Francesco Barresi ( ruutura@hotmail.it) There are books that are not immediately understood that they needed time to be included in their entirety, in their revolutionary nature. Iconography of Italian art. 1100-1500: belongs to a line like this: it was published in 1979 with very little success and then be reviewed in its entirety.
is a book that undermines the foundations of a method of Croce's too rooted in its idealism, too "poetic", who preferred to evaluate the work of the artist in his "feeling high fantasy, lift the mind to sublime , ma tale impostazione ha stabilito un approccio romantico con l’opera d’arte, come se il cuore del critico dovesse esaminare le epifaniche rivelazioni dell’arte, trascurando dettagli e movimenti. La critica crociana ben separava la storia dell’arte dalla storia della cultura, come due sorelle splendide e riottose, quando già la critica europea (pensiamo agli studi anglosassoni di Aby Warburg) era incamminata su ben altre strade, proponendo un’interpretazione globale dell’opera d’arte, esaminando quei fattori che hanno contribuito alla sua creazione. L’opera d’arte, certo, ma il pubblico? Una categoria difficile da definire, ma è indispensabile? Che un’opera d’arte non sia semplicemente il prodotto del genio solitario, ma il frutto di valutazioni “d’attesa”, questo non era considerato da Croce. E la committenza? Può un committente influenzare in itinere il procedimento artistico, dettare correzioni, suggerire anche in maniera invasiva? Ed ecco un aspetto peculiare della novità di Settis: la triade “pubblico-artista-committenti”, perché l’opera d’arte non è solo il frutto dell’abilità dell’artista, ma l’arrivo di un concorso di forze (e non sono le celebri “linee-forze strutturali” di Argan) che hanno determinato il suo svolgimento in cursu . And look at how the public? Where to move the eyes? It will be easily impressed? What do you want to see and how you want to see? Here are the possible questions, for example, that an artist the likes of Giotto, painting the magnificent cycle of the Scrovegni Chapel, the first think that the brush is dipped in color. It is also the most successful example of Settis, interpreting the great figures in the light of a possible reason. Each work of art is a "case", a phenomenon to be evaluated based on its most intimate and secret paths, to reconnect and compare with other examples, in order to understand such dynamics have participated. It is only there that the interpretation work of art will be truly complete: When you wanted to be able to describe it as you see it, you understand that at that time, with all messages and quotations, in an extraordinary journey through time with the eyes and sensitivity of the ancients. So there will be a case of the Scrovegni Judah has a bag in hand, with a demonic hand on his arm, just adjacent to the hanging in Judgement, it is no coincidence that the architecture of recurrence in the manger later scenes, it is no coincidence the attitude of the Magi, the love of Our Lady: look at the pictures below and find Jesus again in same place (left), surrounded by the apostles (in the box above the age of Madonna) and the genuflection of the Magi takes the washing of the feet. Everything is therefore clear: the artist has created links between the various figures that the public's eye wandered and made comparisons, helping memory. And the 'Allegory envy? What does have those ears of an ass, ox horns, the bag, the tongue of a snake? Are not the typical characteristics of greed? And what to do with Judas, mercator pessimus , who sold his master? These are the mysteries of the art, This soil survey of the critic, who will refrain from other possible complications such as "environmental color, harmony of color, the lightness of the colors, the picturesqueness, the friendly faces, our eyes are quite aware of the effusion tone of the chapel, is the first impression we receive, but our mind to understand what has led to calls for the characters, the location, the sites of single figures and how they agree with the others, where the message, the possible influences "external" (which then became both internal and intrinsic to the structure of a work of art).
Chapel is just one case, because Settis browse numerous cases and reports them approaches the second accurate. This applies to the charm of the book: ask a typical approach of an archaeologist (Settis is primarily an archaeologist) to works of art, as if to dig the truth, and only an archaeologist could tell, ford, the portal Bonanno Pisano in Monreale was dispatched from Pisa, with no need to consult the cards. But the beauty of this book does not stop here, because a careful reader would be surprised not to find the categorical partitions "architecture-sculpture-painting" as to find a way that precludes the traditional one thousand years, a period important for Italian art history. The revolutionary nature of this text lies precisely here: to overcome the conventions to propose new, even of method, where it is necessary to overcome the past. The individual "transformation" of the cross painted, for example, are not only an attempt to overcome the cumbersome Byzantine presence in Italian art: there's more, there is the worldly desire to Brother Elias, who wants to appear near the suppedaneo of Crucifix by Giunta Pisano, because he wants to "emulate" the action of S. Francis, as the desire to paint more realistic about the suffering of Christ, and hence the curve of epigastric Cimabue and eyes closed, like a true patiens , a suffering that will bring glory to the apse of the Cathedral of Pisa, since the iconography seems identical to that of Crucifix by Giunta Pisano, 1250, with the Madonna and S. Giovanni Evangelista. But if the first was John the Baptist, because now an evangelist? And why a book in your hand? And that attitude, so detached and cake in the face?
These questions and more tempting for those who want to take a real journey into the heart of Italian art, to prepare the mind and develop the fire of view, in order to interpret the work of art as a whole, "satisfied" from all the possible doubts, Rovelli sharp critic of all, for those not satisfied with the first lesson.
This work is published under a Creative Commons License .
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