet Isaiah in the San Agostino in Rome for Goltzius
(see Luijten 2003, p. 118). Goltzius used this copy for his engraving; see
Leesberg 2012b, vol. 2, pp. 292–93, no. 333, repr. For a recently published
drawing by Celio in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, with a parade carriage of
his own design incorporating pyrotechnic features, see Stemerding 2012, pp.
13–17. For the history and the fortuna critica of the Apollo Belvedere: Haskell
and Penny 1981, pp. 148–51, no. 8; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 76–77, no.
28. Regarding the sculpture’s reputation today, which some describe as
bordering on total neglect, Kenneth Clark observed in 1969: ‘. . . for four
hundred years after it was discovered the Apollo was the most admired piece of
sculpture in the world. It was Napoleon’s greatest boast to have looted it from
the Vatican. Now it is completely forgotten except by the guides of coach
parties, who have become the only surviving transmitters of traditional
culture.’ Clark 1969a, p. 2. 7. Hendrick Goltzius (Bracht-am-Niederrhein
1558–1617 Haarlem) a. The Farnese Hercules Seen from Behind 1591 Red chalk,
indented for transfer, 390 × 215 mm. Verso: Design lightly traced in black
chalk from recto. The upper corners cut. literature: Scholten 1904, p. 40, cat.
N 19; Hirschmann 1921, p. 59; Reznicek 1961, vol. 1, p. 337, cat. K 227, vol.
2, fig. 179; Miedema 1969, pp. 76–77, repr. (recto and verso); Schapelhouman
1979, p. 67, note 3; Amsterdam 1993–94, pp. 361–62, under no. 24 (B. Cornelis);
Stolzenburg 2000, p. 439, no. 164; Brandt 2001, pp. 139, 144, fig. 132, p. 148;
Hamburg 2002, p. 116, under no. 34 (A. Stolzenburg) ; Leeflang 2012, pp. 24–25,
fig. 5; Leesberg 2012b, vol. 2, pp. 368–69, under no. 378; Göttingen 2013–14,
p. 210; Veldman 2013–14, pp. 102–05. exhibitions: New York 1988, pp. 58–60, no.
12; Brussels and Rome 1995, p. 204, no. 101; Luijten 2003–04, pp. 132–36, no.
42.2. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. N 19 exhibited in haarlem only b. The Farnese
Hercules, 1592 (published 1617) Engraving Only state 416 × 300 mm Lettered on
the base of the statue: ‘HERCULES VICTOR’. Lettered in l.l. corner: ‘HGoltzius
sculpt. Cum privilig. / Sa. Cæ. M.’ and ‘Herman Adolfz / excud. Haerlemen’.
Inscribed with two lines in the lower margin, at centre: ‘Statua antiqua Romae
in palatio Cardinalis Fernesij / opus posthumum H Goltzij iam primum divulgata
Ano M.D.CXVII.2 Two Latin distichs by Theodorus Schrevelius in margin l.l. and
l.r.: ‘Domito triformi rege Lusitaniae / Raptisque malis, quae Hesperi sub
cardine / Servarat hortis aureis vigil draco, / Fessus quievi terror orbis
Hercules.’3 Numbered in l.l. corner: ‘1’. provenance: Bequest of Carel Godfried
Voorhelm Schneevoogt (1802–77), Haarlem. literature: Bartsch 1803–21, vol. 3,
pp. 44–45, no. 143; Hirschmann 1921, pp. 58–59, no. 145; Hollstein 1949–2001,
vol. 8, p. 33, no. 145, repr.; Strauss 1977, vol. 2, pp. 562–63, no. 312,
repr., p. 569; Leesberg 2012b, vol. 2, pp. 368–69, no. 378, repr. 112 113 1
Odescalchi (1658–1713); purchased from the Odescalchi family by the Teylers
Foundation, 1790. provenance: Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–89); Cardinal
Decio Azzolini (1623–89); Marchese Pompeo Azzolini (1654–1706); Don Livio
exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. KG 02263
The Farnese Hercules, which bears a Greek inscription naming ‘Glykon of
Athens’, a sculptor unknown in classical litera- ture, was one of the most
famous statues in Rome from the time of its discovery until the end of the 19th
century (fig. 1).4 The first certain mention of it dates from 1556, when it
stood in Palazzo Farnese.5 The fragments, unearthed at different times, must
have been reassembled shortly before. The head was found in a well in
Trastevere, probably around 1540. The torso was discovered six years later in
the Baths of Caracalla, followed by the legs.6 However, the legs emerged too
late to be incorporated in the statue because it had already been ‘restored’
and given new ones by Guglielmo della Porta (1500/10–1577). Oddly enough,
Michelangelo allegedly appealed to the Farnese family to leave the new legs in
place and not replace them with the originals, ‘in order to show that works of
modern sculpture can stand in compari- son with those of the ancients’.7 The statue
recovered its original legs only in the 18th century. In addition to the
Palazzo Farnese, Goltzius drew studies on the Capitol, the Quirinal and in the
Belvedere statue court (see cats 6, 8). He had an ambitious plan for his
drawings: they were to prepare a series of high-quality and accurate engravings
of the most important classical statues, on a scale not previ- ously
attempted.8 The importance he attached to the project is evident from the care
he lavished on many of his drawings. In preparation for this one, which is in
red chalk, he first made an equally large, slightly freer and more loosely
drawn black chalk version on blue paper (fig. 2; see cat. 6a). He then indented
the contours through onto the white sheet on which he made the present drawing.
The contours are conse- quently razor-sharp. He then exercised phenomenal skill
in depicting the statue’s volume and the smooth texture of the marble with a
subtle interplay of light and shade. He achieved this by leaving reserves of
white paper, by alternating pressure on the chalk and by stumping it here and
there so that individual strokes are no longer visible.9 114
115 Fig. 1. The Farnese Hercules, back view, Roman
copy of the 3rd century ad of a Greek original of the 4th century bc, 317 cm (h),
Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, inv. 6001 Fig. 2. Hendrick Goltzius, The
Farnese Hercules seen from Behind, 1591, black and white chalk on blue paper
indented for transfer, 360 × 210 mm, Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. K III 30
Fig. 3. Hendrick Goltzius, The Farnese Hercules, black and white chalk on blue
paper, indented for transfer, 382 × 189 mm, Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. N 20
Fig. 4. Hendrick Goltzius, Two Male Heads: Jan Matthijsz Ban and Philips van
Winghen (?), metalpoint on an ivory-coloured prepared tablet, 92 × 117 mm,
Amsterdam Museum, inv. A 10180 demonstrate that he had seen the sculpture in
the round, making this clear by depicting the figure’s ‘alien’ back as well as
its usual front. His choice was probably inspired by a combination of these
factors. The Amsterdam Museum houses Goltzius’ preparatory drawing (fig. 4) of
the two men whose admiring, upturned gazes provide such a fine connection
between the front and back of the Farnese Hercules.16 In the engraving they are
repre- sented in mirror image and have been exchanged for each other. They have
portrait-like features and their identities have been a subject for
speculation. The most serious suggestion made so far, dating from the end of
the 19th century, is that they were Goltzius’ temporary travelling companions:
Jan Matthijsz Ban on the left and Philips van Winghen (d. 1592) on the right;
they may even have witnessed him drawing this statue.17 It is difficult to
verify this sugges- tion, but it is certainly interesting and plausible.
Goltzius had produced, albeit on a larger scale, several portraits of his
circle of acquaintances in Rome and elsewhere such as Giambologna (1529–1608),
Dirck de Vries ( fl. 1590–92) and Jan van der Straet, also called Stradanus
(1523–1605; see cat. 4).18 Most of his sitters, like Ban and Van Winghen, were
northern artists active in Italy. Ban was a silversmith, and Van Winghen is
described by Karel van Mander as ‘a learned young nobleman from Brussels [ . .
. ] who was a great archaeologist’.19 According to Van Mander the three of them
made an excursion from Rome to Naples in the spring of 1591.20 Van Winghen died
unexpectedly in 1592,21 and it was maybe as a tribute to his friend that
Goltzius included him in the plate that he cut that same year. mp 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 See footnote 1 in cat. 6. ‘An antique
statue in Rome, in the palace of Cardinal Farnese; a work by H. Goltzius that
is now being published posthumously for the first time, in the year 1617’. ‘Now
that I have vanquished the King of Spain with his three bodies [Geryon] and
have stolen the apples that were guarded by a vigilant dragon under the western
heaven in the golden garden, I, Hercules, the terror of the world, rest from my
labours’. I wish to thank Professor Ilja Veldman, who generously put at my
disposal her Goltzius entries for the forthcoming catalogue of the sixteenth-
century Netherlandish drawings in the Teylers Museum, which she is preparing
with Yvonne Bleyerveld. U. Aldrovandi, ‘Delle statue antiche, che per tutta
Roma ... si veggono’, in Mauro 1556, pp. 157–58. The
Hercules, today in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, is regarded as
an enlarged copy of the 3rd century ad after an original by Lysippos or someone
from his school of the 4th century bc. For its history and fortuna critica see
Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 229–32, no. 46; Gasparri 2009–10, vol. 3, pp.
17–20, no. 1. Haskell
and Penny 1981, p. 229. Baglione 1642 (facsimile edition, Rome 1935), p. 151:
‘. . . per mostrare con quel rifarcimento si degno al mondo, che le opere della
scultura moderna potevano stare al paragone de’lavori antichi’. Reznicek 1961, vol. 2, pp. 89–94; Brandt 2001, passim; Luijten 2003–04,
pp. 117–25. For both drawings see Luijten 2003–04, pp. 132–36. Göttingen
2013–14, pp. 210–11. For the prints by Bos and Ghisi see Göttingen 2013–14, pp.
205–07, no. II. 18 (Ghisi) and pp. 285–86, no. IV.09 (Bos). Brandt 2001, pp.
143–46. It has been suggested that Goltzius was prompted to make his unorthodox
choice by a description in Pliny of a painting by Apelles of Hercules with Face
Averted, whose features could nevertheless be guessed. Goltzius may have known
the related engraving by G. J. Caraglio after Rosso Fiorentino: see Luijten
2003–04, p. 134 (with previous literature). For the dating of the three prints
see Reznicek 1961, p. 419; Boston and St. Louis 1981–82, p. 12, under no. 6.
See the painting Rest by Nicolaes Berchem the Elder (1620–83) dated 1644 in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the painting The Return from the
Hunt, also by Berchem, from c. 1670 in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles,
both of which include a male figure whose attitude is clearly based on that of
the Farnese Hercules (Amsterdam and Washington D.C. 1981–82, p. 67, fig. 2;
Haarlem, Zurich and elsewhere 2006–07, p. 85, cat. 45, repr.). A drawing by
Berchem, Standing Herdsman from the Back in the Rijksmuseum, prepares the
figure of the standing herdsman in the New York painting (see Amsterdam and
Washington D.C., 1981–82, p. 67, fig. 1). Schapelhouman 1979, p. 67 (with
earlier literature); Luijten 2003–04, pp. 135–36. Hymans 1884–85, p. 187, note
1. Schapelhouman (1979, p. 67) does not believe this, while Luijten (2003–04,
pp. 135–36) considers it plausible. It is curious that Goltzius altered the
preparatory drawing of the two men’s heads in the engraving (fig. 3): in
addition to representing them in mirror image and swopping them over, he
depicted them in the same scale as well. Ban (if it is indeed Ban) is now
somewhat taller than Van Winghen, which would reflect reality for Van Mander
reports that Ban was a sizeable man (Van Mander 1994–99, vol. 1, pp. 392–93,
fol. 283v). Schapelhouman 2003–04, pp. 147–58. Van Mander 1994–99, vol. 1, pp.
392–93 (fol. 283v). Ibid. Between 1592 and 1597 Jacob Matham engraved a
portrait of Philips van Winghen after another (unknown) drawing by Goltzius;
see Widerkehr and Leeflang 2007, vol. 2, p. 256, no. 263. However beautiful the
two drawings in black and red chalk may be, it is only in Goltzius’ engraving
that we really see what he intended. The backlit effect of the Farnese Hercules
is seen to best advantage in the print, in which the added clouds have a
functional role by creating a sense of depth and atmosphere. It is enhanced by
the two observers, also only introduced in the print stage, who help to convey
the statue’s scale. As we view Hercules from behind, the two admirers are
gazing upon the sunlit front. The resulting interaction between front and back,
between seeing and imagining, gives the print an agreeable tension that is
missing in the drawings.10 Goltzius was probably familiar with the Farnese
Hercules even before he went to Italy from descriptions in travel guides to
Rome, through prints of 1562 and around 1575 by Jacobus Bos (c. 1520–c. 1580)
and Giorgio Ghisi (1520–82)11 and possibly also from the larger print series by
Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri (1570–84) and Antoine Lafréry (c. 1575).12 All
showed the Hercules from the front, but Goltzius drew it from both sides (fig.
3). He seems to have been the first artist to appreciate its beauty from the
back, or, at least, the first to record it on paper. He must have been very
pleased with the 116 unorthodox view13 because he chose this viewpoint in 1592
when he issued the engraving, one of the only three that he engraved from his
series of drawings (see also cat. 6b).14 It was thanks to Goltzius’ engraving
that the back view of the statue became as popular as the front (see cats 16
and 21). Something of this popularity is revealed by the fact that by the
mid-17th century the Hercules Farnese seen from the rear, bending slightly
forwards with his arm on his back, had permeated Dutch genre painting.15 The
question arises: why did Goltzius choose to adopt this angle? Could it be that
he had a didactic purpose in mind when he produced the first rendering in a
print series of the back of a muscular male body at rest? With Goltzius’
magnificent print in hand, young artists could now study the anatomy of a
‘hero’s’ back and use this in their own work. Goltzius’ print of the Apollo
Belvedere (cat. 6b) offered a similar aid with the anatomy of an elegant youth.
Goltzius also drew other figures, such as the Belvedere Torso (cat. 8), from
several angles, but in these he was probably experi- menting with different
points of view rather than having a didactic aim in mind. Goltzius might also
have chosen to represent both sides of the Farnese Hercules expressly to
117 8. Hendrick Goltzius (Bracht-am-Niederrhein 1558–1617 Haarlem) The
Belvedere Torso 1591 Red chalk, 255 × 166 mm provenance: Queen Christina of
Sweden (1626–89)1; Cardinal Decio Azzolini (1623–89); Marchese Pompeo Azzolini
(1654–1706); Don Livio Odescalchi (1658–1713); purchased from the Odescalchi
family by the Teylers Foundation, 1790. literature: Scholten 1904, p. 42, no. N
31; Reznicek, 1961, vol. 2, pp. 321–22, no. 201, vol. 2, fig. 156; Miedema
1969, pp. 76–77; Brummer 1970, pp. 146, note 27, 148, repr.; Van Gelder and
Jost 1985, vol. 1, p. 109; Stolzenburg 2000, p. 437, no. 143; Brandt 2001, p.
148; Goddard 2001–02, p. 39 (erroneously as a drawing in black chalk); Florence
2008, p. 62, under no. 33 (M. Schapelhouman); Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p.
183, under no. 132; Nichols 2013a, pp. 56, 146, under no. A-37, fig. 31.
exhibitions: Recklinghausen 1964, no. 87 [unpaginated]; Munich and Rome
1998–99, pp. 44, fig. 43, 160, no. 49; Luijten 2003–04, pp. 130–31, no. 41.1.
Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. no. N 31 From the High Renaissance onwards
the Belvedere Torso was one of the most celebrated of ancient statues, despite
its fragmentary state.2 In the past it was identified as the torso of Hercules
because of the anatomy and the lion’s skin on which it is seated. However, in
the late 19th century doubts were raised as to whether the skin really was that
of a lion, making the Hercules identification uncertain.3 Although the Torso is
comprehensively signed ‘Apollonius, son of Nestor, of Athens’, his name is not
found in classical literature. It is assumed that he lived in the 1st century
bc and that the Torso is a repetition or paraphrase of an earlier model.
Although the statue was known from the 1430s, it was only when it was in the
collection of the sculptor Andrea Bregno in the later 15th century that it
began to arouse interest; in the early 16th century the sculpture entered the
papal collections and was placed in the Belvedere (see p. 26, fig. 23). Direct
correspondences with many of Michelangelo’s painted and drawn nude figures
demonstrate the importance of the Belvedere Torso for the great Italian artist
and shortly after Michelangelo’s death a number of stories emerged connecting
him with the Torso.4 According to such one tale, he had been surprised by a
cardinal kneeling before the statue (though only in order to examine it as closely
as possible).5 In 1590 Giovanni Paggi wrote from Florence to his brother
Girolamo: ‘Michelangelo called himself a pupil of the Belvedere Torso, which he
said he had studied greatly, and indeed that he speaks the truth of this is to
be seen in his works.’6 Describing the statue as ‘the school of Michelangelo’
took this association a step further.7 And yet the Renaissance artist appears
to have spoken only once about the Torso, albeit in highly positive language:
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522– 1605) noted, in 1556 when the artist was still alive,
that the Torso was ‘singularmente lodato da Michel’Angelo’.8 Not surprisingly
the statue acquired great status both north and south of the Alps. This status
probably preserved it from the restoration suffered by many antique sculptures
in later centuries. Goltzius also seems to have felt the mysterious beauty of
the Torso, for he drew it no less than four times. All four drawings were
together in the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–89).9 But while
two are now in the Teylers Museum (fig. 1) the other two have been lost.
Goltzius undoubtedly knew the Torso even before he arrived in Italy, for
reduced copies after the sculpture circulated throughout Europe in the 16th
century; thus Goltzius’ friend and fellow Haarlem artist, Cornelis Cornelisz.
van Haarlem (1562–1638), had used the Torso as the model for a nude figure in a
painting Fig. 1. Hendrick Goltzius, The Belvedere Torso, c. 1591, black chalk,
253 × 175 mm, Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. no. K I 30 118 119 of
the late 1580s.10 It is reasonable to suppose that the Torso would have been
discussed at meetings of the ‘Haarlem Academy’,11 which Karel van Mander,
Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem and Goltzius had set up in the mid-1580s. One
of the purposes of their ‘academy’ was to allow them to ‘study from life’ (om
nae ‘t leven te studeeren), which meant they drew from nude models and probably
from sculpture, plaster casts or other three-dimensional specimens as well.12
We may assume that during these drawing sessions they discussed human anatomy
and the exemplary way classical artists had depicted it. All three were able to
quote directly from the antique with the aid of Maarten van Heemskerck’s Roman
sketchbook (now Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin), which was then owned by Cornelis
Cornelisz. van Haarlem13 and which contained two views of the Torso.14 It is
noteworthy that Goltzius, who was generally meticulously faithful in his
depiction of classical sculptures, was not always so precise in his treatment
of the inscrip- tions on their pedestals.15 In his red chalk drawing of the
Belvedere Torso from the front he has omitted the signature, which would have
been clearly visible on the base. Even more curious is the fact that he
completely ignored the wear suffered by the statue, the result of decades spent
outdoors. Instead his drawings give the sculpture a freshness that makes it
seem alive. This emphasis on the statue’s lifelikeness and beauty can probably
be explained by Goltzius’ intention that these drawings should serve as
preparations for prints with an educational purpose: the study of anatomy based
on ideal models. The muscles of Goltzius’ Torso appear to be tensed, the skin
lifelike and infused with warmth. The muscles’ extreme exaggeration and
restless tension clearly display a Mannerist emphasis.16 Once in Rome,
surrounded by the clear, classic, ideal vocabulary of ancient statuary,
Goltzius would reject Mannerist exaggeration so the fact that he did not decide
to do so here may indicate that these two studies after the Torso were among
the first drawings he produced after his arrival in Rome. It is interesting to
note that Goltzius clearly used the Belvedere Torso in his fine Back of an
Athletic Man, now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (fig. 2).17 This drawing is
one of his Federkunststücke, or virtuoso drawings in pen, whose linear
execution often imitates engravings, with lines that swell and taper.
Curiously, the backbone in this drawing curves slightly to the left, while that
of the sculpture curves to the right. Is this a conscious change by Goltzius or
did he recall the statue in mirror image? The suggestion has sometimes been
made that Goltzius produced this great drawing in Italy to display his
virtuosity with the pen;18 however, we know that Goltzius travelled incognito
to avoid admirers (see cat. 6), 120 9. Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577–1640
Antwerp) Two Studies of a Boy Model Posed as the ‘Spinario’ c. 1600–02 Red
chalk with touches of white chalk, 201 × 362 mm Inscribed recto, l.r., in pen
and brown ink by a late 17th- or early 18th-century hand: ‘Rubens’ provenance:
Gabriel Huquier (1695–1772); William Fawkener; his bequest to Museum, 1769.
literature: Hind and Popham 1915–32, vol. 2, p. 22, no. 52; Burchard and
D’Hulst 1963, vol. 1, pp. 34–35, no. 16 and vol. 2, pl. 16; Stechow 1968, pp.
53–55, fig. 43; Held 1986, p. 82, no. 39, pl. 23 on p. 172; New York 1988, p.
77, under no. 18, fig. 18-I; Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, p. 80; Paris
2000–01, p. 419, under no. 222, fig. 222a. exhibitions: London 1977, pp. 28–29,
no. 14 (J. Rowlands); London 2009–10 (no catalogue). Department of Prints and
Drawings, The British Museum, London, inv. T,14.1 Fig. 2. Hendrick
Goltzius, Back of an Athletic Man, pen and brown ink, 150 × 165 mm, Uizi,
Florence, inv. no. 2365 F so he is unlikely to have felt a need to demonstrate
his virtuoso skills. Perhaps Goltzius created this virtuoso draw- ing after his
Italian trip, or even before he went to Italy as he was already producing pen
work of this quality in the 1580s.19 The son of a wealthy Antwerp family,
Rubens was born in the German city of Siegen in 1577 but in 1589 returned with
his family to Antwerp where he received a humanistic education at the Latin
School run by Rumoldus Verdonck (1541–1620) and an artistic one with the
painters Tobias Verhaeght (1561–1631), Adam van Noort (1561–1641) and Otto van
Veen (c. 1556–1629). After entering the Guild of St Luke as an established
painter in 1598, Rubens set out for Italy in May 1600. This fundamental step in
Rubens’ training had been carefully prepared not only by the study of
engravings of classical statues and Renaissance masters by Marcantonio Raimondi
(c. 1480–1527/34) and his pupils assembled by van Veen in his workshop, but
also by eager reading of Roman texts such as Suetonius, Tacitus and Pliny the
Elder.1 The impact of classical antiquity on Rubens’ art and theory of art was
immense. Before arriving in Rome in 1601, Rubens spent time in Venice, then
Mantua, in the service of the Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga (r. 1587–1612) as a
painter and a curator of his collections, and also in Florence. Although based
in Mantua, Rubens spent two extended periods in Rome, first from July 1601
until April 1602 and again from late 1605 (or early 1606) until October 1608.2
During this second period he shared a house with his scholarly elder brother
Philip (1574–1611), a pupil of the Flemish philologist and humanist Justus
Lipsius (1547–1606). In Rome Philip Rubens worked on the Electorum Libri duo
published in Antwerp in 1608, an influential study of the customs, morals and
dress of the ancients. Peter Paul assisted Philip in making drawings from
ancient monuments in prepara- tion for the plates, and he also contributed to
their explanatory notes. Rubens’ commitment to the systematic study of
classical antiquities, and in particular of sculpture in the round, is
testified to by the large number of sketches and drawings he made during his
Italian period, but also by those he executed after his return to Antwerp in
1608.3 In Rome Rubens visited the Belvedere Courtyard and some of the most
important private aristocratic collections, such as the Borghese, the Medici,
the Farnese, the Mattei and the Giustiniani. His drawings after the Antique are
among the most extraordi- nary ever produced, most of them in red or black
chalk; they show Rubens’ great virtuosity in handling the medium and, at the
same time, his deep understanding of the formal principles of the antique
statues. He obsessively sketched some of the most ‘muscular’ masterpieces of classical
statuary, such as the Laocoön (see p. 26, fig. 19) and the Farnese Hercules
(see p. 30, fig. 32), from all sides, many angles and in great detail, in order
to assimilate thoroughly the anatomical structure and the mathematical
proportions of the human body as part of his search for the rules of perfection
achieved by ancient artists.4 Returning to Antwerp in 1608, Rubens established
his own studio in an Italianate villa in the centre of the city – today the
Rubenshuis. His drawings after the Antique, bound in several books, remained in
his studio and continued to serve not only as an important reference and source
of inspiration for Rubens himself, but probably also as teaching tools for his
pupils. The purchase in 1618 by Rubens of the collection of ancient sculptures
owned by the English diplomat and collector Sir Dudley Carleton (1573–1632)
represented the first step towards the formation of one of the most important –
but short-lived – collections of antiqui- ties in Northern Europe, which Rubens
sold on to the 1st Duke of Buckingham in 1626.5 The pre-eminent figure of the
Flemish Baroque, a universal genius, Rubens also had an active diplomatic
career which in the 1620s led him to travel between the courts of Spain and
England. His last decade, the 1630s, was mostly spent in Antwerp, where he
devoted himself entirely to painting. Rubens’ theory on both the usefulness and
dangers of copying after the Antique are effectively expressed in his essay De
Imitatione Statuarum, a short treatise on the imitation of sculpture that
remained in manuscript in Rubens’ lifetime 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 mp See footnote 1 in cat. 6. Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 311–14,
no. 80, fig. 165; Munich and Rome 1998–99; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 181–84,
no. 132. Wünsche 1998–99, p. 67. Michelangelo did indeed use the Torso directly
as a model; see Wünsche 1998–99, pp. 31–37; Haarlem and London 2005–06, pp.
116–17. Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 312. Guhl 1880, vol. 2, p. 42; Schwinn 1973,
pp. 36–37. Wright 1730, vol. 1, p. 268; Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 312–13;
Schwinn 1973, p. 172; Montreal 1992, pp. 76–77. ‘... un torso
grande di Hercole ignudo, assiso sopra un tronco del medisimo marmo: non ha
testa, ne braccia, ne gambe. È stato questo busto singularmente lodato da
Michel’Angelo’. U. Aldrovandi, ‘Delle statue antiche, che per tutta Roma ... si
veggono’, in Mauro 1556, p. 115. For Aldrovandi’s complete text ‘nel giardino
di Belvedere, sopra il Palagio del Papa’, see Brummer 1970, pp. 268–69. Stolzenburg 2000, pp. 437, nos 142–44, 439, no. 161. Van Thiel 1999, pp.
79, 294, no. 7, pl. 34. According to an anonymous biographer, shortly after
arriving in Haarlem, around 1583, Karel van Mander entered into a collaboration
with Goltzius and Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, described as follows: ‘the
three of them maintained and made an Academy, for studying from life’, see Van
Mander 1994–1999, vol. 1, pp. 26–27 (fol. S2 recto), vol. 2, pp. 70–72; Van
Thiel 1999, pp. 59–90. It should be stressed that this academy was in no way an
institution for advanced professional training: such institutions came into
being only in the 18th century (see Van Mander 1994–99, vol. 2, p. 70). It is
unclear how and for what length of time this ‘Haarlem Academy’ exactly functioned
(see also Leeflang 2003–04a, p. 16; Leeflang 2003–04b, p. 252. Veldman 2012,
pp. 11–23. Hülsen and Egger 1913–16, vol. 1, p. 34 (fol. 63), p. 40 (fol. 73).
See also Brummer 1970, pp. 144–45, figs 125–26. Brandt 2001, p. 143. Reznicek
1961, vol. 1, pp. 321–22, no. K 201; Luijten 2003–04, p. 131. Reznicek 1961,
vol 1, p. 452, no. 431, vol. 2, fig. 132; Florence 2008, pp. 61–62, no. 33 (M.
Schapelhouman). Reznicek 1961, vol. 1, p. 452. Schapelhouman (in Florence 2008,
p. 62) has previously questioned the Italian dating for Back of an Athletic
Man; for pen works by Goltzius from the 1580s see: Amsterdam, New York and
elsewhere 2003–04, pp. 238–39, figs 93–94, 242–46, nos 84–85. 121 but was
published by the art theorist Roger de Piles in his Cours de peinture par
principles of 1708 (see Appendix, no. 8).6 While emphasising the importance for
an artist of becoming deeply familiar with the perfection embodied in ancient
models, Rubens warned that ‘[the imitation of antique statues] must be
judiciously applied, and so that it may not in the least smell of stone’.7 The
warning against the risk of hardening one’s style by copying ancient
sculptures, thus creating paintings that looked ‘dry’ and eccentric, had
already been pointed out by several 16th-century artists and theore- ticians,
such as Giorgio Vasari (1511–74), Ludovico Dolce (1508–68) and Giovanni
Battista Armenini (1530–1609).8 Later in the 17th century the pernicious effect
on painting of too-slavish imitation of antique statuary would be summa- rised
by the Bolognese art theorist Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–93) with the specific
neologism ‘statuino’ or ‘statue- like’.9 As stressed by Rubens in the De
Imitatione, young artists needed to learn how to transform marble into flesh
instead of depicting figures as ‘coloured marble’. The two studies on one sheet
presented here perfectly express Rubens’ views: they are in fact an example of
a practice – setting live models in the poses of famous ancient statues –
already diffused from the Early Renaissance (see p. 23, fig. 14) and common
practice within the curricula of the French and Italian academies.10 Through
this exercise Rubens could concentrate on the classical pose and disre- gard
the ‘matter’, something that he repeated in modified form several times, in studies
of live models in poses remi- niscent of the Belvedere Torso, the Laocoön and
other canonical statues.11 In the present drawing, the young model is seen from
his left side in the pose of one of the most celebrated bronzes in Rome, the
Spinario (‘Thorn-puller’), recorded in the city as early as the 12th century
among the antiquities at the Lateran Palace and donated by Pope Sixtus IV (r.
1471– 84) to the Palazzo dei Conservatori in 1471 (fig. 1, see also p. 23, fig.
15).12 Interpreted in the Renaissance as the personifi- cation of the month of
March or a shepherd, the Spinario has been recently recognised as the young
Ascanius, the son of Aeneas and founder of the gens Iulia.13 The right-hand
drawing faithfully imitates the pose of the statue, with the head looking down
towards the gesture of extracting a thorn from the foot; the left-hand drawing,
in contrast, modifies the original by turning the head towards the spectator
and altering the action so that the youth no longer withdraws a thorn from his
foot, but dries it with a towel. Two similar studies, presumably after the same
young model, are preserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (fig. 2) and in
London (private collection): the former, in red chalk, shows the model from his
back and his right;14 the latter, in black chalk, from his left.15 The three
drawings were probably done in the same session and they have been dated to one
of Rubens’ two Roman periods, probably the first one (1600–02).16 As long ago
noted by Wolfgang Stechow,17 the pose of 122 123 Fig. 1. (left)
Spinario (Thorn-Puller), 1st century bc, bronze, 73 cm (h), Capitoline Museums,
Sala dei Trionfi, Rome, inv. 1186 Fig. 2. (above) Peter Paul Rubens, Two
Studies of a Young Model Posing as the Spinario, red chalk with touches of
black chalk, 246 × 382 mm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, inv. sup. 49D the
Spinario was employed by Rubens for a young man drying his feet in the Baptism
of Christ, painted for the Jesuit church of Santa Trinità in Mantua in 1605 and
now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, a preparatory drawing for
which is in the Louvre,18 as well as for Susanna in Susanna and the Elders, a
painting executed in Rome about 1606–08, 19 ed 1 For Rubens’ early years see
Muller 2004, pp. 13–15. 2 On Rubens in Rome and his approach to the Antique see
esp. Stechow 1968; Jaffé 1977, pp. 79–84; Muller 1982; Van der Meulen 1994–95,
vol. 1, pp. 41–81; Muller 2004, pp. 18–28. 3 On Rubens’ drawings after the
Antique see the fundamental catalogue in Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 2. 4 See
Ayomonino’s essay in this catalogue, pp. 46–52. 5 See Muller 1989, passim;
Muller 2004, pp. 35–56. On the collection of antiquities see in particular
Muller 1989, pp. 82–87; Antwerp 2004, pp. 260–63 (F. Healy). On the sale to the
1st Duke of Buckingham see Muller 2004, pp. 62–63. 6 On the De Imitatione see
Muller 1982; Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, esp. note 11, pp. 77–78, note 44;
Antwerp 2004, pp. 298–99; Jaffé and Bradley 2005–06; Jaffé 2010. Transcribed in
Appendix, no. 8, from De Piles 1743, pp. 87–88. For Vasari see Bettarini
Barocchi 1966–87, for instance vol. 3, pp. 549–50 and vol. 5, pp. 495–61. For
Dolce see Appendix, no. 4. See Armenini 1587, esp. pp. 59–60 (book I, chap. 8),
pp. 86–89 (book II, chap. 3). The concept was repeated later also by Bernini
during his visit to Paris in 1665: see Appendix, no. 9. See also Van der Meulen
1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 77–78. Malvasia 1678, vol. 1, pp. 359, 365, 484. On the
17th-century neologism ‘statuino’ see Pericolo, forthcoming. See Aymonino’s
essay in this volume, pp. 50–52. Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 80–81. The
statue is traditionally considered to be an eclectic work of the 1st century
bc: see Stuart Jones 1926, pp. 43–47, no. 2; Haskell and Penny 1981, pp.
308–10, no. 78; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 254, no. 203. Recent analysis has
proved that the classicistic head, dating to the 5th century bc, was added to
the Hellenistic body and given a Roman subject presumably in the 1st century
bc, see Rome forthcoming. Rome forthcoming. Held 1986, p. 82; Paris 2000–01,
pp. 417–18, no. 222. Held 1986, p. 82; Paris 2000–01, p. 418, fig. 222b. Held
1986, p. 82. Stechow 1968, pp. 54–55. See also Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1,
pp. 80–81. Lugt 1949, pp. 12–13, no. 1009, pl. XIV; Antwerp 1977, p.
129, no. 121. Coliva 1994, p. 170, no. 88. 10. Odoardo Fialetti (Bologna
1573–c. 1638 Venice) Artist’s Studio c. 1608 Etching in Odoardo Fialetti, Il
vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano,
Venice, Justus Sadeler, 1608 110 × 152 mm (plate); 194 × 238 mm (sheet)
Inscribed l.l. with Fialetti’s monogram and ‘A 2’ and ‘No 208’. provenance:
Elmar Seibel, Boston, from whom acquired. literature: Rosand 1970, pp. 12–22,
fig. 10; Buffa 1983, pp. 315–37, nos 198 (295) – 243 (301), repr. (for the Artist’s Studio, p. 321, no. 210 (298), repr.); Amornpichetkul
1984, pp. 108–09, fig. 83; Bolten 1985, pp. 240–43, 245 and 248; Boston,
Cleveland and elsewhere 1989, pp. 248–49, no. 130 (D. P. Becker); London
2001–02, pp. 198–200, no. 143; Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, pp. 94–96, no. 24 (
J. Clifford); Walters 2009, vol. 1, pp. 68–79, vol. 2, pp. 254–76, figs.
3.9–3.53; Walters 2014, pp. 62–63, fig. 59; Whistler 2015 (forthcoming). and
now in the Borghese Gallery. 124 125 exhibitions: Not previously exhibited.
Katrin Bellinger collection, London, 2002–013 A prolific artist whose large and
diverse body of work comprises some fifty-five paintings and about 450 prints,
Fialetti was born in Bologna in 1573 but moved to Venice where he was
apprenticed to Jacopo Tintoretto (1519–94) and where he later collaborated with
Palma Giovane (c. 1548– 1628).1 By 1596 he was listed as a printmaker and, from
1604 to 1612, a member of the Venetian painters’ guild, the Arte dei Pittori;
he joined the Scuola Grande di San Teodoro between 1620 and 1622.2 His
wide-ranging graphic oeuvre comprises religious, mythological, and literary
subjects as well as landscapes, portraits, depictions of sport (fencing and
hunt- ing), ornamental motifs and anatomical studies, and appears in different
formats and genres, from single or series of prints to complete illustrations
for books.3 His etchings remained influential for decades after his death not
only in Venice and northern Italy, but even in France and England.4 Without
doubt Fialetti’s most admired and influential works were his two volumes of
etchings: Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parte et membra del
corpo humano (‘The true means and method to draw all the parts of the human
body’) and Tutte le parti del corpo humano diviso in piu pezzi . . . (‘all the
parts of the human body divided into multiple pieces’). The first was published
in Venice in 1608 by Justus Sadeler (Flanders 1583–1620), and the second, which
is undated, presumably appeared in Venice shortly thereafter. The two books are
varied in their plates and paginations and exist in different compilations,
sometimes confusingly, combining elements of both as in the example shown
here.5 The first of their kind to be published in Italy, these books served as
portable instruction manuals in drawing for beginners and amateurs. They
provided techniques for the correct construction of the human face and body and
they also illustrate the crucial role of copying plaster casts in work- shop
practice at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. The
Bellinger volume includes a frontispiece dedication to Cesare d’Este, the Duke
of Modena and Reggio (1561–1628), a leaf with a further dedication to Giovanni
Grimani (the Venetian patrician and collector of antiquities, 1506–93), six
pages with step-by-step instructions on draw- ing eyes, ears and faces, another
title page, Tutte le parti . . . and thirty leaves of further faces, various
parts of the body – arms, legs, torsos – grotesque heads and portraits.6 The volume
concludes with two religious etchings by Palma Giovane.7 Unusual for manuals of
the period is the scene depicted on the first plate following the dedications:
a lively and infor- mal artists’ workshop, sometimes thought to be
Tintoretto’s.8 In the foreground, young students seated on low wooden benches
draw diligently before models and assorted plaster casts of body parts arranged
on and below a table, while two older artists are painting at large easels in
the background.9 At the far left, an apprentice grinds pigments. Scattered on
the ground are various artists’ tools including compasses, an inkwell and
feather quill pen. Boy draughtsmen representing three different ages – roughly
from six to sixteen – diligently record a cast of the young Marcus Aurelius,
similar in type to the marble of 161– 180 ad now in the Capitoline Museum in
Rome (fig. 1).10 Behind them, two slightly older boys enthusiastically discuss
a completed copy. The torso next to the bust, although reminiscent of the
Belvedere Torso, (p. 26, fig. 23), appears to be based on a different antique
sculpture, which seems to be the subject of a drawing of seven male torsos in
various positions in a sketchbook by an unidentified Northern artist working in
Rome in the mid- to late 16th century (Trinity College Library, Cambridge, fig.
2).11 The torso seen in Fialetti’s etching is comparable to the one with the
upraised right arm placed at the lower centre of the Trinity page;12 it was
evidently a favourite of Fialetti’s as it reappears later in his book (fig.
3). The cast of the armless female torso on the floor on the right in the
etching also derives from an antique prototype. She is probably based on a
now-lost version of Venus Tying her Sandal, a Hellenistic type well known in
the Renaissance and one that inspired many adaptations,13 such as that in an
anonymous Italian drawing in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (fig.). The male
torso depicted in that drawing is also very similar to that in the etching.
Fialetti would have had ample opportunity to study Antique statuary first-hand
during a trip to Rome, made before he settled in Venice, though plaster casts
were an integral part of Venetian workshop practice from the 16th century
onwards.14 They were in wide use in Tintoretto’s studio where Fialetti trained.
According to his biographer, Carlo Ridolfi, Tintoretto collected plaster casts
of ancient and Renaissance marbles avidly and at great expense: ‘Nor did he
cease his continuous study of whatever hand or torso he had collected’.15 From the
chalk drawings he produced, ‘thus did he learn the forms requisite for his
art’.16 The casts remained in the Tintoretto family workshop when Domenico
(1560–1635), his son, took it over and are Fig. 1. Portrait of Marcus Aurelius
as a Boy, 161–180 ad, marble, 74 cm (h), Capitoline Museums, Palazzo Nuovo,
Albani Collection, Rome, MC 279 Fig. 2. Anonymous artist working in Rome,
Studies of Male Torsos, mid to late 16th c., pen and brown ink, 280 × 450 mm,
folio 47v from the Cambridge Sketchbook, Trinity College Library, Cambridge, R.
17.3 recorded in his will of 1630.17 The younger Tintoretto for a period
considered bequeathing to painters his house and studio with its contents –
reliefs, drawings and models – so that an academy could be established to train
future generations of Venetian artists, although nothing came of this scheme.18
Whether the Artist’s Studio seen here is actually Tintoretto’s or simply a
generalised venue, Fialetti asserted the centrality of drawing, especially for
young artists.19 This also recorded his own experience: when as a boy, he asked
what he should do in order to make progress, he was advised by Tintoretto that
he ‘must draw and again draw’.20 By the early 17th century, repeated and
systematic study from studio drawings, plaster casts, sculpture, as well as
anatomy and the live model was deemed essential preparation for the accurate
portrayal of the human figure.21 But in order to depict the body as a whole,
students first had to master its individual parts, a tenet of Central Italian
working practice that was perpetuated throughout the 16th century by artists
and writers like Giovan Battista Armenini (1525–1609) and Federico Zuccaro (c.
1541–1609), who instructed pupils to draw parts of the body, an ‘alphabet of
drawing’.22 Similar principles were espoused by the Carracci Academy in
Bologna, of which Fialetti was no doubt aware.23 While precedents for
instructional drawing books are found in 15th-century model and pattern books
containing motifs that artists could copy into their compositions (p. 20, figs
3–4),24 Fialetti’s were the first aimed at students and amateurs as well as art
lovers and collectors.25 They also seem to be the first of their kind to be
printed in Venice.26 Other publications modelled after them soon followed in
the Veneto and elsewhere in Italy, notably De excellentia et nobilitate
delineationis libri duo, published 126 127 by Giacomo Franco
(1573–1652) in 1611 based on designs by Palma Giovane and prints by Battista
Franco (c. 1510–1561) as well as Gasparo Colombina’s Paduan publication of
1623.27 Like Fialetti’s compendia, Giacomo Franco’s treatise featured several
plates incorporating antique motifs: busts of the Laocoön (p. 26, fig. 19), the
Emperors Vitellius (p. 40, fig. 52) and Galba were inserted among the etched
portraits on plates 18 and 20 while plates 14 and 25 showed torsos of a female
Venus Tying her Sandal type much like that seen in Fialetti’s etching.28 In the
decades that followed, the Antique would assume a greater role in drawing
manuals.29 Several published at the end of the 17th century, like Gérard
Audran’s Les Proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les plus belles figures
de l’antiquité,1683 (p. 48, figs 72–73) and Jan de Bisschop’s Icones, 1668/69
(see cat. 13) and into the 18th century, such as Giovanni Volpato and Raffaello
Morghen’s Principi del disegno, 1786 (p. 49, fig. 76), would focus on
antiquities exclusively. The influence of Fialetti’s books was far-reaching and
persisted long after his death. Plates from them were copied and adapted for
publications appearing both in Italy and elsewhere:30 for example Johannes
Gellee copied the Artist’s Studio and other etchings in his Tyrocinia artis
pictoriae caelatoriae published in Amsterdam in 1639.31 Fialetti’s vol- umes
also influenced a great many other books published in the Netherlands, paving
the way for Abraham Bloemaert’s Tekenboek of 1740 (cat. no. 11).32 Furthermore,
Fialetti’s manuals catered to a new demo- graphic – the connoisseur, gentleman
scholar and mature artist – and would inspire similar books printed in
England.33 With the growing market for Venetian art in England during the first
decades of the 17th century and accelerated interest in drawing, Fialetti’s
work was esteemed not just by Venetians but by aristocratic collectors visiting
Venice like Sir Henry Fig. 3. Odoardo Fialetti, Two Male Torsos Seen from
Behind, c. 1608, etching, 103 × 142 mm, plate 30 from Il vero modo...1608,
Katrin Bellinger collection Fig. 4. Anonymous, Roman School, Studies after
Antique Statuary (Fragments), c. 1550, pen and brown ink and brown wash, black
chalk, heightened with white on blue-green paper, 294 × 212 mm, Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge, inv. 2978. The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Wotton
(1568–1639) and Thomas Howard, the 2nd Earl of Arundel (1585–1646), among
others, who undoubtedly admired his facile draughtsmanship.34 Interestingly,
Fialetti’s biographer, Malvasia, who praised his versatility, mentioned that as
well as giving drawing lessons to Venetians, he also instructed Alethea Talbot,
the Earl of Arundel’s wife, whose grandson owned one of Fialetti’s books.35
Through connections like these, Fialetti attracted the attention of
English-based artists and architects including Edward Norgate (c. 1580–1650),
Inigo Jones (1573–1652) and Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641).36 Copied and
emulated, Fialetti’s plates would play a key role in the development of the
drawing book in England.37 Treatises by Norgate (1627–28, 1st ed.; 1648–49, 2nd
ed.), Isaac Fuller (1654), Alexander Brown (1660), and others helped to further
the principles set forth in Fialetti’s books, which were copied well into the
19th century.38 avl 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 For a full appraisal
of his life and work on which this biographical account is based, see Walters
2009 and Walters 2014, pp. 57–67. Walters 2009, vol. 1, pp. 6–7; Walters 2014,
p. 58. Walters 2014, p. 57. Walters 2009, vol. 1, p. vi. Beginning with
Bartsch, there has been considerable confusion over the size and content of the
two editions. See Walters 2009, vol. 1, pp. 68–70, particularly note 40 and
Walters 2014, pp. 66–67, note 23; Greist 2014, pp. 14–15. Alexandra Greist
(ibid., pp. 12–18) published a little-known instruc- tional text by Fialetti
dictating how he wished the manual to be used, printed on the versi of nine
prints bound together with early editions of both books (Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, C/RM0024.ASC/552*1, Shelfmark 325G6). Among the plates not included
in the present volume is the painter’s studio showing artists measuring human
proportions: Buffa 1983, p. 321, no. 211 (298). The Holy Family and Christ
Preaching. Boston, Cleveland and elsewhere 1989, p. 248; Nichols 2013b, pp.
195, 236, note 134. The standing painter in profile is believed by some
scholars to be Tintoretto (Ilchman and Saywell 2007, p. 392; Nichols 2013b, p.
236, note 134). Nichols points to the similarity with the painter as seen in
Francesco Pianta the Younger’s wood-carving, Tintoretto as ‘Painting’, in the
Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice (Nichols 1999, p. 238, fig. 212). His
elongated body, unlike the others in the etching, and his energetic pose and
outstretched right arm, recall Tintoretto’s studies of single figures. Alternatively,
Catherine Whistler (2015, forthcoming) has suggested that the studio may evoke
Palma Giovane ‘given that there is something of his panache in the figure of
the painter at work and in the costume of the seated artist’. She further noted
their similarities to his self-portrait in the Brera (Mason Rinaldi 1984, pp.
92–93, 213, fig. 117). Fittschen and Zanker 1985, vol. 1, pp. 67–68, no. 61,
vol. 2, pls 69, 70, 72. CensusID: 46328. Michaelis 1892, p. 99, no. 60v;
Dhanens 1963, p. 185, no. 52v, fig. 30; Fileri 1985, pp. 39–40, no. 48, repr.
Given in the 19th c. to a Flemish artist working in Rome around 1583 (Michaelis
1892), more recently the sketchbook has been associated with the sculptor,
Giambologna (1529– 1608), and his Roman trip of 1550 (Dhanens 1963 and Fileri
1985). As pointed out by Eloisa Dodero (personal communication). Künzl 1970;
Bober and Rubinstein. 2010, p. 69, no. 20; CensusID: 58121. Walters 2014, p.
57. Ridolfi 1984, p. 16. Ridolfi 1914, vol. 2, p. 14; Whitaker 1997. Ridolfi
1914, vol. 2, p. 14; Ridolfi Tozzi 1933, p. 316. Ridolfi 1914, vol. 2, pp.
262–63. Rosand 1970; Walters 2009, vol. 1, p. 73. Because
‘drawing was what gave to painting its grace and perfection’, Ridolfi added
(Ridolfi 1914, vol. 2, p. 65; Ridolfi 1984, p. 16). Muller 1984; Bolten 1985;
Walters 2009, vol. 1, p. 73. Armenini 1587, pp. 52–59 (book 1, chap. 7);
Alberti 1604, p. 5 (quoting Federico Zuccaro); Amornpichetkul 1984;
Bleeke-Byrne 1984; Roman 1984, p. 91; Greist 2014, p. 15. Gombrich 1960, p.
161–62; Rosand 1970, pp. 7, 14–15; Bolten 1985, p. 245; Boston, Cleveland and
elsewhere 1989, p. 248 (D. P. Becker); Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p. 95 (J.
Clifford); Walters 2009, vol. 1, p. 74; Walters 2014, pp. 62, 66, note 6. On
the Carracci’s influence on model books, see Amornpichetkul 1984, pp. 113–16.
For model books, see Gombrich 1960, pp. 156–72; Rosand 1970, p. 5; Ames- Lewis
2000a, pp. 63–69; Nottingham and London 1983, pp. 94–101; Amornpichetkul 1984,
p. 109. D. P. Becker, in Boston, Cleveland and elsewhere 1989, p. 248; J. Clifford,
in Houston and Ithaca 2005–06, p. 95. Catherine Whistler has argued persua-
sively that the book was aimed at a growing market of virtuosi, art lovers and
collectors, who placed a social value on the knowledge of drawings (Whistler
2015, forthcoming). Walters 2009, vol. 1, p. 69; Walters 2014, p. 62. For the
growing interest in publishing prints at this time in Venice, see Van der Sman
2000, pp. 235–47. Rosand 1970, p. 17–19; Amornpichetkul 1984, p. 110–12;
Walters 2009, vol. 1,p.74. Rosand 1970, pp. 15, 27. Amornpichetkul 1984, p.
115. Ibid., p. 112; D. P. Becker in Boston, Cleveland and elsewhere 1989, p.
248 (D. P. Becker); Walters 2009, vol. 1, p. 75–79. Bolten 1985, pp. 132–39.
Ibid., pp. 119, 131, 133–34, 141, 143, 153, 157, 188–207, 243–56; Walters 2009,
vol. 1, p. 79. Whistler 2015 (forthcoming). For a fundamental discussion of
Fialetti and his impact in England, see Walters 2009, vol. 1, Chapter 5, pp.
152–197. See also Walters 2014, pp. 64–65. Malvasia 1678, vol. 2, p. 312;
Greist 2014, p. 12. Walters 2009, vol. 1, p. 152; Walters 2014, pp. 64–65
Amornpichetkul 1984, p. 112; Walters 2009, vol. 1, pp. 78, 152. Walters 2009,
vol. 1, pp. 78, 180–97; Greist 2014, p. 14. 128 129 11.
Frederick Bloemaert (Utrecht c. 1616–90 Utrecht) after Abraham Bloemaert
(Gorinchem 1566–1651 Utrecht) A Student Draughtsman, Drawing Plaster Casts 1740
Engraving and chiaroscuro woodcut with two-tone blocks (brown and sepia),
titlepage from Het Tekenboek (‘The Drawing Book’), Amsterdam, Reinier and Josua
Ottens, 1740 303 × 222 mm (image); 378 × 286 mm (sheet) provenance: Elmar
Seibel, Boston, from whom acquired. literature: Strauss 1973, p. 348, no.
1 64, repr.; Lehmann-Haupt 1977, pp. 155–57, fig. 125; Amsterdam and
Washington D.C. 1981–82, pp. 16–17; Bolten 1985, p. 49, repr., pp. 57–67;
Roethlisberger and Bok 1993, vol. 1, p. 395, vol. 2, fig. T1a; Bolten 2007,
vol. 1, pp. 362, 366, under no. 1150. exhibitions: Not previously
exhibited. Katrin Bellinger collection, inv. no. 1995-071 Abraham Bloemaert, a
prolific artist by whose hand over two hundred paintings and sixteen hundred
drawings are known, was born in Gorinchem in 1566.1 From the age of 15 or 16,
he spent three years in Paris from 1581–83, studying for six weeks with the
otherwise unknown Jehan Bassot and then for two and a half years with the
similarly obscure ‘Maistre Herry’. His third teacher in Paris was his fellow
countryman Hieronymus Francken I (1540–1610).2 In 1611, along with Paulus
Moreelse (1571–1638) and several colleagues, Bloemaert founded the new painters’
guild in Utrecht, the Guild of St Luke, and became its deacon in 1618.3 Shortly
after the guild’s foundation, around 1612, some form of drawing academy must
have been established in Utrecht, again with Bloemaert’s involvement. We learn
about this from a letter to the Utrecht antiquarian Arnout van Buchell
(1565–1641) and in Van ’t Light der Teken en Schilder konst (‘About the Light
of the Art of Drawing and Painting’) of 1643–44, by Crispijn de Passe the
Younger (c. 1597– c. 1670).4 In the introduction to his book De Passe recalls
how he learned his art together with the son of Paulus Moreelse ‘in a famous
drawing school which was, at that time organized by the most eminent masters’.5
The well-known print Modeltekenen (‘Model Drawing’) from De Passe’s book is
thought to repre- sent this school (fig. 1) and it has even been suggested that
one of the two tutors looking over the students’ work is Abraham Bloemaert
himself.6 We do not know how long this ‘Academy’ existed. Bloemaert had a large
studio of his own with many pupils, including his four sons and many well-known
Dutch artists, such as the Italianate painters Cornelis van Poelenburgh
(1594/95–1667), Jan Both (c. 1618–52) and Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–60/61), as
well as the Caravaggists Gerrit van Honthorst (1590–1656) and Hendrick ter
Brugghen (1588–1629).7 A development can be traced in Bloemaert’s work from a
robust Mannerism, influenced by artists such as Joachim van Wtewael (c.
1566–1638), towards a more classicist style which he presumably derived from
Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) and his Haarlem colleagues. Caravaggism made a
brief appearance in Bloemaert’s work during the early 1620s, when his first
pupils returned from Italy – which, inciden- tally, he never visited himself.
At the end of Bloemaert’s life his style grew smoother and more even. In
teaching, Bloemaert undoubtedly used his own drawings as examples for his many
pupils to copy.8 He found this approach so productive – and perhaps
commercially attractive – that towards the end of his life he joined forces
with his son Frederick (c. 1616–90) in the publication of the Tekenboek or
‘Drawing Book’, a compilation of specimen drawings.9 The prints in the
Tekenboek, which were cut by Frederick after drawings by his father, were
published in instalments from c. 1650.10 Abraham’s reversed preparatory
drawings, which he probably began around 1645 and some of which reproduce
earlier work, are preserved en groupe in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge,11
including that for Fig. 1. Crispijn de Passe, Model Drawing, from: Van ’t Light
der Teken en Schilder konst (‘About the Light of the Art of Drawing and
Painting’), 1643, engraving, 330 × 390 mm, Rijksmuseum Research Library,
Amsterdam, inv. no. 330B13 130 131 Fig. 2. Abraham Bloemaert, A
Student Draughtsman, Drawing Plaster Casts, pen and brown ink, 397 × 301,
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Inv. PD 166–1963.5. The Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge the title page displayed here (fig. 2). The title page of Bloemaert’s
Tekenboek, catalogued here in the most popular 18th-century edition (1740),
shows an artist seated on the floor of an imaginary studio, drawing 13 artist
has again created the suggestion of antique pieces. Images of artists drawing
in a studio combined with assem- blages of plaster casts are highly appropriate
subjects for drawing books. In earlier Italian and Netherlandish examples we
encounter similar images, such as Modeltekenen (‘Model Drawing’) by De Passe
from 1643 (fig. 1), by Petrus Feddes (1586–c. 1634) from around 1615, and
especially by Odoardo Fialetti (1573–c. 1638), in his highly influential Il
vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parte et membra del corpo humano
(‘The true means and method to draw all the parts of the human body’) and Tutte
le parti del corpo humano diviso in piu pezzi . . . (‘all the parts of the
human body divided into multiple pieces’) of c. 1608 (also featured here as
cat. 10).18 For apprentices the copying of two-dimensional works, such as
prints and drawings – and also paintings – was followed by drawing from plaster
casts, a crucial activity in the work- shop practice. Ideal examples were
employed to prepare the student for drawing from life, from the real world and
especially from clothed and nude models.14 Such plaster casts invariably
included copies of well-known classical statues, plus copies of more modern
works and casts of limbs and body parts taken from live models, such as those
seen here hanging on the wall behind the draughtsman. In this image the casts
do not include any firmly identifiable antique statues, although a number are
clearly intended to suggest them, such as the female head at lower right with
the short, rounded hairstyle and the male torso beside it, which resembles the
Belvedere Torso (p. 26, fig. 23); the pose of the reclining man is reminiscent
of an antique River God. In this image Bloemaert made clear his allegiance to
classical tradition, and the importance of antique works as the Bloemaert’s
Tekenboek, which only contains specimens Fig. 3. Frederick Bloemaert after
Abraham Bloemaert, A Draughtsman Sitting at a Table, Drawing after Plaster
Casts, engraving, 280 × 165 mm, Katrin Bellinger collection, London from the
plaster figure of an elderly, reclining man. foundation for the learning of
art.15 Midway through the Tekenboek, Bloemaert reiterates this 132 133
sentiment regarding the importance of antique works by incorporating a similar
title page, A Draughtsman Sitting at a Table, Drawing after Plaster Casts (fig.
3), in the section on ‘Mannelijke en Vrouwelijke Academie Figuren’ (‘Male and
Female Academy Figures’).16 This features the same or a similar draughtsman,
now seated at a table in a more realistic setting and drawing from a plaster
model of a nude male torso. Around him lie other casts: a male head, a foot and
a further torso seen from the back. As in the first title page, no recognisable
antique sculptures can be seen, although the 17 of heads, faces, body parts and
figures, is a product of direct studio practice. It is thus different in
approach from the other important mid-17th century Netherlandish drawing book,
mentioned above, Van ’t Light der Teken en Schilder konst (‘About the Light of
the Art of Drawing and Painting’; 1643), by De Passe the Younger. De Passe
primarily focuses on the structure, proportion and anatomy of the human body;19
examples of models and ways to learn to draw them are of secondary importance.
Bloemaert’s Tekenboek is actually closer in character in its approach and
images to the two volumes of etchings produced by Fialetti, which were probably
known to the Bloemaerts in one of the Dutch editions.20 The Bloemaerts’
publication might well be described as the Northern counterpart to Fialetti’s
books.21 And as in those the emphasis in the Tekenboek is on providing many
practical examples of heads, faces and limbs to draw. Like Fialetti’s works it
may be regarded as a portable instruction manual for drawing. Bloemaert’s
Tekenboek was exceptionally popular from the time of its publication around
1650 to the end of the 18th century.22 Many editions followed the first (very
rare) editio princeps, which probably contained 100 plates arranged in five
parts.23 After his father’s death in 1651, Frederick must have published one or
more sub-editions with 120 plates in six parts and around 1685 Nicolaes II
Visscher (1649–1702) another with 160 plates. Several decades later, in 1723,
an edition by Louis Renard (dates unknown) appeared (of which only one copy is
known), with 166 plates in eight parts arranged by Bernard Picart
(1673–1733).24 The same arrangement was retained in the best-known edition of
Bloemaert’s work, published by Reinier and Josua Ottens, the magnificent 1740
volume displayed here. At that time the title was changed to Oorspronkelyk en
vermaard konstryk tekenboek van Abraham Bloemaert (‘Original and famous artful
drawing book of Abraham Bloemaert’). Bloemaert’s popula- rity was certainly not
restricted to the Dutch Republic: artists such as François Boucher (1703–70)
and Balthasar Denner (1685–1749) also took the Utrecht master as a model for
their own work.Teekenschool/die op dien tijt van de voornaamste meesters wiert
gehouden heb gedaan’. Schatborn suggests that this drawing school might have
been in France where Van de Passe spent a long period, 1617–30 (see Amsterdam
and Washington D.C. 1981–82, p. 21). Veldman emphasises that De Passe’s book is
a tribute to the city of Utrecht, thanking the city for spiritual nourishment
including the Utrecht Drawing School (Veldman 2001, pp. 337–38). Suggestion by
Bok in Roethlisberger and Bok 1993, vol. 1, p. 571. Roethlisberger and Bok
1993, vol. 1, pp. 645–51. Such a group of drawings (mixed with prints) occurs
for example in the estate of the painter Gaspar Netscher (1639–84): ‘In the
brown portfolio [ ] are 327 both prints and drawings [ ] serving for disciples
to copy’; see Amsterdam and Washington D. C. 1981–82, p. 17; Plomp 2001, p. 37.
For artists’ practical education in the Netherlands and Italy in the 16th and
17th centuries see Bleeke-Byrne 1984, pp. 28–39. Bloemaert’s Tekenboek was
published with the Latin title: Artis Apellae, liber hic, studiosa juventus, /
Aptata ingenio fert rudimenta tuo ... (This book, studious youths, brings to
your minds the appropriate rudiments of the art of Apelles ...); see Bolten
1985, p. 51; Roethlisberger and Bok 1993, vol. 1, p. 395 [translation]). It is
possible that Abraham Bloemaert conceived the idea of producing such a
Tekenboek much earlier in his career: the Giroux album, containing many figure
studies, may well constitute Bloemaert’s initial selection for such a didactic
project; see Bolten 1993, p. 9, note 6; Bolten 2007, vol. 1, pp. 350–61. For
the publication in instalments see: Bolten 2007, vol. 1, p. 362. Bolten 1985,
p. 66; Bolten 2007, vol. 1, pp. 362–97, nos. 1150–1311. For doubts regarding
Bloemaert’s authorship of the drawings in Cambridge see Bolten 1985, p. 48 (‘A.
or F. Bloemaert’); Roethlisberger 1992, p. 30, note 41; Roethlisberger and Bok
1993, vol. 1, p. 391; Bolten 1993, pp. 6–8. Bolten 2007, vol. 1, p. 363, no.
1150, vol. 2, fig. 1150. The scene was engraved, then supplemented with a
chiaroscuro woodcut with two-tone blocks (brown and sepia). This technique and
the dimen- sions (303 × 222 mm [image]) are the same in the editio princeps
from c. 1650 and the 1740 edition displayed here (see Roethlisberger and Bok
1993, vol. 1, p. 395). See Aymonino’s essay in the present volume, pp. 15–77.
According to Roethlisberger and Bok (1993, vol. 1, p. 395), there is little or
no discernible influence of ancient sculpture in his own work. The engraving, A
Draughtsman Sitting at a Table, Drawing after Plaster Casts (fig. 3), does not
appear in the editio princeps from circa 1650, but does feature in the 1685
edition and later ones (Bolten 2007, vol. 1, p. 392, under no. 1290). The
original drawing for this engraving is also in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge: Bolten 2007, vol. 1, p. 392, no. 1290, vol. 2, fig. 1290. For
Feddes, see Bolten 1985, p. 18, repr.; Roethlisberger and Bok 1993, vol. 1, p.
395. For De Passe’s Tekenboek see: Amsterdam and Washington D.C. 1981–82, pp.
15–17, 21, repr. For Dutch editions of Fialetti and for Dutch publications
based or partially reprinting Fialetti see Bolten. According to Strauss (1973,
p. 348) Bloemaert’s title page was ‘patterned partly on the frontispiece of
Odoardo Fialetti’s Vero modo et ordine per dessignar Tutte le parti et membra
del corpo humano, Venice (Sadeler), 1608’. See also Lehmann-Haupt 1977, p. 157.
For Bloemaert’s fortuna critica see: Roethlisberger and Bok 1993, vol. 1, pp.
47–50. Regarding the Tekenboek Roethlisberger surmises that the 1740 edition
was intended for print and book collectors, rather than artists: ibid., vol. 1,
p. 394. For the various reprints of Bloemaert’s Tekenboek cited in this
paragraph see Bolten 2007, vol. 1, p. 362. There were also various editions of
sets of prints copied after Frederick’s engravings [consequently printed in
reverse] during the second half of the 17th century and in the 18th century
(see ibid., p. 362, note 22). The only known copy of the 1723 edition is in the
Centraal Museum in Utrecht (see Bolten 2007, vol. 1, p. 362). Slatkin, 1976;
Gerson 1983, pp. 109–10 (Boucher and Fragonard), p. 189 (Piazzetta). 1 2
3 4 5 mp For Bloemaert’s life on which this biographical account is based, see
Roethlisberger and Bok, 1993, vol. 1, pp. 551–87; Bolten 2007, vol. 1, pp. 3–5.
For ‘new’ Bloemaert paintings, see Roethlisberger, 2014, pp. 79–92. Van Mander
1994–99, vol. 1, pp. 448–49 (fol. 297v). Roethlisberger and Bok 1993, vol. 1,
p. 570. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 571. Verbeek and Veldman 1974, p. 146, no. 191; De
Passe 1643–44, unpaginated introduction, Aen de Teekunst-lievende en-gunstige
lezers, to the first part, met de zoon van Paulus Moreelse en anderen) in een
vermaarde 12. Michael Sweerts (Brussels 1618–1664 Goa, India) A Painter’s
Studio c. 1648–50 Oil on canvas, 71 × 74 cm provenance: Private collection,
Moscow; acquired by Dr Abraham Bredius (1855–1946); purchased by the
Rijksmuseum in 1901 for f. 400. selected literature: Martin 1905, pp. 127, 131,
pl. II [a]; Martin 1907, pp. 139, 149, no. 10; Horster 1974, pp. 145, 147, fig.
2; Van Thiel 1976, p. 532, A 1957, repr.; Döring 1994, pp. 55–58, fig. 2, 60–62;
Kultzen 1996, pp. 88–89, no. 6, repr., with previous bibliography. exhibitions:
Milan 1951, no. 166, pl. 117; London 1955, pp. 90–92, no. 77 (D. Sutton), not
repr.; Rome 1958–59, pp. 32–34, no. 4 (R. Kultzen); Rotterdam 1958, pp. 36–37,
no. 4; Toyko 1968–69, no. 63; Cologne and Utrecht 1991–92, pp. 270–72, no. 33.1
(R. Kultzen); Hannover 1999, pp. 18–20, fig. 9; Amsterdam, San Francisco and
elsewhere 2002, pp. 97–99, no. VII (G. Jansen); Antwerp 2004–07 (no catalogue);
Brussels 2007–08 (no catalogue); Doha 2011 (no catalogue). Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum, SK-A-1957 We have entered the shadowy inner sanctum of a painter’s
studio in mid-17th-century Rome. A young draughtsman perched on a wooden stool
to the left studies a life-size model of a flayed nude écorché, assuming a
balletic pose at centre right. Behind it, another boy draughtsman, younger
still, sketches a classical female bust resting on a table, which is shared on
the right by the studio assistant who grinds red-hued pigments. Working at an
easel in the left back- ground is a painter, perhaps the master of the studio,
capturing the likeness of a male nude posed in the corner. Partly obscured in
the shadows on the far left are two gentle- men visitors in Dutch dress. One
glances in our direction while the other gestures to our right, perhaps towards
the painter or the écorché. The main attraction, however, is the abundant array
of plaster casts, mostly antique, piled up in the foreground – heads, torsos,
limbs and a relief – all bathed in warm, golden light. Though widely admired in
his lifetime, Sweerts remains a somewhat enigmatic figure about whom relatively
little is known.1 He was born in Brussels in 1618, but is first docu- mented
from 1646 to 1651 as residing on the Via Margutta in the parish of S. Maria del
Popolo in Rome, an area favoured by Dutch and Flemish expatriates.2 Already
twenty-eight when he arrived in the city, he would have had at least some
artistic training before then, probably in the North, though his early teachers
have not been identified. Neither signed nor dated, this canvas was probably
executed by Sweerts c. 1648–50 in Rome, where he remained until 1652 or later.3
In travelling south, Sweerts was following a long-standing educational
tradition, one succinctly articulated by Dutch painter and art theorist Karel
van Mander (1548–1606) who stated: ‘Rome is the city where before all other
places the Painter’s journey is apt to lead him, since it is the capital of
Pictura’s Schools’.4 It is evident from the Painter’s Studio and other depictions
of the same or similar theme of the artist at work, a subject that clearly
fascinated him, that Sweerts was well aware of artistic theory of the day,
particularly the importance placed on learning through drawing.5 Karel van
Mander recom- mends beginning artists to ‘seek a good master’, one who has
decent works of art in his workshop, that is, an ample supply of study
materials such as books, prints, drawings and plaster casts. The pupil must
learn to draw ‘first with charcoal, then with the chalk or pen’.6 After making
copies of prints and drawings by various masters, the student should progress
to plaster casts, an important step. On equal footing with the copying of casts
was the study of anatomy. However, given the difficulty of procuring corpses,
artists at this time copied anatomical figures in plaster or ‘flayed plaster
casts’.7 This was followed by study of the living figure before the student
finally proceeded to painting. Written at the beginning of the 17th century,
Van Mander’s book thus made available for Northern artists those principles of
artistic education, the ‘alphabet of drawing’ that had been codified in Italy
during the 15th and 16th centuries.8 By clearly setting out the stages of study
established by Van Mander and others, first drawing from casts and anatomical
figures in plaster, then the live model, Sweerts’ composition is a visual
lesson in the main principles of studio practice required to become a
successful painter.9 The goal is manifested in Sweerts’ completed Wrestling Match
canvas of c. 1648–50 displayed on the wall in the back- ground, which features
figures based on classical models.10 His didactic intent to illustrate the
step-by-step approach to learning recalls Odoardo Fialetti’s Artist’s Studio,
c. 1608, from Il vero modo, the instructional manual on drawing published in
Venice about forty years earlier (cat.), no doubt known to Sweerts through one
of the Dutch publica- tions that reproduced plates from it.11 Plaster casts and
models were in constant use in Northern workshops from the late 16th century
onwards.12 Though he never travelled to Italy, Van Mander’s friend, Cornelis
Cornelisz. van Haarlem (1562–1638), had a collec- tion of ninety-nine casts
after antique and anatomical 134 135 models.13 Van Mander praised his
colleague (with whom he started, along with Hendrick Goltzius, an informal
academy in Haarlem in 1583) for selecting for his work ‘from the best and most
beautiful living and breathing antique sculptures’.1 4 Sumptuously displayed in
a large pile in the foreground, a veritable feast for the eyes, casts play a
starring role in Sweerts’ painting (detail, fig.). While light enters both from
the window and the open door, which reveals an urban view, that light that
illuminates the sculptures so brilliantly and mysteriously emanates from an
unseen source, over the viewer’s shoulder. The casts are presented with clarity
and in sharp focus, in marked contrast to the more generalised treatment of
most of the other elements in the composi- tion.15 While the human expressions
seem almost blank, those of the casts are animated and alive: the comment often
made about Sweerts, that ‘his people often look like sculptures and his plaster
casts seem almost human’, rings very true here.16 Several sources for the
antique casts can be identified, beginning with the head of a woman on the
table, the subject of study for the young boy sketching in the middle distance.
As noted previously,17 she is a much reduced copy of the colossal so-called
Juno Ludovisi (considered now to be a portrait of Antonia Augusta, daughter of
Octavia Minor and Mark Antony), which, from 1622, was in the Ludovisi
collection in Rome and is now in the Palazzo Altemps in Rome.18 The most
prominent among the jumble of casts in the foreground on the right is the head
of a woman, usually identified as Niobe from the famous group in the Uffizi
(fig. 2, see also p. 30, fig. 34), but equally, the head could be that of one
of her daughters from the same group.19 They were discovered together with the
Wrestlers (p. 30, fig. 33) on a vineyard outside Rome.20 Immediately to the
left of the Niobe, is a cast of a limbless Apollo based on a model by François
Duquesnoy (1597–1643).21 The head of an old woman in profile at the back of the
pile to the left is inspired by the Roman copy of a Hellenistic original
donated in 1566 by Pius V to the Con-servatori Palace and today in the
Capitoline Museum (fig. 3).22 She contrasts with the youthful beauty to her
right, the head of the celebrated Venus de’ Medici (Florence, Uffizi, see p.
42, fig. 56). Behind the old woman is a head of the Laocoön, ‘bronzed’ in
effect, while the rest of his body, seen from behind, rests on the top of the
pile of casts (p. 26, fig. 19).23 The relief propped up against the table at
the back is a cast of a Roman terracotta plaque, Winter and Hercules, from the
Campana collection and acquired by the Louvre in 1861 Fig. 2. Niobe, from the
Niobe Group, possibly a Roman copy of a Greek original of the 4th century bc,
marble, 228 cm (h), Uizi, Florence, inv. 294 Fig. 3. Statue of an Old Woman,
Roman copy of a Hellenistic original, marble, 145 cm (h), Capitoline Museums,
Rome, inv. Scu 640 Fig. 1. Michael Sweerts, A Painter’s
Studio (detail) 136 (fig. 4).24 It was admired by artists like Giovanni da
Udine (1487–1564) in the 16th century when it was recorded in the collection of
Gabriele de’ Rossi (1517),25 and into the 17th by others such as Pietro da
Cortona (1596–1669) and Pietro Testa (1612–50), whose copies after it are
preserved respec- tively in the Uffizi, Florence, and in the Royal Collection
at Windsor Castle.26 That this collection of casts was an important part of
Sweerts’ working practice is suggested by their regular appearance in other
compositions. Some familiar faces – the head of the old woman, the Juno
Ludovisi, the Niobe and others – return in Sweerts’ later Artist’s Studio,
signed and dated 1652, in the Detroit Institute of Arts (fig. 5). They are seen
among examples, including a cupid and torso by François Duquesnoy; this is
being scrutinised by an elegant young man, probably in Rome on the Grand Tour,
while the painter appears to be explaining how Duquesnoy’s Fig. 4. Winter and
Hercules, Roman, 1st century ad, terracotta, 60 × 52 cm, Louvre, Paris, inv. Cp
4169 figures once formed part of a group.27 Closer to the present composition
in conception, is the Artist’s Studio with a Woman Sewing in the Collection Rau
Foundation UNICEF, Cologne (fig. 6).28 Though almost certainly a workshop
picture, it evidently documents Sweerts’ original design and intention. There
is a similar haphazard arrangement of casts, with many of the same specimens
reappearing, including the bronzed head of Laocoön and his torso, placed beside
modern works, including the copy after a marble relief of François Duquesnoy,
Children Playing with a Goat.29 Many other celebrated compositions by Sweerts
feature antique casts (see p. 40, fig. 52). It is not known why he chose to
display them with such prominence and so frequently, but he may well have been
catering to a new class of patron, the Dutch Grand Tourist.30 Among Sweerts’
most important benefactors in Rome in the 1640s were Dutch tourists, especially
merchants.31 Thus three of five brothers from the Deutz textile merchant family
were in Italy between 1646 and 1650, and that is when they probably acquired
the many paintings by Sweerts listed in their inventories, including an
Artist’s Studio owned by Joseph Deutz.32 Significantly, the documents also
suggest that Sweerts acted as the Deutz’s agent for purchasing antique sculpture
as well as modern pictures, as so many other painters were to do in the next
century.33 Another important patron in Rome, Prince Camillo Pamphilj, the
nephew of Pope Innocent X (r. 1644–55), may have involved Sweerts in teaching.
He painted a range of works for the Prince, who, interestingly, possessed a
version in porphyry of the ever-present Head of the Old Woman; he 137
also owned the Duquesnoy relief that occurs in Sweerts’ Artist’s Studio
now in Cologne (fig. 6).34 An intriguing pay- ment recorded in the Pamphilj
account book to Sweerts on 21 March of 1652 for ‘various amounts of oil used
since 17th February in His Excellency’s academy’, suggests Sweerts’ direct
involvement with an academy in Rome.35 By the summer of 1655, Sweerts had
returned to Brussels where he founded ‘an academy of life drawing’, primarily
to educate tapestry and carpet designers.36 Something of its original
appearance might be gleaned from Sweerts’ Drawing School in the Frans Hals
Museum in Haarlem (c. 1655–60), where students of various ages draw from a live
male nude.37 In this painting, conspicuously absent are plaster casts; the
animation is now provided by the more than twenty young students assuming
various attitudes, some concentrating on the task at hand, others less focused.
However, there was probably another version by Sweerts of this painting, now
known only in a copy, where the live nude has been substi- tuted by a cast of a
classical female sculpture.38 Evidently plaster models were never far from his
mind. aa et avl 1 For his life and work, see Kultzen 1996 and Amsterdam, San
Francisco and elsewhere 2002, with previous literature. 2 Sutton 2002, p. 12;
Bikker 2002, pp. 25–26. 3 Sutton 2002, p. 21. 4 In his ‘Foundation of the
Painter’s Art’ (Grondt der Schilder-Const), published together with his ‘Lives’
and his two other theoretical treatises in the Schilder-Boeck (1604). See Van
Mander 1604, fol. 6v, chap. 1, no. 66; Van Mander 1973, vol. 1, pp. 92–93,
chap. 1, no. 66; Stechow 1966, pp. 57–58. Van Mander further noted, ‘From Rome
bring home skill in drawing, the ability to paint from Venice, which I had to
bypass for the lack of time.’: Stechow 1966, p. 58; Sutton Sutton 2002, pp. 11,
17. In the preface to his book on painters: Van Mander 1604, fol. 9r, chap. 2,
no. 9; Van Mander 1973, pp. 102–03, chap. 2, no. 9; Martin 1905, p. 126. Martin
1905, p. 127. See Aymonino’s essay in this catalogue, pp. 33–34. Martin 1905,
p. 127. Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe; Amsterdam, San Francisco and elsewhere
2002, pp. 94–96, no. VI (G. Jansen). For example, Johannes Gellee’s Tyrocinia
artis pictoriae caelatoriae published in Amsterdam in 1639 where copied
versions of the Artist’s Studio and other etchings appear: see Bolten 1985, pp.
132–39 and for other publications based or reprinting parts of Fialetti’s
treatise see Bolten 1985, pp. 119, 131, 133–34, 141, 143, 153, 157, 188–207,
243–56. For the use of plaster casts in 17th- and 18th-century artists’ studios
in Antwerp and Brussels, see Lock 2010. Rembrandt’s bankruptcy inventory of
1656 lists numerous plaster casts, from life as well as from the Antique, which
were doubtless an essential part of his workshop practice (Strauss and Van der
Meulen 1979, pp. 349–88; Gyllenhaal 2008). See also cat. 23, note 18. Van Thiel
1965, pp. 123, 128; Van Thiel 1999, p. 84, and Appendix II, pp. 254–55, 257,
270–71, 273; Sutton 2002, p. 18. Van Mander 1604, fol. 292v; Van Mander 1973,
pp. 428–29. Sutton 2002, p. 18. This also may be due, in part, to the
compromised condition of the canvas. Sutton 2002, p. 20. Martin 1905, p. 127;
Horster 1974, p. 145. Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 100; Palma and de Lachenal
1983, pp. 133–37, no. 58 (de Lachenal). Horster 1974, pp. 145; Döring 1994, p.
60; Amsterdam, San Francisco and elsewhere 2002, p. 97. For the group, see
Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 274–79, no. 66, figs 143–47, and for the daughter
that it resembles the most, fig. 145; Cecchi and Gasparri 2009, pp. 318–19, no.
596.1. Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 274; Cecchi and Gasparri 2009, pp. 62–63, no.
50. Noted by Döring 1994, pp. 60–61. For the Duquesnoy sculpture, see
Amsterdam, San Francisco and elsewhere 2002, p. 122, no. XV-2. On Duquesnoy’s
fame as a ‘classical’ sculptor during the 17th century and later see
Boudon-Mauchel 2005, pp. 175–210. As first observed by Döring 1994, p. 62. For
the statue see Stuart Jones 1912, pp. 288–89, no. 22. Döring 1994, p. 63. The
subject was noted by Denys Sutton (London 1955, p. 91) and Marita 138 139 Fig.
5, Michael Sweerts, An Artist’s Studio, 1652, oil on canvas, 73.5 × 58.8 cm,
The Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 30.297 Fig. 6, After Michael Sweerts,
Artist’s Studio with a Woman Sewing, c. 1650, oil on canvas, 82.5 × 106.7 cm,
Collection RAU-Fondation UNICEF, Cologne, inv. GR 1.874 25 26 27 28 29 Horster
(1974, p. 145) who both identified the motif from a sketchbook by Francisco de
Hollanda. Sutton and Guido Jansen (Amsterdam, San Francisco and elsewhere 2002,
p. 97) believed the plaster relief to combine scenes from two separate ones:
the Winter and Hercules and the Cretan Bull. However, as Eloisa Dodero has
noted (personal communication), it is based on the single terracotta relief in
the Louvre, see Christian 2002, pp. 181–84 no. II.15, fig. 25; De Romanis 2007,
pp. 235–238, fig. 1. For the acquisition by the Louvre, see Sarti 2001, p. 121.
Dacos 1986, p. 222; Christian 2002, pp. 181–86. For the Cortona drawing:
Briganti 1982, fig. 286.27; for the Testa sheet at Windsor: Christian 2002, pp.
181–82, fig. 26. See Amsterdam, San Francisco and elsewhere 2002, pp. 120–23,
no. XV, where the painting is discussed at length. Amsterdam, San Francisco and
elsewhere 2002, p. 110, fig. xii–i (as by or after Sweerts). Many copies are known
suggesting it was a much-admired composition. Bikker Sutton 2002, pp. 15–16;
Bikker 2002, pp. 27–28. Described in documents in general terms as ‘Ein
Schildersacademetje’, it is not known which of the surviving studio pictures it
was. According to the collections database, Detroit Institute of Arts website,
it was theirs (fig. 5). Bikker 2002, pp. 27–28. Ibid., pp. 28–31, figs 25, 27.
Ibid., p. 29. This was probably a private academy and not the Accademia di San
Luca, of which Sweerts was possibly a member. He was responsible for collecting
membership dues from his compatriots: see Bikker 2002, pp. 25–26. Lock 2010, p.
251; Bikker 2002, p. 31. Amsterdam, San Francisco and elsewhere 2002, pp.
133–35, no. xix (G. Jansen). Present whereabouts unknown; see Amsterdam, San
Francisco and elsewhere 2002, p. 133, fig. xix–i. 13. Jan de Bisschop
(Amsterdam 1628–1671 The Hague) Two Artists Drawing an Antique Bust (recto); A
Reclining Man seen from Behind (verso) c. 1660s Pen and brown ink, brushed with
brown wash, 91 × 135 mm Inscribed recto l.r. in pencil: J. Bisschop. watermark:
part of the crowned coat of arms of Amsterdam.1 provenance: Private collection,
Germany; Sotheby’s, London, 13 April 1992, lot 260, from whom acquired.
literature: London 1992 (unpaginated), repr.; Broos and Schapelhouman 1993, p.
51, under no. 34, fig. b. exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Katrin
Bellinger collection, inv. no. 1992-012 Born in Amsterdam in 1628, Jan de
Bisschop was among a group of talented amateur artists, including his immediate
contemporaries and friends Constantijn Huygens the Younger (1628–1697) and
Jacob van der Ulft (1627–1689) who all worked in Netherlands around the
mid-17th century.2 De Bisschop was classically educated and trained as a
lawyer; he became an advocate at the judicial court of The Hague. But he also distinguished
himself as a writer, theoretician, literary scholar, and as a connoisseur of
the Antique. And although without formal artistic training, he was an
accomplished draughtsman and etcher who, through his publications reproducing
ancient sculpture and Old Master drawings, disseminated in the Netherlands an
anti- quarian culture and an aesthetic based on the works of classical
antiquity. He also helped introduce the practice of drawing after both antique
sculpture and live models in the Hague.3 His large corpus of drawings,
numbering in the upper hundreds, consists of sun-infused, Italianate land-
scapes, lively figure and genre studies, portraits, and many copies after
antique sculpture and paintings by Old Masters, Fig. 1. Bust of the so-called Lysimachus,
Roman copy of the Augustan period from a Greek original of the 2nd c. bc,
marble, 49 cm (h), Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. 6141 usually
executed in pen and brush and wash with a distinc- tive warm, golden-brown ink,
referred to from the late 17th century as bisschops-inkt (Bisschop’s ink).4 As
in the examples illustrated here, he often effectively combined dense washes
with reserves of untouched paper to create a light-drenched, fresh out-of-doors
effect. In this lively and rapid sketch, probably made on the spot, two seated
draughtsmen, seen from the back, draw after an antique bust of a man. On the
reverse one of them is sketched again, casually reclining. The object of their
gaze is a bust nowadays identified as of Lysimachus, the Greek successor to
Alexander the Great, who from c. 306 to 281 bc reigned as King of Thrace, Asia
Minor and Macedonia.5 Discovered c. 1576, it was acquired by Cardinal Odoardo
Farnese from the Giorgio Cesarini collection, and is preserved today in the Museo
Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (fig. 1). Doubt- less known to de Bisschop
through one of the plaster casts which circulated in Northern Europe at the
time, the bust was in the 17th century thought to represent a philosopher; from
the 18th century he was identified more specifically – but wrongly – as the
Athenian legislator, Solon. It was copied profusely from the 17th century
onwards, and was included, for example, in a portrait painted by Isaac Fuller
(1606–72) in c. 1670 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven) of the architect
and sculptor, Edward Pierce (c. 1635–95), who rests one hand on the bust while
gesturing to it with the other.6 Admiration for the sculpture continued in the
18th century, in France, where a red chalk copy of it was made by the sculptor,
Edmé Bouchardon (1698–1762) or a member of his circle,7 and particularly in
England, where, catering to a n emerging neo-classical aesthetic, a
blemish-free replica of the Lysimachus was carved in 1758 by Wilton; this was
acquired by Rockingham, for his VILLA at Wentworth and is now in the The J.
Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.8 Another copy of the bust, made by the sculptor
and restorer of ancient statues, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (see cat.), was
mentioned in a letter from the dealer and agent, Thomas Jenkins, to his client,
Charles Townley, as a possible acquisition. His scheme involved fusing
Cavaceppi’s bust with the body of a statue of Achilles; mercifully, this was
abandoned when the original head of Achilles was recovered.9 Its diminutive
size and spontaneous style of execution would suggest the present sheet came
from a sketchbook, probably one like that held by the artist on the right. The
draughtsmen have not been securely identified but they are no doubt to be found
among de Bisschop’s friends and associ- ates; one may be Huygens the Younger,
with whom he made sketching excursions in and around The Hague and Leiden. In
fact, drawings by de Bisschop are often mistaken for works by Huygens, to whom
this sheet was previously assigned.10 A treatment of a similar theme, of two
draughtsmen from the front seated in a landscape but without an antique model
to study, is found in de Bisschop’s drawing in the Amsterdam Museum (fig. 2).11
Executed with the same loose pen work and spontaneous handling of the brush,
characteristic of de Bisschop after 1660, it shows one artist on the left
gazing downwards to – or reading from – a loose sheet held in both hands, while
the other appears to be sketching in a small book. A third rendering of two
artists sketching out of doors, one, with hat removed, holding a drawing board,
is among the sheets by Huygens the Younger in the Municipal Archives of The
Hague (fig. 3).12 As with the present study, the figures are seen from behind
in a sunlit setting but on a bench, near the entrance to the country house,
Zorgvliet, near The Hague, and the subject of their attention is out of view.
De Bisschop’s drawings were admired by collectors and connoisseurs from John
Barnard (1709–84) to Horace Walpole (1717–97), but his main contribution to
scholarship was the publication of two influential books. The first was the
Signorum veterum icones issued in two volumes in 1668–69; Fig. 2. Jan de
Bisschop, Two Draughtsmen Seated Outdoors, pen and brown ink with the brush and
brown wash, grey ink, 97 × 149 mm, Amsterdam Museum, inv. nr. A 18179 142 Fig.
4. Jan de Bisschop, Allegory of Sculpture, title page to the Signorum veterum
icones, part 1, Amsterdam (?), 1668, etching, 245 × 114 mm, Warburg Institute
Library, London also consulted prints by François Perrier (1590–1650), who had
published a selection of antique statuary in Paris and Rome in 1638 (Segmenta
nobilium signorum et statuarum . . .).18 An album of 140 drawings by de
Bisschop suggests that he intended to publish a third volume of Icones on
antique Roman reliefs, based largely on another publication by Perrier of 1645
(Icones et segmenta . . .).19 However, de Bisschop’s death from tuberculosis at
forty-three meant that the third volume was never realised. In addition to his
writings on art, de Bisschop contrib- uted in other ways to furthering artistic
education in the Netherlands. He participated in local confraternities of
artists and co-founded a private drawing academy with his friends, including
Huygens the Younger; they met several times a week in the evenings, often
drawing after a live model.20 In 1682, eleven years after de Bisschop’s death,
the first drawing academy in the Northern Netherlands – includ- ing in its
curriculum the study of plaster casts after the Antique – was established in
The Hague.21 De Bisschop’s influence may have extended further, perhaps as a
direct consequence of the Icones. Of significance is a letter dated 1688 from
the artist Romeyn de Hooghe (1645–1708) to the burgermasters of Haarlem, asking
their assistance in setting up an academy for students to study ‘the best
ancient statues, such as Venus, Apollo, Laocoön, in order to familiarise
themselves with the idea of classical beauty’.22 Although that request was
turned down, a Haarlem Drawing Academy was founded in 1772 and although it was
closed in 1795, in the following year, the Haarlem Drawing College was
established, with the study of the Antique remaining a vital part of the
curriculum (see cat. 31).23 Fig. 3. Constantijn Huygens, the
Younger, Two Draughtsmen near Zorgvliet, detail, pen and brown ink and
wash with the brush over traces of graphite, 243 × 373 mm, Municipal Archives
of The Hague, Gr. A 110 the first volume was dedicated to his friend, Huygens
the Younger and the second, to Johannes Wtenbogaard, the Receiver-General of
Holland and a neighbour of his parents. In 1671, de Bisschop published the
Paradigmata graphices variorum artificum, which he dedicated to the collector
Jan Six; this comprised forty-seven etchings based on Italian Old Master
drawings and ten antique busts.13 The two volumes of the Icones were
republished together with the Paradigmata, in later editions.14 Of particular
relevance to us is de Bisschop’s Icones, featuring one-hundred etched plates
after antique sculpture (fig. 4). Its purpose was didactic: to provide a
compilation of the best-known works and to establish norms of classical beauty
for artists, amateurs and collectors. In de Bisschop’s words, they were
‘sculptures and reliefs of the greatest perfection in art and the best sources
for students’.15 The book proved to be an enormously useful resource especially
as it featured, in some cases, the same sculpture seen from different angles;
in essence, in the round. For instance, de Bisschop’s presented five views of
the celebrated Wrestlers sculpture in the Uffizi (see p. 30, fig. 33, and cats
16 and 27), two of which are shown here (figs 5–6).16 In the Icones, the
unusual left profile view of the Farnese Hercules, in reverse was probably
known to Jan Claudius de Cock (1667–1735) and Wallerant Vaillant (1623–77), who
reproduced it from the same viewpoint (see cat. 14, fig. 4). In fact, Cock took
inspiration from several of the Icones plates for his Allegory of the Arts
series (cat. 14). As de Bisschop probably never travelled to Italy, many of his
prints relied on antique sculptures in Dutch collections, or on casts, and
especially on drawings by artists who had travelled south to visit collections
in Florence and Rome, such as Willelm Doudijns (1630–97), Pieter Donker (1635–
68), Adriaen Backer (1635/35–84) and others.17 De Bisschop avl 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 See Churchill 1967, pl. 8, no. 9,
date: 1665 or pl. 9, no. 11, date: 1670. For this life and work, see Van Gelder
1972. Van Gelder 1972, p. 27. Goeree 1697, p. 91. Gasparri 2009–10, vol.
2, pp. 55–57, no. 32 (F. Coraggio), and pp. 188–89, pl. XXXII, figs 1–4. Charlton-Jones 1991, pp. 100–01, pl. 89. The subject of
the Louvre drawing (Guiffrey and Marcel 1907–75, vol. 1, no. 1353) was
identified by Rausa 2007a, p. 172, no. 165.1. Fusco 1997, p. 56. Coltman 2009,
p. 87. Sold as Huygens at Sotheby’s, London, 13 April 1992, lot 260. Broos and
Schapelhouman 1993, p. 51, no. 34 (B. Broos). Amsterdam 1992, p. 37, no. 22 (R.
E. Jellema and M. Plomp). Van Gelder 1972, pp. 1–2. Both books are published in
their entirety with commentary by Van Gelder and Jost 1985, 2 vols. See also
Bolten 1985, pp. 257–58 and Plomp 2010, pp. 39–47. Bolten 1985, p. 71. Van
Gelder 1972, p. 19. Van Gelder and Jost 1985, vol. 1, pp. 106–08, nos 18–22,
vol. 2, pls 18–22. Further plates are after other artists as well as drawings
by Jacob de Gheyn III (1596–1641), who is not known to have travelled to Italy
but visited collections in England (Van Gelder and Jost 1985, vol. 1, pp.
15–16, 155). Van Gelder 1972, pp. 19–20. The album of classical statues,
reliefs, Roman architecture and contempo- rary Dutch figures and scenes is at
the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, inv. D.1212:1 to 141-1989. On it see
Van Gelder 1972, pp. 8–9 and especially Turner and White 2014, vol. 1, pp.
25–67, no. 23. Van Gelder 1972, p. 11. Van Gelder 1972, p. 27. Van der Willigen
1866, p. 137; Washington D.C. 1977, under no. 69 (F. W. Robinson). Haarlem
1990, pp. 16–17, 34–38. Fig. 5. Jan de Bisschop, The Wrestlers, from the
Signorum veterum icones, part 1, Amsterdam (?), 1668, pl. 18, etching, 164 ×
215 mm, Warburg Institute Library, London Fig. 6. Jan de Bisschop, The
Wrestlers, from the Signorum veterum icones, part 1, Amsterdam (?), 1668, pl.
21, etching, 199 × 133 mm, Warburg Institute Library, London
143 14. Attributed to Jan Claudius de Cock (Brussels 1667–1735 Antwerp)
An Allegory of Painting c. 1706 Etching, 141 × 100 mm watermark: possibly part
of a coat of arms. provenance: Bassenge, Berlin, 6 December 2001, lot 5452 (as
Anonymous, Southern German, c. 1700), from whom acquired. literature:None.
exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Katrin Bellinger collection, inv. no.
2001-037 In the corner of a painter’s workshop, students draw after
plaster casts, selected according to their age and level of study. The
youngest, wearing a Roman-style toga and stand- ing at a pedestal, which
supports his open sketchbook, records the likeness of the head of a boy similar
to him in age. He may be copying the bust itself, or more likely, the drawing
after the bust, propped up next to it. At the left, another pupil, a pre-teen
representing a higher level of study, thoughtfully examines a reduced model, in
reverse, of a rather unfit Farnese Hercules (see p. 30, fig. 32 and cats 7, 16,
21) elevated on a plinth, and shown in a similar pose as illustrated by Jan de
Bisschop’s Icones (fig. 1). The student and Fig. 1. Jan de Bisschop, The
Farnese Harcules, from the Signorum veterum icones, part 1, Amsterdam (?),
1668, pl. 8, etch- ing, 221 × 105 mm, Warburg Institute Library, London the
statuette are so posed that they appear to exchange glances. In the background,
partially obscured by the sculp- ture’s base, is a third boy, probably midway
in age between the others, who bows his head in concentration. Displayed on the
shelf and walls above are workshop props – a globe, hourglass, books, compass
and additional fragments of plaster casts, included a female torso and a male
one which may be based on the Belvedere Torso (p. 26, fig. 28). Presiding over
the scene is a voluptuously dressed female figure with an elaborate hairstyle
and bared breasts, who holds a palette with brushes in one hand, and gestures
to the statue of Hercules with the other. She is leaning on a richly carved
wooden table bearing bottles of spirit, compasses and completed figural
drawings. She is an Allegory of Painting, as described by Cesare Ripa in his
Iconologia, the widely consulted emblematic handbook first published in 1593 –
and probably known to de Cock through the Dutch editions of 1698 or 1699: a
beautiful woman with twisted, unruly hair, holding the tools of the painter.1
She represents the goal; once pupils had completed their prescribed course of
study, mastering the succession of stages dictated by the established norms of
16th-century studio practice – first, drawing the individual parts of the body
through drawings of others, prints, fragments and casts, and finally, the
entire figure, a statue or live model – only then, may they progress to
painting (see also cat. 10).2 The attainment of the goal is encapsulated in the
prominently displayed picture on the wall above Hercules, probably a Mars and
Venus. Though acquired as by an anonymous southern German artist, c. 1700, the
etching shares similarities with the work of the Flemish painter, sculptor,
etcher and writer, Jan Claudius de Cock.3 It is particularly close in style and
execution to his drawing of the Allegory of Sculpture drawing, signed and dated
1706 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, fig. 2), which is carried out with
the same meticulous handling and degree of finish.4 Direct references to
antique sculpture abound in the New York sheet with plaster casts freely
modelled after the Pan and Apollo from the Cesi collection (Museo
Nazionale 144 145 Fig. 2. Jan Claudius de Cock, Allegory of
Sculpture, 1706, pen and brown ink, 317 × 195 mm, The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, 2010.533 Romano, Rome) at right and, at the left, the Wrestlers,
acquired by the Medici in 1583 (Uffizi, Florence; see p. 30, fig. 33).5
Antique-inspired motifs – busts, putti, fragments and a strigilated krater –
are also visible throughout. As with the etching, there is a female
personification – in this case, of sculpture – her hand resting on one bust and
pointing to a second with the other, just as Painting does here in the etching.
At her feet are the tools of her trade: scalpels, mallet and a drill. Other
drawings of similar subject matter, format and date suggest de Cock planned a series
on the Allegories of the Arts, perhaps intending them to appear as etchings in
a book. His drawing of a female sculptor modelling a recumbent Venus (fig. 3),
another Allegory of Sculpture, is also signed, and dated (1706) and is numbered
like the New York drawing.6 Further studies by de Cock no doubt relate to the
same series.7 However, while the drawings are roughly the same size, the
present etching is considerably smaller. The colossal Farnese Hercules became
enormously popular immediately after its discovery in the 16th century, and 146
Fig. 3. Jan Claudius de Cock, An Allegory of Sculpture, 1706, pen and brown
ink, black chalk, 321 × 192 mm, Christie’s, London, 19 April 1988, lot 140
numerous copies after it were produced, often reduced to life-size or the scale
seen here, to make it more manageable and portable.8 A model strikingly similar
to that in the etching occurs in a mezzotint of a boy drawing in a studio, c.
1660–75, by the Dutch painter and engraver, Wallerant Vaillant (1623–77), where
it is perched on a table at a nearly identical angle (fig. 4).9 Both prints
suggest that by the early 18th century, plaster models of the Hercules were
commonplace in Flemish and Netherlandish workshops.10 Several of the
antiquities in both the etching, here attrib- uted to de Cock, and his two
related drawings discussed above, argue knowledge of Bisschop’s Icones, by then
the standard reference for antique sculptures in the Netherlands (see cat. 13).
For example, the rather unusual left-profile view of the Farnese Hercules in
the etching and the pose of the Wrestlers in the New York drawing (fig. 2),
both shown reversed in respect to the antique originals, find their
counterparts in the Icones (fig. 1 and cat. 13, fig. 5).11 And the pensive
Muse, possibly Clio, at the upper right of the Fig. 4. Wallerant Vaillant, A
Boy Drawing in a Studio, c. 1660–75, mezzotint, 324 × 300 mm, Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam, RP-P-1889-A-14489 second Allegory of Sculpture drawing (fig. 3), is
a literal quotation from a plate in the second volume of Bisschop’s 12 Born in
Brussels, de Cock was apprenticed in the workshop of Peeter Verbrugghen the
Elder (c. 1609–86) in Antwerp. After Verbruggen’s death, he established himself
in that city, although he later moved to Breda, where King William III
Stadholder of the Netherlands commissioned him to work on sculpture for a
courtyard in the town.14 However, by 1697 or 1698, de Cock had returned to
Antwerp and devoted himself more to teaching, establishing a large workshop
with many pupils, some learning drawing, others, goldsmithing.15 In 1720, he
wrote a didactic poetical treatise for his students, Eenighe voornaemste en
noodighe regels van de beeldhouwerije om metter tijdt en goet meester te
woorden (‘Some avl For Pittura from Ripa’s first illustrated edition (1603),
see Buscaroli 1992, p. 357 and in the Dutch edition of 1698, reprinted in 1699,
see Hoorn 1698, II, p. 515 [c]. Armenini 1587, pp. 52–59 (book 1, chap.
7); Alberti 1604, p. 5 (quoting Federico Zuccaro); Roman 1984, p. 91. Nagler (1966, vol. 3, no. 2100) and Wurzbach (1906–11, vol. 1, pp.
304–05) only briefly mention his etchings and this subject does not occur.
Acquired Christie’s, London, 7 July 2010, lot 328. It is signed at lower left:
‘Joannes Claud: de Cock invenit delineavit Anno= MDCCVI’ and numbered below,
‘4’. A further inscription by the artist on the verso, “Sculptura Pace, et
Abondante=”/[. . .], may refer to another drawing in the series, perhaps an
Allegory of Peace and Abundance or a Concordia. Haskell and Penny 1981, pp.
286–88, no. 70; pp. 337–39, no. 94. Christie’s, London, 19 April 1988, lot 140.
According to the catalogue, it is signed and dated, ‘Joan Claudius de
Cock/invenit delineavit/AoMDCCVI’ and numbered ‘3’ below. They include another
signed Allegory of Sculpture close to the New York drawing in composition, with
differences and executed in pencil, 326 × 194 mm (Christie’s, Amsterdam, 15
November 1993, lot 115) and a signed Allegory of Architecture, pen and
brown-grey ink and wash, 328 × 234 mm (Christie’s, Amsterdam, 21 November 1989,
lot 52). Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 232; Gasparri 2009–10, vol. 3, pp. 17–20,
no. 1, repr. on pp. 207–13. Hollstein 1949–2001, vol. 31, p. 119, no. 96. The
1635 studio inventory of the painter, Hendrik van Balen (1575–1632) mentions a
cast of the Hercules among other antique works (Duverger 1984–2009, vol. 4, p.
208). The torso of a draped male statue on the shelf at upper right in the
drawing probably derives from a further etching by Bisschop, based on copies by
Willelm Doudijns (1630–97), reproducing a marble in the Pighini collection and
now in the Vatican (Van Gelder and Jost 1985, vol. 1, pp. 110–11, no. 26, vol.
2, pl. 26; Helbig 1963–72, vol. 1, p. 194, no. 250). Van Gelder and Jost 1985,
vol. 1, pp. 184–85, no. 98, vol. 2, pl. 98. In that drawing, the male torso
seen from the back on the shelf at right recalls de Bisschop’s etching of the
Belvedere Torso (Van Gelder and Jost 1985, vol. 1, pp. 108–10, no. 24, vol. 2,
pl. 24). Van Gelder and Jost 1985, vol. 1, pp. 184–85; Haynes 1975, pl. 18. De
Gheyn was in London in the summer of 1618 and his drawing (untraced), was in
the collection of J. A. Wtenbogaert in Amsterdam (Van Gelder and Jost 1985,
vol. 1, pp. 16, 155, 185). For his life and work, see C. Lawrence, “Cock, Jan
Claudius de”. Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, accessed December 10, 2014,
http://www.oxford- artonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T018366. Pauwels
1977, p. 37. Published in Brussels by Mertens 1865; Lawrence 1986, p. 283.
Mertens 1865; Lawrence 1986, p. 283. The original marble from the Earl of
Arundel’s collection, known to de Bisschop through a drawing after it by
Jacques de Gheyn III, is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.13 publication.
chief and notable rules from the sculptor in order to become a good master in
due course’) although it remained unpublished until the 19th century.16 It is
entirely possible that he intended the Allegory of Arts series to illustrate
this treatise, in which he expressed his great admiration for classical
sculpture, namely the Laocoön, the Medici Venus – and, most importantly – the
Farnese Hercules.17 147 15. Nicolas Dorigny (Paris 1658–1746
Paris), after Carlo Maratti (Camerano 1625–1713 Rome) The Academy of Drawing c.
1702–03 Etching and engraving, 470 × 321 mm (plate); 503 × 331 mm (sheet) State
I of II (second state dated 1728 with the address of Jacob Frey). Inscribed on
the plate, l.l. on the ground: ‘TANTO CHE BASTI’, same inscription repeated
l.r. on the perspective drawing on the easel, and c.l. on the pedestal of the
anatomical model. Inscribed
u.c. above the statue of Apollo: ‘NON / MAI ABASTANZA’; u.r. above the Three
Graces: ‘SENZA DI NOI OGNI FATICA E VANA’. Inscribed l.c. with the title, ‘A
Giovani studiosi del Disegno’, followed by ten lines explaining the scene: ‘La
Scuola del Disegno, che s’espone delineata con le presenti Figure dal Sig.r
Cavalier Carlo Maratti, può molto contribuire al’disinganno di coloro che
credono di potere con la cognizione, e studio di molte Arti divenir perfet.ti
nell’Arte del dipingere senza procurare in primo luogo d’esser perfettissimi
nel Disegno, e senza il dono naturale, et un particolare istinto di saper con
grazia, e facilità animare, e disporre vagamente le parti di quell’Opera, che
prenderanno a delineare, e và figurando questo suo nobil pensiero con il mezzo
dell’azzioni, che qui si additano. Vedonsi alcuni studiosi delle mathematiche
in quella parte, che spetta alla Geometria, et Ottica, che conferiscono alla
Prospettiva: dall’altro lato, altri applicati all’osservazione d’un Corpo
anatomico, dà cui si apprende la giusta proporzione delle membra, e sito
de’muscoli, e nervi, che compongono una figura, dimostrato eruditame-te dà
Leonardo da Vinci espresso co- la propria effige, con il motto . Tanto che
basti . per dimostrare, che di tali professioni basta, che quello, che
attenderà al Disegno sia mediocrem.te erudito, per ridurre ad un’perfetto fine
qualunque Idea. Mà per coloro, che si esprimono attenti allo studio delle statue
antiche, non serve una leggiera applicazione alle mede, essendo lor d’uopo di
farvi sopra una lunga, et esatta riflessione, e studio per apprendere le belle
forme; e si pone l’esemplare delle statue antiche, come le più perfette, nelle
quali quei grandi Huomini espressero ì Corpi nel più perfetto grado, che
possano dalla natura istessa crearsi, e perciò vi si pone il motto . Non mai
abastanza . Tutto però riuscirebbe vano di conseguire senza l’assistenza delle
Grazie, che intende, come accennammo, per quel natural gusto di disporre, et
atteggiare con grazia, e delicatezza le positure, et ì movimenti delle Figure,
dalle quali poi risulta quella vaghezza, e leggiadria, che destano meraviglia,
e piacere in chiunque le mira, ponendosi queste a tal oggetto in alto, e sù le
nuvole per significare, che questo dono non viene che dal Cielo, con il motto .
Senza di noi ogni fatica e vana . Vivete felici.’1 Inscribed l.l. margin:
‘Eques Carolus Maratti inven. et delin. Cum privil Summi
Pont. et Regis Christ.mi’, and l.r.: ‘N. Dorigny sculp.’. watermark: Possibly a
four-legged animal inscribed in a double circle. provenance: Possibly Hugh
Howard (1675–1737); Charles Francis Arnold Howard, 5th Earl of Wicklow
(1839–81), from whom acquired in 1874. literature: Le Blanc 1854–88, II, p.
140, no. 51; Mariette 1996–2003, vol. 3, p. 511, no. 76, fig. 189;
Kutschera-Woborsky 1919, pp. 9–28, fig. 5; Goldstein 1978, p. 1, fig. 1;
Rudolph 1978, Appendix, p. 203, n. 38; Philadelphia 1980–81, pp. 114–16, no.
101 A (A. E. Golahny); Johns 1988, pp. 17–21, fig. 5; Goldstein 1989, p.156,
fig. 1; Winner 1992, fig. 1; Jaffé 1994, p. 128, under no. 251 646; Mertens
1994, pp. 222–24, fig. 94; Goldstein 1996, p. 47, fig. 14; Rome 2000b, vol. 2,
pp. 483–84, no. 2 (S. Rudolph); Pierguidi 2014. exhibitions: Not previously
exhibited. The British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London,
1874,0808.1713 This intriguing and complex image has a central role in
this catalogue, as it represents the most eloquent visual expres- sion of the classicistic
credo of the Roman Accademia di San Luca in the final decades of the 17th
century. More generally, it is a strong defence of the Florentine and Roman
academic traditions, with their stress on drawing, their celebration of Raphael
and, above all, on the study, copy and reverence of the Antique. As we shall
see, the original drawing from which the print is derived was most likely
conceived in 1681–82, at a time when the aesthetic belief supported by the
Accademia di San Luca was being challenged by other pedagogical methods and
criticised from other theoretical viepoints, hence its programmatic nature and
didactic aim. Carlo Maratti was the most authoritative painter in Rome during
the final decades of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th and the
champion of classicism.2 As a boy of twelve he had entered the large workshop
of Andrea Sacchi (1599–1661), where he remained until the master’s death in
1661. His training followed the usual curriculum of 148 Roman studios, centred
on drawing, and on the copy of the Antique, and of Renaissance and early
17th-century masters.3 His lifelong friend, mentor and biographer, the great
art theorist and antiquarian, Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613–96), tells us that
he concentrated especially on copying Raphael’s frescoes.4 He pursued this
commitment throughout his life, incorporating the essential qualities of the
great Renaissance champion of classicism into his own painting, to the point
that he became known as the Raphael of his time.5 In 1664 Maratti became
‘principe’, or president, of the Accademia di San Luca, where, in the same
year, Bellori’s discourse, the ‘Idea of the painter, the sculptor and the
archi- tect, selected from the beauties of Nature, superior to Nature’, was
publicly delivered (see Appendix, no. 11).6 Bellori’s theoretical statement,
then published as a prologue to his Vite in 1672, was to become enormously
influential in defin- ing and diffusing the central tenets of the classical
ideal, preparing the ground for the eventual affirmation of classi- cism in the
18th century.7 Maratti remained an influential 149 figure within the
Accademia for almost fifty years – while Bellori held the position of secretary
several times – playing a vital role in reorganising its curriculum according
to a comprehensive pedagogical programme, based on the exer- cise of drawing
from drawings, from casts after the Antique and from the live model, and on
students’ competitions and regular lectures.8 The print, which embodies this
theoretical and didactic approach, is based on a drawing now preserved at
Chatsworth (fig. 1), commissioned from Maratti by one of his most faithful
patrons, Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Guzmán, 7th Marquis of Carpio, (1629–87),
Spanish ambassador in Rome between 1677 and 1682.9 A sketchier version, in the
same direction as the print but with differences in detail, is at the Wadsworth
Atheneum (fig. 2).10 Art lover, collector and patron, Carpio commissioned from
contemporary Roman artists a large series of drawings with the practice,
theory, and nature of painting as their subject.11 The result was a
sophisticated collection of allegories of art, of which Maratti’s drawing is by
far the most celebrated, largely due to Dorigny’s print.12 Another drawing with
the Allegory of Ignorance Ensnaring Painting and Massacring the Fine Arts, now
in the Louvre, was probably produced by Maratti for Carpio as a pendant to the
Academy of Drawing, and as such was later engraved by Dorigny with a similar
explanatory inscription devoted to the ‘Lovers of the Fine Arts’ (fig. 3).13
Possibly intended from the beginning to be printed, Maratti’s drawing for the
Academy of Drawing was later engraved by the Parisian printmaker, Nicolas
Dorigny, Fig. 1. Carlo Maratti, The Academy of Drawing, c. 1681–82, pen and
brown ink with brown wash, heightened with white gouache, over black chalk, 402
× 310 mm, Chatsworth, The Duke of Devonshire and the Chatsworth Settlement
Trustees, inv. 646 Fig. 2. Carlo Maratti, The Academy of Drawing, c. 1681–82,
pen and brown ink and red chalk, 505 × 355 mm, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of
Art, Hartford, CT, inv. 1967.309a who spent the years 1687–1711 in Rome. The
rare first state, exhibited here, was probably published around 1702–03 under
the supervision of Maratti, who owned the copper- plates and who, no doubt, was
the author of the explanatory inscriptions below this print and its pendant.14
The reason why it took twenty years for the original drawing and its pendant to
be engraved, may be due to the fact that Carpio left Rome in 1683 to become
Viceroy of Naples and his move might have brought the original publication
project to a halt. After Maratti’s death in 1713, the plates were purchased by
Jacob Frey (1681–1752) who published a second state in 1728.15 The image is a
very condensed and crowded composi- tion, in line with similar examples by
Stradanus (cat. 4), Pierfrancesco Alberti (cat. 2, fig. 1), and others, which
would certainly have been known to Maratti.16 The Academy of Drawing is
presented as an antique academy devoted to intellectual pursuits, clearly
reminiscent of Raphael’s School of Athens in the Vatican Stanze, and in general
subtle refer- ences to Raphael’s works are ubiquitous throughout.17 We are
invited to follow the different disciplines and principles essential for the education
of the young artists, distributed visually and symbolically in an ascent: from
the technical and mathematical rudiments for the representation of space in the
foreground, to the ideal models for the depiction of the human figure in the
upper left part of the composition, and finally to the divinely inspired grace
and artistic talent on the upper left background, without which all the
previous learning would be useless. Bellori, in his biography Fig. 3. Nicolas
Dorigny after Carlo Maratti, Allegory of Ignorance ensnaring Painting and mas-
sacring the Fine Arts, 1704–10, etching and engraving, 468 × 319 mm, The
British Museum, Department of Prints and Draw- ings, London, inv.
1874,0808.1714 that. We know from another passage in Bellori that Maratti, although
he ‘always considered [...] perspective and anat- omy necessary to the
painter’, abhorred some ‘masters, or rather modern censors who, having learned
a line or two of perspective or anatomy, the minute they look at a picture look
for the vanishing point and the muscles, and [...] scold, correct, accuse and
criticise the most eminent masters’.23 Maratti’s attitude was, in fact, very
much in line with the Italian art theory of the second half of the 16th
century.24 Most writers agreed that, although the knowledge of mathematical
sciences was vital, the artist’s judgement and his eye must be the ultimate
criteria in the artistic process. Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) clearly formulated
this concept, paraphrasing Michelangelo’s famous saying that ‘it was necessary
to have the compasses in the eyes and not in the hand, because the hands work
and the eyes judge’.25 This opinion was rephrased by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo
(1538– 1600) who wrote precisely that ‘all the reasoning of geome- try and
arithmetic, and all the proofs of perspective were of no use to a man without
the eye’, and shared also by Federico Zuccaro (c. 1540–1609) the founder and
first principal of the reformed Accademia di San Luca in 1593 (see cat. 5).26 A
similar approach was reserved for the study of anatomy, the excess of which, as
represented by Michelangelo – who is not alluded to in the print – was
explicitly condemned by Giovan Battista Armenini (c. 1525–1609) and others, an
opinion supported by Bellori and Maratti.27 The ‘Young Students of Drawing’, to
which the print is dedicated, need instead to focus their attention on, and
constantly draw from, ancient statues, here represented by Fig. 4. Raphael,
Apollo, detail, School of Athens, 1509–11, fresco, Stanza della Segnatura,
Apostolic Palace, Vatican City of Maratti, left unfinished at his death
in 1696, provides a description of one of Maratti’s original drawings (figs
1–2) and this, plus the explanatory inscription on the print, constitute the
best guide to interpret the composition.18 At the centre a ‘master of
perspective’ indicates to a young disciple the visual pyramid and various
geometrical figures traced on a canvas placed on an easel, at the bottom of
which we read: ‘TANTO CHE BASTI’, ‘Enough to suffice’.19 The same inscription recurs
on the ground on the left, in front of another pupil intent at drafting
geometrical figures on the abacus with his compass, a gesture evoking that of
Archimedes in Raphael’s School of Athens. As Bellori explains, this is to
signify that ‘once the young have learned the rules necessary to their studies’
– geometry and perspec- tive – ‘they should pass on without stopping’.20 On the
right, below the easel, we see a stool supporting the physical tools of the art
of painting: another compass and a palette with various brushes. Behind them a
ruler leans diagonally against the canvas. The same warning ‘TANTO CHE BASTI’
reappears on the left on the pedestal supporting a life-size anatomical
écorché, in a pose reminiscent of the Borghese Gladiator (see p. 41, fig. 54
and cat. 23, fig. 1). Several students draw its muscles, directed by Leonardo,
whose anatomical studies were very well known, especially after the first
publication of his treatise on painting in 1651.21 ‘Anatomy and the drawing of
lines’ continues Bellori, ‘do indeed fall under definite rules and can be
learned perfectly by anyone, just as geometry used formerly to be learned in
school from childhood’.22 They therefore constitute those sciences that can be
taught by rational precepts. But if the young students want to become great
artists they need much more than 150 151 the gigantic
Farnese Hercules (see p. 30, fig. 32 and cat. 7, fig. 1), by a Venus Pudica
reminiscent of the Venus de’Medici (see p. 42, fig. 56) and by an Apollo, the
latter clearly derived from the statue presiding over the philosophers in the
School of Athens (fig. 4).28 Apollo, as patron of the arts, combining together
a reference to the Antique and to Raphael, conveniently substitutes for the
Belvedere Antinous (see p. 26, fig. 22 and cat. 19) seen on the earlier sketch
(fig. 2).29 The study of classi- cal sculptures, as the inscription on the wall
behind the Apollo instructs us, is ‘NON MAI ABASTANZA’, ‘Never enough’, as they
contain ‘the example and the perfection of painting [...] together with good
imitation selected from nature’ as Bellori tells us.30 In other words, they
materialise Bellori’s concept of the ‘Idea’, intended as the selection of the
best parts of Nature according to the right judgement of the artist in order to
create ideal beauty (see Appendix, no. 11). If a young artist assimilates their
principles, he will have a secure guide towards artistic perfection. On the
left, sitting on clouds, the Three Graces – again referring to the similar
figures painted by Raphael in the Villa Farnesina in Rome – are there to remind
us: ‘SENZA DI NOI OGNI FATICA E VANA’, ‘Without us, all labour is in vain’.
Without natural talent and divine inspiration, all the efforts and studies
depicted below would be ultimately useless. The concept of grace was one of the
crucial features in Vasari’s theory of art, intended as a certain sweetness and
facility of execution, dependent on natural talents – namely judgement and the
eye – as opposed to beauty which is based on the rules of proportions and
mathematics.31 But the great artist must cultivate this natural gift through
constant study and, for Bellori, constant imitation of the Antique and of the
great masters, especially Raphael, the excellence and grace of whom he exalted
in several of his publications.32 Therefore our print reminds us in its subject
of the necessary union of natural talent and study. At the same time it
provides in its very forms an ideal example of inventive imitation, namely
Maratti’s assimilation of the Antique and Raphael. The need to insist on these
very points reflects the particular moment in which our image was created. In
1676 the Accademia di San Luca and the Parisian Académie Royale were formally
amalgamated and at times French painters became principals of San Luca – Errard
and Brun. While sharing the same values and attitudes, the Italian could never
feel comfortable with the extreme ration- alisation of art characteristic of so
much French theory and academic approach.34 The methodical and precise
dissection of painting into its main components, as expressed for instance in
the Académie’s Conférences, is in fact probably 152 alluded to in the speaker
seen below the Graces in our image, who uses his fingers to enumerate the main
points of his arguments – referring to Socrates in the School of Athens. The
early Académie’s Conférences were published by André Félibien (1619–95) in
1668, and their official presentation at San Luca in 1681 generated a
discussion that was most likely at the origin of Maratti’s Academy of Drawing,
as reported by Melchior Missirini (1773–1849) in his history of the Accademia
di San Luca.35 After the reading of the last two Conférences, devoted to the
analysis of the drawing, colour, composition, proportions and expressions of
Poussin’s paintings, one of San Luca’s members, Giovanni Maria Morandi
(1622–1717), raised the objection that the French had left out art’s most
important and beautiful element: grace, that sublime and delicate quality of
the ‘imitative practice’, which appeals to the heart rather than the mind.36
The elderly Bellori, present in the audience, interrupted the speech remarking
that grace was indeed Apelle’s and Raphael’s best quality, ‘and it is well
known’, continues Missirini, ‘that Maratti, who also devoted every effort to
obtain this quality, induced by these words painted his three graces with the
motto ‘Without you, everything is worthless’.37 No doubt conceived as a
response to this intellectual debate, as a defence of the Florentine and Roman
attitude and tradition versus its French counterpart, Maratti’s Accademia must
be understood also as a celebration of classicism against those painters and
theorists who were at that time criticising its values and outcomes. In
particular the Venetian Marco Boschini (1515–80) and the Bolognese Cesare
Malvasia (1613–93) in their treatises published in the 1770s had attacked the
pictorial tradition based on disegno and imitation of the Antique, supporting
instead colore and naturalism.38 They, as Bellori remarks right before his discus-
sion of Maratti’s drawing, taught ‘in their schools and in their books that
Raphael is dry and hard, that his style is statue- like’.39 This dispute had
its counterpart in France where the Querelle du coloris had been fiercely
debated in the 1770s.40 The theoretical battle escalated further with the
publication in 1681 of the Notizie de’ professori del disegno by the Florentine
Filippo Baldinucci (1625–97), who strongly defended Vasari and the Central
Italian tradition, at the same time directly attacking Malvasia.41 The early
1680s were therefore a moment of intense debate within and between the Italian
and French artistic schools and theoretical traditions, of which this image is
one of the most telling documents. In the following decades Maratti became the
leading artistic authority in Rome. His devotion to Raphael was rewarded in
1693 when he was appointed Keeper of the Vatican Stanze, which he then restored
in 1702–03, having already worked on the restoration of Raphael’s frescoes in
the Farnesina from 1693.42 In 1699 he was re-elected principal of San Luca, a
position he held until his death in 1713. Pope Clement XI (r. 1700–21)
nominated Maratti Director of the Antiquities in Rome in 1702, and officially
sanctioned support for his classicism by establishing papal-sponsored
competitions, the Concorsi Clementini, at the Academy.43 It is probably in
celebration of the final affirmation of this classicist aesthetic that Maratti
decided to finally print in 1702, or soon after, the complex drawing celebrating
above all the study of Antique that he had produced twenty years 44 ‘The School
of Drawing, a figurative drawing by Cavalier Carlo Maratti, can contribute much
to the disenchantment of those who believe that through knowledge and study of
many arts they can become most accomplished in the art of painting without
first acquiring the highest skill in drawing and without the natural gift and
innate capacity to give, with grace and ease, life and shapeliness to the parts
of a work they set out to depict. In addition, he [Maratti] gives form to his
fine thought through the activities pointed out here. To one side there are
some students of the mathematics of Geometry and Optics that feed into
Perspective: elsewhere there are others intent on the observation of an
anatomical model, from which can be learned the just proportions of the limbs,
the placement of the muscles and sinews that compose a figure, as set out with
precision by Leonardo da Vinci, a likeness of whom is given, with the motto
‘Enough to suffice’, to evince that, of these professional skills, he who
pursues drawing must be competent enough to bring any idea to a perfect
outcome. But for those shown engaged in the study of classical statues, slight
attention to the same is of no use since the point is to make a long and
detailed study so as learn the forms of the beautiful; and classical statues
are given as the most perfect for this since those great sculptors gave shape
to bodies in the most perfect state that Nature herself can create, which explains
the presence of the motto: ‘Never enough’. Everything, however, would be futile
without the assistance of the Graces, understood, as mentioned, as a natural
bent for composing and arranging with grace and delicacy those postures and
movement of figures from which derive the beauty and allure that stir wonder
and pleasure in the spectator, wherefore they are set for that purpose up above
on the clouds as indication that this gift comes only from heaven, and are
given the motto: ‘Without us all labour is in vain’. Live happily’ (translation
by Michael Sullivan). For a biographical summary see Rudolph 2000. Schaar and
Sutherland Harris 1967. See Bellori 1976, pp. 625, 636, 639. See Baldinucci
1975, p. 307. On Maratti’s cult for and imitation of Raphael see also Mena
Marqués 1990. Goldstein 1978, p. 3. For the text of Bellori’s Idea see Bellori
1976, pp. 13–25, and for an English translation see Bellori 2005, pp. 55–65. On
it see Mahon 1947, esp. pp. 109– 54, 242–43; Panofsky 1968, pp. 103–11; Bellori
1976, esp. xxix–xl; Barasch 2000, vol. 1, pp. 315–22; Cropper 2000. On
Maratti’s role within the Accademia see Goldstein 1978, esp. pp. 2–5. On
Bellori’s see Cipriani 2000. Jaffé 1994, p. 128, no. 251 646. It is not fully
clear whether Dorigny used the Chatsworth drawing or a lost copy of it, as he
arrived in Rome in 1687, five years after Del Carpio had left the city to
become Viceroy of Naples: see Rome 2000b, vol. 2, p. 483, no. 1 (S. Rudolph).
Philadelphia 1980–81, p. 116, note 3 and 4; Winner 1992, p. 512, fig. 5.
Bellori 1976, pp. 629–31. On Del Carpio’s commission see Haskell 1980, pp.
190–92; Pierguidi 2008; Frutos Sastre 2009, pp. 369–71. For other drawings of
the series, see Winner 1992. For the drawing (Louvre, Paris, inv. 17950) see
Rome 2000b, vol. 2, p. 484, no. 3 (S. Rudolph). For the print see Philadelphia
1980–81, pp. 114–16, no. 101 B (A. E. Golahny); Rome 2000b, vol. 2, pp. 484–85,
no. 4 (S. Rudolph). For the transcription of the print’s inscription see Winner
1992, pp. 517–18, note 7. See Philadelphia 1980–81, pp. 114–16, no. 101 A and B
(A. E. Golahny); Rome 2000b, vol. 2, p. 483, no. 2 (S. Rudolph). This second
state contains the address of Frey. Rudolph (Rome 2000b, vol. 2, p. 483, no.
2), supposes that the long explanatory inscription was added only to this
second state, while the impression exhibited here proves that it was inserted
in the first state as well. The inscription is mentioned also in a
chronological list of Maratti’s prints produced in 1711: see Rudolph 1978,
Appendix, p. 203, no 38. Kutschera-Woborsky 1919; Winner 1992, especially pp.
521–22, 531. Although some will be discussed here, the references to Raphael
are too many to be covered comprehensively. For a fuller discussion see Winner
1992. Bellori 1976, pp. 629–31. For an English translation, see Bellori 2005,
pp. 422–23. Bellori’s unfinished biography of Maratti was first published with
modifications in 1731 and independently in 1732. See Bellori 1976, p. 571, note
1; Bellori 2005, p. 435, note 4. For modern critical editions of the text, see
Bellori 1976, pp. 569–654; Bellori 2005, pp. 395–440. Winner (1992, p. 524)
suggests that the ‘master of perspective’ could be Vitruvius, as the
geometrical figures on the canvas are similar to those illustrated by Andrea
Palladio in Daniele Barbaro’s edition of Vitruvius’ De architectura (1556). On
the other hand the visual pyramid clearly refers to Albertian perspective, as
it had been recently republished and illustrated in Dufresne 1651, see
especially pp. 17–18. Bellori 1976, p. 630; Bellori 2005, p. 423. Dufresne
1651: see esp. the ‘Vita di Lionardo da Vinci descritta da Rafaelle du Fresne’,
at the beginning of the volume (not paginated) and p. 5, ch. XXII, p.
12, ch. LVII. Bellori 1976, p. 631; Bellori 2005, p. 423. Bellori 1976, p. 629;
Bellori 2005, p. 422. On Bellori’s sources in general see esp. Barocchi
2000; Perini 2000a. Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 6, p. 109. See also
Vasari’s introduction to his chapter on Sculpture: Bettarini and Barocchi
1966–87, vol. 1, pp. 84–86. Lomazzo 1584, p. 262 (book V, chap. 7). Zuccaro
1607, vol. 2, pp. 29–30 (book II, chap. 6). See Armenini 1587, pp. 63–67 (book
I, chap. 8); Bellori 1976, p. 630; Bellori 2005, p. 423. On this see also
Pierguidi 2014. Bellori had specifically praised the Farnese Hercules and the
Venus de’Medici in his Idea: Bellori 1976, p. 18; Bellori 2005, p. 59. On this
see also Winner 1992, p. 532. On the Farnese Hercules see Haskell and Penny
1981, pp. 229–32, no. 46; Gasparri 2009–10, vol. 3, pp. 17–20, no. 1. On the
Venus de’ Medici see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 325–28, no. 88; Cecchi and
Gasparri 2009, pp. 74–75, no. 64 (137). On the Belvedere Antinous see Haskell
and Penny 1981, pp. 141–43, no. 4; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 62, no. 10. Bellori
1976, p. 630; Bellori 2005, p. 423. Bettarini and Barocchi 1966–87, vol. 3, p.
399, vol. 4, pp. 5–6. See also Blunt 1978, pp. 93–99. Bettarini and Barocchi
1966–87, vol. 3, p. 399; Bellori 1976, pp. 625–26; Bellori 2005, p. 421. Also
for Armenini ‘una bella e dotta maniera’ could be acquired only if the artist
has a natural gift cultivated by study (Armenini 1587, see esp. p. 6 of the
Proemio and pp. 51–69, book I, chs 7 and 8). Bellori’s essays on Raphael,
written at various dates, were published in Bellori 1695. On Raphael and grace
in Bellori see Maffei 2009. On the cult of Raphael in the 17th century see
Perini 2000b. Boyer 1950, p. 117; Goldstein 1970, pp. 227–41; Bousquet 1980,
pp. 110–11; Goldstein 1996, pp. 45–46. Mahon 1947, pp. 188–89. Missirini 1823,
pp. 145–46 (ch. XCI);
Mahon 1947, p. 189; Goldstein 1996, p. 46. Missirini 1823, p. 145. Ibid., p.
146. Boschini 1674; Malvasia 1678. Bellori 1976, p.
627; Bellori 2005, p. 421. On the ‘statuelike’ concept, or ‘statuino’ see esp.
Malvasia 1678, vol. 1, pp. 359, 365, 484. See also Pericolo’s forthcoming
article. I wish to thank Dr Lorenzo Pericolo for generously putting this study
at my disposal. See Teyssèdre 1965; Puttfarken 1985; Arras and Épinal 2004 with
previous bibliography. Baldinucci 1681, see esp. his ‘Apologia’ at pp. 8–29. On
the controversy between Malvasia and central Italian art theorists see Perini
1988; Rudolph 1988–89; Emiliani 2000. See Zanardi 2007. See Johns 1988. The
second state of both prints, published by Jacob Frey in 1728 was explic- itly issued
in parallel to the reward ceremony of the 1728 Concorso Clementino: see Rome
2000b, vol. 2, pp. 484–85, no. 4. earlier, with the Allegory of Ignorance as
its pendant (fig. 3). aa 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1 153 16.
Charles-Joseph Natoire (Nîmes 1700–1777 Castel Gandolfo) The Life Class at the
Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture 1746 Pen, black and brown ink, grey
wash and watercolour and traces of graphite over black chalk 453 × 322 mm
Signed and dated by the artist on recto, on the box at l.c., in pen and dark
grey ink: ‘C. NATOIRE f. 1746’. provenance: Possibly sold at the artist’s
posthumous sale, Alexandre-Joseph Paillet, Paris, 14 December 1778, lot 100;1
purchased Aubert for 120 livres; Gilbert Paignon-Dijonval (1708–92); Bruzard, Paris,
23–26 April 1839, part of lot 208; Walker Gallery, acquired Sir Robert Witt
(1872–1952) (L. suppl. 2228b); Sir Robert Witt Bequest, 1952. selected
literature: Bérnard 1810, p. 142, no. 3348; Mirimonde 1958, p. 282, fig. 3;
Princeton 1977, pp. 22–23, fig. 3; Troyes, Nîmes and elsewhere 1977, p. 80,
under no. 42; Roland Michel 1987, pp. 58–59, fig. 45; Foster 1998, pp. 55–56,
fig. 13; Amsterdam and Paris 2002–03, pp. 85–88, under no. 25; Paris 2009–10,
p. 40, fig. 13; Petherbridge 2010, p. 222, pl. 152; Caviglia-Brunel 2012, p.
122, repr., p. 336, no. D. 370, repr.; Rowell 2012, pp. 179–80, fig. 9; London
2013–14, p. 8, repr., p. 69, fig. 24. selected exhibitions: London 1950, p. 18,
no. 54; London, York and elsewhere 1953, pp. 27–28, no. 79, not repr.; London
1953, pp. 91–92, no. 391, not repr. (K. T. Parker and J. Byam Shaw); Los
Angeles 1961, pp. 51, 58, no. 25; London 1962, pp. 9–10, no. 37, not repr.;
Swansea 1962, unpaginated, no. 38; London 1968a, p. 101, no. 490 (D. Sutton);
King’s Lynn 1985, p. vi, no. 33, not repr.; London 1991, p. 80, no. 35 (G.
Kennedy); Paris 2000–01, pp. 405–06, no. 210 (J.-P. Cuzin); London and New York
2012–13, pp. 161–65, no. 33 (K. Scott). The Courtauld Gallery, Samuel
Courtauld Trust, London, D. 1952.RW.397 exhibited in london only Painter,
draughtsman and educator, Natoire was a contem- porary of François Boucher
(1703–70) and like him, executed both cabinet pictures and decorative schemes,
as well as history paintings.2 Trained in the studio of Lemoyne, Natoire started
his career with a series of successes: having won in 1721 the Prix de Rome of
the Académie Royale, he spent the years 1723–28 in Rome where in 1727 he
received the most prestigious reward for a young painter, the first prize of
the Accademia di San Luca. Back in Paris in 1730, he was received (reçu) as a
full member of the Académie in 1734 and spent the following two decades
executing decorative ensembles in Royal Palaces and various hôtels and châteaux
of the aristocracy, such as the celebrated Hôtel de Soubise (now the Archives
Nationales) in Paris. In 1751 he was appointed Director of the Académie de
France in Rome and spent the rest of his life there, dying at Castel Gandolfo
in the Alban Hills in 1777. Natoire’s large and beautifully preserved drawing –
of which there is another version, dated 1745, almost identical but less
finished, in the Musée Atger in Montpellier – offers a rare glimpse of the
École du modèle of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris,
where young students spent hours copying the live model.3 But rather than a
faithful view of the École du modèle, which was a similar but rather different
space,4 it is an idealised representation of how Natoire thought it ought to
be. In essence, it is a visual manifesto for the Académie’s reform at a time,
as we shall see, when many of its original practices had been abandoned or
neglected. Trying, in a programmatic image, to convey as much infor- mation as
possible, Natoire ingeniously reconfigures the 154 space for his purpose: a very
high ceiling and an angular point of view allow maximum concentration and
display of objects. Crammed together, one on top of the other, we see drawings,
bas-reliefs, paintings of different format and size and, most importantly,
plaster casts after the Antique. Our attention is immediately drawn to the
seated figure at the lower left-hand corner wearing a bright red cloak, no
doubt Natoire himself: he had been appointed assistant pro- fessor at the
Académie royale in 1735, professor in 1737 and from 1736 was instructor in the
life class for the month of February.5 Comfortably seated in an armchair, his
tricorne hat resting on the box in the centre, he carefully corrects the black
chalk drawings after the two live models presented by his pupils. At the centre
of the composition, the attention of all students is directed to the two models
posed together, a monthly event at the Académie that had been introduced in the
mid-1660s.6 The teacher was responsible for placing the models ‘in an attitude’
for afternoon classes lasting two hours, using sunlight during the summer and
artificial light during the winter months.7 The sunlight filtering in from the
left is therefore imaginary, as in February, when Natoire was in charge of the
École du modèle, illumination would have been from lamps. Only male models were
allowed, despite repeated requests for female models from the students, all of
whom were also male since women were not allowed to join the Académie until the
end of the 19th century.8 The same pose was retained for three days in a row
for a total of six hours and students were supposed to produce two study
drawings of the figures each week.9 As in this case, a curtain was usually
placed behind the model or models, to enhance 155 the contours and
isolate the figure from the background. The plinth supporting the model had
hooks at the corner to allow the professor to move it according to the fall of
the light. In addition to posing the model, the ‘duty teacher’ from 1664
onwards was supposed to make his own drawing to serve as an example for the
students and to devote part of each session to correcting students’ works, as
we see represented in this drawing.10 Natoire’s own drawing of the two models
may be in the portfolio leaning against the box in the centre; indeed an
identical red chalk composition survives – although reversed – proving that
this pose was actually used during one of his sessions (fig. 1).11 The models’
attitude in the middle follows the well- established practice within the
Académie of adopting and adapting poses to recall ancient statuary.12 In this
case they evoke the dynamic, interlocking bodies of the Wrestlers (see p. 30,
fig. 33), of which the Académie possessed a plaster cast, or possibly the pose
of the so-called Pasquino.13 The main purpose of the practice was to pose the
live model with the same tension and flexing of muscles as the ancient statues,
so that students could then correct their drawings from ‘fallible Nature’
against the perfection of the antique exam- ple. The practice was diffused
already in the 17th century and explicitly recommended by Sébastien Bourdon
(1616–71), in his famous Conférence Sur les proportions de la figure humaine
expliquées sur l’Antique delivered at the Académie in 1670.14 We Fig. 1.
Charles-Joseph Natoire, Two Models, c. 1745, red chalk, 490 × 420 mm, sold
Sotheby’s, Paris, 18 June 2008, lot 101 know from the influential Abrégé de la
vie des plus fameux peintres, published by the art writer Argenville, that the
great painter Champaigne devoted ‘his evenings [...] to drawing at the Académie
and, on his return, he would correct from the Antique what he had done from the
model’.15 Natoire was exposed to a similar exercise during the years he spent
at the Académie de France in Rome during the 1720s and he must often have
returned to this practice during his sessions at the Académie in Paris.16
Distributed in a semi-circle around the models are students of different ages,
busy drawing the figures. Most of them are using chalk in porte-crayons,
drawing on large sheets of paper. The exceptions are the two more mature
students on the right who are modelling bas-reliefs in clay with their fingers
and wooden sticks; the one on the right holds a sponge in his hand to clean the
clay with water as seen in the drawing by Cochin engraved for the Encyclopédie
(p. 52, fig. 91).17 The process is clearly described in the Istruzione
elementare per gli studiosi della scultura, the famous manual for students of
sculpture published by Francesco Carradori (1747–1824) in 1802, and illustrated
with a strikingly similar image (fig. 2).18 A third student, in the lower right
corner, is wetting rags in a bucket to keep the clay damp and avoid cracks, as
Carradori advised. On his left a dog – could it be Natoire’s? – stares at us
from its sheltered position. The Fig. 2. Carradori, Istruzione elementare per
gli studiosi della scultura, Florence, 1802, detail of plate 5 disposition of
the students reflects the admission conditions and entrance hierarchy of the
École du modèle: two-thirds were painters and one-third sculptors, placed in
the back rows.19 Behind the semi-circle of students we see life-size plaster
casts of four of the most canonical classical sculptures: from left to right
the Farnese Hercules (see p. 30, fig. 32; cat. 7), the Laocoön (see p. 26, fig.
19; cat. 5), the Venus de’ Medici (see p. 42, fig. 56) and the Borghese
Gladiator (see p. 41, fig. 54; cat. 23).20 The Hercules and the Venus are
looking away from the viewer, as if to signal that the study of the Antique
constitutes a different – though inextricably connected – practice from the
study of the live model. The four statues provided the students with idealised
models of human proportions, anatomy, beauty and emotion: the muscular strength
of the heroic male body at rest, embodied by the Hercules, the complex pose and
the pathos and drama of the Laocoön, the grace and beauty of the female body
ideally incarnated by the Venus and, finally, the active anatomy of the
muscular man in motion as expressed by the Gladiator. They repre- sented a sort
of ‘canon within the canon’ of classical sculptures for artists, and their
choice here is not accidental. These four statues – plus the Belvedere Torso
and an antique Bacchus at Versailles – had been specifically selected as
subjects of the Conférences devoted to the Antique held at the Académie Royale
during the 1660s and 1670s; the text describing them was constantly being
re-read by academi- cians since then.21 At the time this drawing was made, the
Académie owned casts of all four statues – among many others – but Natoire
ingeniously concentrates here what was actually distributed over various
rooms.22 Significantly, all the statues in the drawing are in reverse as
Natoire did not copy them from the casts but from prints in François Perrier’s
celebrated Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum of 1638 (figs 3–6).23
Perrier’s collection of engravings after ancient statues had been for more than
a century the standard work of reference for students beginning their study of
the Antique, providing them with images in two dimensions that they could
master before approaching the three-dimensional casts. This course was firmly
recommended at the time of the foundation of the Académie in 1648 by Abraham
Bosse (1602–76), its first professor of perspective.24 References to the
glorious past of the Académie continue on the walls, where we are invited to
ascend from drawings and bas-reliefs to paintings. On the lower tier are the
designs and reliefs after the model that teachers had to produce from 1664
onwards (although this requirement was eventually abolished in 1715).25 Above
these are displayed a series of canvases representing some of the greatest
triumphs of modern French painting: the largest and most prominent, on the
left, is Charles Le Brun’s Alexander at the Tent of Darius (1661); to its
right, Jean Jouvenet’s Deposition (1697) and below it, barely discernible,
Eustache Le Sueur’s Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1650). Above, in the upper
register, is hung another Le Sueur, the circular Alexander and His Doctor
(1648– 49). On the right is François Lemoyne’s Annunciation (1725); and
finally, below it Sébastien Bourdon’s Holy Family (1660– 70).26 The two square
paintings on the upper left, probably a reclining Nymph or Venus and a Cupid
and Psyche, have not been identified; it would be tempting to think that they
might be Natoire’s own creations, but they do not correspond to any of his
known works.27 None of the paintings were displayed at that time in the
Académie and all are reversed, meaning that Natoire deliberately assembled them
in this crowded space from prints.28 All were revered examples of history
paintings by famous past academicians, ranging from Le Brun, Le Sueur and
Bourdon, who had been among the twelve original founding members of the
Académie in 1648, to Lemoyne, Natoire’s own teacher. Showing different kinds of
history painting – Biblical subjects, Mythology and secular history – they here
provide the young students with models both to imitate and aspire to. On the
central pier, presiding over all the artistic activity below, is Bernini’s 1665
bust of Louis XIV, of which the Académie then displayed a plaster cast,29
reminding us of the glories of the institution under the reign of the Sun King.
Such a deliberately programmatic image, which assem- bles so many references
from different places and times, must be understood as a visual manifesto in
favour of a retour à l’ordre within the Académie. At the time Natoire conceived
it, many of the original academic practices and credos had long been neglected.
After the late 17th century almost no new Conférences were held, and teachers
simply re-read the old ones and the biographies of past academicians.30 Nor
does it seem that the study of the Antique was much promoted and certainly the
collection of casts was not integrated with the École du modèle.31 Finally, and
most impor- tantly, during the first half of the 18th century, history painting
had lost its place of pre-eminence within the Académie, a process foreshadowed
by the success of Jean- Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) and his acceptance into the
Académie in 1717 as a painter of fêtes galantes, a new category that encouraged
the development of the ‘lesser genres’ of painting.32 At the same time, because
of the popularity of ‘the Rococo interior’, history painters were often obliged
to adapt their canvases for decorative schemes, to the point that Natoire
complained in 1747 that his painting was regarded as mere furniture.33
Significantly, a completely different model was in place in Rome during the
years spent by Natoire in the city as a young 156 157
Fig. 3. (top left) François Perrier, Farnese Hercules, plate 4, from Segmenta
nobilium signorum et statuarum, Rome, 1638 Fig. 4. (top right) François
Perrier, Laocoön, plate 1, from Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum, Rome,
1638 Fig. 5. (bottom left) François Perrier, Venus de’Medici, plate 83, from
Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum, Rome, 1638 Fig. 6. (bottom right)
François Perrier, Borghese Gladiator, plate 28, from Segmenta nobilium signorum
et statuarum, Rome, 1638 years implemented a series of radical changes – such
as the re-establishment of the Conférences, the acquisition of new casts, and
making the history paintings of the Royal Collection accessible to students –
which paved the way to the triumph of the highest genre in the second half of
the century.36 It is at this moment that Natoire’s drawing was conceived,
probably as a statement in support of Tournehem’s reforms. These, in essence,
involved a return to the original credo and mission of the Académie as devised
by Louis XIV’s Minister Colbert and his Premier Peintre Charles Le Brun
(1619–90): a royal institu- tion intended to support and cultivate History
Painting through the practice of drawing and the study of the live model and
the Antique. Natoire would apply many of the principles proclaimed in his
drawing during his tenure as director of the Académie de France in Rome after
1751. The fact that everything in the Courtauld drawing – statues, paintings
and even models – appears in reverse would suggest that it was intended to be
engraved.37 How- ever, the students hold the porte-crayons in their right
hands, which would seem to contradict this theory. In any case, it is highly
likely that this complex image was conceived to be diffused for promotional
purposes, possibly on the example of Dorigny’s engraving after Maratti (cat.
15), which Natoire would certainly have known.38 It would have been a
persuasive way to promote the study of the live model together with the study
of the Antique, a training that would effectively prepare young artists to
revive those noble forms of painting that had been the glory of the Grand
Siècle. London 2013–14, p. 33. See the 11th article of the 1664 reformed
statutes of the Académie: Montaiglon 1875–92, vol. 1, p. 253. See also London
2013–14, pp. 33–34. The fact that the drawing is in reverese seems to suggest
that it is a counter- proof. For the drawing see Caviglia-Brunel 2012, p. 481,
no. D.794, repr. in colour at p. 128. The drawing was sold at Sotheby’s, Paris,
18 June 2008, no. 101. Some of Natoire’s drawings after the live model were
published in 1745: Huquier 1745. Paris 2000–01, pp. 415–29; London 2013–14, pp.
62–69. Guérin 1715, p. 148, no. 49; London 2013–14, p. 94, note 62. On the pose
of the two models see also Foster 1998, pp. 56–57. On the Pasquino see Haskell
and Penny 1981, pp. 291–96, no. 72; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, p. 202, no. 155
Lichtenstein and Michel 2006-12, vol. 1.1, pp. 374–77. See also Goldstein 1996,
p. 150. Dezailler d’Argenville 1745–52, vol. 2, p. 182. Macsotay 2010, pp.
189–90. As noted by Gillian Kennedy in London 1991, p. 80, no. 35. I wish to
thank Camilla Pietrabissa for a fruitful discussion on the subject. Carradori
1802, esp. pp. 3–4, article 2, and plate 5; Carradori 2002, pp. 23–24, and pp.
60–61, plate 5. London 2013–14, p. 34. On the Farnese Hercules see Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 229–32, no. 46; Gasparri 2009–10, vol. 3, pp. 17–20, no. 1. On
the Laocoön see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 243–47, no. 52; Bober and
Rubinstein 2010, pp. 164–68, no. 122. On the Venus de’ Medici see Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 325–28, no. 88. On the Borghese Gladiator see Haskell and Penny
1981, pp. 221–24, no. 43; Paris 2000–01, no. 1, pp. 150–51 (L. Laugier); Pasquier
2000–01c. Lichtenstein and Michel 2006–12, see esp. vols 1–2, passim. See also
Aymonino’s essay in this catalogue, pp. 45–46. Guérin 1715, p. 62, no. 35, pp.
105–06, nos 1–2, p. 185, no. 41; London and New York 2012–13, p. 162; London
2013–14, p. 94, note 62. On Perrier’s Segmenta see Picozzi 2000;
Laveissière 2011; Di Cosmo 2013; Fatticcioni 2013. Bosse 1649, p. 98. On the success of the Segmenta see Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 21;
Goldstein 1996, p. 144; Coquery 2000, pp. 43–44. See also Aymonino’s essay in
this catalogue, p. 42. London 2013–14, p. 53. On a similar display in the real
École du modèle see Guérin 1715, p. 258 London 1991, p. 80, no. 35;
Caviglia-Brunel 2012, p. 334, no. D.362; London and New York 2012–13, p. 161.
The Montpellier version also shows Poussin’s circular Time defending Truth
against the Attacks of Envy and Discord on the ceiling: see Caviglia-Brunel
2012, p. 334, no. D.362. I would like to thank Alastair Laing for discussing
these two paintings with me. London 1991, p. 80, no. 35. It was previously
thought that the print from Lemoyne’s Annunciation was not in reverse but this
has been disproven by Rowell 2012, see p. 178, fig. 7 and p. 180, note 27.
Guérin 1715, p. 165, no. 1. See Lichtenstein and Michel 2006–12, passim. Guérin
1715, pp. 257–60. See also Foster 1998, pp. 56–57; Schnapper 2000; Macsotay
2010. Locquin 1912, pp. 5–13; Plax 2000. Jouin 1889; London 1991, p. 80, no.
35. On the Concorsi Clementini see Cipriani and Valeriani 1988–91 and
Aymonino’s essay in this catalogue, p. 54. See also cat. 15. Macsotay 2010;
Henry 2010–11. Locquin 1912, pp. 5–13; Schoneveld-Van Stoltz 1989, pp. 216–28;
Caviglia- Brunel 2012, pp. 86–87. As already noted in Troyes, Nîmes and
elsewhere 1977, p. 80, no. 42. Dorigny’s print was reissued in 1728, in
parallel to the award ceremony of the Concorsi Clementini, when Natoire was
still in Rome (see cat. 15). student. The Accademia di San Luca
officially supported the copying of the Antique and the production of history
painting through the system of the Concorsi Clementini, established in 1702, of
which, as we know, Natoire obtained the first prize.34 At the same time the
Académie de France in Rome saw a complete reorganisation under the directorship
of Nicholas Vleughels (1668-1737) between 1725 and 1737. Its enormous
collection of casts was redisplayed and integrated with the Ecole du modèle and
its students, like Natoire, were strongly encouraged to compare the ideal of
casts from the Antique against nature in the form of the live model, as we see
promulgated in our drawing.35 These principles began to be re-introduced in
Paris after the election in 1745 of Charles- François-Paul Le Normant de
Tournehem – the uncle of Madame de Pompadour – as director of the Bâtiments du
Roi, the official protector of the Académie Royale on behalf of the king.
Tournehem initiated a reform aimed at the rehabilitation of history painting,
and in the following 158 159 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 aa Lot 100 is probably this
drawing but it could also refer to the very similar version of this sheet now
preserved at the Musée Atger, Montpellier, inv. MA1, album M43 fol. 26: see
Troyes, Nîmes and elsewhere 1977, p. 80, no. 42; London 1991, p. 80, no. 35;
Caviglia-Brunel 2012, p. 334, no. D.362 and p. 336, no. D. 370, where the lot
description is transcribed in full. On Natoire see Troyes, Nîmes and elsewhere
1977; Caviglia-Brunel 2012. For the Monpellier drawing see above note 1. Guérin
1715, pp. 257–60, plate between pp. 256–57; Caviglia-Brunel 2012, p. 334, no.
D.362; London and New York 2012–13, pp. 161–62, fig. 68. Montaiglon 1875–92,
vol. 5, pp. 171, 193; London 1991, p. 80, no. 35; Caviglia-Brunel 2012, p. 334,
no. D.362. Guérin 1715, p. 259; London 1991, p. 80, no.
35; London 2013–14, pp. 46, 62. See the 4th article of the 1648 statutes of the
Académie: Montaiglon 1875–92, vol. 1, p. 8. See also Guérin 1715, p. 258.
London 2013–14, p. 40. Women were admitted to the Académie, then named École
des Beaux-Arts, only in 1896 and allowed to enrol for the Prix de Rome in 1903:
Goldstein 1996, p. 61. 17. Hubert Robert (Paris 1733–1808 Paris) The
Artist Seated at a Table, Drawing a Bust of a Woman c. 1763–65 Red chalk, 333 ×
441 mm provenance: Poulet, whence acquired by Pierre Decourcelle (1856–1926),
Paris in October 1912 for 300 francs;1 by descent; Decourcelle sale,
Christie’s, Paris, 21 March 2002, lot 317, from whom acquired. literature:
Paris 1933, p. 124, under no. 197; Rome 1990–91, p. 191, under no. 135; Ottawa,
Washington D.C., and elsewhere 2003–04, p. 308, under no. 92, fig. 142.
exhibitions: Paris 1922, p. 16, no. 85, not repr. Katrin Bellinger collection,
inv. no. 2002–012 Hubert Robert received a classical education at the Collège
de Navarre before studying drawing in the studio of the sculptor, Michel-Ange
Slodtz (1705–64). Even during this early period, he showed an interest in
‘architecture in ruins’.2 Although not eligible for a place at the Académie de
Rome – he had not attended the requisite École Royale des élèves protégés –
family connections allowed him to bypass this regulation and on 4 November 1754
Robert arrived in Rome in the retinue of the new French ambassa- dor,
Étienne-François, comte de Stainville (1719–85), later duc de Choiseul. The
diplomat sponsored Robert for the first three years of his stay before he was
granted pensionnaire status at the Academy in 1759, under the directorship of
Joseph-Charles Natoire (see cat. 16).3 Robert remained in Rome – with
intermittent study trips to Naples, Florence and elsewhere in Italy – for
eleven years, responding to the fertile archaeological climate, sparked by
recent excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum as well as the newly opened
Capitoline Museum, and indulging his fascination for classical ruins. Natoire
encouraged Robert and the other students to sketch antiquities outdoors in
situ, in the Roman campagna and beyond. Robert also took inspiration from the
work of other mentors including the celebrated vedu- tista, Giovanni Paolo
Panini (c. 1692–1765), and the printmaker and draughtsman, Giovanni Battista
Piranesi (1720–78). With his friend and compatriot, Jean-Honoré Fragonard
(1732–1806), Robert enthusiastically sketched classical monuments and
antiquities in and around Rome, later fusing real and imagined elements to
create highly original compositions – often punctuated by ancient ruins or
dilapidated architectural fragments – that would become a trademark of his
work. The vast repository of motifs amassed by him during this productive Roman
period, coupled to his facile draughtsmanship, would serve him well for years
to come. He became a star pupil of the Academy and his drawings in particular
would be eagerly sought after before he returned to France in 1765, where he
entered the Académie Royale and successfully exhibited at the Salons.4 160
Undoubtedly one of his finest red chalk drawings, the present study shows the
artist in a rare moment of casual repose, seated at a table and drawing, legs
casually extended and crossed, stockinged feet resting carelessly on a large
portfolio of drawings lying open on the floor.5 His relaxed, almost dishevelled
appearance and level of undress – the fallen left knee-sock slumped around his
ankle, the unbut- toned breeches and the disregarded, rumpled, coat, strewn on
a chair opposite alongside his hat and the long shadows cast – all suggest that
it is the end of a long day and he is at home, resuming a favourite activity:
drawing. The focus of Robert’s gaze is the bust of an attractive young woman in
right profile placed on the table. With his chalk-filled porte-crayon in hand,
he stares intently at her, poised to sketch. Her head titled downwards, she
returns his steady gaze; there is a palpable tension between them. However, the
presence of a third figure threatens to interrupt their private moment. With a
side-glance, a bearded man drawn on a sheet pinned up on the wall between them
also watches the young woman, thereby completing an amusing love triangle of
Robert’s invention. The object of the men’s attention is the Roman Empress,
Faustina the Younger (c. ad 125/30–175), daughter of Emperor Antonius Pius and
Faustina the Elder (fig. 1). She married Emperor Marcus Aurelius, perhaps the
bearded rival in the drawing on the wall.6 Her marble bust was discovered in
Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli and in 1748 presented by Benedict XIV to the
Capitoline Museum where Robert would have seen it.7 Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, the
Roman sculptor and antiquities restorer, who worked on the original for a year
after its discovery and made several copies after it, was an acquaintance of
Robert’s who occasionally visited his studio (cat. 18).8 In fact, his red chalk
drawing in the Château Borély in Marseilles (cat. 18, fig. 6) records an
antiquities restorer, quite possibly Cavaceppi himself, working on a female
bust.9 The present composition is repeated in a small signed painting in the
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in 161 room’s generous proportions, the
beamed ceiling and for- mal window, the elegant Louis XV-style table– are
consistent with those found in Robert’s detailed sanguine of Breteuil’s grand
Salone.13 Thus, it is highly likely that the composition was conceived during
his stay at the Ambassador’s residence, 1763–65, and that it is Breteuil’s
guest room that is shown. Perhaps the drawing, more a ricordo than a
preliminary study for the painting, was intended as a gift to the host, as a
gesture of gratitude and friendship. A highly regarded collector and patron of
the arts, Breteuil was an ardent admirer of Robert’s work.14 At the outset of
his posting in Rome, Natoire praised the diplomat as an informed collector who
already owned ‘quelque chose’ by Robert.15 Breteuil would later procure many of
Robert’s drawings as well as paintings.16 A close friendship between patron and
artist followed, evidently based on a shared love of art and antiquity in all
its forms.17 Together they translated texts by Virgil and took sightseeing
trips in Rome, and at least one to Florence.18 The Ambassador asked Robert to
accompany him to Sicily ‘pour visiter et dessiner les beaux morceaux antiques
qui sont dans ses cantons-là’, but, it seems, the trip never took place.19
Representations of artists in the act of drawing antique sculpture and other
works of art are recurrent in Robert’s oeuvre along with representations of
classical architecture in ruin. Detailed studies made on the spot such as The
Draughts- man at the Capitoline, c. 1763 (p. 56, fig. 95) convey something of
the wonder and excitement that he must have felt at 20 encountering these
celebrated sights for the first time. He often represented himself or his
associates in grandiose, stage-like settings or as art tourists, of the sort
that he would frequently have encountered. But as an intimate scene of private
contemplation, the present drawing stands apart Fig. 2. Hubert Robert, The
Artist in his Studio, c. 1763–65, oil on canvas, 37 × 48 cm, Museum Boijmans
van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2586 (OK) Fig. 3. Hubert Robert, Young Artists in the
Studio, red chalk, with framing lines in pen and brown ink, 352 × 412 mm,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1972.118.23 from these. It bears a close
resemblance to a composition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig. 3) showing
the same room but on another day with visitors: a bare-footed servant and two
artists – one drawing, the other inspecting the portfolio.21 A little-known red
chalk study formerly in the Camille Groult collection in Paris (fig. 4)
probably preceded 22 the present drawing. It shows the same relaxed figure
alone – Robert – in identical attire but fully dressed and outdoors, lying on
the ground and sketching, presumably after his favourite subject: the Antique.
Fig. 4. Hubert Robert, Le Dessinateur, red chalk, 300 × 400 mm, present
whereabouts unknown Fig. 1. Bust of Empress Faustina the Younger,
147–48 ad, marble, 60 cm (h), Musei Capitolini, Rome, inv. MC449 Rotterdam
(fig. 2).10 It is of similar dimensions to the drawing but a few modifications
were made: Robert no longer has a full head of hair and the open portfolio used
as a foot rest is now safely closed, while another leans against his chair. The
view of the room is wider and includes a high, beamed ceiling, a generously
sized window and a table on the right, on which rest tools and utensils. A
further nod to antiquity is a lively copy after the celebrated Roman sculpture,
Germanicus (cat. 33, fig. 4) on a pedestal on the left. While it was found in
Rome, in Robert’s time the statue was already in Versailles.11 But its fame
endured in Italy and a plaster cast was available for study at the French
Academy in Rome. Further playful details were introduced: a framed picture and
precariously hung drawings (including a possible por- trait of Faustina); a
charming dog that takes a keen interest in Robert’s casually flung slippers.
While the intimate nature of the scene, bordering on genre, suggests this is
indeed Robert’s private space, its spacious grandeur is not that of his student
lodging at the Academy. When his official term as pensionnaire ended in October
1763, his stay was extended by the largesse of the French Ambassador of the
Order of Malta to the Holy See, the Bailli de Breteuil (1723–85), who housed
him at his palace on the Via dei Condotti until he returned to Paris in July 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 avl According to N. Schwed (e-mail, 30 July 2014), this
information was provided to Christie’s at the time of the Decourcelle sale in
2002. Taillasson 1808, p. 473. Letters exchanged between the influential
Marquis de Marigny, Director General of King Louis XV’s buildings (and brother
of his mistress, Madame de Pompadour), and Charles-Joseph Natoire, Director of
the French Academy in Rome published by A. de Montaiglon and J. Guiffrey
between 1887–1912 provide essential details about Robert and his stay in Italy.
For Robert and Choiseul, see ibid., vol. 11, p. 262, no.
5331. Collector and connoisseur, Pierre-Jean Mariette preferred Robert’s draw-
ings to his paintings: ‘ses tableaux est fort inferieur à ses desseins [sic],
dans lesquels il met beaucoup d’esprit’ (Mariette 1850–60, vol. 4, p. 414). Letters between Marigny and Natoire mention requests from Mariette for
drawings: Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912, vol. 11, p. 365, no. 5477; p. 367,
no. 5483; p. 388, no. 5521; p. 428, no. 5589. The traditional view that the
drawing is a self-portrait (Paris 1922, p. 16, no. 85; Paris 1933, p. 124,
under no. 197), upheld in the recent literature, need not be questioned. The
figure resembles Augustin Pajou’s marble bust of Robert (1780) in the École
Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s 1788 portrait
of him in the Louvre. He has all the characteristics of an emperor from the
Antonine period. It could well be a reference to the bust of Marcus Aurelius in
the Capitoline Museum. See Fittschen and Zanker 1985, vol. 1, pp. 76–77, no.
69, vol. 2, pls 79, 81–82. A copy by Cavaceppi in terracotta is preserved in
the Museo del Palazzo di Venezia, see Rome 1994, p. 104, no. 19, repr. For the
bust, see Fittschen and Zanker 1983, vol. 1, pp.20–21, no. 19, vol. 2, pls
24–26. For its restoration, see London 1983, pp. 66–67. Cavaceppi’s posthumous
inventory of 1802 mentions two marble Faustinas and one plaster cast 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 (Gasparri and Ghiandoni 1994, p. 264, no. 310, p.
270, no. 624 and p. 286, no. 109). For surviving copies by Cavaceppi,
predominantly acquired by English collectors, see Howard 1970, p. 123, figs 8
and 9, p. 128; Howard 1982, p. 240, no. 6, p. 313, fig. 133, pp. 83, 251, nos.
25–26, p. 326, fig. 211, p. 264, no. 14, p. 268, no. 15, p. 419; I. Bignamini,
in London and Rome 1996–97, pp. 211–12, no. 159; D. Walker, in Philadelphia and
Houston 2000, p. 242, no. 120. This is not, however, Faustina, as Marianne
Roland Michel proposed (Marseille 2001, p. 96, no. 109). For the painting, see
J. Ebeling, in Ottawa, Washington D.C. and elsewhere 2003–04, pp. 308–09, no. 92,
372, with select previous literature listed. See Haskell and Penny 1981, pp.
119–20, no. 42, fig. 114. Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912, vol. 12, p. 86,
no. 5856. Paris, Louvre. Méjanès 2006, p. 77, no. 33 and Ottawa and Caen
2011–12, pp. 140–41, no. 53. The connection was first noted by J. de Cayeux in
Rome 1990–91, p. 191, under cat. no. 135. On Breteuil, see Yavchitz-Koehler
1987, pp. 369–78, Depasquale 2001, and Ottawa and Caen 2011–12, pp. 13–17 and
140–41, no. 53. Letter from Natoire to Marigny, 25 April 1759 (Montaiglon and
Guiffrey 1887–1912, vol. 11, pp. 272–73, no. 5346). For the drawings, see
letter from Natoire to Marigny, 5 January 1763, Montaiglon and Guiffrey
1887–1912, vol. 11, p. 455, no. 5636. Compositions by Robert are among the copies
made in 1770 by Ango (active 1759 – after 1773) after works in Breteuil’s
collection (Choisel 1986, nos 23–26, 44, 80). Their close rapport was recorded
by Robert’s friend, the painter Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (Gabillot 1895, pp.
80–81). Breteuil owned antique works as well as copies after the antique by
contemporary artists. Some are recorded in drawings by Ango (Choisel 1986, nos.
29, 45, 47, 51, 54–57, 71–72, 74–75, 83 and 125) including a small bronze Venus
Pudica, no. 56, and a copy by Laurent Guiard (1723–88) after the Venus
Calllypige from the Farnese collec- tion (no. 75). Additional antique works and
copies are listed in Breteuil’s posthumous sale in Paris of 16 January 1786,
including a copy of the Gladiator by Luc-François Breton (1731–1800), no. 135,
and a copy of the bust of Germanicus in the Capitoline, no. 143. Although no
bust of Faustina is listed, he may have owned the copy that Robert draws in the
present drawing. Gabillot 1895, pp. 61, 81–82. Letter from Natoire to Marigny,
5 January 1763 and another from Marigny to Natoire, 20 February 1763.
Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912, vol. 11, p. 455, no. 5636 and p. 462, no.
5649. J.-P. Cuzin, in Paris 2000–01, p. 373, no. 178. Michel 1998–2000, pp. 60,
62, fig. 13. Sold Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 21 March 1952, lot 52. Present
whereabouts unknown. 163 of 1765. 162 12 Certain decorative features in
the painting – the 18. Hubert Robert (Paris 1733–1808 Paris) The Roman
Studio of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi c. 1764–65 Black chalk, 339 × 443 mm Inscribed
verso l.r. in pencil: ‘Salon de 1783 / No. 61 Intérieur d’un atelier à Rome /
dans lequel on restaure des statues / antiques / Cet atelier est pratiqué et
construit / dans les debris d’un ancien temple / 5 pieds de large sur 3 pieds 9
pounces de haut’ watermark: A coat of arms, possibly containing a star, three
hills and the initials ‘CB’ below, surmounted by a Cardinal’s hat with tassels
on each side (see Heawood 1950, nos 791–99). provenance: Charles Albert de
Burlet (1882–1956), Berlin, around 1910; Sold Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, 13
November 2006, lot 1944; Private collection, Switzerland, in 2006; Le Claire
Kunst, Hamburg, in 2011; Sold Villa Grisebach, Berlin, 28 November 2013, lot
307R, from whom acquired. literature: Le Claire Kunst 2011, no. 13 (unpaginated),
repr.; Yarker and Hornsby 2012-13, pp. 65–66, fig. 37; Körner 2013, lot 307R,
repr. exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Katrin Bellinger collection, inv.
no. 2013-030 A visit to the studio of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716–99) the
sculptor, dealer, antiquarian, collector and especially, restorer of ancient
sculpture was essential for any serious art tourist or collector in Rome on the
Grand Tour.1 Known as the ‘Museo Cavaceppi’, by the 1770s it was listed in
guide- books as among the top sights of the Eternal City.2 Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe (1749–1832), who lived nearby, and visited it in 1788 noted that one
could experience in the studio ancient sculpture from close proximity in all
its gran- deur and beauty.3 The painters, Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) and Giovanni
Casanova (1728/30–1795) and the sculptor, Antonio Canova (1757–1822), also came
to see the collection.4 The ‘Museo’ was an international meeting place,
frequented by many artists including the English sculptor, Joseph Nollekens,
who worked for Cavaceppi as an assistant in the 1760s, and the English painter,
Charles Grignoin, who resided with him in 1787.5 Strategically located between
the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo and thus in the social hub of Rome,
the sprawling workshop was graced by European royalty – Catherine the Great,
Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen, Princess Sophia Albertina of Sweden, her
brother, King Gustav III – and a steady stream of English Grand Tourists like
Charles Townley (see cat. 28), many of whom became important clients.6 From a
modest background, Cavaceppi trained as a sculp- tor before enrolling in the
Accademia di San Luca in 1732. Albani, the nephew of Pope Clement XI and then
the most respected private collector of antiquities in Rome, appoints Cavaceppi
as his personal restorer. The association brought him many profitable
commissions from foreign tourists for whom he found antique statues, restored
them, or made copies, in marble or plaster. He also created original works,
rarely signed, that were often confused with authentic antique originals.
Through his friend, the art historian and archaeol- 164 ogist, Johann Joachim
Winckelman (1717–68), who, in 1764, published The History of Art in Antiquity
(Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums), Cavaceppi secured many English clients,
taken with the current mania for classical antiquity. He later served as chief
restorer to the Pope at the Museo Clementino and was made Knight of the Golden
Spur in 1770. In 1768 Cavaceppi published the first volume of his Raccolta
d’antiche statue, busti, teste cognite ed altre sculture antiche con- taining
sixty plates of antique statues that had been repaired in his studio, often
‘corrected’ with missing or broken parts filled in. Over half of these had been
acquired by English collectors.7 A year later, he published the second volume,
essentially a promotional catalogue with works available for purchase, followed
by a third in 1772. Illustrating a total of 196 works, these influential
volumes, the first of their kind, helped to satisfy the seemingly insatiable
demand for unblemished antique sculpture – free of fragmentary vestiges or
other perceived flaws – and to encourage an emerging neo-classical aesthetic.
For modern scholars they serve as an indispensible tool for identifying works
he restored. By 1756 Cavaceppi established his vast studio on the Via del
Babbuino, a workshop and showroom. Cavaceppi employed a range of skilled and
unskilled workers with different roles and specialisations, fifteen of whom
have been identified by name, with Giuseppe Angelini and Carlo Albacini being
the most accomplished.8 The frontispiece to the first volume of Cavaceppi’s
Raccolta provides a fascinating look at his active studio with assistants
exercising different techniques of restoration and antiques in various stages
of completion (fig. 1). It offers a glimpse at what must have been a sprawling
complex of rooms with distinctive architectural details – high ceilings,
lattice windows and an enfilade of vaulted archways connecting each room, one
leading to an open garden courtyard at the back.9 165
Fig. 1. View of Cavaceppi’s Roman Studio, engraving, in Raccolta
d’antiche statue, vol. 1, frontispiece, Rome, 1768. Photo: Warburg Institute,
London Hubert Robert certainly encountered Cavaceppi during his Roman sojourn,
1754–65 (see cat. 17), and visited his studio on occasion, as this drawing
testifies. Executed in soft black chalk, it offers a view of one of the many
rooms in the Cavaceppi workshop. As in the engraving, there is a high ceiling
with lattice windows, statues and blocks of stone are scattered about, and
affixed to the wall on the left, is the same type of wooden structure and lead
point suspended on a cord used for measuring sculpture.10 With a chisel in one
hand and a mallet in the other, a restorer dressed in formal attire, perhaps
Cavaceppi himself, is busy worker-cutting on the cascading drapery of an
enormous statue of an armless woman. We can identify this as Cavaceppi’s studio
with virtual certainty as two works in the drawing were illustrated in perhaps
Cavaceppi himself, working on a female bust (fig. 6). Captivated by the theme
of the artist at work, Robert would return to the subject of the restorer’s
studio. In 1783 he successfully showed the impressive, rather generically
entitled, The Studio of an Antiquities Restorer in Rome at the Salon (Toledo
Museum of Art), which, though clearly an idealised vision featuring some of the
most famous antique works of the day (including the River Nile, Cupid and
Psyche, etc.), is also a wistful reminiscence of the artist’s own Roman years
and passionate study of antique statuary: a diminutive figure of an artist
sketching is visible in the foreground.18 In another little-known privately
owned picture attributed to Robert, well-clad visitors admire antique statues
in a sculptor’s studio while the ubiquitous artist is seen drawing (fig. 7).
Though certain features suggest the small painting may also represent
Cavaceppi’s studio, as with the Toledo canvas, topographical exactitude is tempered
with a more generalised, romantic – and highly saleable view – of remnants from
Rome’s ancient. For his life and work, see especially Howard 1970, Howard 1982,
London 1983, Howard 1991, Gasparri and Ghiandoni 1994, Rome 1994, Piva 2000,
Barr 2008, Weiss and Dostert 2000, Bignamini and Hornsby 2010, pp. 252–55; Piva
2010–11, C. Piva in Rome 2010–11, pp. 418–19, no. IV.1 and Meyer and Piva 2011,
pp. 149–55 (for essential bibliography). Howard 1988, p. 479; Piva 2000, p. 5;
Barr 2008, p. 86. Goethe 1827–42, p. 540, cited in C. Piva in Rome 2010–11b,
pp. 418–19, no. IV.1. Piva 2000, pp. 6, 17, note 4; Honour and Mariuz 2007, pp.
26, 60–63. For Nollekens, see Howard 1964, pp. 177–89; Coltman 2003, pp.
371–96. For Grignoin, see Ingamells 1997, pp. 433–34. Howard 1988, p. 479. For
Cavaceppi’s works from British collections, see London 1983. Haskell and Penny
1981, p. 68. Barr 2008, p. 104 and p. 184, Appendix B. Some of the same
topographical details are discernible in a little-known floor plan of the building
(Piva 2000, p. 10, fig. 7). For more on this device and an engraving
demonstrating its use (published by D. Diderot and J. le Rond d’Alembert in the
Encyclopédie in 1765), see Myssok 2010, pp. 272–73, fig. 13.2. As first noted
by Stefan Körner (Körner 2013, under lot 307R). Ibid., under lot lot 307R; U.
Müller-Kaspar, in Hüneke 2009, p. 416, no. 270. Körner 2013, under lot lot
307R; U. Müller-Kaspar, in Hüneke 2009, p. 430, no. 283. Müller-Kaspar 2009, p.
395. D. Kreikenbom, in Hüneke 2009, pp. 578–79, no. 357. According to
Winckelmann, many statues (including Kalliope and possibly also Lucilla) were
acquired by Bianconi in 1766 from the sale of Cavaliere Pietro Natali’s
collection in Rome. Conceivably, they were brought to Cavaceppi’s studio while
they were still in Natali’s possession (Müller- Kaspar 2009, p. 395; U.
Müller-Kaspar, in Hüneke 2009, pp. 416, 430). Marseille 2001, p. 96, no. 109. Guiffrey 1869–72, vol. 32, p.25, no. 61:
‘L’intérieur d’un Attelier à Rome, dans lequel on restaure des statues
antiques. Cet Attelier est pratiqué et construit dans les debris d’un ancien
Temple’. Fig.
2. Lucilla Sotto sembianza d’Urania, anch’essa or esistente in Germania,
engraving in Raccolta d’antiche statue, vol. 1, Rome, 1768, pl. 58. Photo: Warburg Institute, London Fig. 3. Kore as Urania, body, Antonine,
c. 150 ad after a Greek model, 4th century bc; head, 160–170 ad; marble, 270 cm
(h), Berlin, SMBPK, Antikensammlung, Sk 379 in the drawing, to the right, the
muse Kalliope, lost in Berlin during World War II, was also restored by
Cavaceppi (figs 4–5).13 Both were acquired in 1766 by the Bolognese doctor and
antiquarian, Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi, another friend of Winkelmann’s, for
King Frederick William II of Prussia and assigned to Cavaceppi for restoration
before being sent to the Sansssouci Palace in Potsdam in 1767.14 The child’s
sarcophagus visible in the drawing on the left wall is also similar to that
preserved today in Charlottenhof Palace in Potsdam though it does not appear in
the Raccolta.15 The dating of Robert’s drawing is problematic as in 1766, the
year Lucilla and Kalliope were acquired by Bianconi, the Fig. 4. Kalliope,
engraving in Raccolta d’antiche statue, vol. 1, Rome, 1768, pl. 45. Photo:
Warburg Institute, London Fig. 5. Kalliope, Roman,
marble, 98 cm, formerly Berlin, SMBPK, Antikensammlung, Sk 600, lost c. 1945
Fig. 6. Hubert Robert, L’Atelier du restaurateur de sculptures antiques, black
chalk, 368 × 323 mm, Château Borély, Marseilles, Inv. 68-194 painter was
already back in Paris, having left Rome in July 1765. However, it seems highly
likely that the works were lodged in Cavaceppi’s studio before their
acquisition and, indeed, they are drawn in their pre-restoration state.16
During the same period Robert probably made the black chalk drawing now in
Marseille showing an antiquities restorer, 17 Fig. 7. Hubert Robert, Studio of
a Sculpture Restorer, oil on panel, 13 × 10 cm, private collection. Photo: Witt
Library his Raccolta. 166 11 One of them, the monumental female
statue in the centre, re-appears in the publication, with arms added and an
entirely different head (fig. 2). Cavaceppi identified her as Lucilla, daughter
of Marcus Aurelius, with the attrib- utes of Urania, the muse of Astronomy
(‘Lucilla Sotto sembian- za d’Urania, anch’essa or esistente in Germania’). A
staggering 220-cm in height she is preserved today, with further restorations,
in Berlin (fig. 3).12 The seated figure behind her past. avl 167 19.
Georg Martin Preissler (Nürnberg 1700–54 Nürnberg) after Giovanni Domenico
Campiglia (Lucca 1692–1775 Rome) Self-Portrait of Campiglia Drawing 1739
Engraving, first state (before the lettering) 226 × 167 mm (image); 315 × 223
mm (sheet) Inscribed l.l. below image in pencil: ‘Campiglia se ipse del.’;
l.r.: in pencil: ‘G. M. Preisler.Sc.Nor.; and l.c. in pencil: ‘Joh. Dominicus
Campiglia, / Pictor Florent. Delineator / Musei Fiorentini.’ provenance:
Trinity Fine Art, London, 1999, from whom acquired. literature: Le Blanc
1854–88, vol. 3, p. 244, no. 6, ‘Campiglia (Giov. – Dom.). 1739. In – fol. -1er
état : avant le lettere.’ exhibitions: London 1999b, p. 8, no. 16, not repr.
Katrin Bellinger collection, inv. no. 1999–054 A prolific and
accomplished draughtsman, painter and reproductive engraver, Campiglia was a
central figure in promoting and disseminating images of the Antique during the
middle decades of the 18th century and therefore, is a key figure in the
present exhibition.1 His formative years were spent training with his uncle and
local painters in Lucca, Bologna and Florence where he studied drawing, as well
as anatomy and perspective and made copies after the Old Masters. By 1716, he
was residing in Rome studying the most important collections of antique
sculpture. That year he received a first prize for painting and for drawings to
illustrate a booklet for the Accademia di San Luca. He was already respected
for his wide culture and his work was admired by English collectors like
Richard Topham, who esteemed his refined and highly finished chalk studies of
antique sculpture, as well as his portraits.2 His close involve- ment in two
lavishly illustrated and highly successful and influential publications largely
devoted to antique sculpture – the Museum Florentinum and the Museo Capitolino
(cat. 20) – brought him lasting fame and consolidated the taste for classical
antiquity that continued through the rest of the 18th century and beyond.3 In
the early 1730s the Florentine antiquarian, Anton Francesco Gori (1691–1757),
began to assemble a set of vol- umes that aimed to provide a visual record of
the art collec- tions of Florence, mainly those of the Medici, the ruling
dynasty. He commissioned Campiglia, already in the city in 1726, and others to
make drawings of the works selected to be engraved. The Museum Florentinum was
published between 1731 and 1766. It comprised twelve large volumes divided into
four parts: Gemmae antiquae ex Thesauro Mediceo et privatorum dactyliothecis
florentiae..., devoted to engraved gems (1731–32); Statuae antiquae deorum et
virorum illustrium, on antique statues and monuments (1734), Antiqua numismata
aurea et argentea, dedicated to ancient coins (1740–42) and, lastly, Serie di
ritratti degli eccellenti pittori, illustrating 320 portraits of prominent
artists, published in 1752–66. This last volume, based on art- ists’
self-portraits in the Uffizi’s collection, is of particular relevance here, as
we shall see later. This rare engraving by Preissler, hitherto unpublished and
known only in a single impression of the first state, is probably based on a
now untraced self-portrait of Campiglia.4 Without explanation, Le Blanc dates
the print to 1739 – when the artist was 47.5 Wearing an ermine collar with a
crisp, white, open-necked shirt and directly engaging the viewer, he presents
himself as straightforward, successful and brim- ming with confidence. Assuming
that Le Blanc’s date is cor- rect, the print appeared at time when Campiglia
was enjoying considerable success. The first two parts of the Museum
Florentinum had already been published, he had begun work on the Capitolino
(see cat. 20) and, precisely in 1739, he had been appointed Superintendent of
the Calcografia Camerale, the papal printing press. These successes culmi-
nated in his nomination for membership of the Accademia di San Luca in November
of that same year.6 Resting a sheet of paper against a drawings portfolio held
in his left hand, with his right hand he is drawing with a porte-crayon a model
of the Belvedere Antinous standing on the table before him (fig.). At the
statue’s feet is a figurine of a herm with the head of a youth, perhaps
Mercury, and two medals, one showing a man holding a lyre, who may be Homer.7
It is not surprising that Campiglia, whose reputation was established through
skilfully reproducing artefacts from the ancient world, should present himself
with the Belvedere Antinous, one of the most celebrated statues to survive from
antiquity. Renowned since its discovery in the 16th century and for its
placement in the Belvedere court, it soon ranked among the most famous statues
of Rome.8 Casts of the statue of the handsome youth, the lover of the Roman emperor,
Hadrian, who drowned himself in the Nile and was deified by 168same year.6
Resting a sheet of paper against a drawings portfolio held in his left hand,
with his right hand he is drawing with a porte-crayon a model of the Belvedere
Antinous standing on the table before him (fig. 1). At the statue’s feet is a
figurine of a herm with the head of a youth, perhaps Mercury, and two medals,
one showing a man holding a lyre, who may be Homer.7 It is not surprising that
Campiglia, whose reputation was established through skilfully reproducing
artefacts from the ancient world, should present himself with the Belvedere
Antinous, one of the most celebrated statues to survive from antiquity.
Renowned since its discovery in the 16th century and for its placement in the
Belvedere court, it soon ranked among the most famous statues of Rome.8 Casts
of the statue of the handsome youth, the lover of the Roman emperor, Hadrian,
who drowned himself in the Nile and was deified by 168 169 adopts the
same pose in the print as he did for his person- ification of painting in the
little-known Il Genio della Pittura of around 1739–40 in the Accademia
Nazionale di San Luca (fig. 2).13 The chalk holder becomes a paint brush and
the drawings portfolio a canvas. Not coincidentally, Campiglia seems to have
donated this painting as his entry work to the Academy c. 1740, about
contemporary with the present engraving.14 He cleverly fuses iconographic
elements in an amusing black chalk study of c. 1737–38 in the British Museum
(fig. 3) acquired by Charles Frederick (1709–85) while in Rome on the Grand
Tour, where he depicts himself drawing in the company of a seated monkey who
playfully holds up a paint brush, a clear allegorical reference to art
imitating nature or ‘art as the ape of nature’ as Aristotle describes it in the
Poetics.15 Characterised as ‘a very well-bred communica- tive man’, Campiglia
and his portraits were enormously popular with English collectors.16 Campiglia
made several other self-portraits throughout his career.17 Of particular
relevance is the painting made around 1766 for his pupil and collaborator,
Pietro Antonio Pazzi (c. 1706–after 1766) and now in the Uffizi.18 It shows the
artist at ease, his hands casually resting on his ever-present portfolio. The
picture appears, like so many of the Uffizi self-portraits, as an engraving by
the same Pazzi in the final volume of the Museum Florentinum (fig. 4).19 In
Pazzi’s engraving the format and central image dimensions are nearly identical
to our print of Campiglia by Georg Martin Preissler, who, not coincidentally,
engraved other portrait plates in the Museum Florentinum. Furthermore, the
pencil lettering, Joh. Dominicus Campiglia, / Pictor Florent. Delineator,
beneath the image in our engraving is similar in style and format to the
engraved inscriptions accompanying the other portraits in the book. Also
telling is the final pencil inscription, Delineator Musei Fiorentini, under his
name in the print. All this evidence strongly suggests that Campiglia intended
to use the present image for the Museum Florentinum – and had it engraved by
Preissler for that purpose – but he decided not to use it. Perhaps it served as
a kind of test-print for the engraved self-portraits in the volume. Although
the portrait series was not published until 1752–66, by 1739, Gori and
Campiglia would already have started to plan the format of the later sections.
Interestingly, Charles Le Blanc similarly describes Preissler’s engravings of
Dürer, Eglon van der Neer, Rubens and Raphael, all destined for the Museum
Florentinum, as first states ‘before the lettering’.20 But whatever our print’s
true purpose, by the time the portrait volumes appeared, Campiglia, then well
into his sixties and in the twilight of his career opted to present a more
recent and relaxed version of himself. avl Fig. 2. Giovanni Domenico
Campiglia, Genius of Painting, c. 1739–40, oil on canvas, 48 × 63.3 cm,
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome, Inv. 0075 Fig. 3. Giovanni Domenico Campiglia, Self-Portrait of Campiglia Drawing, with a
Monkey Seated on the Table at Left, c. 1737–38, black chalk, 417 × 258 mm,
Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, 1865,0114.820 Fig.
4. Pietro Antonio Pazzi after Giovanni Domenico Campiglia, Self-Portrait of
Campiglia, engraving in Museum Florentinum, Florence, vol. 12, 1766, plate
XXII, 274 × 176 mm (plate), Sir John Soane’s Museum Library, London, 2848
Fig. 1. Belvedere Antinous, Roman copy of the Hadrianic period
(117–138 ad) from a Greek original of the 4th century bc, marble, 195 cm (h),
Vatican Museums, Rome, inv. 907 the grief-stricken emperor, were produced
almost immedi- ately after its discovery and copies in marble and bronze were
made through the 17th century.9 Considered to embody perfection, according to
Bellori the statue was the subject of studies in ideal proportion by François
Duquesnoy (1597– 1643) and Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) (p. 47, fig. 68). The
figure had wide-reaching appeal to collectors and connois- seurs, and enticed a
range of artists, who, from the 16th century included it in portraits.10 During
the 18th century small-scale models in bronze or marble, like that seen in the
engraving, were produced in large numbers with ‘restored’ arms, as seen here.
Archaeologist and art historian, Winckelmann, no doubt contributed to the
statue’s elevated status even more with his claim, ‘our Nature will not easily
create a body as perfect as that of the Antinous admir- andus’.11 The widely
held belief that the statue was the embodiment of ideal beauty would be upheld into
the 19th century: even the usually acerbic William Hogarth admitted its
proportions were ‘the most perfect . . . of any of the antique statues’.12
Campiglia was not shy and his other self-portraits make a compelling comparison
with this one. Interestingly, he 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 For essential biography, see
Prosperi Valenti 1974, pp. 539–41; Quieto 1984a; Quieto 1984b. Through his
agent, Francesco Ferdinano Imperiali, Topham commis- sioned Campiglia and
others, including the young Pompeo Batoni, to make dozens, if not hundreds of
drawings with the aim of systematically illus- trating Roman collections of
antiquities. Many of these drawings are now preserved at Eton College. See
Connor Bulman 2002, pp. 343–57 and Windsor 2013, pp. 11, 14–15. The corpus of
his drawings for the Museum Florentinum are in the Uffizi in Florence (Quieto
1984b, p. 10) and for the Museo Capitolino, in the Istituto Nazionale per la
Grafica in Rome (Quieto 1984b, pp. 10, 17–26, 29–36; I. Sgarbozza in Rome
2010–11b, p. 402, no. II.15a-b). It is listed by C. Le Blanc (1854–88, vol. 3,
p. 244, no. 6) among the prints by G. M. Preissler: ‘Campiglia (Giov. – Dom.).
1739. In – fol. -1er état : avant le lettere. Frauenholz, 4 flor.’ To the
knowledge of the present writer, no impression of the second state exists nor,
for that matter, has either state previously been published or discussed. The
name and price Le Blanc men- tions – Frauenholz, 4 florins – refer to the
Nuremberg-based print dealer and publisher, Johann Friedrich Frauenholz
(1758–1822), who may have owned the catalogued impression and who sold (or
acquired) it for the price of 4 florins. While it is possible that the present
impression is the one described, none of Frauenholz’s collector’s marks or
inscriptions (L. 951, L. 994, L. 1044 and L. 1458) appear on it. Campiglia’s
relatively youthful appearance suggests the drawn or painted original may have
been executed a decade or so earlier. He was proposed by Sebastiano Conca on 15
November 1739 and his mem- bership confirmed, 3 January 1740 (Quieto 1983, p.
3). As noted by Eloisa Dodero (personal communication), the herm is similar to
the one seen in the background of Campiglia and Pazzi’s engraving, Students
Copying Antiquities at the Capitoline Museum (see following entry, cat. no.
20). 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Haskell and Penny (1981, pp. 139–42,
no. 4) give a full account of the sculp- ture’s history and reception. See also
Krahn 1996. See V. Krahn in Rome 2000b, vol. 2, pp. 403–04, no. 9. Haskell and
Penny 1981, p. 142 and Krahn 1996. Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 142; and
Winckelmann 1968, p. 153. Hogarth 1753, pp. 81–83. Faldi 1977, pp. 504, 508,
fig. 8. Quieto 1983, p. 5; Rome 1968, p. 22, no. 5. Liverpool 1994-95, p. 72,
no. 19. Ibid., p. 72. Gentleman’s Magazine 1853, vol. 40, p. 237, as quoted by
H. Macandrew 1978, p. 138. Painted self-portraits are in the Palazzo Altieri,
Viterbo (formerly Faldi collection, Rome; Quieto 1983, pp. 5–6, 8, fig. 3, c.
1726–28), the Lemme collection, Rome (ibid., 1983, pp. 5, 7–8, fig. 4, 1732–34).
See also the two mentioned in note 18, below. Drawn self-portraits of a later
date have appeared on the London art market: Chaucer Fine Arts, 2003 (London
2003a, no. 12), Christie’s, December 6, 2012, lot 56 and Christie’s, April 21
1998, lot 126. See Quieto 1983, pp. 4–5, fig. 2 and Quieto 2007, pp. 93–94,
fig. 27. As that author noted, it reprises the composition of an earlier work
painted for the Accademia di San Luca (1983, p. 5, cover). Although in 1766 the
painting was not yet in the Uffizi – it was not left by Pazzi to the Grand
Ducal collection until 1768 (Quieto 1983, p. 5) – it is likely that at that
date he had already planned to bequeath it, given the self- portraits in the
Museum Florentinum are based on the Uffizi’s collection. Le Blanc 1854–88, vol.
3, p. 244, nos. 8, 23, 28, 30. Interestingly, Le Blanc indicates that the Dürer
and Raphael were also once owned by Frauenholz. It seems that all these early
first states were in a folio together. 170 171 20. Pietro Antonio
Pazzi (Florence c. 1706 – after 1766 Florence) after Giovanni Domenico
Campiglia (Lucca 1692–1775 Rome) Students Copying Antiquities at the Capitoline
Museum 1755 Engraving in Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, Musei Capitolini, vol. 3,
Rome, 1755, p. 1 99 × 186 mm (plate), 444 × 287 mm (sheet) Inscribed l.l.:
‘Gio. Dom. Campiglia inv. e disegn.’; and l. r.: ‘P. Ant. Pazzi incis.’ provenance: Robert Adam (1728–92); his sale, Christie’s,
London, 20–21 May 1818; purchased by Sir John Soane (1753–1837), not listed in
the Christie’s sale catalogue (according to hand list, Sir John Soane’s Museum,
Priv. Corr. XVI.E.3.12: ‘Books purchased at Mr Adam’s sale’). literature:
Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 84, fig. 46; Lyon 1998–99, pp. 109–10, under no. 89,
not repr. (A. Themelly); Paris 2000–01, p. 370, fig. 2; Macsotay 2010, p. 194,
fig. 9.3. exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Sir John Soane’s Museum
Library, London, 4033 exhibited in london only Few images capture the process
of learning to draw after the Antique in 18th-century Rome as vividly as
Campiglia and Pazzi’s densely populated engraving. More readily accessible than
the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican (cats 5 and 6) and the private
aristocratic collections, such as the Borghese and Farnese (cats 6 and 21), the
Capitoline Museum was the ideal venue for students to draw in situ from some of
the most celebrated antiquities preserved in Rome. Founded in 1471 with Pope
Sixtus IV’s (r. 1471–84) dona- tion of several important ancient bronzes – the
She Wolf, the colossal bronze head and hand of Constantine, the Spinario and
the Camillus – all preserved until then in the Lateran Palace, the Capitoline
grew in time to become one of the largest and most prestigious collections of
classical antiqui- ties ever assembled in Rome.1 In 1734, in conjunction with
the recent acquisition of the celebrated collection of Cardinal Alessandro
Albani, and thanks to the enlightened policy of Pope Clement XII (r. 1730–40),
the Capitoline opened as a public museum.2 Established with the two-fold civic
and educational purpose of preserving and making accessible to the public the
city’s antiquities and to cultivate ‘the practice and advancement of young
students of the Liberal Arts’, the museum soon became a lure for Italian and
foreign antiquar- ians and artists alike.3 The didactic function of the museum
was emphasised further by Pope Benedict XIV (r. 1740–58) with the opening of
the Pinacoteca Capitolina in 1748, the first public collection of painting in
Rome, and, in 1754, the establishment of the Accademia del Nudo.4 The
Capitoline thus became the first public museum in Europe in the modern sense of
the word and an ideal academy where art students could copy concurrently from
the Antique, Old Master paintings and the live model. The museum’s educational
mission was sanctioned by its growing associa- tion with the Accademia di San
Luca. Academy members 172 presided over the life classes at the Accademia del
Nudo (Campiglia directed classes there in April 1757 and November 1760)5 and
prizes for the student competitions at the Accademia di San Luca, the Concorsi,
were awarded in sump- tuous ceremonies in the rooms of the Capitoline palaces.6
This image is the engraved vignette that introduces the volume devoted to
ancient statues of the Musei Capitolini, an ambitious publication produced with
the pedagogical intent of spreading knowledge of the museum and its collection
of antiquities.7 Conceived by Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini, the nephew of Pope
Clement XII, it consisted of large engraved plates (fig. 1), all based on
designs by Campiglia, accompa- nied by a substantial commentary by the
antiquarian Bottari; both artist and writer had worked together previously on
the monumental Museum Florentinum (cat. 19). First published in Italian as Del
Museo Capitolino (Rome, 1741–82) and then translated into Latin as Musei
Capitolini (4 vols, Rome, 1750–82) in order to reach a wider foreign audience,
the large volumes can be Fig. 1. Carlo Gregori after Giovanni Domenico
Campiglia, The Dying Gladiator, engraving, 202 × 300 mm, plate 68 from Giovanni
Gaetano Bottari, Musei Capitolini, vol. 3, Rome, 1755 173
considered the first systematic catalogue of a public museum.8 The prestige of
the publication, the clarity and neatness of the illustrations – produced by
many of the engravers who, like Pietro Antonio Pazzi, had participated in the
Museum Florentinum – soon made it a celebrated and indispensible reference work
that greatly contributed to the diffusion of the classical taste in Europe. It
was a familiar presence in the libraries of connoisseurs and artists as this
copy, owned by Soane and before him by Robert Adam (1728–92), testifies. The
engraving is a celebration of the new educational role of the museum and its
association with the Academy of San Luca, of which Campiglia had been a member
since 1740 (see cat. 19). In a crowded space, a group of students is seen
sketching and modelling in clay after two of the most famous statues that had
been recently acquired for the museum: the so-called Dying Gladiator (fig. 2)
and the Capitoline Antinous (fig. 3), now believed to represent respectively a
Gaul and Hermes. The former, discovered around 1623, and already famous in the
17th century when it was in the Ludovisi collection, had been acquired in 1737
by Clement XII for the 9 Capitoline. Placed at the centre of the composition,
with Fig. 2. The Dying Gladiator, Roman copy of a Pergamene original of the 3rd
century bc, marble, 93 cm (h), Capitoline Museums, Rome, inv. MC0747 Fig. 3.
The Capitoline Antinous, Roman copy of the 2nd century ad of a Greek original
of the 4th century bc, marble, 180 cm (h), Capitoline Museums, Rome, inv.
MC0741 the young artists assembled in a semi-circle around it as if in a life
class, the Gladiator invited analysis and study of the male anatomy in a
complex pose, as well as offering an example of a noble and heroic death. The
Capitoline Antinous, recorded in Cardinal Albani’s possession from 1733, had
been acquired with the rest of the Cardinal’s collection in the same year and
was displayed in the museum a few years later.10 Quickly eclipsing the
Belvedere Antinous (see p. 26, fig. 22 and cat. 19, fig. 1), it represented a
perfect image of the male body in its youth. It is not by chance that the young
students are focusing on these two statues among the many towering over them in
the room, for the Dying Gladiator and the Capitoline Antinous were the chosen
subjects for the third class of the Concorso Clementino – reserved for the copy
– either drawing or modelling – usually after the Antique, organised by the
Accademia di San Luca for the year 1754 (fig. 4).11 But if the engraving
alludes to a contemporary event, the establishment of the museum as a ‘Scuola
del Disegno’,12 it is also a capriccio, as it gathers together sculptures that
were in fact displayed elsewhere in various rooms and collections, much as
Hubert Robert would do in his beautiful red chalk drawing of almost ten years
later (p. 56, fig. 96). The Dying Gladiator, the Capitoline Antinous and the
two stand- ing statues behind him, the Antinous Osiris and the Wounded Amazon,
could all be admired and studied in the privileged space of the Salone of the
Palazzo Nuovo, which housed some of the best masterpieces of the collection.13
The so- called Albani Crater, half visible on the far left, and the seated
Agrippina behind the Antinous, were however, displayed elsewhere in the Palazzo
Nuovo, respectively in the Stanza del Vaso and in the Stanza dell’Ercole.14
Moreover, Campiglia did not confine himself to depicting only works from the
Capitoline collections: even more out of place are the two figures on the
right, who turn their backs to Fig. 4. Giovanni Casanova, Drawing of the
Capitoline Antinous (third award for the third class in painting of the
Concorso Clementino), 1754, red chalk on brown prepared paper, 510 × 290 mm,
Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome, inv. A.380 Fig. 5. Giovanni Paolo
Panini, View of Ancient Rome or Roma Antica, detail, c.1755, oil on canvas,
169.5 × 227 cm, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart inv. Nr. 3315 us as if to signify that
they belong elsewhere. These are the much revered Antinous Belvedere and the
Venus de’ Medici – dis- played at that time respectively in the Vatican and in
the Tribuna of the Uffizi.15 Their presence here probably served to sanction
and affirm the canonical status of their Capitoline companions, all recently
excavated or acquired. What we see is therefore a symbolic space, where reality
and fantasy are combined to legitimise and promote the relatively new
collection of the museum. The volumes of the Musei Capitolini served as a
reference tool for many artists and no doubt inspired the scene showing young
students drawing the Dying Gladiator in the foreground of Giovanni Paolo
Panini’s renowned View of Ancient Rome (fig. 5, and p. 53, fig. 92), the first
version of which, not coincidentally, was painted at about the same Fig. 6.
Carlo Gregori after Giovanni Domenico Campiglia, Young Artists Copying the
‘Arrotino’, engraving, 118 × 151 mm, page 225 in Anton Francesco Gori, Museum
Florentinum, Florence, 1754 time as the publication of this particular volume.
Campiglia devised similar graceful allegorical vignettes for the contemporary
volumes of the Museum Florentinum.16 One in particular, engraved by Carlo
Gregori (1719–59), seems to be the Florentine counterpart of the Roman image,
showing students sketching the Arrotino, surrounded by the symbols of the arts
and books on anatomy and geometry (fig. 6).17 Although in the second half of
the 18th century access to the museum sometimes proved difficult due to lack of
personnel, and while artists had to go through the bureau- cratic process of
applying to the papal camerlengo or to the director of the museum for licence
to make copies, the Capitoline remained one of the most popular sites among
artists and travellers, as the many views of its interiors testify (pp. 55–56,
figs 94–96).For recent and brief introductions on the history of the Capitoline
collec- tions, with previous bibliography, see Parisi Presicce 2010; Paul 2012.
On the early years of the Capitoline as a public museum see Arata 1994;
Franceschini and Vernesi 2005; Arata 2008. Document dated 5 December 1733
quoted in Arata 1994, p. 75. On the Pinacoteca see Marinetti and Levi 2014. On the
Accademia del Nudo see Pietrangeli 1959; Pietrangeli 1962; MacDonald 1989;
Barroero 1998. On Campiglia’s supervision of life classes at the
Accademia del Nudo see Pirrotta 1969. On the Concorsi see Cipriani and
Valeriani 1988–91; Rome, University Park (PA) and elsewhere 1989–90; Cipriani
2010–11. See Quieto 1984b; Kieven 1998; Philadelphia and Houston 2000, pp. 484–
86, no. 329 (S. Prosperi Valenti Rodinò); Rome 2004, pp. 96–108, nos 1–7 (A.
Gallottini); Rome 2010–11b, p. 401, no. II.14 (I. Sgarbozza). Campiglia started
working on his designs for the plates in 1735: see Franceschini and Vernesi
2005, pp. 59–60. See Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 224–27, no. 44; Mattei 1987;
La Rocca and Parisi Presicce 2010, pp. 428–35. See Haskell and Penny 1981, pp.
143–44, no. 5; La Rocca and Parisi Presicce 2010, pp. 500–01. The statue was
exhibited in the museum from 1739 or 1742. Cipriani and Valeriani 1988-91, vol.
2, pp. 219–20, 228. While the 1754 prize drawings depicting the Antinous
survive in the archives of the Accademia, the terracottas representing the
Dying Gladiator are lost. The Dying Gladiator was also chosen as the subject
for the third class in painting in 1758 and the Capitoline Antinous for the
third class in sculpture in 1779, and in painting in 1783: ibid., vol. 3, pp.
9–22, 120, 129–30, 141–46. It was referred to as such in the award ceremony for
the Concorso: see Belle Arti 1754, p. 36. On the Antinous-Osiris, donated to
the museum by Benedict XIV in 1742 and from 1838 in the Vatican Museum, see
Paris, Ottawa and elsewhere 1994– 95, pp. 78–79, no. 24 (M. Pantazzi). On the
Wounded Amazon, acquired in 1733 as part of Albani collection, see Weber 1976,
pp. 46–56. On the Albani Crater and its base, both previously in the Albani
collection, see Grassinger 1991, pp. 189–90, no. 32. On the so-called
Agrippina, already recorded in the Capitoline collections in 1566, see Haskell
and Penny 1981, pp. 133–34, no. 1; Rome 2011, pp. 324–25, no. 5.9 (A.
Avagliano). On their display at that time, see Venuti 1750, pp. 23, 30, 33–34;
Arata 1994. For the Antinous Belvedere and the Venus de’ Medici see above p.
26, fig. 22 and p. 42, fig. 56. Many are found in volumes 8 to 12. On the
so-called Arrotino or Knife Grinder, once in the Villa Medici in Rome and from
1680 in the Tribuna of the Uffizi see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 154–56, no.
11; Bober and Rubinstein 2010, pp. 83–84, no. 33. On access to the Capitoline
Museum in the 18th century see Sgarbozza 2010–11. 174
175 21. Louis Chays (Aubagne c.1740–1811 Paris) The Courtyard of the
Farnese Palace in Rome with the Hercules Farnese 1775 Pen and brown ink, brown
wash, pencil and white gouache, 434 × 534 mm Inscribed recto, l.l., in pen and
black ink: ‘chaÿs f. a rome 1775.’; and l.c., in pencil, possibly by different
hand: ‘Cour du Palais Farnése’. provenance: Hippolyte Destailleur (1822–93)
collection (no. 110). literature: Berckenhagen 1970, p. 394, no. 3027, repr.;
Giuliano 1979, p. 100, fig. 13; Michel 1981b, p. 584, fig. 8; De Seta 1992, p.
240, repr.; Gasparri 2007, p. 53, fig. 45 and p. 178, no. 273.4; Macsotay 2010,
p. 194; Göttingen 2013–14, p. 208, fig. 53. exhibitions: Not previously
exhibited. Kunstbibliothek, Berlin, Hdz 3027 exhibited in london only Private
aristocratic collections of antiquities in Rome contin- ued to attract large
numbers of artists and visitors during the 18th century. The Farnese Palace,
with its group of canon- ical ancient sculptures – the Farnese Hercules (see p.
30, fig. 32) the Farnese Bull and the Farnese Flora among others – and its
Gallery with the Loves of the Gods, the widely admired fresco cycle by Annibale
Carracci (1560–1609), offered the ideal opportunity to copy the Antique and a
tour de force of early 17th-century mythological decoration at the same time.1
Drawings after the famous Farnese statues by Maarten van Heemskerck
(1498–1574), Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) (see cat. 7), Annibale Carracci (see
p. 43, fig. 58), Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640; see p. 46, fig. 67), Nicolas
Poussin (1594–1665), Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), Carlo Maratti (1625–1713;
see p. 43, figs 60–61), Hubert Robert (1733–1808), Jacques Louis David
(1748–1825) and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780– 1867), to name just a few,
testify to the enduring fame of the palace and its legendary collection of
antiquities among European artists residing in Rome.2 In the 18th century the
palace went through changes of ownership, passing in 1731 from the Farnese to
the Bourbon, but it remained a lively envi- ronment, with many artists and
others residing in its rooms, and was readily accessible for those who wished
to draw or model.3 Between 1786 and 1800 all the ancient statues of the
collection were removed by the Bourbon King Ferdinand IV to Naples – where they
can be seen today in the National Archaeological Museum – a decision that
marked the end of the palace as a privileged place for studying the Antique.4
Louis Chays is one of the lesser-known figures among the French artists who
gravitated towards the Académie de France in Rome in the 1770s. He studied at
the Academy in Marseille under Jacques-Antoine Beaufort (1721–84), before
moving to Rome thanks to the patronage of Louis-Joseph Borély, a wealthy
Marseille merchant.5 His five years in Rome, between 1771 and 1776, were
probably spent in the company of such pensionnaires of the Academy as
Joseph-Benoît Suvée (1743–1807), Jean-Simon Berthélemy (1743–1811), Pierre-
Adrien Pâris (1745–1819) and François-André Vincent (1746–1816). These young
artists were of the same generation, they all arrived in Rome in 1771 and
stayed there for a similar span of years. They seem to have travelled around
the city and the Roman campagna as a group, sketching sites, ruins and
landscapes, and they naturally shared a similar style and repertoire.6 The
result of Chays’ artistic wanderings consists mainly of evocative drawings in
the manner of Hubert Robert and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) though Chays’
drawings lack their characteristic vivacity. The corpus of his drawings is
preserved in the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin.7 This study, with its companion,
The Colonnade of St Peter’s Square, stands apart in Chays’ known graphic
production in being a large-scale and highly finished pen-and-wash draw- ing.8
The lively view is the only known representation of groups of students, rather
than just individuals, at work in the courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese; nor
does the present writer know of any similar record of study in other private
collections of antiquities in Rome. It is also an important historical
document, being one of the last images to show the statues in their original
location before their removal to Naples, from 1786 onwards. Chays cleverly
chose a low view- point and an angle that allows for maximum drama: the
receding pillars of the portico frame the focus of our atten- tion, the massive
statue of the Farnese Hercules. We are standing in the shadowy passage leading
to the gardens of the palace and we see the Hercules from behind, by then a
view as successful as the front (see cats 7 and 16). Other images of the
Hercules from the back in the Farnese courtyard had been produced decades
earlier by Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765) (fig. 1), Giacomo Quarenghi
(1744–1817) (fig. 2) and Frédéric Cronstedt (1744–1829), and one wonders
whether Chays had seen any of them.9 In any case, to animate his composition
Chays certainly took inspiration from the many capricci by Panini where the
Hercules towers over groups of wanderers and also from such drawings showing
artists at 176 177 Fig. 1. Giovanni Paolo Panini, View of the
Courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese with the ‘Hercules’ seen from Behind, c. 1730,
pen and black and grey ink and wash, and coloured wash, heightened with white,
419 × 417 mm, private collection work in Rome produced by Charles-Joseph
Natoire (see p. 55, fig. 94) or Hubert Robert (see p. 56, figs 95–97). We see
here the usual cast of characters familiar from Robert’s drawings: a
combination of artists, beggars, dogs, young children, and bystanders, some of
them dressed in the current fashion, like the elegant aristocratic couple in
the centre, no doubt accompanied by a tour guide or cicerone. Others are
presented in all’antica dress, such as the beggar and muscular male student on
the right, both of whom wear Roman togas and gaze intently at the sculpture
from behind. But among the many visitors to the courtyard, the true
protagonists are the students, busy at work, sketching on large sheets resting
on drawing boards or modelling in clay, as in Campiglia’s and Pazzi’s engraving
(cat. 20). Some focus on the Hercules, while others, seated on chairs or on the
ground in the middle of the courtyard, turn towards the other star of the
collection, the Farnese Flora, visible to the right of the Hercules.10 The
entire palace seems to have been turned into an academy, with animated
conversations taking place throughout: particularly intriguing is the lively
discus- sion taking place around a large drawing in the central bay of the
first floor loggia. In the distance, through the entrance vestibule on the
lower right, we have a glimpse of the Piazza Farnese and the external world.
While the technique in this drawing is precise and although the details are
lively, the rendering of the architec- ture, which was evidently drawn first
and before the figures were superimposed, is less successful. It is notable
that the Fig. 2. Giacomo Quarenghi, View of the ‘Farnese Hercules’ in the
Portico of the Courtyard of the Farnese Palace, c. 1775–79, pen and black ink
and wash and coloured wash, 304 × 233 mm, private collection scale of the two
sides of the courtyard visible behind the por- tico does not quite correspond.
In fact, Chays’ real forte was landscape rather than accurate architectural
views, although reasonably faithful depictions of the Villa Madama and other
Roman buildings survive.11 Although this view is largely imaginary, it seems to
evoke the spirit of the courtyard as it appeared to pupils of the Accademia di
San Luca and pensionnairesof the Académie de France in Rome who frequented the
palace regularly. Visits to grandiose palaces such as this must have left a
lasting impression on these young students. The Accademia di San Luca sent its
students around Rome to copy the Antique, especially on the occasion of
academic competitions, the Concorsi.12 In the 18th century the Hercules and the
Flora were chosen several times as subjects for the third class of the Concorso
Clementino – reserved for the copy, a drawing or a model, usually after the
Antique – and the students’ gather- ings in those occasions must have offered a
scene as animated as that we see in Chays’ drawing.13 Most of the artists
depicted here are sketching on large sheets of paper, generally reserved in the
18th century for academic drawings after the Antique, as seen also in
Campiglia’s and Pazzi’s engraving (cat.).14 The Académie de France in Rome had
been founded in 1666 with the specific intent of shaping the taste and manner
of young artists ‘sur les originaux et les modèles des plus grands maîtres de
l’Antiquité et des siècles derniers’ and of furnishing the royal gardens at
Versailles with copies of the most famous antiquities from Rome.15 Although the
direct copy from antique statuary had been neglected for certain periods since
the Académie’s founding, it had once again gained a central place in the
official curriculum of the pensionnaires during the direc- torates of Nicolas
Vleughels (1725–37) and Charles-Joseph Natoire (1751–75) (see cat. 16).
Although no surviving drawings after the Antique by Chays are known, he
probably produced them as he spent considerable time in Rome copying Old Master
paintings, such as those by Raphael, Titian and Reni.16 He returned to
Marseilles in 1776 and spent the following years decorating the château of his
patron, today the Musée Borély, where he put into practice the lessons and
skills he had acquired in Rome.17 After becoming one of the professors of the
Académie in Marseilles, Chays participated in the Revolution and as
sergeant-major took part in 1790 in the occupation of the fort of Notre-Dame de
la Garde by the Garde National.18 He later published a collection of etchings
some of which he based on the views that he had assembled in his Roman years.19
Among the last mentions we have of him are his Paris Salon entries of 1802 and
1804: perspective drawings of the antiquities collection of the Louvre. SeeMéjanès1976;WashingtonD.C.1978–79,pp.148–155.
Berckenhagen1970,pp.393–96,nos3026–3074and3673–3674. Ibid.,p.394,no.3026. For
Panini’s drawing see Arisi 1961, p. 245, no. 80, fig. 359; Sotheby’s New York,
29–30 January 2013, lot 113. Two paintings attributed to Panini (wrongly, in
the opinion of the present writer) in a French private collec- tion show
similar views: see Munich and Cologne 2002, pp. 408–10, nos 187 a/b. For
Quarenghi’s drawing see Sotheby’s New York, 27 January 2010, lot 90. Another,
almost identical version is in the Hermitage, St Petersburg (inv. 25819):
Bergamo 1994, pp. 185–86, no. 234. For Cronstedt’s drawing, executed in 1772,
now in the National Museum, Stockholm see Palais Farnèse 1980–94, vol. 2, p.
131, fig. b. Before the 18th century the same viewpoint had been represented in
a drawing by an anonymous Dutch draughtsman of c. 1540–60, now in the Herzog
Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig (inv. Z 320r): see Gasparri 2007, p. 17, fig.
4 and p. 178, no. 273.1. The Flora is here shown with its Renaissance
restorations by Guglielmo Della Porta and Giovanni Battista de Bianchi and
before Carlo Albacini’s new restorations undertaken after 1787: see Gasparri
2009–10, vol. 3, esp. pp. 38–40. See for instance, Berckenhagen 1970, p. 395,
no. 3030. On the Concorsi see cat. 20, note 6. Both were chosen for the third
class in sculpture in 1703: Cipriani and Valeriani 1988-91, vol. 2, pp. 26–27.
The Hercules was chosen for the third class in both painting and sculpture in
1728 and later on in sculpture in 1783 and in 1789 (this time from a plaster since
the statue had been transported to Naples in 1787): ibid., vol. 2, p. 182, vol.
3, pp. 130, 153. The Flora was chosen for the third class in painting in 1750:
ibid., vol. 2, pp. 209–10. See the size of the drawings for the third class of
the Concorsi Clementini of the Accademia di San Luca in Cipriani and Valeriani
1988–91, vols 2–3. See also Macsotay 2010, pp. 193–94. ‘On the originals and
the examples of the greatest Antique masters and those of preceding centuries’:
letter from Jean-Baptiste Colbert to Nicolas Poussin, 1664, mentioned in
Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912, vol. 1, p. 1 and in Lapauze 1924, vol. 1, p.
2. See Aymonino’s essay in this catalogue, pp. 44–46. These copies now survive
in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and in the Musée Borély in Marseille: Paris 1989,
pp. 268–69, no. 113 (J.-F. Méjanès). Benoît 1964.
Vialla 1910, p. 484. ‘Ouvrage de 36 feuilles tirées des Porte-feuilles du
C[itoye]n S. [sic] Chays...’. See Thieme-Becker 1907–50,
vol. 6, p. 445. See also Le Blanc 1854–88, vol. 1, p. 625. ‘Dessins perspectives de différens points de vue, qui donnent le développe-
ment de toutes les figures antiques du Musée [du Louvre], ainsi qu’une juste
idée du local et de la décoration du palais’: Sanchez and Seydoux 1999– 2006,
vol. 1, p. 46, no. 58 (1802), p. 76, no. 105 (1804). See also Paris 1989, pp. 268–69, no. 113 (J.-F. Méjanès). 178 179 1 2 3
4 5 aa On the Farnese Hercules see above p. 30 and cat. 7. On the Farnese Flora
see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 217–19, no. 41; Gasparri 2009–10, vol. 3, pp.
37–42, no. 8, pl. VI, 1–5 (C. Capaldi). On the Farnese Bull see Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 165–67, no. 15; Gasparri 2009–10, vol. 3, pp. 20–25 no. 2, pl.
II, 1–16 (F. Rausa). See Gasparri 2007, p. 11 and pp. 157–78. See Michel 1981b
and La Malfa 2010–11. In 1775, the year of this drawing, the palace had 180
inhabitants. See the list in Michel 1981a, p. 565. For a list of artists
residing in the palace see Michel 1981b, table between pp. 610–11. Rausa 2007b,
pp. 57–60. On Chays (often spelled differently, Chaÿs, Chais, Chaix) see:
Thieme- Becker 1907–50, vol. 6, p. 445; Benoît 1964; Toronto, Ottawa and
elsewhere 1972–73, pp. 143–44, no. 23; Paris 1989, pp. 268–69, no. 113 (J.-F.
Méjanès); Raspi Serra 1997. 22. Fuseli (Zürich–London) The Artist Moved
by the Grandeur of Antique Fragments; The Right Hand and Left Foot of the
Colossus of Constantine c. 1778–79 Pen and sepia ink and wash, red chalk, 420 ×
352 mm Inscribed recto on the pedestal of the foot: ‘S.P.Q.R’, followed by
illegible characters and l.r. in pencil: ‘85 W. Blake’ (false signature,
perhaps 19th century) watermark: ‘ZP’ and the coat of arms of the city of
Zurich1 provenance: Susan Coutts, Countess of Guildford (1771–1837) (her stamp
on the verso2); Paul Hürlimann, from whom acquired in 1940. selected
literature: Irwin 1966, p. 47, pl. 32; Schiff 1973, vol. 1, pp. 115, 478–79,
no. 665, vol. 2, p. 145, fig. 665; Tomory 1972, pp. 49, 90, fig. 4; Füssli
1973, pp. 60–61, repr.; Schiff and Viotto 1980, pl. viii, no. D35 on p. 112;
Klemm 1986, no. 4; Lindsay 1986, pp. 483–84, fig. 1; Taylor 1987, p. 125,
repr.; Noch- lin 1994, pp. 7–8, fig. 1; Rossi Pinelli 1997, pp. 15, 18, repr.;
Bartels 2000, p. 23, note 2; Patz 2004, p. 271, fig. 3; Bungarten 2005, cover;
Pacini 2008, pp. 55–56, fig. 4; Valverde 2008, pp. 163–64, fig. 5; Trumble
2010, pp. 6–7, repr.; Barroero 2011, no. 22, repr.; Mongi-Vollmer 2013, p. 294,
fig. 127. selected exhibitions: Zurich 1941, no. 251; New York 1954, no. 31;
Zurich 1969, no. 165; Copenhagen 1973, p. 55, no. 21, not repr. (B. Jørnæs);
Hamburg 1974–75, p. 129, no. 45 (G. Schiff); London 1975, pp. 54–55, no. 10 (G.
Schiff ); Paris 1975, unpag., no. 10 (G. Schiff ); Milan 1977–78, pp. 19–20,
no. 6 (L. Vitali); Geneva 1978, p. 8, no. 3; Munich 1979–80, pp. 279–80, no.
154 (J. Gage); Tokyo 1983, pp. 62–63, no. 7 (G. Schiff ); Zurich 1984, pp. 49,
179, no. 25; Stockholm 1990, p. 33, no. 3 (G. Cavalli-Björkman and R. von
Holten); Stuttgart 1997–98, pp. 5–7, no. 10 (C. Becker); Zurich 2005, p. 256,
no. 1, frontispiece 2; Paris 2008, p. 120, no. 36 (B. von Waldkirch). The
Kunsthaus, Graphische Sammlung, Zürich, inv. no. 1940/144 exhibited in london
only This celebrated drawing is one of the most powerful images ever produced
on the relationship of the artist with the Antique. It presents a very
different response to classical antiquity from the many didactic compositions
shown in this catalogue, expressing the extremism and the Sturm und Drang that
imbued early Romanticism. The artist here confronts the Antique not as a source
of information or inspiration but on a deeper level: he meditates on the
grandeur of a lost past both as a philosopher, considering the fragility of the
human condition and, more powerfully still, as a creator in despair at his own
inability to match the achievements of classical antiquity. Fuseli’s evocative
image effectively summarises the dramatic change in the approach to the Antique
which took place in Rome in the late 18th century within a circle of
anti-academic and largely self-taught artists, such as Alexander Runciman
(1736–85), John Brown (1749–87), Tobias Sergel (1740–1814) and Thomas Banks
(1735–1805), among whom Fuseli was the most influential.3 For them the ancient
sculptures were alive, a tangible expression of the emotions and individuality
of their creators, rather than models of ideal beauty and proportional
perfection. Born Johann Heinrich Füssli in 1741 in Zurich into a fam- ily of
artists, his father, Caspar (1706–82), a painter and histo- rian, was one of
the Swiss correspondents of Anton Raphael Mengs (1728–79) and Johann Joachim
Winckelmann (1717– 68).4 Fuseli’s early education benefited from the teaching
of Johann Jakob Bodmer (1698–1783) and Johann Jakob Breitinger (1701–76),
forerunners of the literary and artistic movement Sturm und Drang, who
introduced the young artist to the study of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton
and the Niebelungenlied, decisively contributing to the eclecticism of his
imaginative sources. Fuseli moved to London in 1764 and soon became well
acquainted with the city’s lively cultural milieu and quickly acquired fame as
a painter. In 1770, on the advice of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92), Fuseli
travelled to Rome. He stayed there for eight years, with very few inter-
ruptions, leaving in 1778. After spending a few months in Zurich, he returned
to London where he was destined to spend the rest of his life. Elected
academician at the Royal Academy of Art in 1790 and Professor of Painting in
1799, Fuseli became one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation; he died
in the residence of the Countess of Guilford, one of his patrons and previous
owner of the pre- sent drawing, in Putney Hill in south-west London, in 1825.
The eight years Fuseli spent in Rome were of great impor- tance for the
development of his artistic language and theory of art. Fascinated by the
majestic relics of imperial Rome, but even more impressed by Michelangelo’s
masterpieces, Fuseli soon distanced himself from the idealised and harmonious
view of the Antique espoused in the theoretical works of Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing (1729–81) and of Winckelmann, who had been murdered in Trieste two
years before Fuseli arrived in Rome. This death was symbolic for, although ini-
tially a great enthusiast for Winckelmann’s writings, some of which he
translated into English, Fuseli became one of his most radical detractors by
asserting the importance of appreciating the emotions and conflicts that ran
through 180 181 ancient works of art.5 As Fuseli stated many years later
in the introduction to his Lectures on Painting presented at the Royal Academy,
German critics had taught the artist ‘to substitute the means for the end, and,
by a hopeless chase after what they call beauty, to lose what alone can make
beauty interest- ing – expression and mind’.6 ‘Expression animates, convulses,
or absorbs form. The Apollo is animated; the warrior of Agasias is agitated;
the Laocoon is convulsed; the Niobe is absorbed’. This is one of the Aphorisms
on Art compiled by Fuseli in the late 1780s, although it was first published
only in 1831 by John Knowles in his The Life and Writing of Henry Fuseli.7
These famous masterpieces of ancient sculpture, the Apollo Belvedere, the
Borghese Gladiator, the Laocoön and the Niobe Medici, are not seen by Fuseli
simply as the embodiment of a canon of perfection, models to imitate, or points
of reference in the academic education of a young artist; they are treated as
animated forms of the subjectivity of the artists who created them and,
ultimately, of their ways of expressing feeling and emotion.8 Fuseli’s many
studies after the Antique are never an end in themselves, they are rather means
of expression and, because of that, ancient statues can be adapted, distorted,
even desecrated by him.9 A homosexual scene depicted on an ancient Greek red-figured
vase can become the model for a Shakespearean composition showing the King of
Denmark poisoned by his brother in his sleep.10 Likewise, one of the Horse
Tamers on the Quirinal Hill (see p. 22, fig. 10), reproduced and adapted many
times by Fuseli, can be turned into Odin receiving the Prophecy of Balder’s
Death.11 If Winckelmann praised the Laocoön for his dignified grandeur,12 in
two of his late sketches Fuseli transformed the Trojan priest into the object
of a courtesan’s sexual desire.13 Even the famous Nightmare (1781),14 one of
the most disquieting compositions ever created by Fuseli, still retains
memories of the Antique, from the devilish head of the horse peeping out of the
curtain, so like those of the Quirinal horses, to the reclining figure in which
one can recognise a transposition of the celebrated Cleopatra in the Belvedere
Court (see p. 26, fig. 20).15 The Artist Moved by the Grandeur of Antique
Fragments per- fectly embodies the artist’s revolutionary approach to the
Antique. Although no doubt based on sketches made on the spot, and using a
technique, sepia ink and wash, often used by Fuseli in Rome, the watermark with
the coat of arms of the city of Zurich suggests that the drawing was made
during or soon after his brief stay in his home town after he left Rome in
1778.16 The drawing shows a scantily clad figure seated on a block dwarfed by
two adjacent marble fragments, the left foot and the right hand of a gigantic
statue set on plinths before a wall composed of majestic, square blocks.17 The
pose of the artist, loosely inspired by Michelangelo’s Ancestors of Christ on
the Sistine Ceiling, is deeply expressive; he cradles his head in deep grief
and anguish, and his mood, with his legs casually and unguardedly crossed, is
one of total surrender; the forlornness is enhanced by the wild weed that
audaciously pushes its way up against the colossal marble hand. The antique
fragments are easily recognisable as the left foot and the right hand of a
colossal statue of the emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306–37 ad; figs 1–2)
which were found in the west apse of the Basilica of Maxentius in 1486 under
the papacy of Innocent VIII (r. 1481–92) along with other fragments including
the head (fig. 3) and the right foot. By Fuseli’s time they could be admired in
the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline hill, where
they are still preserved today.18 The monumental scale of these fragments
fascinated generations of artists from the Renaissance onwards, but they became
increasingly a focus of attention in the 17th and Fig. 1. Colossal Statue of
Constantine the Great: Right Hand, 313–24 ad, Luna marble, 166 cm (h),
Capitoline Museums, Courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, inv.
MC0786 Fig. 2. Colossal Statue of Constantine the Great: Left Foot, 313–324 ad,
Parian marble, 120 cm (h), Capitoline Museums, Courtyard of the Palazzo dei
Conservatori, Rome, inv. MC0798 Fig. 3. Colossal Statue of Constantine the
Great: Head, 313–24 ad, marble, 260 cm (h), Capitoline Museums, Courtyard of
the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome, inv. MC0757 in the drawing (‘S.P.Q.R.’) can
actually be found on the pedestal supporting the right foot and not the left
one, as Fuseli represents it here. The detail, however, is not irrelevant,
since it is part of the inscription, commemorating a restoration of the
fragments promoted by Pope Urban VIII (r. 1623–44) in 1635 and 1636, so that
one can read a clear reference to the awe inspired by the greatness of the ‘Res
Romana’.22 Awe of the Antique is expressed in the drawing by the contrast
between the muscular fragments of the colossus and the diminutive, frail and
almost abstract figure, who can be interpreted both as a personification of a
modern man in general and as a symbolic self-portrait of the artist – ‘Füssli’
in German means ‘little foot’, thus suggesting a visual word- play.23 However,
the title of the drawing given by Gert Schiff, The Artist Moved by the Grandeur
of Antique Fragments, captures only one aspect of the composition, that is, the
feeling of artistic and intellectual inadequacy before the sublime Past.24
Possibly, even the inconsistent perspective of the pedestal of the foot was
consciously introduced to express the artistic inferiority of the moderns
compared to the ancients. But the pose, which recurs many times in Fuseli’s
works, can convey at the same time other meanings.25 It could cause a deep Fig.
5. Hubert Robert, Ancient Sculptures of the Capitoline, red chalk, 442 × 330
mm, Staatliche Museen, Kunstbibliothek, Berlin, Inv. Hdz 3076 18th
centuries: two wanderers are shown among the colossal ruins in a drawing by
Stefano della Bella (1610–64; fig. 4),19 while the foot and hand appear in an
evocative capriccio by Hubert Robert (1733–1808; fig. 5).20 As in their
studies, Fuseli’s drawing shows the base sustaining the colossal upward
pointing right hand on the pedestal supporting the left foot; only in the early
19th century was the hand moved to its present location along the wall of the
courtyard. Fuseli, however, modifies the disposition of the fragments in order
to create a perfect triangle, whose apex coincides with the index finger of the
hand, pointing authoritatively upward. The fact that the drawing was made when
Fuseli had already left Rome may account for a few inconsistencies, such as
swapping the right foot – flat on the ground – and the left foot – with the
heel slightly raised and set on a support.21 Moreover, the first line of the
inscription roughly transcribed Fig. 4. Stefano della Bella, Courtyard of
the Palazzo dei Conservatori, after 1659, pen and grey ink and grey wash, 152 ×
194 mm, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome, inv. FC 126001 sense of loss before the dismembered statue as well as a
melancholic frustration at the impossibility of achieving a whole, satisfactory
knowledge of the ancient world. Finally this evocative image is clearly a grim
meditation on human Vanitas, on the cruelty of time and its inevitability,
capable of destroying even the most impressive human creations.26 In his vision
of antiquity Fuseli was following in the footsteps of Giovanni Battista
Piranesi (1720–78), the great engraver of ancient Rome, who populated his
images with similar figures dwarfed and seemingly lost among the colossal
remains of Rome’s decaying statues and buildings. Piranesi’s ancient ruins, the
gigantic stones of which fill his modern onlookers with wonder, are evoked by
Fuseli in the massive blocks of the background wall, which are not part of the
courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Piranesi died in 1778, the year that
Fuseli left Rome for Zurich where he created this harrowing memory of the city
he had just left behind him. Could the present drawing be a posthumous homage
to the great Italian artist, with whom Fuseli shared the same inventive,
original and imaginative vision of the Antique? aa et ed 1 Schiff 1973, p. 479.
2 Ibid., p. 479. 3 See Pressly 1979; Valverde 2008; Busch 2013. 4 For Fuseli’s
biography see Tomory 1972, pp. 9–46; Schiff 1973, vol. 1; Zurich 2005, pp.
13–31. 5 See Pucci 2000b and Busch 2009. During his London years between 1764
and 1770, Fuseli translated into English Winckelmann’s Beschreibung des Torso
del Belvedere Zu Rom (1764, translated as Description of the Torso Belvedere in
Rome in 1765) and the Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in
der Malerei Und Bildhauerkunst (1755, translated as Reflections on the Painting
and the Sculpture of the Greeks in 1765). 6 See Wornum 1848, p. 345. On
Fuseli’s Lectures see in particular Bungarten 2005. 7 Knowles 1831, vol. 3, p.
90, aphorism no. 88. 8 For these statues see respectively p. 26, fig. 18; p.
41, fig. 54; p. 26, fig. 19; p. 30, fig. 34. 9 For a checklist of Fuseli’s
drawings of ancient sculptures see Schiff 1973, vol. 1, pp. 475–79, Schiff
1973, vol. 1, p. 450, no. 445 (dated 1771); the ancient scene is taken from
D’Hancarville 1766–67, vol. 2, pl. 32. Schiff 1973, pp. 456–57, nos 485 and 487
(c. 1776). See in particular Winckelmann. See also Appendix, no. 15. Schiff
1973, vol. 1, p. 547, nos 1072 and 1072a (1801–05). Schiff 1973, vol. 1, p.
496, no. 757. See Powell 1973, pp. 67–75. See in particular Waldkirch 2005, pp.
63–78. For a drawing showing a figure in a similar attire see Schiff 1973, vol.
1, p. 476, no. 561 (1777–79); and for one with similar blocks in the background
ibid., vol. 1, p. 447, no. 425. For the right hand and the left foot see Stuart
Jones 1926, p. 11, no. 13, pl. 5 (hand), pp. 13–14, no. 21, pl. 5 (foot). For a
discussion on the original colos- sal statue see Fittschen and Zanker 1985, pp.
147–52, pls 151–52; Deckers 2005; Parisi Presicce 2007 (in particular for the
history of the display); Bardill 2012, pp. 203–17. The provenance of the
colossus from the Basilica is testified to by a caption on a drawing by Francesco
di Giorgio Martini (1439–1501) (Morgan Library et Museum, New York, Codex
Mellon, fol. 54r), see Buddensieg 1962; census.bbaw.de/easydb/censusID= 233951.
See Paris 2000–01, p. 371 no. 176 (J.-P. Cuzin); Rome 2004, p. 346, no. 46 (V.
Di Piazza); another similar drawing is in the Louvre, see Viatte 1974, p. 63
no. 46, p. 65, fig. 46. See Berckenhagen 1970, p. 332; Paris 2000–01, p. 374,
no. 180 (J.-P. Cuzin). These details are clearly rendered on the drawings by
Della Bella and Robert. Bartels 2000, p. 23 no. 1.7: ‘Senatus Populus Que
Romanus APOLLINIS COLOSSUM A Marco LUCULLO/ COLLOCATUM IN CAPITOLIO DEIN
TEMPORE AC VI SUBLATUM EX OCULIS TU TIBI UT ANIMO REPRAESENTES PEDEM VIDE ET
ROMANÆ REI MAGNITUDINEM METIRE’. (‘The Senate and the People of Rome; that you
may bring before your mind’s eye the colossal statue of Apollo set by Marcus
Lucullus on the Capitol Hill, later removed from sight by the violence of time;
look at this foot and be aware of the greatness of Rome’: translation Eloisa
Dodero). Lindsay 1986, p. 483. Schiff 1973, vol. 1, pp. 115, 478–79, no. 665,
vol. 2, p. 145, fig. 665. The pose finds parallels in other works by Fuseli
chiefly illustrating mourn- ful scenes, such as the painting showing Milton
Dreaming of His Dead Wife Catherine (1799–1800): Schiff 1973, vol. 1, pp.
523–24, no. 920; Zurich 2005, p. 223, no. 184. Remarkable is the closeness of
Fuseli’s figure with the famous Democritus by Salvator Rosa (Statens Museum,
Copehangen; see Scott 1995, p. 97, fig. 101; the composition was known also
through a number of etchings, see for instance Naples 2008, p. 281, no. 8). The
philosopher in Rosa’s composition is shown deep in thought and surrounded by
several symbols of mortality including antiquities; the caption on the etchings
describes the scene as ‘Democritus omnium derisor/in omnium fine defigitur’
(‘Democritus, who used to laugh about everything, here meditates on the end of
every- thing’). 23. Philippe Joseph Tassaert (Antwerp 1732–1803 London) A
Drawing Academy 1764 Pen and black ink, grey and black wash drawn with the
brush over black chalk, 331 × 309 mm provenance: Private collection, Vienna;
Gallery Kekko, Lucerne, 2004, from whom acquired. literature:None. exhibitions:
Brussels 2004, pp. 75–76, repr.; London 2007–08, no. 59, not repr. Katrin
Bellinger collection, inv. no. 2004-004 Although Tassaert was born in Flanders,
he moved at a young age to London where he trained with the expatriate Flemish
drapery painter, Joseph van Aken (c. 1699–1749), and where he established his
career; aside from occasional trips to the continent, Tassaert remained in
London until his death.1 Van Aken had a large practice executing draperies for
most of the major British portrait painters active during the 1730s and 1740s,
and after his death, Tassaert seems to have followed his example, assisting
especially the portrait painter, Thomas Hudson (1701–79). In 1769, Tassaert
joined the Society of Artists of Great Britain and served as its presi- dent
from 1775–77; he exhibited with the Society until 1785.2 Also active as a
dealer and picture restorer, Tassaert worked as an agent for the auctioneer,
James Christie (1730–1803), valuing paintings in French and English
collections, includ- ing that of Sir Robert Walpole at Houghton Hall, for sale
to Catherine the Great in 1779.3 He later moved for a period to Italy, residing
in Rome between 1785 and 1790.4 As a mezzotinter, Tassaert reproduced many
composi- tions after earlier painters, especially those by Peter Paul Rubens
(1577–1640). The present drawing – a relatively rare survival compared with his
production of prints – shows young students, dressed in the costumes of Rubens’
era, sketching a reduced model of the Borghese Gladiator (fig. 1), illuminated
by candlelight from above.5 Two instructors, including the imposing figure of
Rubens him-self in the doorway on the right, inspect drawings made by two
pupils who await their verdict. Casts of busts and statuettes are placed on the
shelf above the lamp, as seen in artists’ work- shops from the Renaissance onwards
(see cats 2, 10, 14).6 The present drawing is closely related to another,
rather larger and more loosely executed, representation of an academy by
Tassaert now in the British Museum (fig. 2), that is observed from a closer
viewpoint and is horizontal rather than vertical in format.7 Rendered in warm
brown instead of grey ink, the British Museum drawing focuses on the group
clustered around the sculpture on the left. The master, in the doorway in our
drawing, now leans against a chair gesturing towards the sculpture and the copy
of it made by one of the pupils. But that student, seen in left profile
studying the Gladiator intently, remains essentially unchanged in both sheets.
The British Museum drawing is signed and dated, ‘Tassaert. del Bruxelles.
1764’, and the Bellinger drawing was no doubt made at the same time. Both were
probably made in preparation for a painting, now lost, but described in a 1774
review of the Society of Artists’ exhibition at the Strand in London: ‘Mr.
TASSAERT, Director, F.S.A. [ . . .] 285. An academy with youth’s [sic] at
study. -Yellow shaded with black, has a starved effect’, a description which
suggests that it may have been monochrome. 8 A keen admirer and copyist of
Rubens’ work, Tassaert clearly intended to evoke the atmosphere of the master’s
studio. A drawing by Tassaert, ‘Rubens instructing his pupils’ Fig. 1. Agasias
of Ephesus, Borghese Gladiator, c. 100 bc, marble, 199 cm (h), Louvre, Paris,
inv. Ma 527 184 185 Fig. 2. Philippe Joseph Tassaert, A Drawing
Academy, 1764, pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk, 330 × 406 mm,
The British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London, 2003,1129.1
which was sold in London in 1785 was probably one of the two drawings under
consideration.9 The master in both is physiognomically identical, and wears the
wide-brimmed hat and voluminous cloak seen in Rubens’ mature self-portraits,
such as that of 1623 in the Royal collection, Windsor Castle, an image widely
disseminated through engravings.10 Another self-portrait,showingtheartistatsixty,intheKunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna (1633–35), may also have been known to Tassaert through
prints.11 No doubt Tassaert’s drawings and the lost painting for which they
presumably prepared, were intended to commemorate the fact that Rubens’ studio
in Antwerp, founded on his return from Italy in 1608, was one of the first in
Northern Europe to be organised on the ‘academic’ Italian model. Ruben’s studio
– much more than a workshop – encouraged the intellectual as well as practical ambitions
of young artists, who vied with each other to become his pupils. The purpose of
Tassaert’s lost painting is not certain, but one possibility is that he
intended to present it to the recently revamped Brussels art school. It may be
significant that Tassaert, who hailed from Antwerp (where he became a member of
the Guild of St Luke in 1756), signed the British Museum drawing ‘Tassaert. del
Bruxelles’, and dated it, 1764, the year the Brussels school began to flourish
under new stewardship.12 Reportedly discovered in Nettuno in 1611, the Borghese
Gladiator, signed by Agasias of Ephesus, is thought to copy a statue of the
school of Lysippus.13 It was acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese
(1576–1633), and between 1650 and 1807, was displayed in a room bearing its
name on the ground floor of the Casino Borghese before it was sold to
Napoleon.14 The statue was keenly admired by artists from the mid-17th century
onwards as it embodied the male nude in an active, heroic and resolute pose.
François Perrier (1590–1650) ranked it among the finest statues in Rome and
published four views of it in his influential collection of etching after
antique sculpture (Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum . . ., Paris, 1638,
pls. 26–29), more than he devoted to any other figure. Casts of it were made
for Philip IV of Spain and for the Académie Royale in Paris (see cat. 16) and
the Académie de France in Rome.15 It became a standard presence in artists’
manuals from the 17th century onwards, as the perfection of its anatomy and
proportions made it an ideal model for young pupils to copy. Its fame endured
well into the 18th century as many of the objects in this catalogue make clear
(cats 16, 24, 26).16 Rubens, who was thirty-four when the statue was found,
revered it greatly. Although his two Roman sojourns (1601– 02 and 1600–08)
pre-date its discovery in 1611, he certainly knew the statue through copies and
probably owned a cast of it.17 That plaster casts came to be widely used in
Northern workshops of the period is shown in the 1635 and 1656 studio
inventories of Rubens’ contemporary, Balen and of Rembrandt and by the many
paintings that depict artists making copies of them (see p. 40, figs 49–53 and
cat. 14).18 Rubens’ deep interest in antique sculpture, which he collected enthusiastically,
is well-documented.19 In one of his theoretical notebooks, De Imitatione
Statuarum (‘On the Imitation of Ancient Statues’), recording his observations
from 1600 to 1610 on the proportions of the human form, symmetry, perspective,
anatomy and architecture, he defined canonical male body types of the first
rank: the strongest and most robust, the Farnese Hercules (see cats 7, 14, 16,
21); the less muscular and fleshy, Commodus in the Guise of Hercules and the
River Nile (see cat. 5) and the third, lean and slender, with prominent bones
and a longer face, the Borghese Gladiator, which he analysed in a diagram.20
Finally, there was the slim and handsome type, less strong, among which statues
of Apollo and Mercury were classed.21 Rubens referred to the Gladiator again in
another of his notebooks and he adapted it in some of his paintings, such as
the Mercury and Argus of 1636–37 (Prado, Madrid) where Mercury in a pose
strongly reminiscent of the Gladiator, is about to behead the multi-eyed giant.22
Although Tassaert would not have known Rubens’ manuscript, parts of it were
published in 1708 by Roger de Piles in his Cours de peinture par principles,
translated into English in 1743 as The Principles of Painting (see Appendix,
no. 8).23 Within twenty years of its discovery, casts of the Borghese Gladiator
were commissioned by Charles I and other English patrons and it soon became one
of the most celebrated 186 187 antique sculptures in the British Isles.24
By the 18th century, copies of it had becoming a mainstay of country house
collections.25 Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797) depicted a reduced model of
the Gladiator studied by candlelight (private collection; see cat. 24, fig. 2),
exhibiting it at the Society of Artists in 1765, just a year after Tassaert’s
drawings and William Pether made a mezzotint after Wright’s painting in 1769.26
When Tassaert showed his painting of a similar subject, probably based on his
earlier studies, at the same venue in 1774 he may have been responding to the
challenge of his English colleagues, particularly the fellow mezzotinter,
Pether.27 Indeed, it is tempting to suppose that Tassaert, by exhibiting the
finished painting, was asserting the suprem- acy of Flemish academies over the
English ones by establish- ing that the sculpture was well-known and used as a
teaching tool already in Rubens’ time. As will be seen later (see cats 24–26),
study after plaster casts increasingly became an indispensible part of artistic
training in the English Academies as the 18th century progressed. It is
especially significant in the present context that the catalogue of the
posthumous sale of the effects of Tassaert’s master, Joseph Van Aken, in 1751
in London, lists no fewer than sixty models in terracotta and plaster after the
Antique, among them, the Laocoön, the Farnese Hercules, heads of Antinous and,
significantly, two Gladiators.28 It is well known that antique models were
widely diffused in England in the first half of the 18th century, well before
the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768 (see cat. 25), but Van Aken’s
collection and Tassaert’s preoccupations suggest that interest in the Antique
had a particularly Flemish dimension. Of course, such models served a vital
role for artists in helping to achieve an idealised representation of the
anatomy, poses and expressions of the human body, but also, as in the case of
Van Aken, they could act as lay-figures for the arrangement of drapery.29 avl 1
For brief accounts of Tassaert’s life and work, see Edwards 1808, who, on pp.
282–83, asserts that Tassaert was ‘the scholar’ of van Aken; Redgrave 1874,
vol. 2, p. 402; Wurzbach 1906–11, vol. 2, pp. 689–90; Thieme-Becker 1907–50,
vol, 32, p. 456; Bénézit 2006, vol. 13, pp. 708–09; Wallens 2010, p. 328.
Edwards (1808, p. 282) reports his association with van Aken though the latter
had already moved to London in 1720, before Tassaert was born. They probably
met there though he was only about seventeen when van Aken died. According to
Bénézit (2006, p. 708), Tassaert was the brother of the sculptor, Jean Pierre
Antoine Tassaert (1727–1788). 2 For his involvement with the Society (and
disagreements with), see Hargraves 2005, pp. 141–43, 152–53, 158–72. His
paintings were shown also at the Royal Academy. 3 He is listed frequently as
buyer/seller in Christie’s sale catalogues of c. 1779– 82 (see Kerslake 1977,
vol. 1, p. 337). For Tassaert at Houghton, see Twist 2008, p. 106–07. 4 Wallens.
For his engravings, see Le Blanc 1854–88, vol. 4, p. 9; Wurzbach 1906–11, vol.
2, pp. 689–90; Smith 1878–83, vol. 3, pp. 1354–56. A further drawing by
Tassaert of an artist’s studio, but with figures in contemporary dress, is in
Tate Britain, from the Oppé collection, black chalk on blue paper, 490 × 317
mm, inv. no. T09847. They may also be seen lightly sketched at upper right in
Tassaert’s drawing of an artist’s studio in the Tate (see note 5 above). Lock
2010, p. 255, fig. 12.4; Phillips 2013, p. 127, fig. 5. ‘Conclusion of the
Account of the Pictures now exhibiting at the Artist’s [sic] great Room near
Exeter Exchange, Strand’, published in The Middlesex Journal, 30 April – 3 May
1774, p. 2 (as noted by Elizabeth Barker, under inv. no. 2003,1129.1, British
Museum collection database). The same subject painted by Tassaert, probably
more than once, is listed in several Christie’s sales in London between
1805–12: 1805 (1–2 March, lot 69, seller: John Mayhew; unsold; 14–15 June, lot
40, seller: John Mayhew; unsold); 1806 (7–8 March, lot 33, seller: John Mayhew;
unsold); 1808 (11–12 March, lot 18, seller: Adam Callander; unsold; 14 May, lot
33, seller: Rev. Philip Duval; bought by Daubuz); 1809 (17–18 November, lot 65,
seller: Adam Callander; bought by J. F. Tuffen) and 1812 (22 May, lot 44,
seller: John Mayhew; unsold; 18–19 December, lot 80, seller: John Mayhew; bought
by J. F. Tuffen). Source: Getty Provenance Index. Jean-Baptiste-Guillaume de
Gevigney, his sale, Greenwood, London, 14–15 April 1785, lot 44. Presumably the
same drawing was sold two years later: ‘An academy by Tassaert, washed in
bisque, fine’, Greenwood, London, 14–15 March 1787, lot 29 to John Thomas Smith
for £1.0. Jaffé 1989, p. 281, no. 764. Ibid., p. 371, no. 1379. Between 1764
and 1768, the school was revitalized under Count Charles Cobenzl (Phillips
2013, pp. 127–28). Paris 2000–01, no. 1, pp. 150–51 (L. Laugier); Pasquier
2000-01b. Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 221; Laugier 2000–01. See also Aymonino’s
essay in this catalogue, p. 41. Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 221. Ibid., pp.
221–24, no. 43, fig. 115. For Rubens’ study of sculpture in Roman collections,
see Van der Meulen 1994-95, vol. 1, pp. 41–68. For van Balen’s inventory, see
Duverger 1984–2009, vol. 4, pp. 200–11. Among the casts listed are the Laocoön,
Hercules, Apollo, Athena and Mercury (ibid., p. 208). Rembrandt’s 1656
bankruptcy inventory (Strauss and Van der Meulen 1979, pp. 349–88) mentions
several plaster casts from life, including hands, heads and arms (ibid., pp.
365, 383), and after the antique (‘A plaster cast of a Greek antique’ (Een
pleijster gietsel van een Griecks anticq), p. 383, no. 323). Also mentioned are
antique statues of unspecified medium, including a Faustina, Galba, Laocoön,
Vitellius (ibid., pp. 365, nos 166, 168; 385, nos 329, 331) and several others.
For Rembrandt’s use of statues, casts and models, see Gyllenhaal 2008. For his
collection, see Muller 1989, Appendix C, pp. 82–87 and Muller 2004, especially,
pp. 18–23. The Johnson manuscript (manuscript transcript of the Rubens
Pocketbook), mid-18th century, Courtauld Gallery, London, MS.1978.PG.1, fols
4v-5r, cited in Muller 2004, p. 19. See also Muller 1982, pp. 235–36 and Van
der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 72–73. Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, p. 73.
Ms de Ganay (formerly Paris, Marquis de Ganay), fols 22r–23r, transcribed and
translated in Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, pp. 254–58. In addition to the
Madrid painting (Georgievska-Shine and Silver 2014, p. 136, fig. 5.3), the pose
of the sculpture was utilised in other drawn and painted composi- tions by the
artist (Van der Meulen 1994–95, vol. 1, p. 239, note 9). De Piles 1708, pp.
139–48; De Piles 1743, pp. 86–92. . Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 221. However,
due to the demand for casts the Borghese tried to stop moulds from being made
(Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 221). Liverpool 2007, p. 132, no. 10; Clayton 1990,
p. 236, no. 154, P3. Tassaert and Pether, both members of the Society of
Artists, had a disagree- ment over the latter’s proposed exhibition fee for
fellows (Hargraves 2005, pp. 141–42). Landford’s, London, among lots 1–77. It
has been suggested that Rembrandt worked from draped plaster casts, especially
during his Leiden years (Gyllenhaal 2008, p. 51). 24. William Pether (Carlisle
1731–1821 Bristol) after Joseph Wright of Derby (Derby 1734–1797 Derby) An
Academy 1772 Mezzotint, 579 × 458 mm Inscribed l.l.: ‘Iosh., Wright, Pinxt.’;
and l.r.: ‘W. Pether, Fecit.’; on the boy’s portfolio in the centre: ‘An /
Academy / Published by W Pether, / Feby, 25th / 1772’; td and l.c., at the foot
of the seated artist: ‘Done from a Picture in / the Collection of the R . Hon.
/ L . Melburne.’ provenance: The Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd (1941–2012), from
whom acquired by the British Museum in 2010. literature: Chaloner Smith 1883,
vol. 2, p. 46, not repr.; Clayton 1990, p. 240, no. 159, P9, this impression
listed under II, not repr.; Liverpool 2007, pp. 159–62, no. 33. exhibitions:
Not previously exhibited. The British Museum, Department of Prints and
Drawings, London, 2010,7081.2228 In 1769 Joseph Wright of Derby exhibited An
Academy by Lamplight (private collection) at the Society of Artists in London.1
The painting depicted six young boys drawing from casts of antique sculpture in
a vaulted space lit only by a concealed lamp. Wright repeated the composition
the following year for his patron, Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne (Yale
Center for British Art, fig. 1) and it was from this second version that
William Pether took the present mezzotint, renamed simply An Academy, published
in its first state in February 1772.2 The subject-matter is related to Wright’s
earlier painting, Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight (private
collection, fig. 2),3 but, by showing a group of students at work, addresses
more directly the theme of education by studying casts of antique sculpture by
candlelight. Artistic education was of paramount importance to Wright. In
December of 1769, the year he settled in Liverpool, twenty-two men in the
burgeoning city formed a Society of Artists that gathered at a member’s house
to make drawings from a substantial collection of prints and, more signifi-
cantly, thirty-five plaster casts.4 These casts had been pur- chased from John
Flaxman senior, a plaster-cast salesman in Covent Garden, for £8.8.3, and were
intended specifically for furnishing an academy.5 While Wright is not listed as
a member of the Society of Artists, his friend, the engraver Peter Perez
Burdett (c. 1735–93), was its first President and Wright’s landlord in
Liverpool, Richard Tate (1736–87), was an amateur painter who showed works at
the Society’s first public exhibition in 1774, so he was certainly aware of the
group’s aspirations. Wright seems also to have had at least one student in
Liverpool, Richard Tate’s brother, William, who was described by Wright in a
letter in 1773 as ‘a pupil of mine’.6 Artistic education would therefore have
been a pressing concern when he was conceiving An Academy by Lamplight. Wright
no doubt encouraged William Tate to take the same route that he had followed as
a pupil of Thomas Hudson (1701–79): first copying drawings by accomplished
masters (which for Tate would have included works by Wright him- self) as well
as prints, before moving to the study of plaster casts and, ultimately, the
life model.7 In 1774 Tate exhibited ‘Venus with a Shell, a drawing in black
chalk’ at the first Fig. 1. Joseph Wright of Derby, An Academy by Lamplight,
1770, oil on canvas, 127 × 101 cm, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon
Collection, New Haven, inv. B1973.1.66 Fig. 2. Joseph Wright of Derby, Three
Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight, 1765, oil on canvas, 101.6 ×
121.9 cm, private collection 188 189 Liverpool Society of
Artists exhibition, and a sheet in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery of this
subject has been recently been identified as Tate’s drawing.8 This title of
that drawing is highly suggestive as it is pre- cisely the so-called Nymph with
a Shell that the students are shown drawing in Wright’s painting and Pether’s
mezzotint. Housed in the Borghese collection during the 18th century, the
sculpture is now in the Louvre (fig. 3).9 While a cast of this statue is not
listed among those purchased by the Liverpool Society of Artists, one was
probably owned by Wright himself. The other statue shown in the background on
the right is the familiar Borghese Gladiator (see p. 41, fig. 54 and cat. 23) –
the sculpture being studied in Wright’s earlier Three Persons Viewing the
Gladiator by Candlelight (fig. 2). Wright’s composition depicts young students
in different attitudes, some at work drawing the Nymph, which is illumi- nated
by a hanging lamp, from varying angles, while others merely admire her. Wright
has created an ideal representation of an academy of young men, precisely the
environment which his contemporaries were attempting to create in Liverpool.
The students’ visible drawings are in black chalk similar to Wright’s own and
those of his ‘pupil’, Tate. The varying ages of the students, from young boys
to young men, also suggests an ideal academic establishment. The date of the
work has further resonance: 1769 was the year after the foundation of the Royal
Academy in London, where a precise programme of artistic education, which
included drawing from antique sculpture, was being formulated (see cat. 25).
The composition continues a theme Wright addressed in Three Persons Viewing the
Gladiator by Candlelight (fig. 2), the first painting he exhibited in London,
showing it at the Society of Artists in 1765. Such was its popularity that
Pether produced a mezzotint of it in 1769 and we can suppose that our Fig. 3.
Nymph with the Shell, Roman copy of the 1st century ad after a Hellenistic type
of the 2nd century bc, marble, 60 cm (h), Louvre, Paris, inv. MR 309-N 247 (Ma
18) mezzotint, published three years later, was conceived as a pendant.10
Wright’s Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight depicts three men –
traditionally identified as Wright himself, Peter Perez Burdett (c. 1735–93)
and John Wilton – comparing a reduced model of the Borghese Gladiator with a
drawn copy of it in black chalk. We know Wright made drawings of the sculpture;
and a study in pen and brown ink on brown paper by him is preserved at Derby.11
Dating from before his journey to Italy, it seems likely to have been made from
a reduced model. Whilst there is no evidence that Wright owned a model of the
Gladiator, it seems likely that he did: reduced models of it appear in numerous
artists’ sales during the 18th century and they were also readily available in
Derby at the time.12 Viewing and drawing sculpture by candle-light was a
feature of many European academies as for example those of Bandinelli and
Tassaert (see cats 1 and 23).13 This was intended to emphasise the contrast of
the sculpture’s anatomy and facilitate its copy. There were many perceived
artistic benefits in owning models. William Hogarth noted in his Apology for
Painters: ‘the little casts of the gladiator the Laocoon or the venus etc. if
true copies – are still better than the large as the parts are exactly the same
[–] the eye [can] comprehend them with most ease and they are more handy to
place and turn about’.14 It therefore seems likely that Wright’s picture
depicts an evening viewing of his own cast. Burdett was an amateur draughtsman
and printmaker, and the comparison between Wright’s own drawing and the model
is the probable topic of their conversation. This was the theme that Wright
developed more fully in An Academy. Liverpool 2007, p. 159, no. 31. For
Yale version of the painting ibid., p. 159, no. 32. Nicolson 1968, vol. 1, p.
234, no. 188; London 1990, pp. 61–63, no. 22; Liverpool 2007, p. 132, no. 10.
For a discussion of the foundation of the Society of Artists and a list of the
casts it acquired see Mayer 1876, pp. 67–69. Ibid., p. 5. Joseph Wright to
William Thompson, Derby 25 March, 1773, in Barker 2009, p. 72. Wright’s work in
Hudson’s studio is remarkably well documented in an archive of his drawings as
a student preserved in Derby Museum and Art Gallery: see Derby 1997, pp. 49–65.
Liverpool 2007, p. 162, no. 34. For the relationship between Tate, Wright and
the Liverpool Society of Artists see Barker 2003, pp. 265–74. For the Nymph
with the Shell see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 281–82, no. 67; Rome 2000b, vol.
2, p. 335, no. 10 (F. Rausa); Gaborit and Martinez 2000–01; Paris 2000–01, pp.
327–28, no. 147 (J.-L. Martinez); Rome 2011–12, pp. 402–05 (I. Petrucci, M.-L.
Fabréga-Dubert, J.-L. Martinez). Clayton 1990, p. 236, no. 154, P3. Derby 1997,
p. 88, no. 152. An Italian plaster-modeller based in Oxford, ‘Mr Campione’ is
recorded selling: ‘a large and curious collection of statues, modelled from the
Antiques of Italy ... in fine plaister paris work’ in the Red Lion in Derby.
See Barker 2003, p. 25. On this see Roman 1984, p. 83. See also cat. 1, p. 80,
note 8. Kitson 1966–68, p. 86. 190 191 25. Edward Francis Burney
(Worcester 1760–1848 London) The Antique Academy at Old Somerset House 1779 Pen
and grey ink with watercolour wash, 335 × 485 mm Signed recto, on the portfolio
depicted in the drawing at l.c., in pen and black ink: ‘E.F.B. 1779’; and
inscribed verso, in pen and black ink, with a key identifying the casts and
objects shown on recto, numbered 1–43: ‘View of the Plaister Room in the Royal
Academy old Somerset House / 1. Cincinnatus / 2. Apollo Belvedere / 3. Meleager
/ 4. Biting Boy / 5. Foot of the Laocoon / 6. Arm of M. Angelo’s Moses / 7.
Paris / 8. Faun / 9 Anatomy of a Horse / 10. Head of Antinous / 11. A young
Orator by M. Angelo / 12. Antoninus Pius / 13. Bacchus / 14. Pompey / 15.
Alexander / 16. Model of a Cow / 17. Agrippa / 18. Nero / 19. Augustus / 20.
Cicero / 21 Other Roman Emperors / 22. Door of Mr Mosers little Room / 23.
Heads. Casts from Trajans pillar / 24. Table for Drawing Hands Heads etc. on /
25. Screens to prevent Double Lights / 26. Modelers stands / 27. Large chalk
Drawing of the Virgin etc. by Leon: da Vinci / 28. Homer / 29. Laocoon / 30.
Esculapius / 31. Proserpine / 32. Carracalla / 33. Mithridates / 34. Bacchus /
35. Antinous / 36. River Gods from M. Angelo / 37. Boys by Fiamingo / 38. Dying
Gladiator / 39. Lamps for lighting the figures in Winter / 40. Antique Bass
Relieves / 41. Laughing Boys / 42. Head of a Wolf / 43. Legs cast from nature
etc. etc. etc.’ provenance: From an album of drawings in the possession of the
Burney family; P. et D. Colnaghi, London, from whom acquired 5 July 1960.
literature: Byam Shaw 1962, pp. 212–15, figs 54–55; Hutchison 1986, p. 192,
fig. 27; Wilton 1987, p. 26, fig. 25; Rossi Pinelli 1988, p. 255, fig. 4;
Nottingham and London 1991, p. 63, under no. 39, fig. 3; Fenton 2006, pp.
98–99, 100–01, repr.; Kenworthy-Browne 2009, pp. 45–46, pl. 16; Wickham 2010,
pp. 300–01, fig. 14; Brook 2010–11, p. 158, fig. 5. exhibitions: London 1963,
p. 34, no. 87, not repr.; London 1968b, pp. 211–12, no. 651, not repr.; London
1971, p. 18, no. 71, not repr.; London 1972, p. 316, no. 521, not repr. (R.
Liscombe); York 1973, p. 40, no. 98, not repr.; London 2001, p. 46, no.
85. Royal Academy of Arts, London, 03/7485 With its companion The Antique
Academy at New Somerset House (fig. 1), this drawing constitutes one of the
best and most evocative visual records of the Antique or ‘Plaister’ Academy at
the Royal Academy of Arts in London.1 The Academy was founded in 1768 and
initially occupied rooms in Pall Mall before moving to Somerset House in 1771.
The rather chaotic early records of the Academy means that Burney’s detailed
drawings are fundamental in establishing precisely which antiquities were
available to the first generation of students at the Academy. Although copying
after casts had been a practice fol- lowed in previous British academies and schools
of art – such as the Duke of Richmond’s Academy – it was only with the
foundation of the Royal Academy that it became part of an extended curriculum
modelled on the Roman and Parisian Academies.2 The first Academicians draughted
surprisingly few rules governing the education of students, other than the
requirement that a student have a ‘Drawing or Model from some Plaister Cast’
approved for admission to the Antique Academy, and again to progress into the
Life Academy.3 For at least the first fifty years of its existence there was no
stipulation about the length of time students should spend in either School.
The timetable itself was fairly minimal, follow- ing the traditional model in
which the purpose of an Academy was to provide instruction in draughtsmanship
and theory whilst the student learned his chosen art of painting, sculpture or
architecture with a master. The Antique or Plaister Academy was open from 9 to
3 pm with a two-hour session in the evening, while the Life Academy consisted
of only a two- hour class each night. Until 1860, both were attended by male
students only. The collection of casts was under the control of the Keeper,
while a Visitor attended monthly to examine and correct the students’ drawings
and to ‘endeavour to form their taste’.4 Following the theoretical model of
continental academies, the main didactic purpose of drawing from plaster casts
was to teach young students to become acquainted with and to internalise ideal
beauty before being exposed to Nature in the Life Academy. As Benjamin West
(1738–1820), president of the Royal Academy for almost thirty years from 1792,
put it, pro- ficiency was ‘not to be gained by rushing impatiently to the
school of the living model, correctness of form and taste was first to be
sought by an attentive study of the Grecian figures’.5 Edward Francis Burney
studied at the Royal Academy Schools from 1777 and left in the 1780s to become
a suc- Fig. 1. Edward Francis Burney, The Antique Academy at New Somerset
House, c. 1780, pen and grey ink with watercolour wash, 335 × 485 mm, Royal
Academy of Arts, London, cessful book illustrator.6 As a young pupil of the
Antique Academy, he recorded in the present drawing of 1779 and its companion
the rebuilding of Somerset House begun in 1776 by Sir William Chambers
(1723–96). This drawing shows the Academy before Chambers’ intervention in a
room that was probably designed by John Webb (1611–72) in 1661–64, on the south
side of the building facing the Thames. These rooms had windows exposed to
direct sunlight and therefore may have required the ‘Screens to prevent Double
Lights’, visible in the upper left corner of the drawing and annotated on the
verso. The drawing depicts four students at work, the one on the right in the
middle distance being guided by George Michael Moser (1706–83), the first
Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, including the Antique Academy.7 In the
room everything was moveable. Boxes could be used as seats or as supports for
drawing boards, as one is by the student in the foreground on the left, while
rails were used for holding the individual students’ candles (see cat. 26).
Even the pedestal of the casts could be moved on castors, so that the Keeper
could change their position weekly. The collection of plaster casts was one of
the largest assembled in Britain in the 18th century.8 Many came from the
second St Martin’s Lane Academy, brought by Moser who had been one of its
directors.9 The collection was then expanded considerably thanks to donations
from aristocratic collectors and acquisitions on the London market.10 Among the
most easily identifiable casts are those ubiqui- tous in European workshops and
academies from the 17th century onwards, all listed in the long inscription on
the verso of the drawing: the Apollo Belvedere (p. 26, fig. 18) at left centre,
behind, in the background, the Faun with Kid, and on the far right, the Dying
Gladiator (p. 41, fig. 55), which a student is copying, as innumerable other
students had done before him (see cat. 20).11 In addition, a series of peculiarly
‘English’ casts are on display, some donated, others copied from origi- nals
recently brought to England from Rome. Partly obscured in shadow on the left is
a cast of Cincinnatus – which still survives in the collection of the Royal
Academy (fig. 2) – close Fig. 6. Relief from an Honourary Monument to Marcus
Aurelius: Triumph, 176–180 ad, marble, 324 × 214 cm, Capitoline Museums, Rome,
inv. MC0808 Fig. 7. Relief with Warriors, Roman, 1st or 2nd century ad, marble,
93 × 82 cm, San Nilo Abbey, Grottaferrata, inv. 1155 Academy’s collection (figs
8–9). Finally, between the shelves and the door on the right, it is possible to
discern Leonardo’s cartoon of The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the
Baptist, today one of the most celebrated works in the National Gallery in
London – the present drawing is the earliest to document its presence in the
collection of the Royal Academy.16 The cast collection was of paramount
importance to the Royal Academy during its first decades, but the ad hoc nature
of its accumulation and the inclusion of casts of ‘Grand Tour’ souvenirs – such
as Lord Shelburne’s Cincinnatus – left it open to criticism. In 1798 the
Academy’s Professor of Painting, James Barry (1741–1806), launched a stinging
public attack complaining that the Academy was ‘too ill supplied with materials
for observations’ lamenting ‘the miserable beggarly state of its library and
collection of antique vestiges’.17 As a direct result, the sculptors John
Flaxman (1755–1826) and John Bacon the Younger (1777–1859) were charged with
purchasing new casts from the sale of George Romney’s (1734–1802) collection.18
Flaxman spent much of the rest of his career attempting to improve the
Academy’s cast collection; after 1815, he finally convinced the Prince Regent
to sponsor the Fig. 8. Plaster Cast of Head of a Roman Soldier in Helmet, from
Trajan’s Column, 15.7 × 15.4 × 4.4 cm, Royal Academy of Arts, London, inv.
10/3267 Fig. 9. Plaster Cast of the Head of Trajan, from Trajan’s Column, 15.5
× 15.4 × 4.6 cm, Royal Academy of Arts, London, iaa&jy
FortheearlyhistoryoftheRoyalAcademysee Hutchison1986,pp.23–54. For drawing
after casts in Britain before the foundation of the Royal Academy see esp.
Postle 1997; Coutu 2000; Kenworthy-Browne 2009. Hutchison 1986, pp. 29–31. For
the full admission process see London, Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/1, Council
minutes, vol. 1, p. 4, 27 Dec. 1768; Abstract, pp. 18–19.
Hutchison1986,p.27.Forthe‘RulesandOrders,forthePlaisterAcademy’, see London,
Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/1 Council minutes, vol. 1, p. 6, 27 Dec. 1768, and
p. 17, 17 March 1769; Abstract 1797, pp. 22–23. For the role of the visitors
see ibid., p. 8. Hoare1805,p.3. SeeRogers2013. The identification of the
teacher with Moser is confirmed by other like- nesses: see Edgcumbe 2009. The
only other collection that could compete in numbers of casts was the Duke of
Richmond’s Gallery: see Coutu 2000; Kenworthy-Browne 2009. On the Royal Academy
collection of casts see Baretti [1781], esp. pp. 18–30. See Thomson 1771, pp. 42–43;
Strange 1775, p. 74. We would like to thank Nick Savage for pointing out these
two sources to us.
OnplastershopsandtradersinBritaininthesecondhalfofthe18thcentury see Clifford
1992. Among private donors, Thomas Jenkins, the Rome based dealer, sent a cast
of the so-called Barberini Venus shortly after the Royal Academy’s foundation:
London, Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/1, Council minutes, vol. 1, p. 38, 9 Aug.
1769. Jenkins in turn encouraged many of his clients in London to donate casts,
including John Frederick Sackville, Duke of Dorset who sent in 1771 ‘a Bust of
Antinous in his collection’ and ‘a cast of Pythagoras’: ibid., p. 111, 25 Oct.
1771, and p. 118, 18 Dec. 1771. Other early donors were Sir William Hamilton,
the Rome-based dealer Colin Morrison and the Anglo-Florentine painter Thomas
Patch. FortheFaunwithKidseeHaskellandPenny1981,pp.211–12,no.37. The Council
Minutes record on 11 June 1774: ‘Resolved that casts be made from three statues
in the possession of Lord Shelburne, viz the Meleager, the Gladiator putting on
his sandals, et the Paris, leave having been already obtained from his
lordship’, London, Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/1, Council minutes, vol. 1, p.
179. The three sculptures had recently been sup- plied by Gavin Hamilton
(1723–98) from Rome and were largely recently excavated pieces: the Meleager
had been found at Tor Columbaro; the Paris and the so-called Cincinatus had
both come from an excavation at Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli, called Pantanello.
See Bignamini and Hornsby 2010, vol. 1, pp. 321–22 for Shelburne; for the
excavation and purchase of the Cincinnatus and Paris see vol. 1, pp. 162–64,
nos 1 and 12; for the excavation and purchase of the Meleager see vol. 1, pp.
180–81, no. 7. London, Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/1, Council minutes, vol. 1,
p. 38, 9 Aug. 1769 ‘Charles Townly Esq. having presented the Academy with a
cast of the Lacedemorian Boy ... ordered that letters of thanks should be
wrote.’ On the original relief see Boudon-Mauchel 2005, pp. 251–52, no. 43 and
on Duquesnoy’s fame as a ‘classical’ sculptor ibid., pp. 175–210. The cast of
the relief had been sent by Sir William Hamilton, then British ambassador to
the court of Naples, in 1770 together with a cast of ‘Apollo’: see Ingamells
and Edgcumbe 2000 p. 32, no. 25, 17 June 1770; see also London, Royal Academy
of Arts, PC/1/1, Council minutes, vol. 1, p. 72, 17 March 1770. For the Marcus
Aurelius relief see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 255–56, no. 56; Rome 1986–87.
For the relief with warriors see Musso 1989–90, pp. 9–22. The relief was
illustrated in Winckelmann 1767, pl. 136. The same cast appears in Zoffany’s
celebrated Portrait of the Academicians of the Royal Academy, 1771–72, in the
Royal Collections. See Webster 2011, pp. 252–61; New Haven and London 2011–12, pp.
218–21, no. 44 (M. A. Stevens). For Leonardo’s cartoon see London 2011–12, pp.
289–91, no. 86 (L. Syson). Barry 1798, p. 7. London, Royal Academy of Arts,
PC/1/3, Council minutes, vol. 3, pp. 99–100, 22 May 1801. They purchased 16
casts in total for £68.10.3. WindsorLiscombe1987. Fig. 2. Plaster Casts of the
So-Called Lansdowne ‘Cincinnatus’, 1774, 162 cm (h), Royal Academy of Arts,
London, inv. 03/1488 Fig. 3. Lansdowne Paris, Roman copy of the Periodo ADRIANICO
– ADRIANO (si veda), from a Greek original of the 4th century bc, marble, 165
cm (h), Louvre, Paris, inv. MNE 946 (n° usuel Ma 4708) Fig. 4. Lansdowne
Hermes/Meleager, Roman copy of the Hadrianic Period (117–138 ad) of a Greek
original of the 4th century bc, marble, 219 cm (h), Santa Barbara Museum of
Art, Gift of Wright S. Ludington, inv. 1984.34.1 to the Faun with Kid is a
Paris (fig. 3), and behind Moser the so-called Lansdowne Meleager (fig. 4). All
of these were cast in 1774 from the originals in the collection of William
Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne (1737–1805), recently returned from his Grand
Tour.12 Behind the Cincinnatus is partly discernible a cast of the Knucklebone
Players given by Charles Townley in 1769, the antique original of which could
be admired in his London town-house at 7 Park Street (cat. 28, fig. 1).13 As
was customary, the Academy’s collection included also casts of busts and
statuettes distributed on shelves and of ‘dismembered’ body parts – arms, legs
and feet – hung on the wall, so that students could learn how to draw anatomical
details before approaching the whole human figure. Pupils were also required to
draw from reliefs, to become acquainted with the composition of historie, or
narrative scenes, based on classical models. Above the chimneypiece is a large
cast of a relief with music-making angels by François Duquesnoy (1597–1643) –
the Boys by Fiamingo identified on the reverse of the drawing – whose most
classicising works had, by the end of the 17th century, acquired the same
status of antique statuary (fig. 5).14 Above was displayed a reduced version of
one of the Marcus Aurelius reliefs in the Capitoline Museum (fig. 6), and a
comparatively obscure relief with warriors, which had clearly gained fame
because of its inclusion in Winckelmann’s Monumenti Antichi Inediti, published
in 1767 (fig. 7).15 Further identifiable casts included a series of heads from
Trajan’s Column, which we can see hanging from the shelves on the end wall,
many of which remain in the Fig. 5. François Duquesnoy, Relief with
Music-Making Angels, 1640–42, marble, 80 × 200 cm. Filomarino Altar, Church of
Santi Apostoli, Naples commissioning of a series of new casts from Antonio
Canova (1757–1822) in Rome.19 Burney’s image illustrates both the Royal
Academy’s aspiration to offer an ‘academic’ education in line with great
Continental examples, but also its differ- ences from them, as a private
organisation sponsored by the monarch rather than a state-run academy.
194 195 26. Anonymous British School, 18th century A View of the
Antique Academy in the Royal Academy c. 1790s Pen and brown ink and grey wash,
with watercolour, over graphite, 294 × 223 mm Stamped recto, l.l., in brown
ink: ‘J.R’; on separate piece of paper now attached to the reverse of the
mount, in pen and black ink: ‘Henry Fuseli R A / 1741–1825. / Bought at Sir J.
Charles Robinson’s sale 1902 / E.M.’ provenance: Charles Heathcote Robinson;
Sir John Charles Robinson (1824–1913) (not listed in his sales: Christie’s
12–14 May 1902; or Christie’s 17–18 April 1902); Sir Edward Marsh (1872–1953);
his bequest through The Art Fund (then called National Art Collection Fund),
1953. literature:None. exhibitions: London 1969, no.1 (unpaginated), not
repr. The British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London,
1953,0509.3 This satirical drawing, probably made by a distracted student who
ought to have been studying diligently from one of the casts, shows an
imposing, heavy-set man towering physi- cally and psychologically over three
young seated pupils drawing in the Antique Academy. While traditionally he has
been identified as the painter Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), Keeper of the Royal
Academy Schools from 1803 to 1825, given the style of the drawing and the
subject’s dress he is more likely to be either Agostino Carlini (c. 1718–90),
Keeper between 1783 and 1790, or Joseph Wilton (1722–1803) who held the
position between 1790 and 1803.1 The view shows one of the end walls of the
Antique, or ‘Plaister’ Academy, housed from 1780 in a purpose-built room in
Somerset House.2 The same wall, with a similar arrangement of casts, appears in
the evocative candlelight view of the room by an anonymous British artist (see
p. 60, fig. 105). The young students are busy at work, copying from casts of
the Belvedere Torso (p. 26, fig. 23), the Apollo Belvedere (p. 26, fig. 18) and
the Borghese Gladiator (p. 41, fig. 54), models of different ideal types of
beauty, masculinity and anatomy, repeatedly praised by Sir Joshua Reynolds in
his third Discourse of 1770. It is likely that the three moveable casts were often
set side by side by the Keepers to reflect Reynolds’ conception of ideal beauty
and of the ‘highest perfection of the human figure’, which ‘partakes equally of
the activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the
muscular strength of the Hercules’, as expressed in his third Discourse.3 On
the wall behind the casts, are two cupboards possibly containing students’
drawings, which support smaller casts and busts. Whilst the Antique Academy was
a serious, professional space, it was naturally the focus of humour from the
students, who ranged in ages from fourteen to thirty-four. Several other
caricatures exist testifying to the lighter side of academic life, including an
earlier study by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) showing a bench of students at
work in the Life Academy in 1776 and including mocking depictions of
Rowlandson’s fellow students (fig. 1).4 In terms of its public image the cast
collection was an important symbol of the Academy’s prestige but this view does
not seem to have been shared by some of the students, many of whom must have
considered the long hours spent copying after the Antique as a constraining and
repetitive exercise. Joseph Wilton was a crucial figure within the acad- emy in
promoting a rigid curriculum based on the classical ideal. He never abandoned
his firm belief in the didactic value of plaster casts, established while he
was director of the Duke of Richmond’s Gallery in the late 1750s.5 His strict
teaching methods must have generated discontent and considerable derision,
brilliantly visualised in a satirical print by Cruikshank (fig. 2) which shows
Wilton – trans- formed into Bottom with the head of an ass – inspecting the
drawing of an irritated student in the Antique Academy.6 Wilton’s exacting
standards, as the lines below the cartoon make clear, would prevent him from
seeing the genius of a modern day Raphael and it is clear that some students of
the Academy saw him as a ‘formal old fool’. Unlike the Life Academy, where the
Visitor presided, setting the model and frequently drawing from it himself, the
Antique Academy was presided over by the Keeper of the Schools. Each week the
Keeper would set out specific casts and direct and comment on the students’
work. According to Fig. 1. Thomas Rowlandson, A Bench of Artists, 1776, pen and
grey and black ink over pencil, 272 × 548 mm, Tate Gallery, London, inv.
T08142 196 197 Fig. 2. Isaac Cruikshank, Bless The Bottom, bless
Thee-Thou art translated – Shakespere, 1794, hand-coloured etching, 295 × 212
mm, G. J. Saville the rules, students did not choose which casts to draw and
they were not allowed to move them without permission.7 But depictions of the
Antique Academy suggest that the situation was probably more flexible and may
have allowed for individually tailored study. Several anecdotes point to the
unruly life of the Academy and its students, who were allowed to choose their
own seats, with utter chaos resulting. Joseph Farington (1747–1821) noted in
1794, that they behaved like ‘a mob’: Hamilton says the life Academy requires
regulation: but the Plaister Academy much more. The Students act like a mob, in
endeavouring to get places. The figures also are not turned so as to present
different views to the 8 The reason for the commotion was that once a student
had a seat, he was expected to retain it for the week. The atmos- phere seems
to have been generally boisterous and there are numerous reports in the Council
Minutes of the Academy of misbehaviour, high spirits and students throwing at
each. It would be productive of much good to the Students to deprive them of
the use of bread; as they would be induced to pay more attention to their
outlines; and would learn to draw more correct, when they had not the perpetual
resource of rubbing out.11 aa&jy For the traditional attribution of the
sitter see the entry on the collection online database of the British Museum.
The identification of the sitter with Joseph Wilton has been proposed already
by Andrew Wilton in London 1969, no. 1. For a list of Keepers of the Royal
Academy see Hutchison 1986, pp. 266–67. Both Carlini and Wilton presented
similar physical character- istics as the man in the drawing. For a list of
their likenesses see respectively Trusted 2006 and Coutu 2008. See Baretti
[1781], pp. 18–30. See Reynolds 1997, p. 47. London 1997, pp. 170–71, no. 67.
See Coutu 2000; Kenworthy-Browne 2009. George 1870–1954, vol. 7 (1793–1800), p.
118, no. 8519. See ‘Rules of the Antique Academy’: Royal Academy of Arts
PC/1/1, Council Minutes, vol. 1, pp. 4–6, 27 Dec. 1768, quoted in Hutchison
1986, p. 31. Farington 1978–98, vol. 1, p. 281. Pressly 1984, p. 87. Farington
1978–98, vol. 2, pp. 461–62. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 462. These two drawings by
Turner epitomise the two principal stages of education provided by the Royal
Academy Schools during the late 18th century: the Antique, or Plaister, Academy
and the Life Academy. Turner enrolled as a student in the Schools in December
1789 as a boy of fourteen, spent more than two years in the Antique Academy,
and then progressed to the Life Academy in June 1792, presumably after
presenting a drawing for inspection by the Visitor.1 Although there is no
record of the drawing Turner submitted, it may well have been this finished
study of the Belvedere Torso (see p. 26, fig. 23) a sculpture of enduring popu-
larity among artists as demonstrated by Goltzius’ drawing made almost exactly
two hundred years earlier (cat. 8). Turner copied the same cast of the Torso
shown in the satiri- cal view of the Academy (cat. 26). He is recorded as
having visited the Antique Academy on 137 separate occasions during his
studentship but only some twenty of his drawings after the Antique survive
(figs 1–4) – many from the casts seen in Burney’s drawing (cat. 25) – and none
as highly ren- dered as the present study.2 Turner’s signature at the lower
right also suggests it was esteemed by the artist himself and prepared for some
formal purpose. Whilst the surviving Academy Council Minutes do not record in
detail the process of progression from the Antique Academy to the Life Academy,
contemporary accounts offer some insight. Turner’s contemporary, Stephen Rigaud
noted: I was admitted as a Student in the Life Academy by Mr Wilton the Keeper,
and Mr Opie, the Visitor for the time being, on the presentation of a drawing
from the Antique group of the Boxers, in which I had copied the strong effect
of light and shade in the whole group coming out by strong lights on one side,
and reflected lights on the other, with which Mr Opie expressed himself much
pleased.3 The study of the Torso has all the characteristics of a presenta-
tion drawing. It is on better, more regularly cut paper than Turner’s other
drawings after the Antique and the figure is highly worked and boldly modelled
with hatching and cross- hatching in chalk to convey the ‘strong effects of
light and shade’ mentioned by Rigaud. This is in keeping with the established
tradition of copying casts by candlelight to enhance contrast, so that the
students could learn how to render planes and anatomical details. Unlike Goltzius’
Torso, being copied in daylight after the original in the Belvedere Courtyard
in Rome, Turner’s cast is strongly lit from above by an oil lamp and set
against a neutral screen to provide a uniform background – as clearly visible
in the view of the Antique Academy (p. 60, fig. 105). Furthermore, this is the
only drawing from the Antique where Turner employed trois crayons, adding red
to black and white chalk, a technique he usually reserved for studies from
life. Might it be that Turner was attempting to turn marble into flesh, the
practice 198 199 students. other the lumps of bread they were given to erase
their draw- ings. Stephen Francis Rigaud (1777–1862), son of the Royal
Academician, John Francis Rigaud (1742–1810) and a student in the early 1790s,
wrote that the Schools were also the forum for political agitation: The
peaceable students in the Antique Academy being continually interrupted in
their studies by others of an opposite character, who used to stand up and
spout forth torrents of indecent abuse against the King [. . .] One evening [.
. .] I rose and protested that if they continued to use such abominable
language in a Royal Academy I would denounce every one of them to the Council
and procure their expulsion [. . .] this threat checked them a little; but they
shewed their spite by pelting me well with [. . .] pieces of bread.9 This
incident reached the ears of the Academy Council from which the Keeper was
excluded. Wilton told Joseph Farington in 1795: The Students in the Plaister
Academy continue to behave very rudely; and that they have a practise of
throwing the bread, allowed them by the Academy for rubbing out, at each other,
so as to waste so much that the Bill for bread sometimes amounts to Sixteen
Shillings a week.10 The Council took the decision to stop the allowance of
bread altogether, as the President, Benjamin West, noted: 27. Joseph Mallord
William Turner (London 1775–1851 London) a. Study of a Plaster Cast of the
Belvedere Torso c. 1792 Black, red and white chalk, on brown paper, 331 × 235
mm Signed recto, l.r., in pen and black ink: ‘Wm Turner.’ literature: Postle
1997, pp. 91–93, repr.; Owens 2013, pp. 102–03, pl. 76. exhibitions: Nottingham
and London 1991, p. 51, no. 18 (M. Postle); Munich and Rome 1998–99, p. 49,
fig. 50, p. 164, no. 62 (M. Ewel and I. von zur Mühlen); Munich and Cologne
2002, p. 414, no. 192 (J. Rees); London 2011 (no catalogue). Victoria and
Albert Museum, Prints et Drawings Study Room, London, 9261 b. The Wrestlers c.
1793 Black, red and white chalks, on brown paper, 504 x 384 mm Signed recto,
l.r., in pen and black ink: ‘Wm Turner.’ literature: Wilton 2007, p. 16, repr.
exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Victoria and Albert Museum, Prints et Drawings
Study Room, London, 9262 provenance: Both drawings purchased by the Museum in
1884 from R. Jackson with four other academic drawings by different artists
(Victoria and Albert Museum Register of Drawings 1880–1884, pp. 171,
174). 200 201 prescribed by Rubens (see Appendix, no.
8), something he may have thought would demonstrate that he was ready to
progress to the Life Academy? The Torso would have been a clever choice for a
presentation drawing, since the antique fragment held a position of great
prominence in the mission and the iconography of the Royal Academy. According
to Reynolds the Torso was the greatest exemplar of classical art. ‘What
artist’, he asked in his 10th Discourse of 1780, ‘ever looked at the Torso
without feeling a warmth of enthusiasm, as from the highest efforts of poetry?’
For him only ‘a MIND elevated to the contemplation of excel- lence perceives in
this defaced and shattered fragment [...] the traces of superlative genius, the
reliques of a work on which succeeding ages can only gaze with inadequate admi-
ration’ (see Appendix, no. 17).4 The muscular figure featured prominently under
the words ‘STUDY’ on the obverse of several medals annually distributed as
premiums to the students and in Angelica Kauffman’s Design for the ceiling of
the Council Chamber, which served also as a second room of the Antique Academy
(see p. 60, fig. 107).5 In Turner’s time as a student, the Academy possessed
two casts of the Torso, one of which we know was presented by the dealer Colin
Morrison in 1770, and significantly Turner himself donated a further cast in
1842.6 The second drawing exhibited here was made from posed models in the Life
Academy. The model would be set by the Visitors and Turner studied under a
number of them, including Henry Fuseli, James Barry and Thomas Stothard
(1755–1834). This drawing possibly dates from 1793 and may represent an
unusually elaborate pose set by the sculptor John Bacon (1740–99). Stephen
Francis Rigaud, who entered the Life Academy a year after Turner, noted: I
remember Mr Bacon once setting a well composed group of two men, one in the act
of slaying the other; or a representation of the history of Cain and Abel,
which was continued for double the time allowed for a single figure, and which
gave general satisfaction to the students.7 This precisely accords with the present
group, which shows specific models engaged in combat. Although designed to
represent a biblical subject, the pose of the two figures was reminiscent of
antique groups, especially the Wrestlers (see p. 30, fig. 33) which had already
served as inspiration for posing the live models in the Italian and French
academies – as seen for instance in Natoire’s imaginary view of the Académie
Royale (cat. 16). Turner continued to attend the Schools throughout the 1790s
until he was awarded Associateship of the Academy in 1799; he would continue to
visit the Life Academy intermit- tently for the rest of his life.8 He was made
inspector of the cast collection of the Royal Academy in 1820, 1829 and 1838
and served as Visitor in the Life Academy for a total of eight years between
1812 and 1838.9 In the latter role he became famous for setting the live model
in postures reminiscent of classical sculpture, clearly recalling what he had
learned during his time as a student. Lauding this practice and lamenting its
decline, the artists and essayists Richard (1804– Fig. 1. Joseph
Mallord William Turner, Study of a Plaster Cast of the Apollo Belvedere, c.
1791, black and white chalks on brown laid wrapping paper, 419 × 269 mm, Tate
Gallery, London, inv. D00057 (Turner Bequest V D) Fig. 2. Joseph Mallord
William Turner, Study of a Plaster Casts of Marquess of Shelbourne’s
Cincinnatus, c. 1791, pencil with black and white chalks and stump on laid buf
paper, 425 × 267 mm, Tate Gallery, London, inv. D00055 (Turner Bequest V B) Fig.
4. Joseph Mallord William Turner, Study of a Plaster Cast of a Helmeted Head
from the Trajan Column, with Other Studies, c. 1791, black, red and white
chalks and stump on dark buf paper, 337 × 269 mm, Tate Gallery, London, inv.
D40220 (Turner Bequest V R, verso) 88) and Samuel (1802–76) Redgrave noted:
When a visitor in the life school he introduced a capital practice, which it is
to be regretted has not been contin- ued: he chose for study a model as nearly
as possible corresponding in form and character with some fine antique figure,
which he placed by the side of the model posed in the same action; thus, the
Discobulus (sic) of Myron contrasted with one of our best trained soldier; the
Lizard Killer with a youth in the roundest beauty of adoles- cence; the Venus
de’ Medici beside a female in the first period of youthful womanhood. The idea
was original and very instructive: it showed at once how much the antique
sculptors had refined nature; which, if in parts more beautiful than the
selected form which is called ideal, as a whole looked common and vulgar by its
side.10 aa et jy For Turner’s attendance at the Academy see Hutchison 1960–62,
p. 130. Finberg 1909, vol. 1, pp. 6–8. See also Wilton 2012. Pressly 1984, p.
90. Reynolds 1997, pp. 177–78. On the medals see Hutchison 1986, p. 34; Baretti
[1781], p. 28; see also London, Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/1, Council minutes,
vol. 1, p. 24, 20 May 1769. For the Council Chamber see Baretti [1781], pp.
25–26. On the two copies of the Torso in the Royal Academy see Baretti [1781],
pp. 9, 28. On Colin Morrison’s donation of a cast of the Torso, together with
‘Cast of a Bust of Alexander’ in 1770 see London, Royal Academy of Arts,
PC/1/1, Council minutes, vol. 1, p. 70, 17 March 1770; on Turner’s donation see
Gage 1987, p. 33. Pressly 1984, p. 90. Hutchison 1960–62, p. 130. See Gage
1987, pp. 32–33. Redgrave and Redgrave 1890, p. 234, quoted in Gage 1987, p.
33. 202 203 Fig. 3. Joseph Mallord William Turner, Study of a
Plaster Casts of the Borghese Gladiator, c. 1791–92, black and some white chalk
on buf wove paper, 580 × 457 mm, Tate Gallery, London, inv. D00071 (Turner
Bequest V S) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 28. William Chambers ( fl.1794) The
Townley Marbles in the Dining Room of 7 Park Street, Westminster 1795 Pen and
grey ink with watercolour and touches of gouache, indication in graphite,
heightened with gum Arabic, 390 × 540 mm provenance: Charles Townley
(1737–1805); by descent to Lord O’Hagan (b. 1945); Sotheby’s, London, 22 July
1985, lot 559; Frederick R. Koch; Sotheby’s, London, 12 April 1995, lot 90,
from whom acquired by the British Museum. literature: Cook 1977, pp. 8–9,
fig.1; Cook 1985, pp. 44–45, fig. 41; Walker 1986, pp. 320–22, pl. A;
Cruickshank 1992, pp. 60–61, fig. 5; Morley 1993, pp. 228, 285, pl. LVII;
Webster 2011, p. 425, fig. 321. exhibitions: Essen 1992, pp. 432–36, no. 360a
(C. Fox and I. Jenkins); London 1995 (no catalogue); London and Rome 1996–97,
pp. 258–60, no. 214 (I. Jenkins); London 2000, pp. 229–30, no. 167; London
2001, p. 42, no. 72; London. The British Museum, Department of Prints and
Drawings, London, 1995,0506.8 Charles Townley (1737–1805) was the most
influential collec- tor of antique sculpture in Britain during the second half
of the 18th century.1 From 1777 Townley’s considerable collection was arranged
in his London residence, 7 Park Street (now 14 Queen Anne’s Gate), a
proto-house-museum praised both for the strength of its collections and their
display. It was to become one of the principal tourist sites in London. Writing
about the house, James Dallaway claimed that ‘the interior of a Roman villa
might be inspected in our own metropolis’.2 Park Street was also a centre of
antiquari- anism and Townley – particularly after 1798, when wars with France
curtailed travel to the Continent – was a hugely Fig. 1. Johann Zofany, Charles
Townley and Friends in His Library at Park Street, Westminster, 1781–90 and
1798, oil on canvas, 127 × 99.1 cm, Towneley Hall Art Gallery et Museum
important figure in promoting the study and interpretation of classical
sculpture in Britain initiating numerous publica- tions, including the Society
of Dilettanti’s Specimens of Antient Sculpture (1809). Townley also formed a
famous library and an immense archive of drawings – in effect a ‘paper museum’
– recording antiquities in both British and European collections. To complete
this ‘paper museum’ and to prepare publications such as the Specimens, Townley
employed numerous young artists to record his own collection. It is clear from
the surviving portions of his diary and other records that 7 Park Street
became, in effect, an alternative academy in London. Writing in 1829, the then
Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, J. T. Smith, published a
description of 7 Park Street and its contents, observing: I shall now endeavour
to anticipate the wish of the reader, by giving a brief description of those
rooms of Mr Townlye’s house, in which that gentleman’s liberality employed me
when a boy, with many other students in the Royal Academy, to make drawings for
his portfolios.3 Townley’s surviving drawings, housed, along with his sculp-
ture collection, in the British Museum, testify to the range of artists he
employed and demonstrate the popularity of Park Street as a venue for artists
both to meet and to draw. Records show that William Chambers – not to be
confused with the architect of the same name – was one of the draughtsmen
employed by Townley to prepare drawings for his ‘portfo- lios’. A payment of
£5.5.0 to Chambers is recorded on 21 October 1795 for the pendant to this
drawing, a view of sculp- ture in the hall at 7 Park Street, also in the
British Museum.4 Townley’s diary records the comings and goings of painters,
particularly his friend, Johann Zoffany (1733–1810) who painted the iconic,
largely imaginary view of Townley’s library filled with his sculpture
collection and with the owner in conversation with his unofficial curator, the
Baron d’Hancarville, and two other friends (fig. 1).5 204 205 The
dining room was one of the principal public spaces of the house and contained
some of the largest sculptures in the collection. These included the Townley
Venus, the Discobolus (fig. 2), the Townley Caryatid, the Townley Vase, and the
Drunken Faun, which Chambers places in the foreground. The modish decoration
reflected both advanced neo-classical thinking and Townley’s own passions; the
walls were articulated by simulated porphyry columns surmounted by capitals
whose design came from Terracina; as d’Hancarville explained: ‘the ove is
covered with three masks representing the three kinds of ancient drama, the
comic, tragic and satyric [...] the choice and disposition of these ornaments
leave no doubt that this capital was intended to characterise a building con-
secrated to Bacchus and Ceres’.6 Visitors are shown admiring the collection
while a woman seated in the foreground is drawing from the Drunken Faun. A
drawing attributed to Chambers of the same sculpture, taken from the same
angle, made for Townely’s portfolios, is also in the British Museum (fig. 3).
Townley’s wide circle of acquaintances included a number of amateur and
professional female artists, includ- ing Maria Cosway (1760–1838), whom Townley
first met in Florence in 1774. His interest in encouraging young artists led to
the publication by Conrad Metz of a drawing manual based on studies of the
sculpture in Park Street: Studies for Drawing, chiefly from the Antique. 30
plates (1785). Townley’s support of artists resulted in his taking an active
role in the Royal Academy of Arts from its foundation. He donated casts of his
own sculpture and solicited dona- tions from friends. The Academy’s Council
Minutes record his first donation in August 1769 of a ‘cast of the Lacedemonian
Boy’ the so-called Knucklebone Players which appears in Edward Burney’s view of
the RA’s Antique Academy on the far left, behind the Cincinnatus (cat. 25).7
One of the artists who appears regularly in Townley’s diary was the sculptor
Nollekens who is recorded donating to the Academy a ‘cast in plaister of the head
of Diomede’ belonging to Townley in 1792.8 Townley also donated casts of
sculptures in other collections, among them, in 1794 one ‘of the celebrated Bas
relief in the Capitol, of Perseus et Andromeda’, a cast still in the collection
of the Academy.9 Townley’s solicitude for the Royal Academy and the educa- tion
of young artists continued throughout his life; in 1797 the painter and diarist
Joseph Farington noted: ‘Townley [...] thinks the Academy should have
additional rooms for Statues &c’.10 29. Joseph Michael Gandy (London
1771–1843 Plympton) View of the Dome Area by Lamplight looking South-East 1811
Pen and black ink, watercolour, 1190 × 880 mm selected literature: Lukacher
2006, pp. 132–33, fig.150 exhibitions: London 1999a, p. 160, no. 68 (H. Dorey);
Munich 2013–14, p. 43; London 2014, (unpaginated). Sir John Soane’s Museum,
London, For Townley see particularly Coltman 2009. Dallaway 1816, pp. 319, 328.
Smith 1829, vol. 1, p. 251. In February that year he had also paid Chambers
£2.2.0. for some unspeci- fied drawings, and in August £1.1.0. for ‘drawing
gems’: see London 2000, p. 229. Townley’s diary records Chambers returned in
May 1798 when he began to make a record of an altar of Lucius Verus Helius
which Townley had recently acquired from the Duke of St Albans; he finished the
study on Sunday 7 July: London, British Museum, Townley Archive, TY/1/10. For
William Chambers’ pendant to this drawing see London 2001, p. 42, no. 71 (with
previous bibliography). Webster. London and Rome 1996–97, pp. 258–60. London,
Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/1, Council minutes, vol. 1, p. 38, 9 Aug. 1769. It
arrived with a cast of a Venus donated by Townley’s principal antiquities
dealer in Rome, Thomas Jenkins. The original Knucklebone Players is in the
British Museum, Department of Greek et Roman Antiquities, inv. 1805,0703.7.
London, Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/2, Council minutes, vol. 2, pp. 173–4, 3
Nov. 1792. The original marble bust is in the British Museum, Department of
Greek et Roman Antiquities, inv. 1805,0703.86, now called the Head of a
follower of Ulysses. London, Royal Academy of Arts, PC/1/2, Council minutes,
vol. 2, p. 201, 7 Feb. 1794. The cast is in the Royal Academy, inv. 03/2018.
The original is in the Capitoline Museums, Rome, inv. 501: see Helbig 1963–72,
vol. 2, pp. 156–57, no. 1330. Farington 1978-98, vol. 3, p. 840. Fig. 2. The
Townley Discobolus, Roman copy of the 2nd century ad after a Greek original of
the 5th century bc by Myron, marble, 170 cm (h), British Museum, Department of
Greek et Roman Antiquities, London, inv. 1805,0703.43 Fig. 3 Attributed to
William Chambers, Drawing of a Statue of an Intoxicated Satyr, 1794–1805, black
chalk and grey wash, 280 × 193 mm, British Museum, Department of Greek et Roman
Antiquities, London, inv. 2010,5006.87 The Royal Academy School of Architecture
was central to the formation of the professional career and teaching of Sir
John Soane (1754–1837), who is chiefly remembered today as architect to the
Bank of England, of Dulwich Picture Gallery and of his incomparable
house-museum at No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. The unique installations
of antiquities and casts after the Antique in the Museum, which he built at the
back of the house, and which J. M. Gandy so atmospherically evokes in this
drawing, also attest to the influence of the Academy on Soane’s pattern of
collecting and his own role as a teacher. Soane entered the Academy in 1771 at
the age of eighteen; he was the 141st pupil since the Academy’s foundation in
1768 and amongst the first students of the School of Architecture, the earliest
institution in Britain to teach architecture in a formalised way. The School
was modelled by Sir William Chambers (1723–96) on his own experience of
studying architecture in Jean-François Blondel’s École des Arts in Paris, in
1749–50, when the status of the architect and teaching methods in Britain were
then very different from those in France. The Académie Royale d’Architecture,
of which Chambers became a member in 1762, had been founded in 1671 and was
followed, in 1743, by Blondel’s more progressive École. The École’s curriculum
was rigorous; it was open for study from Monday to Saturday and from eight in
the morning until nine in the evening. The students’ day began with formal
discussion of various topics, followed by lectures on set matters relating to
drawing such as mathe- matics, geometry, perspective, or to building types such
as military architecture, or to practical issues such as drainage and water
supply. In the spring, students would undertake site visits to notable
buildings in Paris and its environs.1 In Britain, by contrast, the professional
status of architect was ill-defined, and was not always distinguished from that
of the builder or mason. The ambiguous status of architecture was not entirely
clarified by the time Soane entered the architecture school. It was the
smallest of the departments at the Royal Academy and Soane was one of only nine
pupils admitted in 1771. And although inspired by Blondel’s École, the
programme of the architecture school was nothing like so rigourous. Students of
architecture were required to attend only six lectures per year.2 The reason
for this very limited formal teaching was that most students were attached to a
professional archi- tect’s office during the day; when Soane enrolled at the
Royal Academy he was working for George Dance the Younger (1741–1825).3 Nor
were the teaching collections available to students at all extensive. The
collections of plaster casts after the Antique (and antiquities) were dominated
by the requirements of painters and sculptors; in the 1810 inventory of 385
casts, only nineteen can be identified as being architec- tural.4 It is against
this backdrop that we must understand Soane’s own founding of an ‘academy of
architecture’ in his house-museum. The history of Soane’s collections of casts
and the manner in which they were installed, deinstalled and reinstalled over a
period of time and over three different properties belonging to Soane (two at
Lincoln’s Inn Fields and one in Ealing, London) is not straightforward. From
the 1790s, Soane started collecting and displaying casts for the use of the
young pupils and assistants working in his first office in No. 12 Lincoln’s Inn
Fields.5 However, as his collection grew and as his career as an architect developed,
the function of the collection of antiquities and of casts after the Antique
changed. Gandy’s drawing shows the Dome Area of Soane’s Museum as it appeared
in 1811 (a year after the 1810 Royal Academy inventory of casts was com-
piled).6 In this view, atmospherically lit from below by an undisclosed light
source, we can readily identify a number of casts of antique sculpture and of
architectural fragments. The largest casts are the Corinthian capital shown on
the south wall, and a fragment of entablature, shown on the east wall, both
taken from the Temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome, which Soane had purchased
in 1801 from the sale of the architect Willey ‘the Athenian’ Reveley.7 Below
the capital, and forming part of the parapet of the Dome we see a cast of one
of the panels, decorated with a festoon, from the portico of the Pantheon,
purchased from the sale of the architect James Playfair.8 Sculpture is also
represented in the casts, and a number of well-known antiquities can be
206 207 described. Just visible through the arch in the lower
right- hand corner, is an arrangement of four casts taken from the base of one
of the so-called Barberini Candelabra, among the most prized antiquities in the
Museo Pio-Clementino, Rome, which shows the gods Minerva, Jupiter (twice), and
Mercury in low relief.9 On the east wall, below the entablature of the Temple
of Castor and Pollux, is a cast of a relief of two of the ‘Corybantes’, taken
from the marble original in the Vatican Museums and also purchased from the
Playfair sale.10 Although Soane would rearrange these casts and antiquities as
his ‘Museum’ expanded, most are still to be found at No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn
Fields and the general impression of a dense, ‘romantic’ arrangement remains.
If, originally, Soane’s collection of casts and antiquities was intended to
provide exemplars for the architects training and working in his office, by the
time Gandy drew the arrangements as they appeared in 1811 a shift in their
purpose had occurred. In 1806, Soane became Professor of Architecture at the
Royal Academy and, as a former student, he was well aware of the relatively
meagre resources allocated to the School. He comments on this in his 6th
lecture, given to his students at the RA.11 The arrangement of casts shown by
Gandy was installed between 1806 and 1809, when Soane was preparing his Royal
Academy lectures, of which he gave the first in 1809.12 It has been argued that
they are a three-dimensional analogue of the lectures and their drawn
illustrations.13 Indeed, Soane saw the casts as being central to his teaching:
... I propose in future that the various drawings and models, shall, on the day
before, and if necessary, the day after the public reading of each lecture, be
open at my house for the inspection of the students in architecture, where at
the same time, they will likewise have an oppor- tunity of consulting the
plaster casts and architectural fragments.14 Shortly after Gandy completed this
view of the Dome Area, the European Magazine and London Review described
Soane’s house-museum as an ‘... Academy of Architecture’.15 At the same time as
he was responding to the lack of architectural casts and fragments in the
collections of the Royal Academy, Soane’s ‘academy’ should also be seen as
Soane’s reflection on the ways in which he himself had come to experience Roman
architecture. Unlike the Royal Academy lectures, which Soane arranged
programmatically, the ‘Piranesian’ displays of antiquities, casts and
architectural 16 to recreate the experience of visiting Rome and to recall the
excitement of viewing there the disorganised remains of antiquity.17 However,
another reason why Soane rejected a rational academic approach to the
arrangements of antiquities in his house-museum might lie in the way that Soane
used the collections to form his own identity as an architect. In our drawing
Gandy includes a portrait of Soane who is illuminated from the same undisclosed
light source as his casts, gesturing in, by 1811, the slightly archaic manner
of an interlocutor. He is at once teacher, architect and collector.18 The
arrangements of casts and antiquities are not just for the use of his students
and pupils but also, as he put it, ‘... studies for my own mind’.19 They
reflect one individual’s view of art and architecture through the idiosyncratic
juxtapositions that he created. However, there is yet another level of
self-identification in Soane’s collection and display of antiquities and
architec- tural fragments. In Gandy’s drawing, far above Soane on a shelf, can
be seen a row of Roman antique cineraria and cinerary vases. That at the far
left, decorated with Ammon masks, came from the ‘Museum’ of the great Italian
architect and etcher, Piranesi, as did the cinerary vase decorated with
griffins seen on top of the cinerarium in the middle, and the cinerarium
decorated with genii on the far right. Though it is not seen in this view, in
1811, a full-size cast of the Apollo Belvedere would join the collections of
the ‘academy’. Dating to 1717, it had formerly been owned by Lord Burlington
and displayed in his villa at Chiswick. In 1818, further antiquities – this
time from the sale of the effects of Robert and James Adam – would enhance the
installations. The names of these prominent antiquaries and architects are
significant: they create an intellectual genealogy for Soane, who was born the
son of a bricklayer. Sir John Soane’s Museum is a very rare survival of an
early 19th-century private ‘academy’ in which his collections of casts and of
antiquities can be experienced much in the same manner as his own pupils and
his Royal Academy students experienced them. It also demonstrates how Soane
drew upon the Antique to create his intellectual persona. fragments are
set out idiosyncratically and imaginatively. Why did Soane reject a more
conventional arrangement of casts and antiquities in his ‘academy’? Perhaps he
wished 208 1 2 3 4 j k-b See Bingham 1993, p.5. ‘In regard to the students in
architecture, it is exacted from them only that they attend the library and
lectures, more particularly those on Architecture and Perspective...’.
Reprinted, La Ruffinière du Prey 1977, p. 47. Soane subsequently entered the
office of Henry Holland in 1772. Bingham 1993, p. 7. The lack of collections of
casts or of architectural fragments in public collections in Britain, until Sir
John Soane formed his collection, was also commented upon by John Britton in
the preface to his 1827 ‘guide’ to Soane’s house-museum, Britton 1827, p.viii.
209 5 Soane had originally started collecting and displaying casts for
the use of the architects working in his first office in No.12 Lincoln’s Inn
Fields in the 1790s. He also hoped to inspire his eldest son – John Soane
Junior – to become an architect and arranged antiquities and casts at his
country villa, Pitzhanger Manor in Ealing, acquired in 1800 and rebuilt by
Soane, to act as an ‘academy’ for John. For a full description of Soane’s
acquisition and installation of casts in his house-museum and his use of them
see: Dorey 2010. 6 This part of the house was in fact behind No. 13 Lincoln’s
Inn Fields. 7 Reveley had collected these casts in Italy and Soane purchased
every cast from this sale. Dorey 2010, p. 600. 8 Dorey 2010, p.600. 9 These
were found in the remains of Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli in 1730 and were heavily
restored by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. The British antiquary Thomas Jenkins acted as
agent for the Pope when negotiating their acquisition. 10 This had been found
in 1788 near Palestrina. The subject of the relief is also sometimes identified
as the Pyrrhic Dance. 11 ‘...I have often lamented that in the Royal Academy
the students in architecture have only a few imperfect casts from ancient
remains, and a very limited collection of works on architecture to refer to.’
Reprinted in Watkin 1996, p. 579. 12 As Soane explained in his 6th Royal
Academy lecture: ‘On my appoint- ment to the Professorship I began to arrange
the books, casts, and models, 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 in order that the students
might have the benefit of easy access to them. Reprinted in Watkin. See: Dorey
2010, p. 606. Watkin 1996, p.579. Observations 1812, p. 382. In fact, Soane
does seem to have entertained the idea of creating a more ‘rational’ Museum
where casts, antiquities and fragments would be arranged according to academic
taxonomies. A drawing by George Bailey, also dating to 1811 and showing the
Dome Area (SM 14/6/3), includes a plan relating to a scheme of c. 1809–11
whereby both Nos 12 and 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields would be used by Soane. In this
proposed scheme, the whole of No. 13 would become the Museum with the
collections displayed according to type. As Soane explained in a rejected draft
of his sixth Royal Academy lecture, No. 13 would incorporate: ‘... a gallery
exceeding one hundred feet in length for the reception of architectural drawings
and prints, another room of the same extent over it, to receive models and
parts of buildings ancient and modern’. Reprinted in Watkin 1996, p. 356. Soane
even used plain yellow glass in the skylights that illuminated the Dome Area,
perhaps to evoke the light of the Mediterranean world rather than that of
London. Soane explores the use of architecture as a type of ‘self-portrait’ in
notes he made when preparing his Royal Academy lectures. See: Soane. J.,
Extracts, Hints, Etc. for Lectures, 1813–18, SM Soane Case 170, f.135. Soane, Gijsbertus
Johannus Van den Berg (Rotterdam 1769–1817 Rotterdam) The Drawing Lesson c.
1790s Black and red chalk, 483 × 375 mm. Framing lines in black chalk. Signed
recto l.r. in black chalk: GVD Berg. fecit provenance: Paris, Drouot, 26 March
1924, part of lot 55, La Leçon de Dessin (sold as a pair with another drawing,
La Marchande de frivolités); Private collection, France; Private collection,
England; Florian Härb, London, from whom acquired. literature:None.
exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Katrin Bellinger collection, inv. no.
2011-013 Born in Rotterdam, Van den Berg was a pupil of Johannes Zaccarias
Simon Prey (1749–1822), a leading portrait and decorative painter in that
city.1 In the 1780s, he studied for three years in Antwerp where he received
special recogni- tion for his drawings after live models and casts; he also
resided for a time in Düsseldorf and Mannheim.2 In 1790, he returned to
Rotterdam where he established himself as a portrait painter and miniaturist.
The same year he was appointed ‘Corrector’, a judge and arranger of poses for
live models, of the Rotterdam Drawings Society, whose motto was Hierdoor tot
Hooger (‘From Hereby to Higher’).3 For the remainder of his career, he devoted
himself to teaching. His pupils included his son, Jacobus-Everardus-Josephus
(1802–61), who also became a professional painter and from 1844, director of
the Teeken-Akademie in the Hague.4 One of Van den Berg’s biographers makes
special mention of the finished portrait studies in black and red chalk that he
made after his return to Rotterdam; the present drawing is certainly one of
them.5 Berg preferred studying female models, usually posing two together:
here, two elegantly dressed women in a panelled interior focus their attention
on an idealised head, probably a variant of the head of an antique Venus.6 The
seated draughtswoman holds up her chalk-filled porte-crayon above an angled
drawing-board, intently appraising her subject. She engages with it much in the
same way as Hubert Robert did some thirty years earlier in his self-portrait
with the Faustina bust (cat. 17). The second woman appears to be commenting on
the work in progress. A portfolio leans against a table leg on the floor below.
Comparably attired women – possibly the same ones – are shown reading a letter
in a sheet by Van den Berg in a private collection.7 The present composition is
similar in style and format to several other chalk studies by the artist of the
1790s. It is especially close to his drawing of a female artist seated at a
table in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (fig. 1). But instead of holding a
porte-crayon, this young woman operates a zograscope, an optical device
invented in the mid-18th century that included a magnifying lens to enhance an
image’s depth and relief; the subject of her scrutiny remains out of view.8
Another comparable drawing, signed and dated 1791 (Royal Collection, Windsor
Castle; fig. 2), shows an elderly man, perhaps a drawing instructor, inspecting
a portrait study from a portfolio.9 He is seated at a table which is nearly
identical to that in the Bellinger example, but Berg shows him in a less formal
attitude, holding a long clay pipe and resting his feet on a portable stove, in
a manner reminis- cent of Dutch 17th-century genre subjects. This drawing, plus
a number of other figure drawings by Van den Berg preserved at Windsor, were
probably obtained as a group by Fig. 1. Gijsbertus Johannus Van den Berg, Study
of a Woman Seated at a Table, with an Optical Mirror, black and red chalk, 396
× 303 mm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam RP-T-1997-10 210 211
Fig. 2. Gijsbertus Johannus Van den Berg, A Connoisseur Examining
Drawings, 1791, black and red chalk, 407 × 284 mm, Royal Collection, RL 12865
King George III around 1810.10 Most are probably studies after live models set
in poses determined in advance in classes at the Rotterdam Drawings Society.11
Draped plaster casts were used when models were unavailable.12 As with the
Bellinger drawing, their style, with their sensitive employment of black chalk
and red accents for the skin, is strongly reminiscent of portrait drawings by
the English artist Richard Cosway (1742–1821) and no doubt register the
prevailing taste for English art in Rotterdam at the time.13 It is possible
that Van den Berg intended his figure studies to be engraved, perhaps for a
series on the art of drawing.14 Women artists did not begin to acquire the same
privileges and educational advantages as men until the end of the 19th century;
as a general rule they were denied membership of academies and were not
permitted to draw after nude or anatomical models.15 They were largely confined
to producing art in private studios and especially in aristocratic houses,
where drawing tutors were sometimes hired to supplement the education of young
women.16 For the most part, they were restricted to producing non-histor- ical,
non-mythological and non-biblical subjects, such as portraits and still-lifes,
as their exclusion from study of the live model and anatomy was thought to –
and generally did Fig. 3. Georg Melchior Kraus, Corona Schröter Drawing a Cast
of the ‘Eros of Centocelle’, 1785, watercolour, 380 × 315 mm, Klassik Stiftung
Weimar, KHz/01632 – prevent them from acquiring full mastery of the human
form.17 Instead, they studied sculptural models and espe- cially antique casts,
often ones deemed thematically appro- priate for their gender, such as the
ideal head featured in the Van den Berg drawing catalogued here. A comparable
situa- tion is depicted in a watercolour close in date by Georg Melchior Kraus
(1737–1806), then director of the Weimar drawing school, in which a beautiful
and smartly dressed young lady, Corona Schröter, draws after a cast of the
girlish son of Venus, the Eros of Centocelle (1785; Klassik Stiftung Weimar;
fig. 3), a statue known through Roman copies – namely, the example discovered
by Gavin Hamilton in 1772 in the outskirts of Rome and now in the Vatican –
after a lost bronze original by Praxiteles.18 The tradition of women drawing
from antique plaster casts in Holland, which began in the 17th century,19 was
well advanced by the first quarter of the 18th century, evidenced in Pieter Van
der Werff’s portrayal of a girl draw- ing after the Venus de’ Medici (1715;
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; p. 40, fig. 53). Van den Berg’s drawing, and others
like it, confirm that the practice developed further during the latter part of
the century, and became still more widespread in the 19th. The importance of
plaster casts in artistic training in 212 213 Holland at this time is indicated
by the activities of the Rotterdam Drawing School, but also by Van den Berg’s
own self-portrait of 1794, where a reduced model of the Dying Gladiator and
others are given prominence of place on the shelf directly behind the artist
(Museum Rotterdam).20 avl 1 For his life and work, see Van der Aa 1852–78, vol.
2, pp. 368–69; Thieme- Becker 1907–50, vol. 3, p. 387; Scheen 1981, p. 35. 2
Van der Aa 1852–78, vol. 2, pp. 368–69. 3 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 369; For the
society and his involvement therein, see Amsterdam 1994, pp. 2–3 [unpaginated].
4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.; Amsterdam 1994, p. 3 [unpaginated]. 6 Amsterdam 1994, p. 3
[unpaginated]; Berg also oversaw private classes where students drew after nude
female models. 7 Ibid., pp. 3–4 [unpaginated], no. 9. 8 Bulletin van het
Rijksmuseum, 45, no. 3, 1997, p. 239, fig. 9. For an in-depth study of this
device, known in the 18th century as an ‘optical machine’, see Koenderink 2013,
pp. 192–206. 9 Puyvelde 1944, p. 20, no. 81, pl. 142; Amsterdam 1994, p. 2
[unpaginated]. 10 Puyvelde 1944, pp. 20–21, nos. 75–83. See also on-line
collections database: http://www.royalcollection.org.uk 11 For the society’s
use of posed models, see Amsterdam 1994, p. 2 [unpagi- nated]. 12 On the role
of casts, see Amsterdam 1994, p. 2 [unpaginated]. An intrigu- ing view of the
society’s drawing room, on the upper floor of the Delftse Poort in Rotterdam,
was published in Plomp 1982, pp. 11–12 (drawn by an anonymous artist, 1780,
whereabouts unknown). Casts of the Laocoön, the Apollo Belvedere, and L’Ecorché
(Figure of a Flayed Man), 1767 by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828) are clearly
visible. For the latter, see Washington D.C., Los Angeles and elsewhere
2003–04, pp. 62–66, no. 1 (Poulet). It has also been suggested that the
finished quality of Van den Berg’s drawings are reminiscent of engravings by
George Morland (Amsterdam 1994, p. 3 [unpaginated]; Bulletin van het
Rijksmuseum, 45, no. 3, 1997, p. 239). As proposed by Florian Härb, unpublished
fact sheet on the Bellinger drawing, c. 2011. For essential reading on the
subject of women artists from the Renaissance to the mid-20th century, see Los
Angeles, Austin and elsewhere 1976–77 and especially the authors’ introductory
essay, pp. 12–67. See also Goldstein 1996, pp. 61–66. A very small number of
women artists managed to get elected to the French academy including Adélaïd
Labille-Guiard (1749– 1803) and Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun (1755–1842) in 1783. But
from 1663 to the dissolution of the Academy in 1793, only fourteen in total
were accepted (Montfort 2005, pp. 3, 16, note 8). The French Salon in Paris was
not open to non-Academy members until 1791, when women were permitted to
exhibit their work. Goldstein 1996, pp. 62–64. See Los Angeles, Austin and
elsewhere 1976–77, especially pp. 13–58; Goldstein 1996, pp. 62–63. Söderlind
1999, p. 23. For the statue, see Spinola 1996–2004, vol. 2, p. 61, fig. 11, p.
63, no. 85; Piva 2007, pp. 48–49, fig. 7. See for example, A Young Woman Seated
Drawing, 1655–60, by Gabriel Metsu (1629–67) in the National Gallery, London
(NG 5225; Waiboer 2012, pp. 205–06, A-62) and A Lady Drawing, c. 1665, by Eglon
van der Neer (1635/36– 1703) in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. no. P243;
Schavemaker 2010, p. 462, no. 29). Dordrecht 2012–13, no. 64A (F. Meijer). 31.
Wybrand Hendriks (Amsterdam 1744–1831 Haarlem) The Haarlem Drawing College 1799
Oil on canvas, 63 × 81 cm Signed and dated lower left: ‘W. Hendriks Pinxit
1799’ provenance: Wybrand Hendriks (1744–1831); his sale, R.W.P. de Vries et C.F.
Roos, Amsterdam, 27–29 February 1832, lot 30; private collection, Paris; Adolph
Staring (1890–1980), Vorden; given to the Teylers Museum in 1987 by Mrs. J.H.M.
Staring-de Mol van Otterloo. literature: Knoef 1938, repr.; Knoef 1947a, pp.
11–13; Staring 1956, p. 174, fig. LIV; Van Regteren Altena 1970, pp. 312, 316;
Praz 1971, p. 37; Van Tuyll 1988, pp. 17–18, fig. 21; Haarlem 1990, pp. 35–36.
exhibitions: Rotterdam 1946, p. 8, no. 13; London 1947, p. 4, no. 2; Amsterdam
1947–48, p. 8, no. 10; Haarlem 1972, pp. 25–26, no. 29, fig. 44; Munich and
Haarlem 1986, pp. 96–97, no. 13. 214 215 Teylers Museum, Haarlem, KS 1987 002
exhibited in haarlem only In this painting we have been admitted to a gathering
at the Haarlem Drawing College. In the 18th and early 19th century every
self-respecting Dutch town had its own drawing ‘college’ or ‘academy’. It was
where artists and wealthy amateurs met, drew together from the nude or draped
model, and where they looked at drawings together during so-called art viewings
or ‘kunstbeschouwingen’. In 1799, the year this picture was painted, the
Haarlem Drawing College had twenty-six working (as opposed to honorary)
members, and this is very probably a group portrait of them and their committee
(leaving aside the boy playing marbles on the left, who may be the son of one
of the members). The setting is a house that the Haarlem artists rented in
Klein Heiligland. The question that immediately arises is: ‘who’s who?’
Although the label listing the sitters that was still with the painting at the
sale of Hendriks’s estate in 1832 is no longer preserved, many of the figures
can nevertheless be identified with a fair degree of certainty. The two in the
middle are very probably the secretary, Jan Willem Berg who gestures to the
viewer’s left, and the balding treasurer, Pieter S. Crommelin. On the far
right, beneath the bas-relief on the wall, is Hendriks himself.1 The man in the
left background, pointing at one of the plaster casts on the mantelpiece, has
been recognised as Adriaan van der Willigen (1766–1841), author and art
historian avant la lettre.2 Prominently displayed against the chimneybreast are
various plaster casts. The large head of the famous Apollo Belvedere in the
middle is the most eye-catching (see p. 26, fig. 18). To the right of it is the
classical Callipygian Venus and to the left, the crouching Nymph Washing Her
Foot after Adriaen de Vries (1556–1626).3 Of the two male casts seen frontally,
that on the right is after the classical Farnese Hercules (see p. 30, fig. 32),
while that on the left is probably after a Mercury by François Duquesnoy
(1597–1643).4 Hanging on the wall above Hendriks’s head is Vulcan’s Forge, also
after Adriaen de Vries, and in the corner on the left is the life-sized cast of
another classical statue: the Venus de’ Medici (see p. 42, fig. 56).5 The casts
displayed, therefore, reproduce as a whole or in part, statues from classical
antiquity and from 16th- and 17th-century Netherlandish sculpture, which in
turn reference the Antique. The casts depicted belonged to the Haarlem Drawing
Academy, the forerunner of the College. Hendriks had bought them and the rest
of the inventory in 1795 to help pay off the academy’s debts, and he donated
everything to the Drawing College when it was founded the following year. The
prime mover behind the gift was probably the Teylers Foundation, a Haarlem body
that had been set up in 1778 to stimulate the arts and sciences. The foundation
subsidised art education in Haarlem for decades, and Hendriks was the curator
of its art collection, which was housed in the Teylers Museum.6 The fact that
these plaster casts were transferred immediately to the Drawing College
indicates how impor- tant they were for a society that promoted drawing, and
this is confirmed by the prominence they are accorded in this group portrait.
On the other hand, it should be appreciated that the supremacy of classical art
and the rules of classicism, which in fact had never been applied very strictly
in the Dutch Republic, were no longer so sacred in the Netherlands by 1800.
Members of some drawing academies often argued that genres like landscape and
scenes from everyday life in which nature was imitated literally and not
idealised, should be valued as highly as history paintings, which were
generally inspired by classical or neo-classical principles. The idea that
Adriaan van der Willigen is the man point- ing at the casts is intriguing. He
was a learned amateur and the best-versed person in the gathering when it came
to the history of the arts. He was very well aware how much they owed to the
example of ancient Greece and Rome. A few years after this painting was
executed he wrote an essay in the Verhandelingen uitgegeven door Teyler’s
Tweede Genootschap (Discourses published by Teylers Second Society) discussing
‘the cause of the lack of superior history painters in the Netherlands, and the
means suitable for their training’. He praised his countrymen for their
colouring, chiaroscuro, fidelity to nature and brushwork, yet accused them of
impre- cise drawing, inelegant compositions and bad taste. What, Van der
Willigen asked, could be done to overcome these defects? To draw from the
‘purest casts in plaster of the finest classical statues, busts and
bas-reliefs’! And he then gave a list of the well-known canon of classical
sculpture, which included the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoön, the Venus de’
Medici and the Belvedere Torso.7 In short, he was utterly convinced of the
importance of classical sculpture and its formative nature. For him, it was
clearly still of paramount importance. mp 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 For the various
identifications see Haarlem 1972, p. 25 and Haarlem 1990, pp. 35–36. The Van
der Willigen identification was made by A. Staring (1956, p. 174) and has been
adopted by other authors (see above, note 1). According to Staring, some of the
portraits were added later, when the composition had already been determined,
including that of Van der Willigen, who was not yet living in Haarlem in 1799.
Van der Willigen is best known today for writing a comprehensive collection of
biographies of artists living in the Netherlands from 1750 onwards, together
with Roeland van Eynden: Van Eynden and Van der Willigen 1816–40. For the
Callipygian Venus see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 316–18, no. 83; Gasparri
2009–10, vol. 1, pp. 73–76, no. 31 and repr. on pp. 267–69. For the Nymph
Washing Her Foot after Adriaen de Vries: Amsterdam, Stockholm and elsewhere
1998, pp. 131–33, no. 10. For Duquesnoy’s Mercury, of which there are several
versions, some of them slightly different, see Boudon-Mauchel 2005, pp. 264–70.
For the Farnese Hercules see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 229–32, no. 46;
Gasparri. For the Venus de’ Medici see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 325–28, no.
88, and for De Vries’ Vulcan’s Forge see Amsterdam, Stockholm and elsewhere
1998, pp. 187–89, no. 27. The plaster casts stood in the top front room of the
house in Klein Heiligland. For a description of the house and of Hendriks’
involvement with the casts, see Sliggers 1990, no. 26, pp. 16–17. Van der
Willigen 1809, p. 282 (colouring etc.), p. 298 (plaster casts). 216
217 32. Woutherus Mol (Haarlem 1785–1857 Haarlem) The Young Draughtsman
c. 1820 Oil on canvas 52.3 × 42.6 cm provenance: A. Pluym; his sale, R.W.P. de
Vries, A. Brondgeest, C.F. Roos, Amsterdam, 24 November 1846, p. 7, no. 22;
sold to Gerrit Jan Michaëlis (1775–1856) for the Teylers Foundation (f 400,-)
literature: Van Eynden and Van der Willigen 1816–40, vol. 4, p. 244; Huebner
1942, p. 69, fig. 63; Knoef 1947b, pp. 8–10, repr.; Van Holthe tot Echten 1984,
pp. 60–63, fig. 4; Jonkman 2010, p. 35; Geudeker 2010, p. 60, p. 78, fig. 74.
exhibitions: Amsterdam 1822, no. 222; Moscow and Haarlem 2013–14, p. 50 (not
numbered). Teylers Museum, Haarlem, KS 015 exhibited in haarlem only A
young draughtsman sitting by an open window is engrossed in his work. He seems
to be copying the object leaning against the wall in front of him, but whether
it is a drawing or a bas-relief is not entirely clear. The tree visible through
the window and the building beyond it stand in a garden or by a narrow
canal-side street. The colourful flowers in a vase on the windowsill bring a
touch of that outside world indoors. The leaded windows, ceiling beams,
whitewashed walls and above all the ornately carved cup- board show that this
is an old Dutch interior. Standing on the cupboard are imposing plaster casts
of famous classical statues: the Dancing Faun, the Venus de’ Medici (p. 42,
fig. 56) Fig. 1. Woutherus Mol, Painter and Draughtsman in a Studio, c. 1820,
oil on canvas, 43.5 × 37 cm, present whereabouts unknown and an unidentified
statue of the Apollo Citharoedus type.1 It is difficult to make out whether the
other objects also record classical prototypes: a bas-relief, a baby’s head, a
couching lion and a vase with prominent handles. The interior is bathed in a
serene calm, so much so that the song of the little bird in the cage high up on
the wall is almost audible. One scholar recently put forward a fascinat- ing
argument that the picture is a commentary on the Classicist view of art.2 If
the tree and the bouquet of flowers are interpreted as ‘nature’, and the
plaster casts as ‘classical antiquity’, then the young draughtsman is occupying
a special position, mid-way between them. According to that view of art, nature
had to be idealised with the aid of beautiful examples, and such examples were
available in abundance in classical antiquity. Statues like the Venus de’
Medici, the Apollo Belvedere and the Dancing Faun had been for centuries part
of the canon of the most treasured sculptures. At the same time, however, Mol
is remaining true to his Dutch origins, for he has very clearly set The Young
Draughtsman in a traditional Dutch interior. A similar painting by him, Painter
and Draughtsman in a Studio (fig. 1), is again set in a typical 17th-century
Dutch space, with a wooden cross window, ‘Kussenkast’ cupboard, and a massive
table with ball feet. It too contains a prominent display of classical
sculpture.3 The apprentice draughtsman is copying a plaster cast of the Dancing
Faun, and on the cupboard are casts of the same Apollo Citharoedus that we see
in our picture, a reproduction of the so-called Priestess in the Capitoline
Museum, and another of the Farnese Hercules (see p. 30, fig. 32 and cat. 7,
fig. 3). Standing beside the cupboard there is even a copy after a classical
vase, probably the famous Borghese Vase.4 Deliberately or not, the combination
of classical art and a 17th-century Dutch setting relates Mol’s two studio
scenes directly to the debate about the ‘national taste’ being con- ducted in
the Netherlands around 1800 and for some decades 218 219
thereafter. It was felt that Dutch painting was in a deplorable state: essays
were written about how standards could be raised and competitions were held to
encourage improve- ments. Classical sculpture was regularly invoked: it was
only logical that Dutch painters were lagging behind, it was said, given the
absence of classical statues in Holland, and drawing academies should therefore
acquire copies after antique statues (see cat. 31), and so on.5 Reading between
the lines, though, one sees that the same writers were often great admirers of
17th-century Dutch painting. The painters of that Golden Age had paid little
heed to Classicist art theory; they imitated nature and did not idealise it.
Mol’s two studio scenes contain elements that can be associated with both
artistic theories. He was very much at home in both worlds. Born in Haarlem, he
had received an old- fashioned Dutch training with the landscapist Hermanus van
Brussel (1763–1815). In 1806, however, he went to Paris, where he worked for
several years, partly as an élève in the framework of the new arts policy of
King Louis Napoleon of Holland (1778–1846), apprenticed to none other than
Jacques Louis David (1748–1825). In other words, classicist views about art
were well-known to him. 33. Anonymous, Danish School, 19th century Two Artists
and a Guard in the Antique Room at Charlottenborg Palace c. 1835 Oil on canvas,
38.6 × 33.9 cm provenance: Private collection, Denmark; Thomas Le Claire Kunsthandel,
Hamburg with Daxer et Marschall, Munich in 2003 (as Knud Andreassen Baade),
from whom acquired. literature: Zahle 2003, p. 271, fig. 117 (as Julius
Friedlænder (?)); Copenhagen 2004, pp. 110–11, no. 8, fig. 16 (as unknown
artist); Fuchs and Salling 2004, vol. 3, pp. 194–95, repr. (as unknown artist).
1 2 3 4 5 mp Haskell and Penny 1981, respectively pp. 205–08, no. 34 (Dancing
Faun), pp. 325–28, no. 88 (Venus de’ Medici). T. van Druten, in Moscow and
Haarlem 2013–14, p. 50. Mak van Waay sale, Amsterdam, 26 May 1964, lot 366.
Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 205–08, no. 34 (Dancing Faun), pp. 229–32, no. 46
(Farnese Hercules), pp. 314–15, no. 81 (Borghese Vase). For the Priestess in
the Capitoline Museum see Stuart Jones 1912, p. 345, no. 6, pl. 86; Helbig 1963–72,
vol. 2, no. 1227. Koolhaas-Grosfeld and De Vries 1992, pp. 119, 128.
exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Katrin Bellinger collection, inv. no.
2003-028 The Antique Room of the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts, housed in
Charlottenborg Palace, was a popular choice of subject for 19th-century
Scandinavian art students, such as H. D. C. Martens (1795–1864), Martinus
Rørbye (1803–48) and Christian Købke (1810–48). The Academy was founded in 1754
by King Frederik V, but an informal art school had been established in 1740 by
his predecessor, Christian VI, so that there was already a small collection of
casts for the students to study, including one of the Laocöon, but with the
older son missing.1 The Academy’s programme was modelled on those of others across
Europe, especially that in Paris, in which plaster copies after antique models
served as the basis for the instruction of artists; in some cases casts were
even valued above the originals because they made details more readily
accessible to copyists. The expansion of the collection was primarily due to
the efforts of three mem- bers of the Academy: a professor of sculpture,
Christoph Petzholdt (1708–62), who contributed twenty-five casts and restored
many others that had suffered from being moved too often;2 the sculptor and
Academy Fellow Johannes Wiedewelt (1731–1802), who in 1758 sent three large
chests of casts back to Denmark from Rome;3 and the painter and sculptor
Nicolai Abildgaard (1743–1809), who was appointed Director in 1789 and
purchased several casts, including Germanicus and the Belvedere Torso, and the
missing son of the Laocoön.4 The cast collection focused mainly on Roman
copies, and it was not until the first decades of the 19th century that casts
of Greek originals were added.5 This was characteristic of academies across
Europe, which began to recognise the value of the Greek originals over their
Roman derivations, thus diverging from Italian academic tradition. In the
painting on display, an artist in his work-robe holds up a plumb-line to check
the vertical axis of the cast that he is sketching. He draws his copy on a
sheet attached to a drawing-board that rests on his lap, and his portfolio
crammed with other drawings leans against a stool in front of him, along with
his discarded top hat and cravat. A fellow artist considers his handiwork, but
they are about to be interrupted by a museum guard bearing a scroll. When it
was acquired in 2003, this canvas was attributed to the Norwegian artist, Knud
Andreassen Baade (1808–79), whose painting of the same room now belongs to the
National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo (fig. 1), and also
features a draughtsman at work, holding up a stylus to check the horizontal
reference line of his subject. The depic- tion of the room in the Oslo
painting, which is dated 1828, just precedes its renovation later that year
when, under the direction of the architect Hansen (1756–1845), the walls were
plastered smooth, as seen in the painting on display here.6 A comparison of the
two canvases shows the way the room was modified to accommodate the growing
collection, as casts were shifted around according to aesthetic, thematic or
chronological principles. In the Oslo painting, the Borghese Gladiator (see p.
41, fig. 54 and cats 16, 23–24) is placed in the extreme left foreground,
creating a diagonal perspective. The same technique is used in the present
painting, though it is now a statue of Perseus that anchors the work, with his
outstretched hand grasping a missing Medusa’s head. The Perseus was created in
1801 by Canova, Fig. 1. Knud Andreassen Baade, Scene from the Academy in
Copenhagen, 1828, oil on canvas, 32.4 × 23.8 cm, The National Museum of Art,
Architecture and Design, Oslo, inv. no. NG.M.01589 220 221
Fig. 2. Relief of an Eagle with a Wreath, 2nd century ad, marble, church of
Santi Apostoli, Rome who donated a cast of it to the Academy in 1804, thereby
becoming a member. Another modern sculpture hangs on the upper wall at left,
which is a roundel with an allegory of Justice, in which Nemesis reads a list
of the guilty to Jupiter, who sits in judgment. This was the work of Bertel
Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), the leading sculptor in Europe after Canova’s death,
who had been trained in the Academy.7 Also modern is the bust of Frederik V at
the end of the room by the sculptor J. F. J. Saly. The remaining casts in the
room are of antique statues and reliefs, and extant inventory lists attest to
the dates of their acquisition.9 The relief of the eagle in a wreath, after the
original in the church of Santi Apostoli in Rome (fig. 2), is displayed on the
wall above a reduced copy of a frieze, taken from the Parthenon, both of which
were transferred to this southern wall as part of the 1828 reconstruction.10
Facing the viewer and leaning on a column is a reproduction of the Marble Faun
(fig. 3). This was a relatively overlooked sculp- ture, more valued for its
conjectural attribution to Praxiteles Fig. 3. Marble Faun, Roman copy, c. 2nd
century ad, after a Greek original of the 4th century bc, marble, 170.5 cm (h),
Capitoline Museums, Rome, inv. no. S.739 Fig. 4. Germanicus, Roman, c. 20 ad,
after a Greek original of the 5th century bc, marble, 180 cm (h), Louvre,
Paris, inv. no. MA1207 than for its aesthetic significance. It did not achieve
world- renown until the publication of The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne
in 1860, after which it became one of the highlights of the Capitoline
Museum.11 Behind the Faun stands a cast of Germanicus (fig. 4), which, in
contrast to the Faun, was one of the most revered antiquities almost from its
discovery in the mid-17th century.12 Casts of it were commissioned for
collections across Europe, including Florence, Mannheim, Madrid and the Duke of
Devonshire’s collection at Chatsworth in Derbyshire. The identity of this
figure is uncertain, and it has been thought by different scholars to represent
Augustus, Brutus, Mercury or an anonymous Roman general; however, its
identification as Germanicus, nephew of Tiberius, has persisted since 1664.13
Between Perseus and the Faun is the seated figure of Mercury, cast after the
bronze original discovered in Herculan- eum in 1758 (fig. 5). It was one of the
most celebrated archaeo- logical discoveries of the 18th century, and its
presence is critical to the dating of the Bellinger painting because the cast
was only acquired by the Academy in 1834, thus provid- ing a terminus post quem
and supporting for it a date of c. 1835.14 This precludes the authorship of
Baade, who left Copenhagen in 1829 and spent the early 1830s travelling in his
native Norway. In 1836 he followed his mentor, the landscapist J. C. C. Dahl,
to Germany, where he lived until his death in 1879.15 Jan Zahle tentatively
proposed that the painter was Julius Friedlænder (1810–61),16 who is also
thought to be the artist of another painting of the Antique Room in
Charlottenborg, dated 1832 (current whereabouts unknown).17 To commemorate the
250th anniversary of the 222 223 Fig. 5. Seated Mercury,
Roman copy, 1st century ad, after a Greek original of the late 4th century or
early 3rd century bc, bronze, 105 cm (h), Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples,
inv. NM 5625 Academy in 2004, the Bellinger painting was presented in the
accompanying exhibition catalogue as by an unknown artist,18 and until further
evidence comes to light, it is prudent to maintain its anonymity. While the
Academy continues to function, the cast collection was relocated and dispersed
several times; first in 1883, due to lack of space, to a new building. The
pieces by Thorvaldsen were transferred to his eponymous museum, founded during
his lifetime in 1839 and opened to the public in 1848. In 1895 the rest of the
collection was absorbed into the newly created Royal Cast Collection, which
shared a building with the newly founded National Gallery of Art, in
Copenhagen.19 These casts were neglected over the subse- quent years, as
interest in plaster copies waned in favour of original and unique works of art.
When the museum under- went renovations from 1966 to 1970, the majority of the
casts were packed away and allowed to deteriorate. Only in 1984, due to the
combined efforts of concerned art historians, classical archaeologists and
artists, were thousands of casts rescued and restorations begun. They were
rehoused in the West India Company Warehouse, Fig. 6. Antique Room in
Charlottenborg Palace recreated in 2004, curated by Pontus Kjerrman and Jan
Zahle, with sculptor Bjørn Nørgaard originally a storehouse for products of the
slave trade, and approximately 2,000 casts can be seen on display there. The Faun
and Germanicus both belong to this collection, while Canova’s Perseus was
transferred to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. However, in 2004, as part of the
anniversary exhibition, replicas of these casts were reunited in the Antique
Room of the Palace, just as seen in numerous 19th-century paintings, such as
this one. A visitor in 2004, therefore, could stand in the very same spot as
our anony- mous painter, and witness a nearly identical scene (fig.).
literature:None. exhibitions: Not previously exhibited. Katrin Bellinger
collection, inv. no. 1997-020 In this striking candlelight view of a
19th-century bourgeois interior by the little-known artist, Desflaches,1 a man
examines a work of art displayed on an easel but hidden from our view. In one
hand he holds an oil lamp or candle, illuminating the corner of the room in
soft, golden light and casting strong and dramatic shadows. It is exactly
10:30, according to the clock on the mantle, and the visitor, proba- bly a
connoisseur, has called on the artist at home, presum- ably to inspect his
latest work. He has removed his hat and cloak, placed on the chair on the left,
and with a pipe in hand, assumes a relaxed yet concentrated stance. Viewing and
producing art by candlelight is a tradition that hearkens back to the
Renaissance when artist-theorists, Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), Leonardo da
Vinci (1452– 1519), Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71) and others, advised students to
draw sculpture by artificial light, to enhance the effects of relief,
three-dimensionality and shadow.2 Baccio Bandinelli put this concept into
practice, and drawing by candlelight was central to artistic training at his
academy (see cats 1–2). Others followed suit including Jacopo Tintoretto and
his followers who used an oil lamp when making studies after casts of
Michelangelo’s Medici tomb figures and other models ‘so that he could compose
in a powerful and solidly modelled manner by means of those strong shadows cast
by the lamp’.3 The practice of drawing after models, especially casts, at night
continued in the 17th century, as seen in Rembrandt’s small etching, Man
Drawing from a Cast, (c. 1641).4 Nocturnal viewings became common in the late
18th century; white casts were popularly studied by flickering torchlight
because it made them appear animated.5 Indeed, the spectators’ delight is
clearly evident in William Pether’s mezzotints, Three Persons Viewing the
Gladiator by Candlelight (1769) 6 and An Academy (1772; cat. 24), both after
Joseph Wright of Derby. The female model in the Bellinger painting is a reduced
plaster cast of the Crouching Venus – a Hellenistic original of which several
antique variations are known (fig. 1).7 The figure was enormously popular,
especially in the 17th and 18th centuries when many artists produced imitations
of her, the most celebrated being the marble completed in 1686 by the French
sculptor, Antoine Coysevox (1640–1720), also reproduced in bronze.8 She is
generally believed to represent Venus in, or emerging from, the bath, her head
turned sharply to the right and her arms sensuously and protec- tively crossing
her body, suggesting that her ablutions have been interrupted. In Desflaches’
canvas the Crouching Venus has been brightly lit and given primacy of place,
suggesting she may be the subject of the canvas displayed on the easel; her
animation is enhanced by the direct gaze with which she engages the viewer.
While the cast in our painting probably ultimately derives from the antique
marble in the Uffizi, it seems to have been idealised and modified, to reflect
a dis- tinctively Coysevesque sensibility, evidenced in the refined and
delicate features of her face.9 Other identifiable works in the Desflaches
composition include a second plaster cast – a male portrait bust – partly
visible on the covered table in the background, to the visitor’s right. He
probably derives from the marble head of a young man in the Museo
Pio-Clementino in the Vatican (Roman, 1st Fig. 1. Crouching Venus, Roman copy,
1st c. ad after Hellenistic original, marble, 78 cm (h), Uizi, Florence, inv.
no. 188 Zahle 2003, p. 272. For the
history of the Copenhagen Academy see Meldahl and Johansen 1904. Saabye 1980,
p. 6 and Zahle 2003, p. 272 Zahle Jørnæs 1970, p. 52. Zahle 2003, p. 275.
Jørnæs 1970, p. 58. Helsted 1972, p. lxxxvi. Copenhagen 2004, p. 201 (S85). An
inventory from 1809 is especially extensive (Fortegnelse over Marmor-og
Gibs-Figurerne, samt Receptions-Stykkerne og flere Konstsager i Den Kongelige
Maler-, Billedhugger- og Bygnings-Academie paa Charlottenborg, partially
transcribed in Zahle 2003, p. 269) and records were kept for several years by
the art historian Julius Lange (see, for example, Lange 1866). Copenhagen 2004,
p. 198 (S51) and p. 199 (S61). Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 210; La Rocca and
Parisi Presicce 2010, pp. 446–51, no. 5. Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 219. Ibid.,
p. 220. Copenhagen 2004, p. 200 (S72). Thieme-Becker 1907–50, vol. 2, p. 297. Zahle 2003, p. 271. Copenhagen 2004, p. 110, no. 7. Ibid., p. 110, no. 8.
Zahle 2003, p. 278. 34. Desflaches (Christian name unknown; probably
Belgian, fl. 19th century) The Connoisseur c. 1850 Oil on canvas, 60 × 50 cm
Signed recto lower right, Desflaches provenance: Galerie Fischer-Kiener, Paris;
property of a European Foundation; their sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 26 October
1990, lot 144; Didier Aaron Inc., New York; Harry Bailey, New York; Didier
Aaron Inc., New York; Their sale, Christie’s, New York, 22 May 1997, lot 116,
from whom acquired. 224 225 Fig. 2. Head of Lucius or
Gaius Caesar, or the Young Octavian (Augustus), 52 cm (h), marble, possibly end
of the 1st c. ad or later, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican Museums, Rome, inv.
714 Fig. 3. Godfried Schalcken (1643–1706), An Artist and a Young Woman by
Candlelight, oil on canvas, 44 × 35 cm, private collection, New York
century ad; fig. 2).10 This bust, believed to be either one of the brothers,
Lucius or Gaius Caesar, or a rare depiction of the young Octavian before he
became Emperor Augustus in 27 bc,11 enjoyed considerable popularity and was
copied by many artists, particularly in the 19th century. Its authen- ticity
has occasionally been doubted – at one point it was even attributed to the
neo-classical sculptor, Antonio Canova (1757–1822) – but the confirmation of
its discovery by Robert Fagan in the ruins of Tor Boacciana (Ostia) in 1800–02,
supports its antique origin despite it being consid- erably reworked.12 In
addition to works deriving from antique sources are others that directly
reference Dutch art of the 17th century. Immediately behind the Crouching Venus
is what appears to be a pencil drawing after Rembrandt’s celebrated etching,
Self Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill (1639).13 It is in the same direction as
the etching though the line is faint and the lower half of the figure, with the
distinctively posed left arm, has been omitted altogether, suggesting the
source was either a later impression of the print or a further, reduced copy of
the original. To the right of the Rembrandt, is a moonlit landscape strongly
reminiscent of the work of Aert van der Neer (1603/4–77). On the opposite wall
is a portrait of a man, possibly by, or at least in the manner of, the
portraitist and genre painter, Frans Hals (1582/83–1666). Partly obscured in
shadow below appears to be a drawing, possibly by Jan van Goyen (1596–1656), or
one of his contemporaries. As the distinctive trappings would suggest, the
artist may well be Dutch, and this is supported further by a com- parison with
a painting by Godfried Schalcken (1643–1706) in a private collection, New York
(fig. 3), which may have been known to Desflaches. A pupil of Gerrit Dou
(1613–75), Schalcken specialised in night scenes; here a man, drawing in hand,
presumably the artist, with his female pupil, points suggestively to a small
but lively model of the Crouching Venus, animatedly illuminated by an oil lamp;
clearly there is more 226 than just a drawing lesson at play here. An antique
head lies dormant, face-up on the table below. By the 19th century, the Antique
was readily available, even to amateur artists, via plaster casts, as
Desflaches’ composition suggests. Ancient sculpture could now readily be
combined with art of different types and in diverse settings, both on the
continent – seen, for instance, in the work of Woutherus Mol (cat. 32), which
also features Dutch and antique motifs – and in England (cat. 35). As the canon
became more diffuse, the standing of the Antique also declined, as other
styles, historical and modern, became increasingly more dominant as the century
progressed. The painting bears that name at lower right. In the Christie’s
catalogue, New York, 22 May 1997, lot 116, the initial of the first name is
given as ‘P’, without explanation, and the nationality, French/Belgian. A
painting attributed to the artist, Still Life with Brass Oil Lamp, Skeleton Key
and Pitcher, oil on canvas, 33 × 29.2 cm, was sold New Orleans Auction
Galleries, 20 July 2002, lot 324 (as P. Desflaches). Weil-Garris 1981, pp.
246–47, note 39; Roman 1984, p. 83; Hegener 2008, p. 401. Ridolfi 1914, vol. 2,
p. 14; Ridolfi 1984, p. 16. White and Boon 1969, vol. 1, p. 68, no. B130, vol.
2, p. 119, repr. Borbein 2000, p. 31 (see also note 23 listing further
bibliography on night- time viewing of casts). Clayton 1990, p. 236, no. 154,
P3. Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 321–23, no. 86, fig. 171. The authors catalogue
the example in the Uffizi, Florence, but discuss the other extant versions as
well. See Lullie 1954, pp. 10–17 and Havelock 1995, pp. 80–83. Haskell and
Penny 1981, pp. 40, fig. 22, 323. The marble version is in the Louvre and the
bronze, at Versailles (Souchal 1977–93, vol. 1, pp. 191–92). The cast in the
painting bears a striking resemblance to one preserved in the Salzburg Museum,
Austria, another idealisation of the original in the Uffizi, see
http://www.salzburgmuseum.at/972.0.html It was in the collection of the
painter, Anton Raphael Mengs (1728–79). In 1782, the Court of Saxony acquired
it, among other casts from his estate, for the Dresden Academy of Art. Spinola
1996–2004, vol. 2, pp. 131, fig. 22, 137–38, no. 123 with previous bibliography.
Spinola 1996–2004, vol. 2, p. 137. Ibid. White and Boon 1969, vol. 1, pp. 9–10,
no. B21, vol. 2, p. 10, repr. 227 35. William Daniels (Liverpool
1813–1880 Liverpool) Self-Portrait with Casts: The Image Seller c. 1850 Oil on
canvas, feigned circle, 43.3 × 43.3 cm provenance: Richard S. Timewell,
Tangier, by descent; Timewell family sale, Brissonneau et Daguerre, Paris, 15
June 2005, lot 56; W. M. Brady et Co., New York, 2005, from whom acquired.
literature: Bowyer 2013, pp. 49–50, fig. 36. exhibitions: New York 2005b, no.
13, repr.; Compton Verney and Norwich 2009–10, pp. 12–16, fig. 9, p. 98.
Katrin Bellinger collection, inv. no. 2005-016 Born into a modest working-class
family in Liverpool, Daniels was apprenticed to his father, a brick maker, loading
and arranging new stock; in his spare time, he drew faces on the bricks and
carved and modelled small figures in wood and clay.1 His artistic talents were
recognised by Alexander Mosses (1793–1837), a local painter, who encouraged him
to take evening classes in drawing at the Royal Institution in Liverpool. The
young Daniels was awarded first prize for a large study ‘in black and white’ of
the Dying Gladiator ‘drawn from the round’ which, allegedly, Mosses ‘begged ...
off the lad and had ... framed’.2 Daniels later became apprenticed to the
painter but was confined to menial tasks, and could only paint at night, slyly
returning the cleaned brushes in the morning.3 The resulting night scenes or
‘candlelight pic- tures’, primarily portraits and genre subjects, would become
his trademark and he achieved considerable local success, exhibiting at the
Liverpool Academy, Post Office Place and the Liverpool Society of Fine Arts,
and then in London at the Royal Academy in 1840, 1841 and 1846.4 He became known
as the ‘Liverpool Rembrandt’ or the ‘English Rembrandt’, according to one
source reputedly quoting John Ruskin.5 Daniels also shared with the Dutch
master a life-long preoccupation with his own image; many of his finest
painting were portraits of himself, as noted in one of his obituaries.6 And
like the youthful Rembrandt he was particularly fond of depicting those on the
fringes of society with whom he seemed to share a certain affinity, often
representing himself in the guise of the urban poor – beggars, gypsies,
brigands and others.7 Described by one biographer as ‘of fine, manly form, very
handsome’ with ‘a profusion of jet black curly hair’ and a swarthy complexion,
it was sometimes said of him that there was ‘gypsy blood in his veins’ and that
wear- ing earrings only enhanced his ‘resemblance to the wander- ing tribe.’8
In the striking example seen here, Daniels has fashioned himself as an Italian
travelling salesman of plaster casts, a popular subject for Victorian artists.9
With the increasing demand for images in museums, schools and academies but
also as adornments in ordinary homes, celebrated 228 sculptures from antiquity,
together with portraits of modern worthies, were mass-produced in plaster,
generally in reduced form.10 The technique was simple and inexpensive: a
mixture of marl and clay was poured into a slip mould of plaster of Paris that
absorbed the water, leaving a thin layer of clay inside the mould that could be
easily removed, lightly fired, producing a brittle but light-weight and easily
portable cast.11 Favourite antique and contempo- rary subjects – including the
Farnese Hercules and the Apollo Belvedere as well as busts of Byron, Milton,
Napoleon and Queen Victoria – were now displayed and offered for sale
together.12 While English firms had been manufacturing casts since the 18th
century, the market became increasingly dominated by Italian makers,
particularly from around Lucca who organised large groups to sell their wares
on the streets of London and beyond.13 Having considerable reach through their
travels, these vendors played a seminal role in disseminating knowledge of the
iconic works of antiquity through all classes of society.14 The British public
regarded the image-makers and sellers, men and boys from forty to fifteen with
curiosity and with some suspicion.15 One of the earliest images of them is an
amusing caricature by Rowlandson in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (c.
1799, fig. 1). Appearing dishevelled with unbuttoned shirt and jacket, the
salesman peddles his wares to an enthusiastic family while a woman watches a
peep show in the background. A slightly later example, accompanied by the
title, Very Fine. Very Cheap, was etched by Smith, known as ‘Antiquity Smith’,
the writer, poet and Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum from
1816 to 1833 (fig.). On the seller’s board, a reduced cast of the Farnese
Hercules (see p. 30, fig. 32) has been relegated to the background, obscured by
a cast of a Roman vase. With a slightly sinister glint in his eyes, this figure
was included in Smith’s Etchings of Remarkable Beggars, Itinerant Traders and
other Persons, published in London, 1815. William James Muller (1812–45)
produced a more sympathetic, even romantic portrayal of the itinerant cast
seller in 1843 (fig. 3). More closely allied to the Daniels’ 229
Copyright: Christie’s Images Limited (2012) painting than the others, this
hawker is less an object of derision than one of wonder, even admiration.17 In
the present example, Daniels, dressed in modest work- man’s attire and
silhouetted against a dark backdrop, bal- ances on his head a board fully
loaded with a casts of every shape and size, securing it with one hand. Many
were based on examples in his own collection, probably used in his studio to
prepare accessories in his portrait commissions. Immediately recognisable in
the centre right is the bust of Shakespeare, whom Daniels particularly admired.
He was said to have a deep familiarity with the poet’s work and could identify
the exact source for every quotation, ‘without a moment’s hesitation’.18 In
fact, busts of the bard are listed in Daniel’s posthumous sale of 1880, one of
which is likely to be the example seen here.19 With the other arm, he cradles a
bust of Homer, the blind epic poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey, another
favourite of Daniel’s as noted by his biographer.20 The source for this cast
was a Roman marble of the Antonine period (138-93 ad, after a lost Hellenistic
original of c. 300 bc), probably the version preserved in the Museo Archeo-
logico Nazionale di Napoli (fig. 4).21 Known in several variants after the same
lost Greek original, this is arguably the most celebrated image of Homer from
antiquity and was used by many artists; arguably the most famous example is
Rembrandt’s Aristotle with a Bust of Homer which passed through various English
private collections in the 19th century (now Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York), and 230 which Daniels was probably referencing, reinforcing his
association with both poet and artist.22 The other casts on the tray in the
painting appear to reproduce a mixture of English and French works of the mid-
to late 18th and 19th century. They include the brightly coloured parrot,
probably based on a Staffordshire porcelain example, c. 1850, after a Meissen
original of the 18th century, and the hooded figure on the front left, possibly
an adapta- tion of ‘La Nourrice’ (Nurse and Child) modelled by Joseph Willems
at Chelsea (c. 1752–58), after a French terracotta original of the 17th
century.23 Popular images of the three Fig. 4. Bust of Homer, marble, 72 cm
(h), Roman Antonine period after a lost Hellenistic original of c. 300 bc,
Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. 6023 theological virtues, Faith,
Hope and Charity, made by the Wood family at Burslem in Staffordshire, 1800–10,
appear to be the inspiration behind some of the other figures on the tray: Hope
at the far right, seen in profile with hands clasped; Faith, directly behind
the parrot; and Charity, seen from the back, behind the Nurse and Child.24 It
has also been suggested that the bust of a boy seen from the back, directly
above Daniels’ right hand, might be Alexandre Brongniart by Houdon, known in
examples in marble, terracotta, bronze, plaster and biscuit porcelain.25
Daniels appears to be between thirty-five and forty years old in this painting,
slightly older than his self-portrait at the easel of c. 1845 in the Walker Art
Gallery, Liverpool (fig. 5); a completion date of around 1850 therefore seems
likely.26 The theme of the cast vendor clearly intrigued Daniels for he would
return to it again about twenty years later. In An Italian Image Seller (1870;
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; fig. 6), the protagonist (probably Daniels
again) rests on the wall of an 27 English country lane. The tray is no longer
present but on the ground to his right are two casts, one, a Mercury, the
other, the nymph, Clytie (sometimes identified as Antonia, daughter of Mark
Antony and mother of the Emperor Claudius). The marble original of the nymph,
acquired in Naples by the Grand Tour collector, Charles Townley (1737– 1805)
and reportedly his favourite, is now in the British Museum.28 Copies of the
popular statue were made in porce- lain by the firm Copeland from 1855 and it
has been suggested that Daniels based his depiction on one of them.29 Daniels
certainly owned a copy of the Clytie and other busts after the Antique
including a Jupiter, Apollo, Diana and Laocoön, ‘which he treated with almost
reverential admiration’.30 As Daniels’ Image Seller shows, by the mid-19th
century iconic antique statues, once rarefied models of ideal beauty, were now
commercialised and readily available on the open Fig. 5. William Daniels,
Self-Portrait, c. 1845, oil on canvas, 91.5 × 71.7 cm, Walker Art Gallery,
Liverpool, WAG 1724 Fig. 6. William Daniels, An Italian Image Seller, 1870, oil
on canvas, 80 × 63.5 cm, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, WAG 3114 market through
mass-produced casts. While the Antique continued to be central to the education
of artists both in the studio and in the academy, it became an ubiquitous
presence in the home, especially in middle-class interiors where reductions of
famous statues were displayed alongside works from other periods, sometimes
even assuming a secondary role to them. The amalgamation of styles and
influences, in which Ancient, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance and Modern were
placed on equal footing, was, by the mid-19th century, the result of an
historicist aesthetic in which the Antique had become just one of the possible
artistic references, thus losing its canonical status and aesthetic
primacy. Rowlandson, An Image Seller, c. 1799, watercolour, 326 × 264 mm,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, no. 1820-1900 Fig. 2. John Thomas Smith,
Very Fine. Very Cheap, c. 1815, etching, 192 × 114 mm (plate); 267 × 185 mm
(sheet), from Etchings of Remarkable Beggars, Itinerant Traders and other
Persons, published in London, 31 December 1815, National Portrait Gallery,
London, Reference collection D40098 Fig. 3. William James Muller, The Plaster
Figure Seller, oil on canvas, 82.5 × 52.1 cm, sold Christie’s, London, 6 November
2012, lot 333. avl An extensive tribute to Daniels was published anonymously in
serial form in the Liverpool Lantern (1880), by his friend, K. C. Spier, editor
of the paper. It may be consulted at:
http://art-science.com/WDaniels/LLessay.html where the artist’s obituaries and
private letters and notes also are transcribed, some of which are referred to
in Spier’s essay (cited here as Spier 1880). For other accounts of his life and
work, see Tirebuck 1879; The Magazine of Art, 5, June 1882, pp. 341–43;
Marillier 1904, pp. 95–98; Thieme- Becker 1907–50, vol. 8, pp. 362–63; Fastnege
1951; Bennett 1978, vol. 1, p. 79. Spier 1880, chapter 4. The drawing,
presumably after a cast of the famous sculpture in the Capitoline Museum, Rome
(see cat. 20, fig. 2) remains untraced. Spier 1880, chapter 4. Marillier 1904,
pp. 96–97; Fastnege 1951, p. 80; Bennett 1978, vol. 1, p. 79. Obituary,
Liverpool Journal, 16 October 1880; Liverpool Mercury 15 April 1884; Daily Post
Liverpool, June 1908. Liverpool Journal. Representations of the urban poor in
British art was an increasingly popu- lar genre from around the mid-18th
century onwards. See Hansen 2010. Spier 1880, chapter 5. Lambourne 1982;
Compton Verney and Norwich 2009–10, p. 13. For the history and use of casts, see
Borbein 2000. For a translation in English by Bernard Fischer, see
http://www.digitalsculpture.org/casts/ borbein/index.html For British cast
makers and/or sellers in the 18th to early 19th c., see Clifford 1992 and for
the 19th c., Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 117–24; Lambourne 1982; and Simon
2011. Lambourne 1982, p. 119. Ibid. Clifford 1992; Simon 2011. Lambourne 1982,
p. 121. Simon 2011 [unpaginated]. Ibid., fig. 3. For other images of the
subject, see Lambourne 1982, pp. 118–23, figs 1–10. Spier 1880, chapter 2; New
York 2005b, under no. 13. Walker et Ackerley, Liverpool, 6 December 1880,
discussed in in Spier 1880, chapter 24. The present writer has not been able to
locate a copy of this catalogue. Spier 1880, chapter 2. Richter 1965, vol.
1, p. 50, no. IV, no. 7, figs 70–72; Gasparri 2009–10, vol. 2, pp. 15–16, no. 2
(M. Caso), pl. II, 1–4. Liedtke 2007, vol. 2, pp. 629–54, no. 151.
Kindly pointed out by Paul Crane (personal communication), who notes the
following example: Melbourne 1984–85, no. 56. As noted further by Paul Crane,
who points out their similarity to examples sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 15
April 1996, lot 73 (personal communication). According to Shackelford (personal
communication). See Washington D.C., Los Angeles and elsewhere 2003-04, pp.
127–32, no. 15 (G. Scherf). Bennett 1978, vol. 1, p. 80, no. 1724, vol. 2, p.
129; New York 2005b, under no. 13. Bennett 1978, vol. 1, p. 83, no. 3114, vol.
2, p. 134. Cook 1976, p. 181, fig. 144; Dodero 2013. Bennett 1978, vol. 1, p.
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2004–07 Rijksmuseum aan de Schelde:
meesterwerken uit de schatkamer van Nederland, Royal Museum of Fine Arts,
Antwerp, 2004–07 (no catalogue). Antwerp 2008 Heads on Shoulders: Portrait
Busts in the Low Countries, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp (ed. V.
Herremans), 2008. Antwerp 2013 Kunst Antwerpen Academie 350, Museum aan de
Stroom, Antwerp (eds K. van Cauteren et al.), 2013. Arras and Épinal 2004 Rubens contre Poussin: la querelle du coloris dans la
peinture française à la fin du XVIIe siècle, Musée des beaux-arts d’Arras;
Musée départemental d’art ancien et contemporain à Épinal (eds E. Delapierre et
al.), 2004. Athens 2003–04
In the Light of Apollo. Italian Renaissance and Greece, National
Gallery, Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens (ed. M. Gregori), 2
vols, 2003–04. Bergamo 1994 Giacomo Quarenghi, Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo
(eds A. Bettagno et al.), 1994. Boston, Cleveland and
elsewhere 1989 Italian Etchers of the Renaissance et Baroque, Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston; The Cleveland Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D. C. (S. W. Reed and R. Wallace), 1989. 249 Boston and St. Louis 1981–82
Printmaking in the Age of Rembrandt, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Saint
Louis Art Museum (C. Ackley), 1981–82. Bruges 2008–09 Stradanus 1523–1605: Court Artist of the
Medici, Groeningemuseum, Bruges (eds A. Baroni and M. Sellink), 2008–09
(published 2012). Brussels 2004 Old
Master Drawings. Organization of Antique Fairs, Gallery Kekko, Thurn and Taxis,
Brussels, 2004. Brussels 2007–08 Alle wegen leiden naar Rome. Reizende
kunstenaars van de 16de tot de 19de eeuw, Gemeentelijk Museum van Elsene,
Brussels (D. Vautier), 2007–08 (no catalogue). Brussels and Rome
1995 Fiamminghi a Roma 1508–1608. Artisti dei Paesi Bassi e del Principato di
Liegi a Roma durante il Rinascimento, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Palazzo
delle Esposizioni, Rome (eds N. Dacos and B. W. Meijer), 1995. Cambridge 1988 Baccio Bandinelli
1493–1560: Drawings from British Collections, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (R.
Ward), 1988. Chicago 2007–08 The Virtual Tourist in Renaissance Rome: Printing
and Collecting the ‘Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae’, Special Collections
Research Center, University of Chicago (eds R. Zorach et al.), 2007–08. Choisel 1986 Un Grand Collectionneur
sous Louis XV: Le cabinet de Jacques-Laure de Breteuil, Bailli de l’Ordre de
Malta 1723–1785, Château de Breteuil, Choisel, 1986. Cologne 1977 Peter Paul
Rubens, 1577–1640, Museen der Stadt, Cologne, 1977. Cologne and Utrecht 1991–92
I Bamboccianti: niederländische Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock,
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne; Centraal Museum, Utrecht (eds D.A. Levine and
E. Mai), 1991–92. Compton Verney and Norwich 2009–10 The Artist’s Studio, Compton Verney and
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich (ed. G. Waterfield), 2009–10.
Copenhagen 1973 ‘Maegtige Schweiz’.
Inspirationer fra Schweiz. 1750–1850, Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen, 1973.
Copenhagen 2004 Spejlinger i Gips, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi,
Copenhagen (eds P. Kjerrman et al.), 2004. Derby 1997 Joseph Wright of Derby:
1734–1797, Derby Museum et Art Gallery (J. Wallis), 1997. Doha 2011 The Golden Age of Dutch Painting:
Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, 2011
(no catalogue). Dordrecht 2012–13 Portret in portret in de Nederlandse kunst
1550–2012, Dordrechts Museum (S. Craft-Giepmans and A. de Vries), 2012–13.
Edinburgh 2002 Rubens Drawing on Italy, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
(J. Wood), 2002. Essen 1992 London
World-City, 1800–1840, Villa Hügel, Essen (ed. C. Fox), 1992. Florence
1980 Il primato del Disegno, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (ed. L. Berti), vol. 4
of the exhibition Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell’Europa del Cinquecento,
4 vols, 1980. Florence 1987 Michelangelo
e l’arte classica, Casa Buonarroti, Florence (eds G. Agosti and V. Farinella),
1987. Florence 1992 Il Giardino di San Marco. Maestri e compagni del giovane
Michelangelo, Casa Buonarroti, Florence (ed. P. Barocchi), 1992. Florence
1999-2000 Giovinezza di Michelangelo, Palazzo Vecchio and Casa Buonarroti,
Florence (eds K. Weil-Garris Brandt et al.), 1999–2000. Florence 2002 Venere e amore: Michelangelo e la nuova
bellezza ideale, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Florence (eds F. Falletti and J. Katz
Nelson), 2002. Florence 2008 Fiamminghi e Olandesi a Firenze. Disegni dalle
collezioni degli Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence (eds
W. Kloek and B. W. Meijer), 2008. Florence 2014
Baccio Bandinelli: scultore maestro (1493–1560), Museo Nazionale del
Bargello, Florence (eds D. Heikamp and B. P. Strozzi), 2014. Geneva 1978 Johann
Heinrich Füssli, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Musée Rath Genève, Geneva, 1978.
Göttingen 2012–13 Abgekupfert. Roms
Antiken in den Reproduktionsmedien der Frühen Neuzeit, Kunstsammlung und
Sammlung der Gipsabgüsse, Universität Göttingen (eds M. Luchterhandt et al.),
2012–13. Göttingen 2013–14 Roms Antiken in den Reproduktionsmedien der frühen
Neuzeit, Kunstsammlung und Sammlung der Gipsabgüsse, University of Göttingen
(eds M. Luchterhandt et al.), 2013–14. Haarlem 1972 Wybrand Hendriks 1744–1831. Keuze uit zijn
schilderijen en tekeningen, Teylers Museum, Haarlem (I. Q. van Regteren Altena,
J. H. van Borssum Buisman and C. J. de Bruyn Kops), 1972. Haarlem 1990 Augustijn
Claterbos 1750–1828. Opleiding en werk van een Haarlems kunstenaar, Teylers
Museum, Haarlem (B. Sliggers), 1990. Haarlem and London
2005–06 Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master, Teylers Museum, Haarlem;
British Museum, London (ed. H. Chapman), 2005–06. Haarlem, Zurich and elsewhere
2006–07 Nicolaes Berchem. Im Licht Italiens, The Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem;
The Kunsthaus, Zürich; The Staatliches Museum Schwerin (P. Biesboer et al.),
2006–07. Hamburg 1974–75 Johann Heinrich Füssli. 1741–1825, Hamburger
Kunshalle, Hamburg (ed. W. Hofmann), Munich, 1974–75. Hamburg 2002 Die Masken
der Schönheit. Hendrick Goltzius und das Kunstideal um 1600, Hamburger
Kunsthalle, Hamburg (eds J. Müller et al.), 2002. Hannover 1999 Künstler, Händler, Sammler: zum Kunstbetrieb
in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert, Niedersächsischen Landesmuseum, Hanover
(U. Wegener), 1999. Harvard and Evanston 2011–12 Prints and the Pursuit of
Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge (MA); Mary and
Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston (IL) (ed. S. Dackerman), 2011–12.
Heidelberg 1982 100 unbekannte Zeichnungen
und Aquarelle des 16.-18. Jahrhunderts, Kurpfälzisches Museum, Heidelberg (S.
Wechssler), 1982. Houston and Ithaca 2005–06 A Portrait of the Artist
1525–1825. Prints from the Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation,
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell
University, Ithaca (NY) (ed. J. Clifton), 2005–06. King’s Lynn 1985 French
Drawings of the 17th and 18th Century, Fermoy Gallery, Guildhall of St George,
King’s Lynn (ed. G. Agnew), 1985. Liverpool 1994–95 Face to Face: Three
Centuries of Artists’ Self-Portraiture, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (X.
Brooke), 1994–95. Liverpool 2007 Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool, Walker
Art Gallery, Liverpool (eds E. E. Barker and A. Kidson), 2007. London 1836 The
Lawrence Gallery, One Hundred Original Drawings by Zucchero, Andrea del Sarto,
Polidore da Caravaggio and Fra Bartolomeo Collected by Sir Thomas Lawrence,
Late President of the Royal Academy, London, 1836. London 1947 Dutch
Conversation Pieces of the 18th et 19th Centuries, The Allied Circle, London,
1947. London 1950 French Master Drawings
of the 18th Century, Matthiesen Gallery, London, 1950. London 1953 Drawings by Old Masters, Royal Academy of
Arts, London (K. T. Parker and J. Byam Shaw), 1953. London 1955 A Loan
Exhibition: Artists in 17th century Rome: to Save Gosfield Hall for the Nation
as a Residential Nursing Home . . ., Wildenstein et Co., London (D. Mahon and
D. Sutton), 1955. London 1962 A Selection of Drawings from the Witt Collection:
French Drawings, c. 1600–c. 1800, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, 1962.
London 1963 Treasures of the Royal Academy, Royal Academy of Arts, London,
1963. London 1968a France in the Eighteenth Century, Royal Academy of Arts,
London (ed. P. Sutton), 1968. London 1968b
Royal Academy of Arts Bicentenary Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts,
London, 1968. London 1969 Royal Academy Draughtsmen, 1769–1969, Royal Academy
of Arts, London (A. Wilton), 1969. London 1971 Art into Art: Works of Art as a
Source of Inspiration, Sotheby’s, London (ed. K. Roberts), 1971. London
1972 The Age of Neo-Classicism, The
Royal Academy of Arts and The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1972. London
1975 Henry Fuseli. 1741–1825, Tate Gallery, London, 1975. London 1977 Rubens.
Drawings and Sketches, British Museum, London (ed. J. Rowlands), 1977. London
1983 Bartolomeo Cavaceppi:
Eighteenth-century Restorations of Ancient Marble Sculpture from English
Private Collections, The Clarendon Gallery Ltd., London (C. A. Picón), 1983.
London 1986 Florentine Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, British Museum,
London (N. Turner), 1986. London 1990 Wright of Derby, Tate Gallery, London
(ed. J. Egerton), 1990. London 1991 French drawings, XVI–XIX centuries,
Courtauld Institute Galleries, London (eds G. Kennedy and A. Thackray), 1991.
London 1992 Drawings Related to Sculpture, 1520–1620, Katrin Bellinger at
Harari et Johns, London, 1992. London 1995 Prints and Drawings, Recent
acquisitions 1991–1995, British Museum, London, 1995 (no catalogue). London
1997 British Watercolours from the Oppé
Collection, Tate Gallery, London (A. Lyles and R. Hamlyn), 1997. London 1999a John
Soane Architect. Master of Space and Light, Royal Academy, London (eds M.
Richardson and M. Stevens), 1999. London 1999b
Portraits of Artists and Related Subjects, Trinity Fine Art, London,
1999. London 2000 A Noble Art: Amateur Artists and Drawing Masters c.
1600–1800, British Museum, London (K. Sloan), 2000. London 2001 Marble Mania.
Sculpture Galleries in England, 1640–1840, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London (R.
Guilding), 2001. London 2001–02 The
Print in Italy 1550–1620, British Museum, London (M. Bury), 2001–02. London
2003a Artists by Artists, Chaucer Fine Arts Inc., London, 2003. London 2003b The
Museum of the Mind. Art and Memory in World Cultures, British Museum, London
(J. Mack), 2003. London 2005–06 Rubens: A Master in the Making, National
Gallery, London (eds D. Jaffé and E. McGrath), 2005–06. London 2007–08 The
Artist in Art, Colnaghi in association with Emanuel von Baeyer, London,
2007–08. London 2009–10 Rubens Drawings, British Museum, Department of Prints
and Drawings, London, 2009–10 (no catalogue). London 2011 Art School Drawings
from the 19th Century, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2011 (no catalogue).
London 2011–12 Leonardo da Vinci. Painter at the Court of Milan, National
Gallery, London (ed. L. Syson with L. Keith), 2011–12. London 2013–14 The Male
Nude. Eighteenth-Century Drawings from the Paris Academy, Wallace Collection,
London (eds E. Brugerolles et al.), 2013–14. London 2014 Diverse Maniere:
Piranesi, Fantasy and Excess, Sir John Soane’s Museum, London (ed. A. Lowe),
2014. London and Florence 2010–11 Fra Angelico to Leonardo. Italian Renaissance
Drawings, British Museum, London; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (eds H.
Chapman and M. Faietti), 2010–11. London and New York 1992 Andrea Mantegna,
Royal Academy of Arts, London; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (ed. J.
Martineau), 1992. London and New York 2012–13 Master Drawings from the
Courtauld Galleries, The Courtauld Gallery, London; The Frick Collection, New
York (eds C. B. Bailey and S. Buck), 2012–13. London and Rome 1996–97 Grand
Tour. The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century, Tate Gallery, London;
Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (eds A. Wilton and I. Bignamini), 1996–97.
London, Warwick and elsewhere 1997–98
The Quick and the Dead: Artists and Anatomy, Royal College of Art,
London; Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre; Leeds City Art Gallery (D.
Petherbridge and L. Jordanova), 1997–98. London, York and elsewhere 1953 Drawings from the Robert Witt Collection at
the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, Courtauld Institute of Art, London;
York City Art Gallery; Peterborough Art Gallery, 1953. Los Angeles 1961 French Masters: Rococo to Romanticism,
University of California, Los Angeles, 1961. Los Angeles 1999 The Early Life of
Taddeo Zuccaro, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (A. V. Lauder; no
catalogue), Los Angeles 2000 Making a
Prince’s Museum: Drawings for the Late-Eighteenth-century Redecoration of the
Villa Borghese, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (C. Paul), 2000. Los
Angeles 2007–08 Taddeo and Federico Zuccaro. Artist-Brothers in Renaissance
Rome, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (ed. J. Brooks), Los Angeles, Austin
and elsewhere 1976–77 Women Artists,
1550–1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; University Art Museum, The
University of Texas at Austin; Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh;
The Brooklyn Museum (A. Sutherland Harris and L. Nochlin), 1976–77. Los
Angeles, Philadelphia and elsewhere 1993–94 Visions of Antiquity. Neoclassical
Figure Drawings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art;
Minneapolis Institute of Arts (ed. R. J. Campbell), 1993–94. Los Angeles,
Toledo and elsewhere 1988–89 Mannerist Prints: International Style in the
Sixteenth Century, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Toledo Museum of
Art; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; Arthur M. Huntington Art
Gallery, University of Texas at Austin; The Baltimore Museum of Art (B. Davis),
1988–89. Lyon 1998–99 La fascination de l’antique: 1700-1770. Rome
découverte, Rome inventée, Musée de la civilisation gallo-romaine, Lyon (eds F.
De Polignac and J. Raspi Serra), 1998–99. Mantua and Vienna
1999 Roma e lo stile classico di
Raffaello, 1515–1527, Palazzo Te, Mantua; Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna
(eds A. Oberhuber and A. Gnann), 1999. Marseille
2001 Maurice et Pauline Feuillet de
Borsat collectionneurs. Dessins français et étrangers du XVIIe au XIXe siècle,
Château Borély, Marseille (M. Roland Michel), 2001. 250 251 Melbourne 1984 Flowers and Fables. A Survey of Chelsea
Porcelain 1745–69, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (M. Legge), 1984. Milan
1951 Mostra del Caravaggio e dei
Caravaggeshi, Palazzo Reale, Milan (R. Longhi), 1951. Milan 1977–78 Johann
Heinrich Füssli. Disegni e dipinti, Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, Milan (ed. L. Vitali),
1977–78. Milan 2007–08 Leonardo. Dagli
studi di proporzioni al trattato della pittura, Castello Sforzesco, Milan (eds
P. C. Marani and M. T. Fiorio), 2007–08. Milan 2013 La Biblioteca delle
meraviglie: 400 anni di Ambrosiana, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan (eds C.
Continisio, M. L. Frosio and E. Riva), 2013. Montreal
1992 The Genius of the Sculptor in
Michelangelo’s Work, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (P. Théberge), 1992.
Moscow and Haarlem 2013–14 De
romantische ziel. Schilderkunst uit de Nederlandse en Russische romantiek, The
Tretjakov Gallery, Moscow; Teylers Museum, Haarlem (T. van Druten and L.
Markina), 2013–14. Munich 1979–80 Zwei
Jahrhunderte englische Malerei. Britische Kunst und Europa 1680 bis 1880, Haus
der Kunst, Munich, 1979–80. Munich 2013–14 In the Temple of the Self. The
Artist’s Residence as a Total Work of Art, Villa Stuck, Munich (eds M.
Brandhuber and M. Buhrs), 2013–14. Munich and Cologne 2002 Wettstreit der Künste: Malerei und Skulptur
von Dürer bis Daumier, Haus der Kunst, Munich;
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum-Fondation Corboud, Cologne (eds E. Mai and K.
Wettengl), 2002. Munich and Haarlem 1986 Op zoek naar de Gouden Eeuw:
Nederlandse schilderkunst 1800–1850, Neue Pinakothek, Munich; Frans Hals
Museum, Haarlem (L. van Tilborgh and G. Jansen), 1986. Munich and Rome
1998–99 Der Torso. Ruhm und Rätsel / Il Torso del Belvedere. Da Aiace a Rodin,
Glyptothek, Munich; Musei Vaticani, Rome (ed. R. Wünsche), 1998–99. Münster
1976 Bilder nach Bilder. Druckgrafik und die Vermittlung von Kunst,
Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Münster, Münster (G.
Langemeyer and R. Schleier), 1976. Naples 2008
Salvator Rosa: tra mito e magia, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (eds A. B.
de Lavergnée and S. Bellesi), 2008. New Haven and
London 2011–12 Johan Zoffany, RA: Society Observed, Yale Center for British
Art, New Haven; Royal Academy of Arts, London (ed. M. Postle), 2011–12. New
York 1954 Fuseli Drawings, a Loan Exhibition, organized by the Pro Helvetia
Foundation and circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, Pierpont Morgan
Library, New York, 1954. New York 1988 Creative Copies. Interpretative Drawings
from Michelangelo to Picasso, The Drawing Center, New York (E.
Haverkamp-Begemann and C. Logan), 1988. New York 2005a Peter Paul Rubens. The Drawings, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York (ed. A.-M. Logan with M. Plomp), 2005 New York 2005b Pictures
et Oil Sketches 1775–1920, W. M. Brady et Co., New York, 2005. New York
2012–13 Bernini: Sculpting in Clay,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (eds C. D. Dickerson et al.), 2012–13.
Nottingham and London 1983 Drawing in the Italian Renaissance Workshop,
University Art Gallery, Nottingham; Victoria and Albert Museum, London (F.
Ames-Lewis and J. Wright), 1983. Nottingham and London 1991 The Artist’s Model: Its Role in British Art
from Lely to Etty, University Art Gallery, Nottingham; The Iveagh Bequest,
Kenwood, London (I. Bignamini and M. Postle), 1991. Ottawa and Caen 2011–12 Drawn
to Art. French Artists and Art Lovers in 18th-century Rome, National Gallery of
Canada, Ottawa; Musée des beaux-arts de Caen (ed. S. Couturier), 2011–12.
Ottawa, Vancouver and elsewhere 1996–97 The Ingenious Machine of Nature: Four
Centuries of Art and Anatomy, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Vancouver Art
Gallery; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (M.
Cazort, M. Kornell and K. B. Roberts), 1996–97. Ottawa, Washington D.C. and
elsewhere 2003–04 The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of
French Genre Painting, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C.; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie (ed. C.
Bailey), 2003–04. Oxford and New Haven 2012–13 The English Prize. The Capture
of the Westmoreland. An Episode of the Grand Tour, The Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (eds M. D. Sánchez-Jáuregui and
S. Wilcox), 2012–13. Paris 1922 Exposition Hubert
Robert et Louis Moreau: au bénénfice du foyer des Infirmières de la Croix-Rouge
et des infirmières visiteuses, Galeries Jean Charpentier, Paris, 1922. Paris
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A. et D. Martinez, Estampes Anciennes et Modernes. A Collectionner, cat.
no. VIII, Paris, 2003. Paris 2008 L’Âge d’or du romantisme allemand, aquarelles
et dessins è l’époque de Goethe, Musée de la Vie Romantique, Paris, (ed. H.
Sieveking), Paris, 2008. Paris 2008–09a
Figures du corps: une leçon d’anatomie à l’École des beaux-arts, École
nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris (ed. P. Comar), 2008–09. Paris
2008–09b Mantegna 1431–1506, Musée du Louvre, Paris (eds G. Agosti and D.
Thiébaut), 2008–09. Paris 2009–10
L’Académie mise à nu: l’école du modèle à l’Académie royale de peinture
et de sculpture, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris (ed. E.
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Musées de papier: l’antiquité en livres, 1600-1800, Musée du Louvre,
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elsewhere 1994–95 Egyptomania: l’Egypte dans l’Art occidental, 1730–1930, Musée
du Louvre, Paris; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Kunsthistorisches Museum,
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Morris Clark Bequest, Philadelphia Museum of Art (eds U. W. Hiesinger and A.
Percy), 1980–81. Philadelphia and Houston 2000 Art in Rome in the Eighteenth
Century, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (eds E. P.
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Princeton University (ed. J. H. Rubin), 1977. Princeton, Cleveland and
elsewhere 1981–82 Drawings by Gianlorenzo
Bernini from the Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig, German Democratic
Republic, The Art Museum, Princeton; Cleveland Museum of Art; Los Angeles
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1964 Torso: das Unvollendete als
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Faldi), 1968. Rome 1981–82 David e Roma,
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restauro dei pannelli di Adriano e di Marco Aurelio nel Palazzo dei
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Medici, Rome (eds C. Boulot et al.), 1990–91. Rome 1992–93 La Collezione Boncompagni Ludovisi: Algardi,
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scultore romano (1717–1799), Museo del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome, (M. G.
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Pietro da Cortona e il disegno, Istituto nazionale per la grafica,
Accademia nazionale di San Luca, Rome (ed. S. Prosperi Valenti Rodino),
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viaggio per Roma nel Seicento con Giovan Pietro Bellori, Palazzo delle
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da Firenze a Roma, Galleria Borghese, Rome (ed. A. Coliva), 2000. Rome 2001–02 I
Giustiniani e l’antico, Palazzo Fontana di Trevi, Rome (G. Fusconi), 2001–02.
Rome 2004 La Collezione del Principe. Da Leonardo a Goya. Disegni e stampe
della raccolta Corsini, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome (eds E.
Antetomaso and G. Mariani), 2004. Rome 2005 La Roma di Leon Battista Alberti.
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Quattrocento, Musei Capitolini, Rome (ed. F. P. Fiore), 2005. Rome 2005–06 Il Settecento a Roma, Palazzo Venezia, Rome
(eds A. Lo Bianco and A. Negro), 2005–06. Rome 2006–07 Laocoonte: Alle origini dei Musei Vaticani,
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e l’Italia, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome (ed. K. Hermann Fiore), 2007. Rome
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porcellane e arredi del Grand Tour, Musei Capitolini, Rome (eds A. D’Agliano
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e l’Antico. Realtà e visione nel ‘700, Fondazione Roma Museo, Rome (eds C.
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2014a 1564/2014 Michelangelo. Incontrare
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Drawings from American Collections: A Loan Exhibition, organized and circulated
by the International Exhibitions Foundation, National Gallery of Art,
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Drawings et Watercolors, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (V.
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Versailles (A. L. Poulet et al.), 2003–04. Williamstown, Madison and elsewhere
2001–02 Goltzius and the Third Dimension, Sterling and Francine Clark
Institute, Williamstown (MA); Elvehjem Museum of Art, Madison (WI); Spencer
Museum of Art, Lawrence (KS) (eds S. H. Goddard and J. A. Ganz), 2001–02.
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William Manson 1725–97, Precentor of York, York Art Gallery and York Minster
Library (eds B. Barr and J. Ingamells), 1973. Zurich Füssli: Zur
Zweihundertjahrfeier und Gedächtnisausstellung 1951, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich
(ed. W. Wartmann and M. Fischer), 1941. Zurich 1969 Johann Heinrich Füssli,
1741–1825, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, 1969. Zurich 1984 Meisterwerke aus der
Graphischen eichnungen, Aquarelli, Pastelle, Collagen aus fünf
Jahrhunderten, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, 1984. Zurich 2005 Füssli. The Wild
Swiss, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich (ed. F. Lentzsch), Fig. Royal Collection Trust/Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015 Fig. 62. Royal Collection Trust/Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II 2015 Fig. bpk, Berlin / Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig
Fig. 64. bpk, Berlin / Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig Fig. 65. The
Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection Fig. 66. Photo out of copyright (The
Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 67. The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London Fig. 68. Photo
out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 69. bpk,
Berlin / École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Dist. RMN – Grand
Palais Fig. 70. bpk, Berlin / École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de
Paris, Dist. RMN – Grand Palais Fig. 71. bpk, Berlin / École nationale
supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Dist. RMN – Grand Palais Fig. 72. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection)
Fig. 73. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic
Collection) Fig. 74. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Fig. 75. Ashmolean Museum,
University of Oxford Fig. 76. Su gentile concessione del Museo Biblioteca
Archivio di Bassano del Grappa Fig. 77. Photo Les Arts
décoratifs Fig. 78. Photo Les Arts décoratifs Fig. 79. National Library of Medicine National Library of Medicine The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1952, www.metmuseum.org
Fig. 82. Royal Academy of Arts, London Fig. 83. bpk, Berlin /
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Dist. RMN – Grand Palais
Fig. 84. Royal Academy of Arts, London Royal Academy of Arts,
London Fig. 86. Private collection Fig. 87. bpk, Berlin / École nationale
supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Dist. RMN – Grand Palais Fig. 88. Philadelphia Museum of Art Fig. 89. Cherbourg-Octeville, musée d’art
Thomas-Henry D.Sohier Fig. 90. Heidelberg University Library Fig. 91. The
Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 92. Staatsgalerie
Stuttgart Foto: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Fig. 93. Reproduced by permission of
the Provost and Fellows of Eton College Fig. 94. bpk, Berlin / Musée du Louvre,
Dist. RMN – Grand Palais / Susanne Nagy Fig. 95. Musée de Valence, photo Philippe Petiot Fig. 96. Musée de Valence, photo
Philippe Petiot Musée de Valence, photo Philippe Petiot Courtesy National
Gallery of Art, Washington Fig. 99. Tate, London 2014
Fig. 100. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic
Collection) Fig. 101. Royal Academy of Arts, London; Photographer: John Hammond
Fig. 102. RSA, London Fig. 103. RSA, London Fig. 104. CSG CIC Glasgow Museums
and Libraries Collection: The Mitchell Library, Special Collections Fig. 105. Royal
Academy of Arts, London; Photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited Fig.
106. Royal Collection Trust/Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015 Fig. 107. Royal
Academy of Arts, London Fig. 108. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg
Institute, Photographic Collection) Photograph courtesy of the National Gallery
of Ireland Cat. 1 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. Photo out of copyright (The
Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 2. Matthew Hollow Fig. 3.
Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Cat. 2
Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Cat. 3 Exhibit. Matthew
Hollow Fig. 1. Courtesy Yvonne Tan Bunzl Fig. 2. The Trustees of the British
Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 3. The Trustees of the British Museum. All
rights reserved Fig. 4. bpk, Berlin / Kupferstichkabinett, SMB / Volker-H.
Schneider The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 6. S.S.P.S.A.E
e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze – Gabinetto Fotografico Cat. 4
Exhibit a. The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights
reserved Exhibit b. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Fig. 1. Private collection Fig. 2. Kurpfälzisches
Museum der Stadt Heidelberg Cat. 5 Exhibit. Digital image courtesy of the
Getty’s Open Content Program Fig. 1. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg
Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 2. Vatican Museums and Galleries,
Vatican City/ Bridgeman Images Fig. 3. The Trustees of the British Museum. All
rights reserved Fig. 4. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content
Program Fig. 5. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program Cat.
6 Exhibit a. Teylers Museum, Haarlem Exhibit b. The Trustees of the British
Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 1. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Cat. 7 Exhibit a.
Teylers Museum, Haarlem Exhibit b. Teylers Museum, Haarlem Photo out of
copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 2. Teylers Museum,
Haarlem Fig. 3. Teylers Museum, Haarlem Fig. 4. Courtesy Amsterdam Museum Cat.
8 Exhibit. Teylers Museum, Haarlem Fig. 1. Teylers Museum, Haarlem Fig. 2.
S.S.P.S.A.E e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze – Gabinetto
Fotografico Cat. 9 Exhibit. The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights
reserved Fig. 1. Archivio
Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini. Photo Zeno Colantoni Fig. Musée des
Beaux-Arts de Dijon. Photo François Jay Cat. 10 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1.
Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini. Photo Zeno
Colantoni Fig. 2. Courtesy of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College
Cambridge Fig. 3. Matthew Hollow Fig. 4. The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Cat.
11 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Fig. 2. The
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Matthew Hollow Cat. 12 Exhibit. Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam Fig. 1. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Fig. 2. Photo out of copyright (The
Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 3. Archivio
Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini. Photo Zeno Colantoni Fig. 4. The Warburg
Institute, Photographic Collection Fig. 5. Detroit Institute
of Arts, USA, City of Detroit Purchase/Bridgeman Images Fig. 6. Collection Rau
for UNICEF / Gruppe Köln, Hans G. Scheib Cat. 13 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig.
1. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig.
2. Courtesy Amsterdam Museum Fig. 3. Courtesy Municipal Archives of The Hague
Fig. 4. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection)
Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 6.
Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Cat. 14
Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection) Fig. 2. 2015 The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Art
Resource/Scala, Florence Fig. Christie’s Images Limited Fig. Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam Photographic Credits Every effort has been made to trace copyright
holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The
publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in the below list and would be
grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future
reprints or editions of this book. Ideal Beauty and the Canon in Classical
Antiquity Fig. The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence Fig.
2. The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection ‘Nature Perfected’: The Theory et Practice of Drawing
after the Antique Fig. 1. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection) Fig. 2. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection) Fig. 3. bpk, Berlin / Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN –
Grand Palais / Gérard Blot Fig. 4. Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana – Milano /
De Agostini Picture Library Fig. 5. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg
Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 6. Albertina, Vienna Fig. Photo out of
copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 8. Photo out of
copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 9. Copyright
Comune di Milano – tutti i diritti riservati Fig. 10. Photo out of copyright
(The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 11. Veneranda Biblioteca
Ambrosiana – Milano / De Agostini Picture Library Fig. 12. The Trustees of the
British Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 13. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
Rotterdam. Loan Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Foundation (collection Koenigs) /
photographer: Studio Tromp, Rotterdam Fig. 14. The Trustees of the British
Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 15. Archivio Fotografico dei Musei
Capitolini. Photo Zeno Colantoni Fig. 16. Rijksmuseum, Amseterdam 254 Fig. 17. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Phyllis Massar, metmuseum.org
Fig. 18. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic
Collection) Fig. 19. Vatican Museums and Galleries, Vatican City/Bridgeman
Images Fig. 20. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic
Collection) Fig. 21. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels / photo:
J. Geleyns / Ro scan Fig. 22. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection) Fig. 23. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg
Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 24. The Trustees of the British
Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 25. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna,
Austria / Bridgeman Images Fig. 26. Vatican Museums and Galleries, Vatican City
/ Bridgeman Images Fig. 27. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington Fig.
28. Albertina, Vienna Fig. 29. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection) Fig. 30. The Trustees of the British Museum. All
rights reserved Fig. 31. The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights
reserved Fig. 32. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic
Collection) Fig. 33. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy / Bridgeman
Images Fig. 34. S.S.P.S.A.E e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze –
Gabinetto Fotografico Fig. 35. Photo out of copyright (The
Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 36. Veneranda Biblioteca
Ambrosiana – Milano / De Agostini Picture Library Fig. 37. Katrin Bellinger
collection Fig. 38. bpk, Berlin / Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders Fig.
bpk, Berlin / Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders Fig. 40. bpk, Berlin /
Kupferstichkabinett / Volker-H. Schneider Fig. 41. bpk, Berlin /
Kupferstichkabinett / Volker-H. Schneider Fig. bpk, Berlin /
Kupferstichkabinett / Volker-H. Schneider Fig. 43. bpk, Berlin /
Kupferstichkabinett / Volker-H. Schneider Fig. 44. Photo out of copyright (The
Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Art
Resource/Scala, Florence Fig. 46. Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana – Milano /
De Agostini Picture Library Fig. 47. Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana – Milano /
De Agostini Picture Library Fig. 48. Royal Museum for
Fine Arts Antwerp Lukas-Art in Flanders vzw, photo Hugo Maertens Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam Fig. 50. Musea Brugge Lukas-Art in Flanders vzw, photo Hugo Maertens
Fig. 51. ©Peter Cox/Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht Fig. 52. Minneapolis Institute
of Arts, MN, USA, The Walter H. and Valborg P. Ude Memorial Fund/ Bridgeman
Images Fig. 53. Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam Fig. 54. Louvre, Paris, France/Bridgeman Images Fig. 55. Archivio
Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini. Photo Zeno
Colantoni Fig. 56. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic
Collection) Fig. 57. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection) Fig. 58. bpk, Berlin / Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN –
Grand Palais / Richard Lambert Fig. 59. bpk, Berlin / Musée Condé, Chantilly,
Dist. RMN – Grand Palais / René-Gabriel Ojéda Fig. Royal Collection Trust/Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015 255 Cat. 15 Exhibit. The Trustees of the
British Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 1. Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth /
Reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees / Bridgeman Images
Fig. 2. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT The Trustees of the
British Museum. All rights reserved Fig. 4. Vatican Museums and Galleries,
Vatican City / Bridgeman Images Cat. 16 Exhibit. The Samuel Courtauld Trust,
The Courtauld Gallery, London Fig. 1. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s Fig. 2. Photo
out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 3. Photo
out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 4. Photo
out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 5. Photo
out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 6. Photo
out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Cat. 17
Exhibit. Matthew
Hollow Fig. 1. Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini. Photo Zeno Colantoni
Fig. 2. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam /
photographer: Studio Tromp, Rotterdam Fig. 3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971, www.metmuseum.org Fig. 4. Witt Library, The
Courtauld Institute of Art, London Cat. 18 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1.
Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig.
Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 3.
bpk, Berlin / Antikensammlung, SMB Fig. 4. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg
Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. bpk, Berlin / Antikensammlung, SMB /
Johannes Laurentius Fig. 6. photo Musées de Marseille Fig. 7. Photographic
Survey, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Private collection Cat. 19
Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection) Fig. 2. Accademia Nazionale di San Luca. Tutti i
diritti riservati Fig. 3. The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights
reserved Fig. 4. By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum Cat. 20
Exhibit. By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum Fig. 1. Photo
out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 2. Archivio
Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini. Photo Zeno Colantoni Fig. 3. Archivio
Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini. Photo Zeno
Colantoni Fig. 4. The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection Fig. 5.
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Foto: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Fig. 6. Photo out of
copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Cat. 21 Exhibit. bpk
/ Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Fig. 1. Image courtesy of
Sotheby’s Fig. 2. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s Cat. 22 Exhibit. 2014
Kunsthaus Zürich. All rights reserved. Fig. 1. Archivio Fotografico dei Musei
Capitolini. Photo Paulo Cipollina Fig. 2. Archivio Fotografico dei Musei
Capitolini. Photo Lorenzo De Masi Fig. 3. Archivio Fotografico dei Musei
Capitolini. Photo Lorenzo De Masi Fig. 4. Istituto Centrale per la Grafica
Canoni fotografici (MIBACT) Fig. 5. bpk, Berlin / Kunstbibliothek, SMB /
Dietmar Katz Cat. 23 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. Louvre,
Paris, France/Bridgeman Images Fig. 2. The Trustees of the British Museum. All
rights reserved Cat. 24 Exhibit. The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights
reserved Fig. 1. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection Private
collection Fig. 3. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic
Collection) Cat. 25 Exhibit. Royal Academy of Arts, London Fig. 1. Royal
Academy of Arts, London Fig. 2. Royal Academy of Arts, London Fig. 3. bpk,
Berlin / RMN – Grand Palais / Stéphane Maréchalle Fig. 4. Santa Barbara Museum
of Art, Gift of Wright S. Ludington Fig. 5. Conway Library, The
Courtauld Institute of Art, London Fig. 6. Archivio Fotografico dei Musei
Capitolini. Photo Zeno Colantoni Fig. 7. Photo out of
copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 8. Royal
Academy of Arts, London; Photographer: Paul Highnam Royal Academy of Arts,
London; Photographer: Paul Highnam Cat. 26 Exhibit. The Trustees of the British
Museum. All rights reserved Fig. Tate, London 2014 Fig. 2. Courtesy of
www.gjsaville-caricatures.co.uk Cat. 27 Exhibit a. Victoria and Albert Museum,
London Exhibit b. Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fig. 1. Tate, London 2014
Fig. 2. Tate, London 2014 Fig. 3. Tate, London 2014 Fig. 4. Tate, London 2014
Cat. 28 Exhibit. The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved Fig.
1. Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum, Burnley, Lancashire/Bridgeman Images
Fig. 2. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection)
Fig. 3. The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved Cat. 29
Exhibit. By courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum Cat. 30
Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. Photo Collection RKD, The Hague Fig. 2. Royal
Collection Trust/Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015 Fig. 3. Klassik Stiftung
Weimar, Bestand Museen. Photo Sigrid Geske Cat. 31 Exhibit. Teylers Museum,
Haarlem Cat. 32 Exhibit. Teylers Museum, Haarlem Fig. 1. Photo Collection RKD,
The Hague Cat. 33 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. The National Museum of Art,
Architecture and Design, Oslo, photographer Jacques Lathion Fig. 2. Photo out
of copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 3. Archivio
Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini. Photo Zeno Colantoni Fig. 4. Louvre, Paris,
France / Bridgeman Images Fig. 5. Photo out of
copyright (The Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 6. Courtesy of
Pontus Kjerrman Cat. 34 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Photo out of copyright (The
Warburg Institute, Photographic Collection) Fig. 2. Courtesy of Olga Liubimova
Fig. 3. Tomas Abad Cat. 35 Exhibit. Matthew Hollow Fig. 1. Victoria and Albert
Museum, London Fig. 2. National Portrait Gallery, London Fig. 3. Christie’s
Images Limited (2012) Fig. 4. Photo out of copyright (The Warburg Institute,
Photographic Collection) Fig. 5. National Museums Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery
Fig. 6. [National Museums Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery Sammlung. ZMassimo
Carboni. Keywords: tratto dalla vita, estetica, arte, icona, parola, immagine,
filosofia antica, il concetto dell’antico, l’antico – l’antico e il moderno –
drawing from the antique – antico – filosofia antica, arte antica, statuaria
antica, the lure of the antique – il gusto e l’antico --. Refs.: Luigi
Speranza, “Grice e Carboni” – The Swimming-Pool Library.
levi: filosofo italiano - Italian philosopher of
Jewish descent. Author
of “Storia della filosofia romana.”
giornale
critico della filosofia italiana.
Giovanni
d. “Positivismo italiano.”
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