The Art of Embellishment: Drawings and Paintings by Gaetano and Mauro Gandolfi for a Festive Carriage

The Art of Embellishment: Drawings and Paintings by Gaetano and Mauro Gandolfi for aFestive CarriageAuthor(s): Mimi CazortSource: Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, Vol. 52, No. 2 (1993), pp. 28-35Published by: Princeton University Art MuseumStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3774752 .

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The Art of Embellishment: Drawings and Paintings

by Gaetano and Mauro Gandolfi for a Festive Carriage MIMI CAZORT

The three Gandolfi, Ubaldo (1728-1781), his younger brother Gaetano (I734-I802), and the latter's son Mauro

(I764-I834), constituted the major group of painters work-

ing in North Italy in the latter half of the eighteenth cen-

tury. Their work, comparable in kind and in quality to that of the Tiepolo family in contemporary Venice, was inti-

mately bound to the culture of their native city, Bologna. Bologna was the capital of one of the richest agricultural areas in Europe, the Po River Valley. It had also been, since the early sixteenth century, the northernmost city of the Papal States, second in importance only to Rome. The valley, roughly the equivalent of the present-day prov- ince of Emilia-Romagna, extended from the Appennines to the Adriatic and had, under the protection of the Vati-

can, enjoyed three centuries of uninterrupted peace, a rare

commodity for the period. This situation assured a steady source of commissions

for the active artistic community that Bologna had sup- ported since the sixteenth century, and the Carracci tradition was conveyed through a nearly unbroken sequence of teaching academies to the time of the Gandolfi. The virtues of cultural continuity were, however, offset by the watchful presence of the Papal Legates, resulting in a form of cultural stagnation. The intellectual excellence of Bologna's university and publishing industry had been in decline throughout the eighteenth century, and the artists themselves were increasingly oppressed by the weight of the past. The Gandolfi stand as enormously talented

exponents of the expiring baroque tradition, itself un-

dergoing revision and change in the rest of Europe. Their various responses to, and successive echoes of, the French rococo and Neoclassicism, the first pan-European style, constitute a fascinating aspect of their work.

The careers of the Gandolfi spanned seven decades, from about 1750 to about 1820, and together the artists witnessed a time of great social and artistic turmoil duly reflected in their work. The close personal and professional contacts they maintained, learning and copying from one another, have occasioned considerable confusion in the art-historical literature but their identities both as artists and as personalities are now beginning to emerge.

Ubaldo, though in a sense the artistic pioneer, enjoyed less worldly success than his brother Gaetano. His pri-

mary production was of religious paintings, but on occasion he also received the coveted commissions for the large decorative frescoes so dear to the aristocracy and the thriving middle class of Bologna. Many of his large, beautifully delineated, and subtly colored altarpieces can still be found in the little country churches that grace the fertile plains of the Po River Valley. Some of his most appealing works are the small informal portraits of friends and family, presaging early Corot portraits of a half century later.

Gaetano, whose drawings are featured in this article, was the most conspicuous member of the family. By all contemporary accounts a gregarious and ebullient man, he received the major commissions available in the city and sent his paintings as far afield as St. Petersburg. Even- after Napoleon's arrival in Bologna in 1796, which effec- tively put an end to major artistic projects, he produced paintings of interest and merit. He specialized in paintings of mythological and historical subjects, no doubt the result of his contacts with the learned members of the community who decreed the content of his works.

Mauro was, in a sense, the most interesting of the lot. Brilliant and articulate, he was cognizant of the fact that his professional life had collided with historic events. Since commissions were not forthcoming after I796 (a fact duly recorded in his autobiography), he took an active part in post-Napoleonic politics and was elected to both the Cispadine and Cisalpine congresses. His enormous artistic talents are recorded mainly through his drawings, as he left few paintings. His writings, still to be published, are also testimony to the tribulations of the times. He made a trip to North America in I815 in order to witness at first hand how the young Republic actually worked.

The Gandolfi were gifted, intelligent, and trained in the most rigorous of European academic traditions. Their paintings are evocative of the full and rich Bolognese baroque tradition to the point that, in a curiously Postmodern way, the references to the past smother the creativity. Their energy and inventiveness show to full advantage in their remarkable drawings.

A pen and wash drawing by Gaetano Gandolfi in the collection of The Art Museum, Princeton University, The Chariot of Venus (fig. I),I finds its place in a complex of

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I. Gaetano Gandolfi, The Chariot of Venus. Pen, brown ink and wash, 24.3 x 35.3 cm. The Art Museum, Princeton University (xI976-64). (photo: Bruce M. White)

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2. Gaetano Gandolfi, The Chariot of Venus. Oil on canvas (modello), 50.0 x 66.o cm. Present location unknown (formerly Arcade Gallery, London, 1957).

3. Gaetano Gandolfi, The Chariot of Jupiter. Oil on canvas (modello), 50.0 x 66.o cm. Present location unknown (formerly Arcade Gallery, London, I957).

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4. Gaetano Gandolfi, The Chariot of Venus. Pen, brown ink and wash on laid paper, 16.2 x 22.5 cm. (irregular). Private collection, France.

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5. Gaetano Gandolfi, The Chariot of Jupiter. Pen, brown ink and wash on laid paper, I5.o x I9.8 cm. Private collection, Bologna.

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preparatory studies for two oil bozzetti, The Chariot of Venus (fig. 2) and its pendant, The Chariot ofJupiter (fig. 3). These paintings were together on the London market in 1958,2 but their present location is unknown.

Two other studies by Gaetano for the pair of bozzetti exist: the first one for the Chariot of Venus in a private collection in Paris (fig. 4) and the second for the Chariot

of Jupiter in a private collection in Bologna (fig. 5).3 The Paris drawing furnishes the clue to the project's purpose. Its composition, while conforming closely to the more

freely drawn Princeton sheet, represents an advanced stage of the design, with the forms more firmly delineated and the excesses of calligraphy somewhat tamed. The critical feature of the Paris drawing is its format, demonstrated

by the flat upper and deep, semicircular lower edges pe- culiar to designs for the decorated door panels of certain

eighteenth-century carriages known as "berlins." The Princeton and the Bolognese sheets, though rectangular, are designed in such a way that their bottom edges could be easily adapted to the door-panel format. It was not unusual for the Gandolfi to prepare their initial compositional drawings for irregularly shaped paintings or frescoes in this manner, subsequently adjusting the odd corners and edges.

Without being able to examine the Venus and the Jupiter bozzetti, it is impossible to tell whether they originally conformed to this format. However, the disposition of

compositional elements in the lower sections of each painting, including the action concentrated in the bottom cen- ter and fanning up on either side in horizontal curves, suggests that this could have been the case. If so, the lower left and right corners were probably filled in later to render the canvases more suitable for normal framing, a fairly common practice among nineteenth- and early twentieth-century "restorers" when treating irregularly shaped compositions.

This characteristic format is seen in the door panels of three Bolognese ceremonial carriages designed by Mauro Gandolfi, now in the Musee nationale du chateau de

Compiegne.4 Resplendent with bronze and gilded wood

putti and sporting nymphs, these carriages all have door

panels elaborately painted with mythological or allegori- cal scenes. Bozzetti depicting Telemachus and Mentor Greeted

by Calypso (fig. 6) and Telemachus Encounters Mentor in the

Elysian Fields for one of these carriages appeared on the Milanese art market in I987.5 Although painted on horizontal rectangular canvases, the hemispherical shape of the compositions are clearly defined, with the lower corners outside the design area discreetly filled in with brown

paint. In the perfunctory listing of his paintings that Gaetano

provided Marcello Oretti for his autograph compendium of late eighteenth-century Bolognese artists, Gaetano mentioned having done "una carrozza pel Sen(atore) Marescalchi".6 He only listed works he considered his most important, citing dates for most items, I769 being the last. Since he embarked on his professional career at the end of the I75os, his list is thus limited to his first decade of production.

The combined circumstantial, stylistic, and iconographic evidence witnessed in this complex of works by Gaetano

suggests that they were made in preparation for the decoration of the Marescalchi carriage. The style of both the

drawings and the bozzetti is commensurate with Gaetano's work of the late I76os. A year of study in Venice in 1760

profoundly influenced his style throughout the I76os and, though diminishing, well into the I770s.7 The free brush- work, soft contouring of the figures, and treatment of the diaphanous drapery were a far cry from his stylistic roots in the solid, earthy Bolognese baroque, a tradition to which he would return after the late I770s. The draw-

ings presented here are typical of those he did in the decade after his return from Venice, reflecting the brilliant

calligraphic line and transparent splashes of wash per- fected by the Tiepolo family.

The suggestion that the project was intended for car-

riage decoration is reinforced by associations implicit in the iconography. The titles traditionally conferred on the Princeton and Paris drawings, The Triumph of Venus, and Venus and the Three Graces, neglect Cesare Ripa's detailed

prescriptions for the "Carro di Venere," subsumed along with the "Carro di Giove" under the general rubric "Carri dei Sette Pianeti," or the seven migrating heavenly bod- ies. Ripa specified attributes and attitudes for the plane- tary gods in transit, furnishing a rich set of images appropriate to a carriage for a wealthy Bolognese.8

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6. Mauro Gandolfi, Telemachus and Mentor Greeted by Calypso (modello). Oil on canvas, 44.0 x 90.0 cm. Private collection, Milan.

Gaetano's representation of Venus follows Ripa's de-

scription of the goddess as young, nude, and beautiful, but with a reminder of the dangers of lasciviousness. She should wear a garland of roses and myrtle. Her chariot should be drawn by two swans, who, because their song is sweeter as death approaches, suggest the fact that the lover's pleasures are never more exquisite than when he is suffering. Venus holds in her right hand the globe of the world, reminding us that she rules and preserves the universe. She is attended by her maidens, the Graces, whose charms are ambiguous.9

The artist also adhered to Ripa's explicit prescriptions for the "Carro di Giove," with its own flavor of moralistic warning.'0 Jupiter enacts his victory over Saturn, or Time. The god, in his middle years, is represented as

happy and benign. He should be shown nude, although

Ripa recommended that his parti virili be tactfully con- cealed. He carries his chastising thunderbolt, holding it

casually in his left hand (he only holds it in his right when he seriously intends to use it). His chariot is drawn by the

ever-present eagles, who signify his noble thoughts and

liberality and, generally, good fortune. Saturn's objectionable characteristics are the subject of

further digression by Ripa in his section on the "Carro di

Saturno," and are duly incorporated into Gaetano's

iconography. 1 Ugly, dirty, and slow, Saturn's general aura is one of melancholy. Ripa insisted that he be old since that is the age most given to sad reminiscences. He is

routinely shown at the point of devouring a small boy, whom he dangles by his foot. Gaetano gracefully reversed this conceit by having the boy holding Saturn by his foot,

shoving him down to oblivion. The iconographies of the two panels thus celebrate the beauty and universality of love and the triumph of virility over decrepitude and

melancholy. The purpose of the decorated carriages was ceremo-

nial as much as utilitarian. They were not intended for

daily transport through the muddy streets of the city, nor to carry the noble families back and forth over country roads to their estates in the outlying areas of the rich Po

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River Valley. They were designed principally for use in ceremonial activities encouraged by certain features of the Bolognese government and society.I2

From the early sixteenth century, Bologna and its ter- ritories were incorporated into the Papal States. Although the Papal Legation exercised primary authority over leg- islative decisions, the task of implementing the legisla- tion devolved on the Bolognese Senate. Drawn from the local nobility, the Senate delegated its executive power to a subsidiary body, the Gonfalonieri della giustizia, con-

sisting of eight senators, two from each of the four civic

quarters, who changed every two months. As a result, each member of the local elite had his moment of au-

thority, which, however, was larely ceremonial since it was so limited in terms of time and real power. Each

senator, on assuming his position as gonfaloniere, had formal responsibilities, among others, for the staging of

processionals and banquets, some of which were accessible to the local populace.I3

The carriage decoration may have been commissioned to honor the elevation of one of the Marescalchi to

gonfaloniere or, given the iconographical prominence of the themes of the triumph of love and the vanquishing of time, to celebrate a marriage, or both. 4 Often a tem-

poral coincidence of major events in a noble family de-

manded, in the form of public theater, simultaneous

celebration, but early documentation on commissions for

ephemeral projects is almost non existent, as is that on the collaboration of artist and craftsman necessary to produced these marvels of earthly delight.

Giancarlo Roversi, in discussing the messages conveyed by the figurative images embellishing the decorative arts so conspicuous in eighteenth-century Bologna, wrote, "Le

immagini figurative dovevano comunicare alla societa colta una serie di messaggi assai piu incisivi di quanto no possa apparire oggi".'5 Thanks to Ripa, we can read the mes-

sages encoded in the carriage panels, but their link to a specific historic moment is still tenuous.

Finally, this unusually complete series of studies of which the Princeton drawing is an integral part, tells us

something more about the life and work of the Gandolfi and their colleagues. The door paintings for vehicles of

transport, destined by their use and materials to be ephem-

eral, were planned and executed with as much care as an

altarpiece. Gaetano and Mauro produced their carriage decorations early in their careers, and it may be that such commissions were considered to be minor and accepted by young artists still consolidating their reputations. How-

ever, we are struck by the wide gap between our modern

conception of the proper role of an artist, which is to make a personal statement, and that of the eighteenth century's, which was to decorate with equal care and pride a ceremonial or utilitarian object, such as a carriage.I6 The

acceptance of projects like carriage and processional decorations as creativejob opportunities, with a consequent blurring of the divisions between art and craft, is discussed imaginatively if whimsically by Roversi as well. 7

NOTES

I. The drawing is known as The Triumph of Venus in The Art Museum. It was a gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr. in the I940S (xi976-64); for

provenance and bibliography see the Checklist below. 2. The Arcade Gallery, London, I958, according to an inscription on the

backs of the photographs. I am grateful to Dr. Julius Bohler for call-

ing my attention to them, and for kindly furnishing me with photographs from the Bohler Archives in Munich.

3. The first sheet was in the collection of the late Herbert Schwartz of Berlin and London; its present owner has kindly given me permission to publish it and furnished the photographs. The preparatory draw-

ing for the Chariot of Jupiter in 1979 was in a private collection in

Bologna. The photograph was kindly given to me at that time by Professor Carlo Volpe.

4. Pierre Rosenberg and Odile Sebastiani, "Trois berlines peintes par Mauro Gandolfi," Antologia di Belle Arti I/3 (I977r only began after he returned to Bologna and began his studies in 1786. Private patron- age for objects of pomp and luxury came to an abrupt end in 1796.

5. Finarte, Milan, November I987, nos. I56 and I56b, under the titles Aeneus and Anchises in the Elysian Fields and Aeneus and Dido. Rosen-

berg and Sebastiani credit the correct identification of the iconography to Jennifer Montagu ("Trois berlines," 226, n. i). A preparatory study for one of the panels on the third carriage, the Vignette with a Figure of Astronomy, has recently been identified (Jacob Bean and William Griswold, 18th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, [New York, I990], 77-78, no. 6I).

6. "Vite di pittori scritte da loro medesimi," Biblioteca Comunale di

Bologna, ms B-95. The major source for documentation on the production of all late eighteenth-century Bolognese artists, aside from the periodic city guides, is the extensive series of unpublished manu-

scripts Oretti compiled before his death, in 1787. These manuscripts, on deposit in the Biblioteca Comunale, contain no mention of another "carozza" by Gaetano. My efforts over the years have not suc- ceeded in locating the carriage, which may well no longer exist.

7. "Un anno a Venezia per studiare, 1760," Biblioteca Comunale di

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Bologna, ms B-95. The trip was paid for by Gaetano's first major patron, a wealthy Bolognese merchant, Petronio Antonio Buratti, whose family was of Venetian origin.

8. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Introduction by Rena Mandowsky (Hildesheim and New York, 1970), 5I and 53, respectively. Gaetano and his patron were probably using the most recent (and final) edition of the Iconologia, edited by the abate Cesare Orlandi (Perugia, I764).

9. Ripa, Iconologia: Venus should be shown ".. . giovane, ignuda e bella, con una ghirlanda di rose e di mortella," plants whose very odor is

aphrodisiac: "che hanno gl'odori con Venere, e per incitamento, e

vigore, che porge il mirto alla lussuria." Moralistic warnings are ever

present in Ripa's rich imagery: "Fu Venere rappresentata nuda per l'appetito de gli lascivi abbracciamenti," and the Graces are as seduc- tive as they are beautiful: they "allettano e corrompono facilmente

gl'animi non bene stabiliti nella virtu." I). Ripa, Iconologia: "Si dipinge Giove allegro, e benigno d'eta di

quarant'anni,. . si fa nudo, ma per darli alquanto piu gratia, e per coprire le parti virili, li metteremo ad armacolo un panno azzurro.... Nella sinistra (mano) un fulmine, stando in piedi sopra un carro tirato da due aquile. Nudo si dipinge, percioche... anticamente l'imagini de gli Dei, e de gli Re, furono fatte nude, per mostrare, che la pottanza loro ad ognuno era manifesta. Il folgore nota castigo, ma per esser

questo pianeta benigno lo tiene con la sinistra mano, per non essere

rigoroso, il che si mostrarebbe, quando lo tenesse con la destra mano in atto di lanciato. Gli si danno anco l'aquile, non solo per mostrare, come sono dedicate a Giove, ma anco per dinotare gl'altrui, e nobili suoi pensieri, e la liberalita.... Gli si danno anco l'aquile, per il bono

augurio, che ebbe mentre andava a far guerra contra Saturno suo Padre, della quale remase vittorioso."

II. Ripa, Iconologia: As for Saturn: "Vecchio, brutto, sporco, e lento, . . e di malinconica complessione, nella destra mano tiene una falce, e con la sinistra un picciol fanciullo, quale mostri con bocca aperta voler divorare... e perche Saturno apresso gl'antichi significava il tempo, lo facevano vecchio, alla qual eta conviene la malinconia.... Si

rappresenta con la falce in mano, perche il tempo miete, e taglia tutte le cose."

12. The conspicuous attention to ceremonial and theatrical events in

eighteenth-century Bologna, and the staging of these events, often

complete with effects of sound and light, is discussed by Giancarlo

Roversi, I Palazzi senatori a Bologna: Architettura come imagine del potere (Bologna, 1974), Introduction.

13. These ceremonial activities are described in detail in manuscript ac-

counts, "Anziani consoli provvisioni e decreti" (libri rossi), Archivio di Stato, Bologna. The processions are depicted in some of the minia- tures or insignia, the visual equivalents of the verbal descriptions; some show the carriages leading the processions of ecclesiastics and citizens into the piazza ("Insignia degli anziani del comune, 5I80-1796," Archivio di Stato, Bologna, vol. I5, cc. I74b-I75a). Increasingly in the mid-eighteenth century the accession to gonfaloniere was also the occasion for the senator to redecorate his palace, a section of which was designated by law to be accessible to the public. It also often entailed the commissioning of paintings as gifts to public or charita- ble institutions.

14. It is impossible to know to which "Senatore Marescalchi" Gaetano was referring in his autobiograhical entry. Both Vincenzo and Francesco Marescalchi held this position at various times in the late 175os and

early I76os, too early a date for the style of the carriage; the records of the gonfalonieri are not complete for the crucial years at the end of the I760S. Gaetano could not have been referring to Francesco Marescalchi, a conspicuous patron of the arts at the end of the cen-

tury and owner of the famous Quadreria, who was born in 1753 and thus too young to have commissioned the carriage before 1769 (Mon- ica Proni, "Per la recostruzione della quadreria del Conte Ferdinando Marescalchi (I753-I816)," Antologia di belle arti (I988): 33-4I.

I5. Roversi, Palazzi senatore a Bologna, 35. 16. Rosenberg, in the article cited in note 4 above, says that his discussion

of the carriages "Lastly and mainly, seeks to show (that) painting in the eighteenth century is not limited to easel painting and that painters of the first rank did not refuse more utilitarian commissions, even if the works they created have often disappeared."

17. Roversi, Palazzi senatore a Bologna, 37.

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The Art of Embellishment: Drawings and Paintings by Gaetano and Mauro Gandolfi for a Festive Carriage