HOWARTWORKS
Of Questions and Answers
María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral Christine Seidel (Eds.)
“The real question is
to whom does the meaning of the art of the past properly belong? To those who can apply it to their own lives, or to a cultural hierarchy of relic specialists?”
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972
CONTENTS Introduction
It is the discovery of the detail that surprises us. Page 6
Epilogue
In Praise of Seeing Page 140
Who Is Looking at Us?
What Does the Surface Say?
Identity – Age – Gazes – Pride – Creation Page 8
Texture – Power – Costliness – Immateriality – Fleetingness Page 32
What Moves Us?
What is Beautiful?
Intensity – Consolation – Delight – Love – Triumph – Tension – Desire Page 56
Where Does Art Lead?
Tradition and Innovation – Success – Uniqueness – Line – Diversion – Abstraction Page 88
Discovery – Civilization – The Exotic – Exklusiveness – Boundaries Page 116
Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leyden Dangolsheim Madonna, 1460–65 Walnut with traces of original polychromy, 102 × 37 × 33 cm
I
t takes courage to approach a work of art in a museum. For an encounter with a work of art stimulates the power of our imagination – our ability to form new experiences, relive past ones, or receive entirely new impressions. Works of art require us to encounter ourselves and remain open to the unexpected. It is easier to be amazed by a work of art and feel an emotional connection to it when we see it in its original location. Our experience of collections of Old Master paintings or sculptures, however, is defined by the spatial and cultural decontextualization of the objects. None of these works were made to be shown in museums or seen by viewers outside the sociocultural context in which they were created. The exhibition of works in a museum thus depends on the vicissitudes of their collection history and follows criteria that often reflect the spatial and curatorial priorities, as well as the aesthetic judgment, of the museum personnel responsible for their care. Such decontextualization is not always a bad thing. On the contrary: presentation in a museum generates new emotional and intellectual relationships between works, connections that would never have been made if the works had remained in their original location. In a certain sense this shows us how art works – although an exhibition in a museum is still subject to limitations, especially those established by the narrative offered to the public, or the lack thereof. Temporary exhibitions and art publications frequently attempt to bridge the narrative gaps in museum collections. Books and articles written for scholars as well as for the general public often present deeper, richer, and more complex interpretations than wall texts or labels in a museum. The scope of exhibitions and publications, however, is limited by such factors as budget, the particular aspect selected by the curators or authors, or – in the case of exhibitions – the run time and capacity to successfully realize the project. Until recently, museums rarely faced the problem of not being able to address their exhibitions to an audience. But in 2020, for the first time in history, every single European museum was forced to close its doors. Most museums, including the Gemäldegalerie and the Bode-Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, were closed almost without interruption and were accessible to the public only in digital form.
INTRODUCTION The digital world has subjected works of art to a new and wide-ranging decontextualization. This digital realm is ever-present and has captured even our private space; it has given rise to a multiplicity of perspectives, renouncing the one-sided discourse of the museum and allowing the audience to speak. And it has conquered a new dimension: that of the detail. Now that audiences can view and learn about art in new ways through the internet, interpretations of works have multiplied and fragmented almost to the point of infinity. For the first time in the history of art, the high-resolution capture and digitization of works of art have taken details that in the museum are imperceptible to the naked eye and have assigned them a leading role. During the yearlong lockdown, audiences accelerated this process of decontextualization. We learned once more that art can be experienced through contemplation and intuitive observation, and that the sensations produced in this way stimulate our powers of imagination. The interaction between these sensations and the interpretation of the artistic object becomes the experience of art. The fragmentation of the image, the opportunity to pause and contemplate its details, strengthens its expressive power and our ability to enjoy it – for example, when we gaze with new intensity at the materiality or gestural quality of a work. And so this book is devoted to aesthetic experience beyond the confines of artistic epochs, schools, and techniques. It is an ideal exhibition of works that are not displayed together in the same museum. The vignette-like consideration of these works, which we could never experience in the same way on location, results in a dialogue that discloses new qualities going beyond the traditional categories of art history. In order to activate both our sensory experience and our critical gaze, this volume is organized into chapters that revolve around the following five questions: Who is looking at us? What does the surface say? What moves us? What is beautiful? And where does art lead? These five questions address five themes that have been foundational for Western art history since its inception as a scholarly discipline. They also reflect the most intuitive questions that we as museum visitors ask when confronted with works of art: questions of the representation of human beings, the ability of materials to communicate, how works of art convey emotions, the conception and representation of beauty, and the relationship of art to the world around us.
It is the discovery of the detail that surprises us. And so in each section, our exploration is guided by a single, fascinating characteristic of two works which themselves possess many other qualities. The details serve to carry our attention beyond the first impression. Although their choice is certainly not arbitrary, neither is it universal; each work is also open to new questions and new aspects. In a sixth chapter, therefore, we offer our readers additional perspectives, encouraging them to practice their own critical gaze and discover how each new vantage point changes our perception of the works of art and their relationship to their environment. Part of our relationship with the object is our capacity to empathize with its artist. An artist who is traditionally understood and addressed as masculine. Today, academic research and social movements have shown us the limits of using the masculine generic to refer to artists. To continue to ignore this fact, even if unconsciously, would be an academic mistake. That is why we want to make it clear in this introduction that gender diversity is implied in the generic Künstler in German and “artist” in English used in this book and we invite our readers not to forget the feminine gender in both languages; for although English is neutral, subjectively we tend to masculinize it. This book could not have been completed without the assistance of numerous people. Michael Eissenhauer, Julien Chapuis, and Sigrid Wollmeiner supported the project from the beginning and encouraged us to realize it, even when it proved challenging at first to translate visual images into words. Michaela Humborg contributed to the selection of meaningful details. Roland May and Teresa Laudert refined our formulations and helped us give verbal expression to our ideas. We are grateful to Babette Buller, Antje Voigt, and Malith Krishnaratne for providing the photographic material. John Berger’s book Ways of Seeing (1975) was foundational for approaching the analysis of decontextualization and the aesthetic perception of works of art from the perspective of the traditional discipline of art history. We hope this book will serve as a bridge between scholarly research and the interest of many museum-goers in the sensory experience of works of art. We chose not to include a bibliography for the pieces discussed here; instead, we encourage our readers to come to the museum and inspect the works for themselves. María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral Christine Seidel
The answers to these questions are explored in a series of juxtapositions in which a painting from the collection of the Gemäldegalerie enters into dialogue with a sculpture or relief from the Bode-Museum. This approach takes objects from two different collections – collections which are currently exhibited in separate buildings but which to some extent were conceived as complementary – and brings them together. But neither the questions nor the responses to them are static or singular. Like every scholarly discipline, art history, too, develops through critical analysis; the result is a multiplicity of perspectives that elucidate the relationship of the detail to the whole. 7
WHO IS I
n a museum, the impression can easily arise that one is being looked at, scrutinized, observed by the works of art. The moment an artist includes a direct gaze or even the suggestion of one in a work, it evokes an act of seeing to which we react. With sculpture, this effect is variable since we ourselves can assume almost any vantage point and can position ourselves in the subject’s line of sight. In painting, however, it is more strongly fixed, for example by the figures who look out from the picture – especially in portraits, where we are often tempted either to interpret the gaze as a commentary or to identify the figure as an historical personality, perhaps even as the artist. The immediacy of the depicted gaze has the inherent ability to bring history into the present, since we fundamentally react to faces as if they were people standing directly before us. In the art of the Old Masters, every depiction of a face is also an interpretation. And so, it is not surprising that the likeness of any individual who takes on the role of a character can still seem so alive and contemporary to us today, regardless of when the image was actually created. This effect does not depend on a particularly high degree of accuracy: even a portrait does not tell us who the person really was. What matters is a sense of lifelikeness achieved through the design of the work of art. Individual characteristics convey specificity through their divergence from a standard, and our reaction to that individuality frequently depends on the particular expression a work receives from the way in which it is presented, that is, through its composition. Such pictorial strategies are really no different than the kind of self-representation we encounter today, for example in social media. The issue of composition also explains the striking variation in what can be described as a portrait. Our sense of a work’s plausibility is determined not by the title it bears today, but by the way in which it is artistically presented. No genre is as fluid as portraiture: a figure in an historical event can be interpreted as a portrait, while the vivid characterization of a face can bring the image of a saint in contemporary dress to life. This simultaneity serves above all to confirm our own perception. The assumption, however, that to be individualized an Mino da Fiesole Portrait of Niccolò Strozzi, 1454 Marble, 50 × 53 × 34 cm
LOOKING AT US? image must clearly depart from the norm is only partially true in visual art. An idealized depiction can also represent an individual, for example when it is based on a portrait prototype and is interpreted as the image of a specific person based on a title or context. Even if we don’t know what the person really looked like, we still see a face looking out at us from the work of art, a face we perceive as an individual. Individuals belong to differing social groups, and the way in which such groups are defined has changed over the course of history. In our day, individuals are often viewed in isolation, so certain visual strategies of categorization and identification used in portraits in the past may be difficult for us to understand today, or we might interpret them in a different manner. External signs of status and prosperity are also continually subject to change. Yet, at the same time, the way in which such signs are used for self-representation remains largely unaltered to this day. Throughout European cultural history, certain visual strategies for conveying information have prevailed for centuries and still shape our habits of seeing today.
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn Self-Portrait with Velvet Beret and Fur-Trimmed Mantle, 1634 Oil on oak panel, 58.4 × 47.7 cm
I
n a portrait, the person depicted is both the occasion and the subject of the picture. Early modern portraits were also associated with the public sphere and were seldom intended solely for private use. Even today, when a person is put on display, differentiating signs become an expression of belonging and identity that needs to be decoded. Many of these signs or attributes can only be understood when one is familiar with them and knows how to interpret them. Although symbols have changed over time, the basic principle of combining significant outward markers with alleged individual traits remained a constant of visual culture well into the modern era. Even today, we still recognize the broad fur collar of the Augsburg merchant Bartholomew Welser (1484–1561) as a symbol of prosperity. Dressed in a costly brocade garment with a fashionable hat, the bearded man presents himself self-confidently in the prime of life. In the background, a
Albrecht Dürer Hieronymus Holzschuher (1469–1529), 1526 Oil on lime wood panel, 51 × 37.1 cm
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ship approaches a bustling port city; the scene invites us to inspect it more closely and even seems to compete with the primary motif of the proud portrait subject. In fact, however, the imposing figure of the merchant and the scene in the background are inseparably connected. The view of the port with its suggestion of merchant activities shows the cultural framework that shaped the portrait subject’s life and world. His hand rests on a skull, reminding the viewers – as well as himself, and thus commenting, as it were, on his own social position – of the transience of all material wealth. The piece is made of pear wood, a favorite material for wood carvers in German-speaking Europe, and was originally painted. The garlands at the upper edge of the picture, as well as the symbols of vanitas, such as the skull and the hourglass, point to the visual culture of the environment in which the work was made: Renaissance Augsburg, whose pictorial repertoire included Renaissance elements from both northern and southern Europe.
Identity
In the portrait of fifty-two-year-old Hieronymus Holzschuher (1469–1529) by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), on the other hand, symbolic references are largely absent. The portrait subject’s name and age are indicated by an inscription in gold letters. White-haired, he stands in front of a light blue background with a furrowed brow, lending him the expression of an observer critically eyeing his imaginary counterpart. In this portrait, too, the subject boasts a broad fur collar, though here it is less dominant in the composition than in the portrait of the Augsburg merchant.
How much does Albrecht Dürer, on the other hand, tell us about who Hieronymus Holzschuher was? The portrait reveals almost nothing about his social role; he gazes at us skeptically with a detached familiarity. Only the clothing and the fashionable cut of hair and beard, as well as the formal analogy between the two portraits, enable us to attribute both likenesses to the cultural environment of the Renaissance – a world shaped by prosperity through trade, where membership in a group was visually conveyed through regional formulas of status and identity.
In the small wooden relief, Bartholomew Welser’s clothing and the busy port behind him identify him as a German merchant and position him in the world of international trade. As decorative elements, the symbols of transience and the Renaissance garlands refer to a particular place and time. This plethora of references to the portrait subject’s origin reveals the public nature of the little panel, while the flower he holds may be intended as a gift for his prospective wife.
Master of Wolfgang Thenn Portrait of Bartholomäus Welser, ca. 1530 Pear wood, 31.5 × 26.7 × 3 cm Next foldout: detail
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Age
D
uring the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – a period in which individuals and their representation came to occupy center stage in scholarly study and artistic activity – patrons showed increasing interest in commissioning portraits of not only of relatives, acquaintances, and politically and socially influential people, but also of themselves. The latter development in particular raises questions about what it means to represent one’s own person: What does a particular posture signify, and what is the portrait supposed to communicate to those who view it? What objects are chosen as outward signs of status and class, and what purpose is the image intended to serve? Age and bodily stature could also be emphasized in a portrait: remarkable examples in this regard are the portrait bust of Niccolò Strozzi (1411–1469) by the Florentine sculptor Mino da Fiesole (1429– 1484) and the Portrait of a Stout Man by the Master of Flémalle, an early Netherlandish painter active in the first half of the fifteenth century. Individuality in a portrait is produced by depicting, and even emphasizing, irregularities. In the bust of Niccolò Strozzi, the puffy lower eyelids bespeak the subject’s advanced age. His broad lower jaw transitions to a heavy double chin framed by fleshy ears; the effect of the narrow, slightly pursed lips and long, thin nose in the center of the face is intensified still more by the smoothly polished surface of the white marble. Short locks of curly hair, suggestive of a certain disorder, play around the head and over the forehead, an artistic device that enables the sculptor to create lively patterns of light and shadow and achieve the impression of dynamism in the surface of the stone. The handling of the marble produces astonishingly lifelike areas that suggest the appearance of costly fabric, skin, or hair. The artist thus intensifies the contrast between the refinement of the marble and a level of individualism that allows the signs of the time to be visible in the subject’s face.
Mino da Fiesole Portrait of Niccolò Strozzi, 1454 Marble, 50 × 53 × 34 cm
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Color, too, can give life to an image. When used to suggest highlights, shadows, and reflections, color can have an even more lifelike effect the more plausibly it is depicted. A portrait in three-quarter view enables the artist to develop forms or characteristics through the effects of light, thus producing an overall sense of plasticity. In this respect, the Portrait of a Stout Man by the Master of Flémalle is an unequivocal success. The grazing light emphasizes surface textures as if in a relief, with the wrinkles of the forehead and the baggy skin around the eyes appearing as dark furrows in the face. The subject’s age is also manifested in the plump chin and somewhat flaccid cheeks, emphasized still more by the dark stubble of the beard. The contours of the head stand out against the light ground, giving the aging face an almost sculptural quality. The features, which function like markers to individualize the portrait, are so meticulously rendered that the likeness is unmistakable. We are tempted to call it “unflattering,” for the subject’s age, which unavoidably defines his character, has become a central theme of the portrait. With his illusionistic evocation of corpulence and signs of age, the Master of Flémalle created a highly individualized portrait of a now unknown man. Since it depicts particular conceptions of age, status, and selfunderstanding in an especially characteristic way, however, over the course of time it came to be understood as a type, independent of the identity of the specific individual. It is possible that even during the painter’s lifetime, this portrait was viewed as a kind of character study intended to exemplify the age it depicts. The same is true of the bust of Niccolò Strozzi by Mino da Fiesole, created in Italy, likewise in the midfifteenth century: this portrait of an influential Roman banker, shown in all his glory and in the resolute pose of a Roman emperor, becomes the veritable embodiment of a self-assured man.
Master of Flémalle Portrait of a Stout Man, ca. 1440 Oil on oak panel, 31.5 × 20.3 cm Property of the Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein Next double-page spread: detail
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W
ho is looking at whom? We often ask ourselves this question when we encounter extraordinary faces in art. Faces capture the human imagination; our interest is aroused by forms that we perceive as eyes and therefore as a gaze directed at us. We sense it most powerfully when we look at portraits, because they confront us with another person. This power can also be felt in idealized representations when a figure’s communicative gaze gives us the feeling of standing face-to-face with an individual. One of the central themes of early Netherlandish painting was the characterization of perfectly illuminated details, as if in a still life. One of the most important artists of this period was Rogier van der Weyden (ca. 1399/1400–1464), whose image of a lady with a winged bonnet, one of the earliest known independent portraits north of the Alps, invites sustained contemplation. The young woman turns toward us in a three-quarter profile, a pose that creates interest through the differing visibility of the two sides of her face. Our eyes follow the vertically gathered fabric over her breast and the black fur trim of her mantle to arrive at the center: her face, framed by an imposing white bonnet whose folds form a geometric pattern. From there, she returns our gaze and we feel as if we had caught sight of an individual who herself was looking at us. The intensity of the gaze invites us to respond, an effect that is likewise produced by the Virgin Mary created by the sculptor Michel Erhart (ca. 1440/45–1522) from the city of Ulm. The wooden figure, made around 1480 for the Church of Our Lady in Ravensburg, opens up toward the viewer. Although the Virgin is of delicate stature, she seems almost superhuman compared to the other figures, who seek protection under her outspread mantle. The opening of the garment and the placement of her forward leg are oriented toward the viewer, as is her gaze. The delicate folds of a
Rogier van der Weyden Portrait of a Young Woman with a Winged Bonnet, ca. 1440 Oil on oak panel, 49.3 × 32.9 cm
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Imprint For the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, edited by María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral and Christine Seidel Translation:
Melissa M. Thorson
Copyediting:
Aaron Bogart
Design, layout, and typesetting:
Holger Stüting – www.allstarsdesign.de
Museum publication management:
Sigrid Wollmeiner
Publisher publication management:
David Fesser
Project management assistant:
Teresa Laudert
Publisher production management:
Jens Lindenhain
Reproductions:
Babette Buller
Image processing:
Eberl & Koesel Studio GmbH, Altusried-Krugzell
Printing and binding:
Grafisches Centrum Cuno GmbH & Co. KG, Calbe
Publishing and distribution: Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Berlin München Lützowstraße 33, 10785 Berlin www.deutscherkunstverlag.de Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH Berlin Boston – www.degruyter.com Image credits: Cover images: Giambologna (1529–1608), Mars gradivus, ca. 1580, bronze, with base, 44 × 15.6 × 20.5 cm, inv. no. 4/65 © Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin / photo: Antje Voigt Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), Young Girl with a Pearl Necklace, 1663–1665, canvas, 56.1 × 47.4 cm, Gemäldegalerie, cat. no. 912B © Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin / Image by Google Back cover: Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), Young Girl with a Pearl Necklace, detail, 1663–1665, canvas, 56.1 × 47.4 cm, Gemäldegalerie, cat. no. 912B © Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin / Image by Google Complete image credits see previous page Bibliographic information The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Berlin München, and the authors www.smb.museum ISBN 978-3-422-98303-8
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