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'Brutus Kissing the Earth': A New Painting by Giuseppe Maria Crespi in Poland Author(s): Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 135, No. 1088 (Nov., 1993), pp. 747-753Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/885818Accessed: 12-08-2014 16:17 UTC

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KATARZYNA MURAWSKA-MUTHESIUS

'Brutus kissing the earth': a new painting by Giuseppe Maria Crespi in Poland*

TO the kaleidoscopic wuvre of Giuseppe Maria Crespi, the most eccentric Bolognese painter of the first half of the eighteenth century,' one more picture may now be added: a large canvas in the National Museum, Warsaw, of Lucius Junius Brutus kissing the earth as the common mother of all people (Fig. 16). Regrettably, the picture's state of preservation leaves much to be desired, as does our knowledge of its provenance. It entered the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw after 1945, probably with large groups of works of art from the western territories that had been annexed to the Polish State after the Second World War, already in very bad condition and without a stretcher. Its surface, badly damaged and covered with dirt, was entirely illegible, and it was only after cleaning in 1969-70 that it was attributed to G.M. Crespi and its subject determined. However, much of Crespi's characteristic brushwork has been lost forever.

In his biography of Crespi, Giampietro Zanotti mentions two versions of this unusual subject in the artist's

oeuvre.2 But, even without such confirmation from a contemporary source, the attribution of this painting could hardly be doubted. An informally arranged group of almost life-size figures fills the dark surface; their shapes are strongly high- lighted against the sombre background as if they were about to step out of the canvas. The darkened palette, typical of Crespi, consists mainly of earth colours, with a prevalence of ochre and different shades of red, applied in thick impasto with free, bold brushstrokes. The figures are familiar from Crespi's other works: we recognise their facial types, their Jively and natural movements, including the typical striding pose of the woman at the extreme left.

The unconventional way of representing this episode from Brutus's life, with a complete indifference to both his- torical accuracy and the demands of decorum, is also highly characteristic of Crespi, who was perhaps the only artist in Bologna, or indeed in all of Italy at this period,

who would have dared to transform this elevated subject into a genre-like episode from the comidie humaine.3 The prostrate man in the foreground is Lucius Junius Brutus - the father of the Roman Republic - whose complex history, described by Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Valerius Maximus, became a favoured subject of literature and painting from Petrarch and Campagnola to Voltaire and David.4 The elder Brutus is, of course, best known as the avenger of Lucretia, as his nation's leader who overthrew the monarchy in Rome, as the first consul of the Roman Republic, and as the unwavering statesman, who, in the name of justice and liberty, did not hesitate to condemn his own sons to death for conspiring against the Republic.

Instead of focusing on these aspects of the hero's career, Crespi chose a less popular episode from Brutus's youth, one that is rarely represented in painting.5 As we know from Livy, Lucius Junius Brutus was the son of a sister of Tarquin the Proud. In order to avoid persecution by the tyrannical king, who had already put Brutus's brother to death, he decided to feign folly. When the King's sons Titus and Arruns were sent to Greece to consult the Delphic oracle, Brutus accompanied them 'more as a butt than as a comrade'. It was he alone, however, who understood the cryptic meaning of Apollo's prophecy that the highest power at Rome would fall to the first of their company to kiss his mother. While the young Tarquins took the Pythian words literally and hastened to embrace their mother on their return to Rome, Brutus, 'pretending to stumble ... fell and touched his lips to Earth, evidently regarding her as the common mother of all mortals'. The Delphic proph- ecy was fulfilled soon afterwards when Brutus led public vengeance against the violator of Lucretia.

It was only at the beginning of the eighteenth century, as part of the wave of increased interest in historical paint- ing,6 that this less heroic episode from Brutus's life found its way into the visual arts. The theme was taken up by

*Jan Biatostocki, Keeper of the Gallery of European Paintings in the National Museum in Warsaw, first attributed this painting to Giuseppe Maria Crespi, but his death in 1988 prevented him from publishing it. Apart from the gratitude I owe to him, I am also indebted to Andrea Emiliani, Angelo Mazza, August B. Rave and to Silla Zamboni for their co-operation and support, friendly advice and inestimable help with the archival sources, and to Maria Kluk who first determined the painting's subject. 'On Crespi see, among others, M.P. MERRIMAN: Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Milan [ 1980]; J.T. SPIKE: Giuseppe Maria Crespi and the Emergence of Genre Painting in Italy, exh.cat., Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth [1986]; A. EMILIANI and A.B. RAVE, eds.: Giuseppe Maria Crespi 1665-1747, exh.cat., Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart and Pushkin Museum, Moscow [1990-91]; and Giuseppe Maria Crespi nei Museifiorentini, exh.cat., Uffizi, Florence [1993]. 2G.P. ZANOTTI: Storia dell'Accademia Clementina, Bologna [1739], Vol.II, pp.55, 63. 30On Crespi's rebellion against the Academy, see A.W.A. BOsCHLoo: 'Giuseppe Maria Crespi e I'Accademia Clementina', in EMILIANI and RAVE, op.cit. at note 1 above, pp.CLXXXV-CXCI. 4For the changing reputation of Brutus in literature see I. DONALDSON: The Rapes of Lucretia. A Myth and its Transformations, Oxford [1982], pp.103-68. On the Brutus theme in eighteenth-century painting, see G. SPRIGATH: Themen aus der

Geschichte der romischen Republik in der franzisischen Malerei des 18. Jahrhunderts, unpublished dissertation, Munich, 1968; R. ROSENBLUM: 'Gavin Hamilton's "Brutus" and its Aftermath', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CIII [1961], pp.9-16. On David's Brutus, see R.L. HERBERT: David, Voltaire, Brutus and the French Revolution: an Essay in Art and Politics, London [1972]; S. GERMER and H. KOHLE: 'From the Theatrical to the Aesthetic Hero: On the Privatization of the Idea of Virtue in David's Brutus and Sabines', Art History, IX [1986], pp.168-83; o. BATSCHMANN: 'Das Historienbild als "tableau" des Konflikts: Jacques-Louis Davids "Brutus" von 1789', Wiener

Jahrbuchfi'r Kunstgeschichte, XXXIX [ 1986], pp. 145-62. 5LIVY: Ab Urbe Condita, Book I, LVI, 7-13; DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS: Roman Antiquities, Book IV, LXIX; ovID: Fasti, II, 711-20; VALERIUS MAXIMUs: Factorum et dictorum memorabilium, Book VIII, iii.2. Among later authors to introduce the episode of the Delphic oracle are: T. REYWOOD: The Rape ofLucrece. A True Roman Tragedie, London [1608] and v. MALVEZZI: II Tarquinio Superbo, Venice [1633]. At the end of the seventeenth century the shifting fortune of Brutus became a favourite theme of Italian opera librettos: see G.P. sETA: Giunio Bruto, Bologna [1686]; L. LOTTI: La saggia pazzia di Giunio Bruto, Venice [1698]. The scene of kissing the earth was employed by N. MINATO: Die Verdnderungen des Gliickes in Lucio Junio Bruto, Vienna [1692]. 6See G. KNOX: 'Roman and Less Roman Elements in Venetian History Painting, 1650-1750', RACAR, Revue d'art canadienne, XII [1985], p.175.

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CRESPI'S cBRUTUS KISSING THE EARTH'

16. Lucius Junius Brutus kissing the earth, by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. 157 by 172 cm. (Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw).

several artists in North Italy, such as Sebastiano Ricci and Simone Brentana in Verona.7 Comparison with Ricci's treatment of the subject (Fig. 17) clearly reveals the novelty of Crespi's interpretation. Ricci obeys the rules of decorum, following Livy's account closely and respecting historic details and the demands of grandeur. He locates the scene in the interior of a temple, before a statue of Apollo holding the obligatory attribute of a lyre. Apart from the main actors, the Tarquins and Brutus, several other figures are introduced, including a laurel-wreathed priest and his young assistant playing a flute. The Tarquins are dressed in Roman armour and strike rhetorical poses in front of the oracle. Brutus, in workaday clothes and worn-out shoes,

prostrating himself on the ground, is neither dishonoured, nor ridiculed, his figure expressing dignified humility rather than foolishness.

Crespi's picture is set in an entirely different world. At first glance it hardly seems to treat the same story, for the

only element that links these two versions is the prostrate figure of the protagonist. But how differently even he is seen by Crespi! This miserable human form pressed to the earth, this pitiable fool deprived of any dignity, is hardly presented as one destined for an heroic future.8 Nor did

Crespi feel any obligation to follow the Roman sources in detail. He transfers the scene from the Delphic oracle to some undefined space in which a crowd of mothers and

7See A. PIGLER: Barockthemen. Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Budapest [1974], II, p.373. On Ricci's Brutus see R. PALLUCCHINI: La pittura veneziana del Settecento, Venice-Rome [1960], p.13; A. RIZZI: Sebastiano Ricci disegnatore, exh.cat., Udine [1975], Fig.70; J. DANIELS: Sebastiano Ricci, Hove [1976], no.320, fig.237; A. GHIDIGLIA QUINTAVALLE: 'Seb- astiano Ricci a Parma', in Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi su Sebastiano Ricci e il suo tempo (Udine), Milan [1976], pp.111-15. A picture representing Brutus kissing the earth by Simone Brentana is reported by B. dal Pozzo in the collection of Count Ercole Giusti in Verona: 'I due Fratelli Tarquinij, e Bruto, ch' addimandano all' oracolo chi di loro regnarebbe; alla cui riposta Bruto si prostra, e bacia la terra, Madre comune. Di Simone Brentana'. (B. DAL POzzo: Le vite de' pittori degli scultori, et architetti veronesi, Verona [1718], p.296). I have been unable to identify it, nor do we know its date. No trip by Crespi to Verona is recorded by his biographers, and it is impossible to be sure whether he could have seen Brentana's

Brutus. A very distant 'connexion' may have been provided by Crespi's colleague, Gian Giuseppe dal Sole, from Bologna, who spent several years in the house of Count Ercole Giusti in the last decade of the seventeenth century (ZANOTTI, op.cit. at note 2 above, I, p.303; SPIKE, op.cit. at note 1 above, no.6). For the Crespis in Count Giusti's collection, see below. 8A somewhat satirical version of the same scene was painted a few decades later by the Berlin painter Bernhard Rode, who locates the scene on the shores of Italy: Brutus leaps from a ship, and clumsily throws himself to the earth, to the scorn of the Tarquins. The painting, once in the collection of General R. Kriiger, Berlin, now destroyed, is known through Rode's engraving, which is dated towards the middle of the 1770s (see R. JACOBS: Das Graphische Werk Bernhard Rodes (1725-1797), unpublished doctoral dissertation, Kiel, 1989, no.100). I am grateful to Prof. Frank Bittner for his help.

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CRESPI S 'BRUTUS KISSING THE EARTH)

17. Lucius Junius Brutus kissing the earth, by Sebastiano Ricci. 245 by 301 cm. (Galleria Nazionale, Parma).

sons affectionately embracing appears beyond the figure of Brutus. The woman on the left watching Brutus's behaviour with surprise is probably his mother Tarquinia; strictly speaking, there should be only two mothers and three sons present, but Crespi seems to have felt free to re-shape the story according to his own vision. Thus this completely imaginary scene which stresses maternal and filial affection through the tenderness and sincerity of their gestures, is introduced to emphasise the oddness, but also, in these cir- cumstances, thejudiciousness ofBrutus's behaviour. While the other sons kiss their mothers, he rejects his, denies his family ties and declares himself the son of the earth. Not much later, Crespi prompts us to remember, Brutus would renounce his paternal duties, and in sacrificing his sons' lives for the sake of the Republic, would earn the name of father of his country.

However, Crespi's contribution to the iconography of Brutus, as well as the sources of his inspiration, and possible links with the Italian opera,9 are beyond the scope of this article, and deserve a separate study. Here we shall attempt primarily to deal with the picture's historical content in order to establish its place within the artist's euvre.

The main source of information on Crespi's 'Brutus' pictures remains the biography, completed during Crespi's lifetime, by Giampietro Zanotti secretary of the Accademia Clementina. As we have seen, Zanotti records two pictures

of Brutus kissing the earth: one commissioned by 'milord Chantillon', the other by a Count Antonio di Colato.10 The question is, which of these two versions is the painting in Warsaw? Luigi Crespi's biography of his father, written thirty years later in 1769, provides little assistance, for it does not refer specifically to the Brutus pictures. Although Luigi confirms that his father worked for 'monsieur' Chan- tillon, as well as for Count Antonio di Collalto (as he spells the name), he does not provide the titles of any works painted for them, specifying in Chantillon's case only 'a picture with a Roman history'.11 The identity of Milord (or Monsieur or Cavaliere) Chantillon remains an enigma. His name, and the variety of titles preceding it, suggests that he was French. 12 Zanotti's cursory description of Chantillon's painting - '. .. Brutus who kisses with reverence the earth, which is recognised by him as his mother and originator of everything.. .' - accords, roughly, with the canvas in Warsaw. 13 But can the Warsaw picture be identified with the 'first' Brutus for Chantillon? Zanotti reports that Crespi also painted a canvas of Two philosophers, for Chantillon, mentioning it along with the Brutus in the context of a group of works executed at much the same time as the elector Palatinate in Duisseldorf, Johann Wilhelm, acquired the Massacre of Innocents, that is around 1715.14 This might imply that both the 'Chantillon' pictures were painted at around this date. That, however, would make

90On Crespi's links with opera, see A.B. RAVE: 'Giuseppe Maria Crespi zwischen Poesie und Musik', in EMILIANI and RAVE, op.cit. at note 1 above, pp. 183-202. 'OThe information given by Zanotti was duly repeated by MARCELLO ORETTI in his manuscript: Notizie de Professori del dissegno cioe pittori scultori ed architetti bolognesi e deforestieri di sua scuola, Bologna, Biblioteca Comunale dell' Archiginnasio, Vol.IX, MS B 131, fols.365 and 370. 11L. CRESPI: Felsina pittrice. Vite de' pittori bolognesi. Tomo III che serve di supplemento all' opera di Malvasia, Rome [1769], reprinted Bologna [1970], pp.214, 216. For the variant spellings Colato and Collalto, see note 19 below. '2Quite recently RAVE suggested that 'milord Chantillon' might be identified

with another patron of Crespi, 'milord Cuk', see EMILIANI and RAVE, op.cit. at note 1 above, no.93.

13ZANOTTI, op.cit. at note 2 above, p.55: '... per ii milord Chantillon, Bruto, che bacia riverentemente la terra, da lui per sua madre riconosciuta, e per produtrice di tutte le cose, ed un quadro di duefilosofi. . .' 14MERRIMAN, op.cit. at note 1 above, no.38. In the same paragraph Zanotti mentions the Death of St Joseph and the Holy Family for Cardinal Ottoboni, two

pictures for the Elector of Bavaria commissioned through Bartolini, as well as the first series of twenty drawings illustrating the stories of Bertoldo (ZANOTTI,

op.cit. at note 2 above, p.55).

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CRESPI S 4BRUTUS KISSING THE EARTH'

18.

19. Detail of Fig.16.

18. Democritus and Heraclitus, by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. 143 by 116 cm. (Musee des Augustins, Toulouse).

it impossible to identify Chantillon's Two philosophers with the Democritus and Heraclitus in the Mus e des Augustins in Toulouse (Fig. 18), which is considered to be a much later work, dateable to the fourth decade of the eighteenth century, and usually identified with the second version of this subject mentioned by Zanotti.15

Leaving the problem of the Two philosophers aside for the moment, we may try to trace possible links between the Warsaw Brutus and other paintings of the 171Os. There are many close parallels. The heaviness of the handling, and a certain violence of treatment recalls the Musicians and the Peasants with a donkey in Sir Denis Mahon's collec- tion. The abject position ofBrutus, flattened to the ground (Fig. 19), can be compared to one of the shepherds turned into a frog by Latona in the picture in Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna (Fig.20) which is dated close to the Sacraments in Dresden.16 The graceful curves of the mothers' necks, as they lean forward to embrace their sons are reminiscent of the two isolated female figures grieving over a baby from an even earlier picture, the Massacre of the innocents painted for the Grand Duke of Tuscany and now in the Uffizi.

However, more significant then the recurrence of such motifs is the overall arrangement of the composition - the

way the large figures loom out from the dark background in the Warsaw Brutus, just as in the well-known Seven Sacraments (Fig.21). Not only are there pervasive stylistic affinities - strong chiaroscuro, bold brush strokes marking the drapery folds, foreground figures pushed to the very front, and the faces of those at the back barely marked - but also the concept of representing a dignified subject in

an informal, genre-like fashion, seems close to that of the Sacraments.

Crespi here applies his usual method of suggesting space by means of barely visible diagonal lines of the floor tiles used in the Sacraments and in many of his altar-pieces. But, whereas in the Sacraments the artist prompts us to imagine the neutral surface of the background either as the facing wall of an enclosed cell or as a darkened and prolonged space of a church aisle, in the Warsaw Brutus the action is enclosed simply by the mute background. The darkened

paint faintly suggests a screen against which the figures are

set, with a dark channel dividing the two symmetrically opposed groups of mothers and sons.

A similar effect of an impenetrable background, with no allusions to the kind of interior represented, appears in the Toulouse Democritus and Heraclitus. Although dated to the 1730s,17 this has other similarities with the Warsaw Brutus. It repeats the same compositional scheme, in which life-size figures emerge from the darkness and are placed close to the foreground. The palette of the Toulouse picture is again severely restricted to earth colours, enlivened

only by a strong chiaroscuro, in a manner more character- istic of Crespi's earlier paintings. The violent brushstrokes deform shapes and proportions, and emphasise the im-

perfections of the bodies. The protruding leg of the resigned figure of Heraclitus distorts the composition of the picture, focusing the light and the spectator's attention. Crespi does not spare us a description of Heraclitus's mis-shaped toes, or of the ghastly, hollow-cheeked face of Democritus, who emerges from the darkness to turn briskly towards his

'5lbid., no.176; EMILIANI and RAVE, op.cit. at note 1 above, no.93. This other

picture, although not assigned to any patron, was treated more attentively by ZANOTTI; he praised the 'truth' of the representation and compared the laughing

Democritus to Crespi himself (op.cit. at note 2 above, pp.64-65). 16EMILIANI and RAVE, op.cit. at note 1 above, no.44.

17 See at note 15 above.

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CRESPI'S 'BRUTUS KISSING THE EARTH'

20. Latona and the frogs, by Giuseppe Maria Crespi.. 137 by 169 cm. (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna).

partner. If it were not for the books, the two famous philosophers might easily be taken for Bolognese street- beggars.

It would thus be very tempting to link the Warsaw Brutus to the Two philosophers in Toulouse, and, consequently, to identify them with the pictures painted for Chantillon, probably at some time between 1715 and 1720. However, that would also mean, against the views of all other scholars, having to push back the date of the Toulouse picture by about twenty years, and identifying it not with the later version of Two philosophers, but with the 'first' painting of this subject mentioned by Zanotti.18 But even if the hypoth- esis that Chantillon commissioned the Toulouse picture is unacceptable, could the Warsaw Brutus be nonetheless dated to the second half of the 1 710s? It is impossible to be certain. Although the unrestrained freedom of the brush in the Warsaw canvas and its astonishing 'Crespian' mastery of touch point to the pictures of the second decade, a similar sort of 'brutality' can also be noticed in such later works as the altar-pieces of the Martyrdom of St John in Bergamo or the Adoration of the Magi in Modena. Moreover,

the palette of the Warsaw Brutus appears to be richer when

compared with the almost monochromatic pictures of the second decade and seems closer to the variety of colours

Crespi used after 1720. The second version of the Brutus, painted for the Conte

Antonio di Colato, is mentioned in passing by Zanotti in his account of Crespi's portraits. Zanotti writes that Crespi painted a self-portrait for this nobleman, a 'Bruto che bacia la terra' and two other scenes from Roman history - the Continence of Scipio and the Banquet of Cleopatra, the latter

portraying a famous singer, Coralli in the guise of the 'bella

canopea'. 19

The pictures for Colato are usually placed in the third decade of the century. This stems from the date given to

Crespi's Continence of Scipio in the Chrysler Museum (Fig.22), which is usually identified with the picture mentioned by Zanotti. On the basis of stylistic comparisons with the Old Testament scenes for Cardinal Ruffo, executed between 1721 and 1727, the Continence of Scipio was dated by Miller towards the middle of the 1720s, and this date was accepted by Merriman.20 The depiction of Coralli has also been

'8What could also support this theory is the puzzling fact that Crespi's Democritus and Heraclitus now in Toulouse, is recorded in the Gallery of Karl I, Duke of Brunswick, in Saltzdal in 1776, while Marcello Oretti saw a picture representing the two philosophers in Bologna in the house of the heirs of Crespi at around the same time. Oretti's manuscript was finished in 1776 (M. ORETTI: Descrizione delle

pitture che ornano le case de' cittadini della cittl di Bologna, Bologna, Biblioteca Comunale dell' Archiginnasio, MS B 109) and the Saltzdal inventory in which the picture is first mentioned, bears the same date (C.N. EBERLEIN: Verzeichniss der Herzoglichen Bilder-Galerie zu Salzthalen, Braunschweig [1776]). According to Rave, the picture might have been bought by the Duke's son, Erbprinz Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand during his visit to Italy in 1767 (EMILIANI and RAVE, op.cit. at note 1 above, no.93), in which case the chances that the same picture was seen by Oretti are very small indeed. Since the picture seen by Oretti must have been the later version of two philosophers, not linked by Zanotti with any patron, this would mean that the picture acquired for Saltzdal was more likely

to have been the one painted for Chantillon. For a contrary opinion, see A. BURKARTH: 'Giuseppe Maria Crespi und seine ffirstlichen Sammler in Osterreich und Deutschland', in the German edition of the 1990-91 exh.cat. cited at note 1 above, pp.215-16, note 89. '9ZANOTTI, op.cit. at note 2 above, p.63. Luigi Crespi spells his name as di Collalto and he should perhaps be identified with Count Antonio di Collalto of San Salvatore, a diplomat, poet, and friend of L.A. Muratori, who was also on friendly terms with Crespi. Antonio di Collalto owned several castles in Moravia and was said to have a collection of portraits of his ancestors (see R. DEROSAS, in

Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 26, Rome [1982], pp.777-80). Marcello Oretti also mentions a 'casa del Conte Antonio Colato' in Bologna. (ORETTI, MS cited at note 10 above, s.365.) 20D. MILLER in: Art in Italy, 1600-1700, exh.cat., Detroit [ 1965], no.118; MERRIMAN,

op.cit. at note 1 above, no.178; idem.: 'Giuseppe Maria Crespi', in the exh.cat. cited at note 1 above, p.84 (German ed.).

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CRESPI S 'BRUTUS KISSING THE EARTH'

21. Communion, by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. 127 by 94.5 cm. (Gemaildegalerie, Dresden).

placed after 1720 by Rave, who suggested it had been

painted after the singer's return from her successful ap- pearance at the Dresden court.21 If we assume that all the

pictures for Colato were executed at more or less the same time, the 'second Brutus' would also be dateable to the middle of the second decade of the century.

Unfortunately, there is no certain information about Colato's commissions. Not only are the self-portrait and the depiction of Coralli untraced,22 but the identification of Colato's Scipio with the canvas in the Chrysler Museum is not accepted by Spike. He places the Chrysler picture among the historical compositions ofc. 1700 and links it to another Continence of Scipio described by dal Pozzo in the collection of Count Ercole Giusti in Verona as early as 1718.23

It is worth adding here that, according to dal Pozzo, the Continence of Scipio in the Giusti Collection was accompanied by another picture by Crespi, possibly a pendant, depicting Scipio Africanus assuring the women of Carthage of their safe con- duct.24 The latter is not mentioned by Crespi's biographers, nor do they record commissions for Ercole Giusti, who, apparently, was one of the most important collectors,

22. The continence of Scipio, by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. 222 by 157.5 cm. (Chrysler Museum, Norfolk VA).

especially of Roman subjects, in Verona around 1700. Interestingly enough it was Count Ercole Giusti who owned Brentana's Brutus kissing the earth.25

Despite these uncertainties regarding Colato's patron- age, it is worth considering whether there are any stylistic affinities between the Warsaw Brutus and the Chrysler Scipio. There are, undeniably, some links between these two

pictures. The shocked figure of Tarquinia in the former, resembles in pose the fiance in the Chrysler painting who in this case, is startled by the generosity of Scipio. But, in my view, the differences between the two pictures are more striking. The Warsaw Brutus lacks the glowing colours and the vibrant light which distinguish the Chrysler painting. The palette of the Warsaw picture, although brighter than that of the Sacraments, or the Latona, is still rather unified, confined to the predominant warm shades of ochre and muted vermilion, which are juxtaposed to

transparent whites and contrasted with greyish blues, or

jade greens. The dark colours have a tendency to mingle with the neutral background, while those saturated with

light spring up from the darkness beyond them. The area of shadow in the Warsaw painting is more powerful, break-

21RAVE, op.cit. at note 9 above, p. 198. We cannot exclude the possibility that the

portrait of Coralli, a Bolognese who made her debut in the Teatro Formigliari in 1715, might have been painted earlier, c. 1715-17, i.e. before her departure to Dresden and her later triumphs in other Italian theatres. From Zanotti we know that Crespi's portrait of Coralli was executed before one of Tessi, who first

performed in Bologna in 1717. 'Prima, che quellofacesse della Tessi quellofece della Coralli, e lofece per il conte Antonio di Colato' (ZANOTTI, op.cit. at note 2 above, p.63). 22MERRIMAN, op.cit. at note 1 above, no.206; G. VIROLI, in EMILIANI and RAVE,

op.cit. at note 1 above, no.60. 23DAL POZZO, op.cit. at note 7 above, p.297; SPIKE, op.cit. at note 1 above, no.6. 24Ibid., pp.297-98: 'Altro Quato [sic] con P. Scipione Africano, che preta Cartagine, assicura a quelle matrone la loro pudicitia. Del sudetto Giuseppe Crespi detto lo Spagnuolo'. 25See L. MAGAGNATO: '11 percorso critico', in La Pittura a Verona Ira Sei e Settecento, exh.cat., Verona [1978], p.20; S. MARINELLI: 'Lo stile "eroico" e l'Arcadia', ibid., pp.54-55. For Brentana's picture see note 7 above.

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CRESPI S cBRUTUS KISSING THE EARTH'

ing into the composition even in its central parts, whereas darkness is confined to the background of the Chrysler canvas. In contrast to the vague spatial setting of the Brutus, the figures in the Scipio canvas are set back from the foreground, and located in a definite interior, delineated by the curtain of the tent.

The Warsaw Brutus also lacks the refinement of the Scipio, the latter's attention to detail being manifest in the treat- ment of the musical instruments and in the soft chiaroscuro which models bare arms and legs. In the Brutus the paint is thickly impasted and there is no attempt to conceal the brushstrokes, nor any concern for elegant detail. This is only in part attributable to damage, and the painting definitely belongs to a group of works, which share these characteristics. In handling and palette, the Warsaw Brutus seems to have more in common with the two Old Testament pictures for Cardinal Ruffo, which are dateable to the years 1722-27, than with the Chrysler Scipio.

If the Warsaw picture is too dark and rough to form a pair with the Continence of Scipio, it also appears too colourful to be securely placed with the Democritus and Heraclitus from Toulouse. What makes the situation even more prob- lematic is that neither the rejection nor the acceptance of stylistic affinities between the Brutus and the Chrysler and Toulouse paintings solves the main question, since none can be securely linked with the patronage of Chantillon or Colato. The Warsaw Brutus's affinity with other pictures from the second and the third decades does seem to provide more reason for linking it with Chantillon's commission and with the 'revolting' pictures of the 1710s. Yet, on the other hand, it appears not at all distant from the pictures for Cardinal Ruffo. This raises the possibility that it is indeed the 'second Brutus' for Conte Antonio di Colato.

Too many of the pieces of this puzzle are missing. We do not know the other version of Crespi's Brutus kissing the earth, nor can we trace the other pictures painted by the artist for Colato or Chantillon. Crespi's astonishing versa- tility in adopting different styles prevents us from estab- lishing a neat stylistic development, and, despite the most recent achievements in analysing the chronology of Crespi's wuvre, there is still much to be clarified.

In any case, even if we are uncertain which one of the two Brutus scenes mentioned by Zanotti may be identified with the picture in Warsaw, and whether it should be dated shortly before or shortly after 1720, it surely comes from the most fruitful and happy years of Crespi's career after his return from Florence, when he settled with his growing family into Bolognese society and enjoyed the patronage of princes and cardinals. The Warsaw Brutus reveals all the most individual features of Crespi's artistic temperament: his rebellion against the rules of decorum, his taste for genre, his whimsical fantasy, his sensitivity and deep humanity. The disrespectful representation of a Roman hero connects the Warsaw picture with the most 'indecorous' works in Crespi's wuvre, such as his famous painting of Chiron kicking Achilles (Fig.23), which provoked Algarotti

23. The education of Achilles, by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. 1697. 129 by 125 cm.

(Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

to disparage Crespi's 'sin against custom'.26 The words of Bianconi - who could not forgive Crespi for treating the human figure in a manner appropriate for the Bamboccianti, even in his history paintings- apply very well to the Warsaw Brutus.27 Here, too, sources are disregarded, history is turned into a genre, a heroic figure is humanised, mocked, or even censured. Instead of a traditional presentation of the worth of Roman virtue we are presented with a very personal insight into Brutus, portrayed as a man who behaves contrary to human norms; paradoxically, it is the young Tarquins who are treated with sympathy.

The tenderness with which Crespi depicts family affection in the Brutus, links it with those of his works which reveal his attachment to domestic life, such as the Painter's family of 1708 (Uffizi), which Francis Haskell has called 'the most informal portrait group that had yet appeared in Italian art',28 or the Family offanobio Troni (Bologna, Pinacoteca

Nazionale). In the multiplied images of mothers kissing sons, one can easily guess at a sequence of sketches from Crespi's own family, showing his wife Gioanna Cuppini affectionately hugging their children. Luigi Crespi em- phasised the importance his father gave to the observation of nature and to painting directly from the model.29 To that principle we may owe the moving intimacy of the scene and the frankness of the gestures, which make his Brutus a sort of variation on the theme of the kiss, and give this work a special position not only in baroque history painting, but also in the painting of genre.

National Museum, Warsaw

26F. ALGAROTTI: 'Saggio sopra la pittura' (1756), in Saggi, ed. G. DA POZZO, Bari [1963], pp. 121-22. 27C. BIANCONI: Rifessioni sopra un libro intitolato Vite de' Pittori Bolognesi non descritte nella Felsina Pittrice, MS, Bologna, Archivio Accademia Clementina, fols.25v-

26v, cited from BOSCHLOO, op.cit. at note 3 above, p.CXC (Italian ed.). 28F. HASKELL: Patrons and Painters, 2nd ed., New Haven and London [1980], p.238. 29CRESPI, op.cit. at note 11 above, pp.217-18.

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