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UNIT NINE: Late Baroque and Rococo STUDY GUIDE D Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The Banquet of Cleopatra (Palazzo Labia, Venice), 1746-50, fresco Giovanni Battista Tiepolo/ Antony and Cleopatra/ a pearl for dessert/ luxury and the Labia family in Venice/ Tiepolo and Mengozzi Colonna / trompe l‟oeil architectural details 1. “The ceilings of Late Baroque palaces sometimes became painted festivals for the imagination. The master of such works, Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770), was the last great Italian painter to have an international impact until the twentieth century” (Kleiner, Mamiya, and Tansey 780). Between 1746 and 1750, Tiepolo and his assistants decorated a banqueting-hall for the noble Labia family in Venice. The work, covering 500 square meters, tells the story of Cleopatra. In this particular fresco, “spellbound, the assembled guests gaze at a woman about the redeem a wager. Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, had boasted the Roman general, Antony, that she could devour a hundred times one hundred thousand sesterces at one meal… The Roman author Pliny the Elder, writing during the first century after Christ, had described the scene in his Natural History. Cleopatra, according to Pliny, had served up a banquet which, though sumptuous, amounted to little more than one of their everyday meals. Seeing this, Antony had merely laughed and asked to see the bill. Cleopatra had then assured Antony that he had seen no more than the trimmings, whereas the feast to come would certainly cost the agreed amount. She had then ordered dessert. However, the servants had placed before her only a single dish, filled with vinegar, whereupon the queen had removed one of her earrings, dipped it into the vinegar, let it dissolve, and swallowed it” (Hagen and Hagen, What Great Paintings Say 1: 116). 2. “Tiepolo‟s contemporaries were probably in a better position than Pliny to appreciate Cleopatra‟s lifestyle. The Venetian Republic had lost most of its political and military power by the 18 th century. At the same time, its citizens attempted to make up for their sense of loss by squandering the vast wealth they had accumulated during their glorious past… During the 17 th century, when the maritime republic had been desperate for money to fight the Turks, the Labia had used the opportunity to buy their way into Venice‟s exclusive patrician circles. A legendary act of extravagance won them a mention in the annals of the town: at the climax of a banquet for 40 persons, a Labia, expressing violent contempt for all material possessions, had commanded the golden plates from which the guests had just finished eating to be thrown out of the window into the canal. In choosing the extravagant Egyptian queen as the subject of their banquet hall frescoes, the Labia were attempting to establish their own, admittedly rather tongue-in-cheek relation to tradition” (118). “But all that glitters is not gold… Thus it is said that the Labia recovered their costly plates by means of underwater nets stretched out in front of the palazzo. As for Cleopatra, chemistry had proved that pearls do not dissolve in vinegar!” (118) “The naturalist Pliny gives pearls the highest place among all things of value, but he also accuses the „family of shells‟ of thereby encouraging indulgence and moral degeneracy… Such are the thoughts of a strict moralist who cherished plainness and severity, the virtues of a male-dominated, highly militarized society. The Romans castigated luxury, selfindulgence and extravagance” (118). 3. “In Tiepolo‟s day, a Labia widow and her two sons lived in the palace. De Brosses describes here as a woman who, though no longer young, „was once very beautiful, and had many love affairs.‟ Like the Egyptian queen, she had a famous collection of jewels which she was proud to show to visitors. Tiepolo would often make flattering allusions to his patrons in his paintings. His majestic portrait of Cleopatra may therefore bear some resemblance to the lady of the house” (119). “The master and his assistants appear in the background as discreet observers of the banquet they have painted… The man with the roundish face is said to be Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna (c. 1688-1766), an expert in painting architecture… The entire, sumptuous majesty of the stately room is a masterpiece of trompe l’oeil” decoration” (120). 4. “The Labia family would have been rich enough to panel their banqueting-hall with real marble if they had wished, or to decorate it with solid marble columns. It is possible, in any case, that this would have proved cheaper. But they were probably more fond of illusion than reality. After all, there were marble columns everywhere in Italy, whereas Tiepolo‟s architectural illusions were something quite exclusive: a highly skilled and baffling artifice which amused visiting spectators… Walls paneled with real marble might have demonstrated wealth, but they could never have achieved what Tiepolo and Mengozzi enacted with such apparent ease: the extension of space into an imaginative seascape under a vast evening sky” (121). “Tiepolo‟s contemporaries, it seems, were only too happy to retire from the gray demands of reality. Angelo-Maria Labia, for example, the widow‟s eldest son, became an abbé- a very worldly ecclesiastic – in order to escape the troublesome duties of a Venetian noble. As an abbé, he was not required to take office, but could devote his time to renovating palaces, collecting paintings and commissioning frescoes. His contemporaries spent their time at the theatres, opera houses or the carnival, and aristocratic tourists from all over Europe came to Venice to partake in what was essentially a non-stop orgy of escapism” (121). 5. “The table for Cleopatra‟s banquet is laid out in front of a portico, behind which the sails of the Roman fleet are visible. The somewhat static ordering of the main figures is relaxed by the ironic positioning in the foreground of the little dog and the dwarf, who drags himself with difficulty up the steps towards the table. Cleopatra‟s exposed décolleté is meant as a reference to the by now advanced stage of her relationship with Anthony. In contrast to the Melbourne picture, the erotic and witty interpretation of historical events is given prominence over the festive setting itself” (Eschenfelder 64). “The Labia family were of Spanish origin and had only recently joined the Venetian patriciate. Tiepolo‟s frescoes reflect the family‟s great desire to create an impression: they are the greatest secular decoration he ever produced in Venice. The great hall of the palace, which rises up two storeys, is entirely covered by frescoes” (64, 67). “The musicians on the balcony in the background are an extension of the banqueting scene. Yet, like the fictive architecture, they could just as well be part of the courtly celebrations taking place in the Palazzo Labia itself” (67). 22
UNIT NINE: Late Baroque and Rococo STUDY GUIDE E Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1. “Profound religious questions had been raised by Newton‟s mechanistic model of the universe and by Locke‟s empirical interpretation of the mind. One eighteenth-century thinker who addressed the new religious concerns was the German intellectual Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). A student of jurisprudence, an emissary of diplomacy, and a mathematician as well as a philosopher, Leibniz shared with Newton the honor for the invention of calculus” (Wren 2: 185). 2. “An idealist, Leibniz regarded philosophy as an interpretation of divine thought. For him, human reason was the imitation of the logic of God. Reason, therefore, had an authority independent of experience. Opposed alike to the pantheism of Spinoza and the empiricism of Locke, Leibniz built up an interpretation of the universe on a theory of matter known as „monadology.‟ Monads, for Leibniz, were centers of force and consciousness that were capable of action and perception. The soul was considered by Leibniz to be a monad that had consciousness of itself” (185). 3. “Leibniz outlined his religious beliefs in a text entitled Theodicy (1710). The keynote of Leibniz‟s thought was optimism. Believing in a predetermined harmony between the activities of the human soul and body, Leibniz taught that of infinite possible worlds, God had created the best. In this theory, the soul is absolutely free from all external constraint, and its immortality is guaranteed by the fact of its independence and imperishable individuality. In theology, Leibniz argued the rational possibility of revelation and miracles. In ethics, he believed that contemplation should be directed to the beauty and perfection of the future life, and that piety should be hopeful and serene. The great moral teachers of the past had each, in his view, been awarded a share of truth; with the selection of the best of them, philosophy became eclectic and continued progress toward a permanent and satisfying interpretation of life” (185). 4. “The optimism that Leibniz expressed in his philosophical speculations about God and the universe is reflected in eighteenthcentury architecture. Churches such as Vierzehnheiligen … abound in light and gaiety. Somber intensity of feeling is dissolved into a brilliantly lit interior in which decorative flights of fancy delight the imagination of the viewer” (185-6). F Antoine Watteau. Return from Cythera, 1717-19, oil on canvas Antoine Watteau/ “Poussinistes” vs. “Rubenistes”/ Rococo art/ fete galante/ glowing sky with putti/ love conquers all/ rises and falls analogous to music / theatrical foliage/ flirtatious gestures/ influence of Rubens 1. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the members of the French Academy “formed two factions over the issue of drawing versus color: the „Poussinistes (or conservatives) against the Rubenistes. The conservatives defended Poussin‟s view that drawing, which appealed to the mind, was superior to color, which appealed to the senses” (Janson 594). “Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), a Flemish artist living in Paris, epitomizes the French Rococo style. He created a new type of painting when he submitted his official examination painting, The Departure from Cythera, for admission to membership in the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1717. The academicians accepted the painting in a new category, the fete galante, or elegant outdoor entertainment. The Departure from Cythera depicts a dreamworld in which beautifully dressed couples, abetted by putti, take leave of the mythical island of love. The verdant landscape would never soil the characters‟ exquisite satins and velvets, nor would a summer shower ever threaten them. This kind of idyllic vision, with its overtones of wistful melancholy, had a powerful attraction in early-eighteenth-century Paris and soon charmed the rest of Europe” (Stokstad, Art History 810). 2. “Is this fanciful outing ending or about to begin? The French title Pelerinage a l’ile de Cytherere has been translated as both Pilgrimage to and Pilgrimage on the Isle of Cythera, since it has never been determined whether or not the bucolic setting represents the mythical island of Venus. Watteau‟s objective appears to be not to tell a story but to induce the poignant and wistful evocation of love” (810). “Watteau leads the eye from right to left along the curving line, which rises and falls like a phrase of music. Note also how he breaks the rhythm at the highest point with the man holding the cane. This breaking of rhythm is a technique also used in music.” (Cumming, Annotated Art 61) “The sky and foliage act as a theatrical backdrop to a stage set- Watteau was actively involved in the theater and had many actor friends.” (61) In the picture, a girl “plays with her fan- the way fans were held or moved was part of a secret language though which lovers (who were often strictly chaperoned) communicated with each other” (61). “Watteau painted the embarkation for Cythera at least three times. The first, somewhat stilted version is dated 1710 and hangs in the Stadel Institute in Frankfurt. The present Berlin picture was executed in 1718 or 1719 for a private client. It is a slight variation upon a second version, which Watteau submitted as his presentation piece to the Royal Academy of Arts in Paris, of which he became a member in 1717. The Academy version now hangs in the Louvre” (Hagen and Hagen, What Great Paintings Say 3: 102). 4. “This mythic island, sacred to Venus, not only provides the pilgrims with privacy, with isolation if not solitude, but also with freedom. The pleasure ground has a deep association with human feelings and passions; there is a melding of nature and the human. This grove, this sacred isle of love, summons up a pleasurable association between painting and observer… The place of love offers comfort not just for those lovers within it, but for all of us, who are potential lovers, watching. We watch because we are curious and sometimes covetous” (Minor 33-34). “The change within about eight years from inhibition to relaxation, from deliberation to excitement, is not due solely to Watteau‟s greater artistic maturity and happy awareness of his own skill, but also to the general sense of liberation felt after the death of Louis XIV, when hopes were high for favorable political developments” (Borsch-Supan 66). “Watteau‟s fragile forms and delicate colors, painted with feathery brushstrokes reminiscent of Rubens, evoke a mood of reverie and nostalgia. His doll-like men and women provide sharp contrast with Rubens‟ physically powerful figures or, for that matter, with Poussin‟s idealized heroes. Watteau‟s art conveys no noble message; rather, it explores the world of familiar but transitory pleasures” (Fiero, Faith, Reason, and Power 143). 23
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