Entre la pensée de l’artiste et la matière de son art, s’est instituée une intime correspondance, remarquable par une réciprocité dont ceux qui ne l’ont pas éprouvée ne peuvent imaginer l’existence.
PAUL VALÉRY (1932)1
∵
Let us suppose, if you like, a couple of great lumps of stone lying side by side, one shapeless and untouched by art, the other which has been already mastered by art and turned into a statue of a god or of a man, of a Grace or one of the Muses if of a god, and if of a man not just of any man but of one whom art has made up out of every sort of human beauty. The stone which has been brought to beauty of form by art will appear beautiful not because it is a stone – for then the other would be just as beautiful – but as a result of the form which art has put into it. Now the material did not have this form, but it was in the man who had it in his mind even before it came into the stone; but it was in the craftsman, not in so far as he had hands and eyes, but because he had some share of art. So this beauty was in the art, and it was far better there; for the beauty in the art did not come into the stone, but that beauty stays in the art and another comes from it into the stone which is derived from it and less than it. And even this does not stay pure and as it wants to be in the stone, but is only there as far as the stone has submitted to the art.6
Matter is understood here as something negative, as an obstacle that needs to be ‘overcome’ by art, an idea that can still (or again) be found in the writings of Giorgio Vasari, Vincenzo Danti, Carlo Ridolfi, Gian Pietro Bellori, and beyond.7 It is this doctrine that for a long time has made of matter, also for the field of art history, ‘an anti-value’.8
The perfect artist does not have any concept [concetto] that a single block of marble does not, within itself, circumscribe with its excess, though reveal it can only the hand that obeys the intellect.9
Michelangelo’s seventeenth-century emulator, Gian Lorenzo Bernini,13 equally sought to downplay the role of the hand – or, at least, this is what his biographers suggest; working on what they construct as his last work, a bust of the blessing figure of Christ (figure 2.1),14 Bernini tried, thus writes his son Domenico, to ‘summarize’ and ‘condense’ all his art, and ‘although the weakness of his pulse did not correspond to the boldness of the idea [Idea], yet he succeeded in proving what he used to say, ‘that an artist excellent in disegno should not fear any want of vivacity or tenderness on reaching the age of decrepitude, because the practice of designo is so effective that it alone can make up for the defect of the spiriti, which languish in old age’.15 It is interesting to see how in this passage the fundamental quality of the spiriti, which for Domenico is directly related to his father’s capacity to imbue his works with vivacity and tenderness,16 is set aside for the more traditional concept of disegno – a concept that, again, is directly related to the idea (as becomes also clear from this passage) and annuls here the more organic flow of vital spiriti. Mind triumphs over matter.
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of the Saviour, 1679, marble, Rome, San Sebastiano fuori le Mura
This paper will seek to steer away from such a hierarchic dualism, arguing that, though artists may have paid lip service to the doctrine of the Idea, or have been framed in such a way by biographers and theorists, actual artistic
1 Touching Colours
A solid and, so to speak, very material body, moved and applied to any part of my person produces in me that sensation that we call touch, which, even though it occupies the entire body, nevertheless seems principally to reside in the palms of the hands, and especially in the fleshy tips of the fingers, by which we feel very small differences of roughness, smoothness, softness and hardness that we do not distinguish as well with other parts of the body. … This sense, since it is more material than the others
and comes from the solidity of the matter, seems to have something to do with the element earth.22
If Galileo’s linking of the senses to the elements is nothing new – already Aristotle stated that ‘the sense of touch is connected with earth’23 – the way he sees this connection is new. For him, in fact, there is a causal connection. Doubtlessly inspired by Lucretius’ atomism,24 he argued that ‘some bodies are continuously dissolving into tiny particles’. These particles, in turn, ‘when touching those parts of the body that are more sensitive than the skin’, stand at the basis of the senses of smell and taste.25
[I]n some [people] the perceptiveness of the fingers has been able to intrude the domain of the eyes; for, even without counting the Blind Man of Gambassi, who by the force of touch alone created likenesses in the portraits he shaped in clay, there was here some years ago a Frenchman, who with closed eyes, and what is more, in the dark, could tell of a quantity of ribbons, which ones were black, white, green, yellow, or blue …
Others introduce thick cards into the game, with such thick colours that they have a certain relief. And they keep the tip of the middle finger of the right hand well shaven, so that their skin is very thin there, and therefore have in that part [of the finger] a sensitivity that is most precise, and on touching the card with that finger, they sense those colours and know which card is underneath …30
The feeling of colour, as Magalotti describes it, is in fact closer to Galileo’s description of the sense of taste and smell, where he writes how ‘particles’ are received by the tongue and nose, producing a ‘likable or disagreeable effect’ depending, among others – a turn of phrase echoed by Magalotti – on ‘the kind
The main point of confusion here appears to be the actual size of the tiny particles these authors are speaking about.31 Around the turn of the century, Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) had ridiculed Lucretius’ atomism by speaking about ‘infinite prickles and thorns’ and ‘gross grains’ that didn’t achieve the sensations suggested by the ancient author.32 Francis Bacon (1561–1626) on the other hand (and at around the same time) showed, by comparing the subtle diffusion of ‘a little saffron infused and stirred up in water’ with ‘a similar quantity of powder of Brazil-wood, pomegranate flowers, or any highly coloured substance’ that atoms are more subtle than ‘the finest powder’.33 Magalotti’s idea that the ‘different shapes of the tiny particles of which consist the various colours’ can, after long practice, be made accessible to the sense of touch, however, suggests that for him, the finely grounded pigments themselves are at the origins of our experience of a colour. Indeed, contrary to Francis Bacon, who writes elsewhere that atoms are ‘unlike anything that could fall under the senses’, for Magalotti they appear to do precisely that.34
2 The Perfect Clay
Since just a few years, I have seen arriving various animals of a most crude design … made, I believe, to keep on one’s desk, and most of them are lions, lapdogs, lambs, and different kinds of birds, almost all of them painted, or rather, smirched with white and blue, and touches of gold, which to me seem disgraceful, as with this barbarous ornament all that is good in this clay is annulled, all its fineness, smoothness, and lively colour.37
From this negative remark we may deduce that Magalotti presupposes a direct relation between the qualities of the material and that what it is used for. Three aesthetic principles are made central here – fineness, smoothness, and colour – of which the first two are clearly related to the sense of touch: Galilei’s ‘small differences of roughness, smoothness, softness and hardness’. The nature of the relation between material and use becomes even clearer in some remarks about his friend and travel companion Paolo Falconieri.38
[H]aving arrived, this good cavaliere, in Estremoz … [and] considering the extreme subtlety which was achieved in this clay, even with the coarse and inconsiderate handling of those artisans, and the docility with which it received the folds, even if hard and coarse, from both out- and inside, neither creating danger nor signs of cracks, he judged it to be incomparably superior to any other clay, no matter how refined by long
maceration, to shape models of figures, particularly those dressed with fine draperies following the Greek manner, and taking a virgin sample from the quarry, he made a package of it, which he sent off to Rome, so that, on his return, he could make a present of it for Bernini, who would be very pleased with it.39
Magalotti’s mention of the ‘Greek manner’ is interesting here, as it suggests a direct connection between the material and a particular style40 – a style not necessarily related to the work of Bernini, but more readily to the Flemish sculptor François Duquesnoy (1597–1643). As Estelle Lingo has shown, the Greek manner in sculpture was all about the subtlety of the folds,41 a point most clearly expressed by Paolo Alessandro Maffei in his preface to the Raccolta di statue antiche e moderne of 1704: ‘when either decorum or necessity required Greek artists to make draped statues, the drapery was executed by them with such grace and fineness in the folds that they revealed that which they purported to cover’.42 Arguably, this aesthetic of Greek draperies has found its most eloquent modern expression in Duquesnoy’s Saint Susanna (figure 2.2), where, following Gian Pietro Bellori’s no less eloquent description, the drapery falls in such a manner that ‘the stone, having lost all its roughness, is attenuated in the folds and brought to life in the spirit and the attitude’.43
François Duquesnoy, Saint Susanna, 1633, marble, Rome, S. Maria di Loreto
I do not know who can be a sculptor who is not skilled at modelling. When Algardi came to Rome, Bernini said, wishing to discredit him, that Algardi was unable to make a statue. Bernini said this after he had been forced to admit that Algardi modelled in clay better than he. We have now seen what it means to model in clay, as Algardi has created works of such kind that Bernini will never be able to rival them in their glory.46
The effort of carving marble is here clearly downplayed in favour of modelling; sculpture has become all about hand and clay.
As to the historical context of these remarks, it might be considered somewhat surprising that Falconieri here speaks so negatively about Bernini, the same artist he made his gift to. They fit well, however, with what we find in the
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of King Louis XIV, 1665, marble, Versailles, Château
3 Touching Clay
But let us return to the issue of clay and the sense of touch. If our discussion up till now leaves little doubt that Magalotti’s ideas about the sense of touch were informed by his interest in clay and modelling, this point is further confirmed by his mention of the Blind Man of Gambassi, ‘who by the force of touch alone created likenesses in the portraits he shaped in clay’. It is not difficult to find out who Magalotti is talking about as the Blind Man of Gambassi, or Giovanni Gonnelli (1603–1656), as was his actual name, was quite a well-known figure in the period (figure 2.4).49
Anonymous engraver, Portrait of Giovanni Gonnelli, woodcut, in: Orazio Torsellino, Ristretto delle historie del mondo, ed. and trans. by Lodovico Aurelii (Roma: Mascardi, 1637), p. 678
Born in the Tuscan town of Gambassi, Gonnelli trained as sculptor with the Florentine sculptors Chiarissimo Fancelli (d. 1632) and later Pietro Tacca (1577–1640).50 His talent was discovered by the Gonzaga who invited him to their court in Mantua, though after moving there, he started losing his eyesight. Only several years later, now fully blind, Gonnelli picked up the practice of modelling again, soon staging the kind of novelty act he is known for.
The case is interesting for our discussion, also because sources often thematize the role of the sculptor’s hands in the absence of sight. Among the references to Gonnelli made during the sculptor’s lifetime we may have a closer look at Michelangelo Lualdi’s short biographical sketch of the artist in his Galleria sacra, a projected but unfinished literary gallery describing the sights of Rome, compiled before 1645.51 Lualdi writes how ‘the hands, those instruments of the eye, ready executors and trusted ministers of that which the glance commands, by themselves and without the directions of an ingenious pupil, conceive of that which was the domain of the eye’.52 In the wake of Aristotle and
First, he would arrange his mass of clay, placing it in front of himself on a wheel or table, and, just like that, with his hands he roughly shaped it into a bust and head. And seating the person to be portrayed in front of it and nearby, in such a way that he could easily touch him, he placed his opened hands together, and gently folded them, just as much so that they took the shape of a mask, which he presented to the face of the sitter. In doing so, he gathered, I believe, at once a general knowledge of the height and width of the face, and of the parts standing out [rilevate] to a greater or lesser degree. Then he moved his hands apart little by little, while his two thumbs, one towards one side, and one towards the other, would move [over the face] searching, gently touching the lips and the other protruding or hollow parts of the sides of the head that they encountered. After these movements or explorations, both of the whole and the particulars, he would turn to his sculpture, adding an removing clay, and then covering it with the same mask made of his hands; then with his thumbs, and his index fingers, he would start to search again, until he ascertained himself, and as could be seen by the bystanders, that the shape of the person being portrayed started to appear in the clay …56
If the sense of touch is clearly central in this account, the role of the hands is nonetheless varied: they shape, gather, search, explore, add clay, remove it, and, finally, ascertain. Obviously, many of these activities are not exclusive to
Things become particularly interesting when we consider Gonnelli’s Bust of Urban VIII (figures 2.5, 2.6), modelled not after life, but, as Lualdi writes,
Giovanni Gonnelli, Bust of Pope Urban VIII, 1637, terracotta, Rome, Barberini collection
Gianlorenzo Bernini (workshop), Bust of Pope Urban VIII, 1640, marble, Rome, Palazzo Spada
4 Touching and Being Touched
[A]ctive touch involves the concomitant excitation of the receptors in the joints and tendons along with new and changing patterns in the skin. Moreover, when the hand is feeling an object, the movement or angle of each joint from the first phalanx of each finger up to the shoulder and the backbone makes its contribution. And these inputs occur relative to a continuous input from the vestibular organs along with the cutaneous input from contact with the ground. Presumably the feeling of an object by the hand involves the feeling of the position of the fingers, hand, arm, body, and even the head relative to gravity, all being integrated in some hierarchy of positional information.62
The act of modelling, however, complicates the distinction made by Gibson. Where he writes that active touch does ‘not modify the environment but only the stimuli coming from the environment’ this is clearly not true for modelling; that is, modelling is both explorative and modifying.63 If this situation is excluded explicitly by Gibson – and, it may be added, has as it seems not received any attention in the literature since – there are some further interesting insights to be gained from his observations. One important insight concerns that what Gibson calls the ‘unity of the phenomenal object’, indicating that when the object that is touched by different parts of the skin it is still perceived as a unified whole. Bearing in mind the approach of Gonnelli as described by Baldinucci, it is interesting to note, with Gibson, that ‘[t]he unitary perception occurs … even when two separate hands are applied to the object’.64 This implies that, in the process of modelling, and even in the absence of sight, the artist is aware of the whole of the figure being modelled; there is, in other words, a sense of unity, that, in addition, is complementary to that provided by the sense of sight.65
This, however, does not yet inform us of the role of the changeability of the material. ‘The literal or proximal stimulus for touch’, writes Gibson, ‘is some sort of deformation of the skin’, an ‘elastic change’ of its surface.66 In a way, then, one of the essential prerequisites for the sense of touch is closely related to the material the modelling hand engages. The significance of the elasticity of the human body has come to the fore in what is maybe an unexpected field of research, a field known as ‘soft robotics’, which draws inspiration from animal and plant tissues for the design of robots.67 In doing so, it relies on the insight that, as computer scientist Rolf Pfeifer and his colleagues write, ‘one of the most important characteristics of soft bodies, is that they can incorporate some of the control or computation into their morphological and material properties’.68 We may intuitively find a confirmation of this insight if we imagine a robot’s attempt to hold an egg without braking it. It is much easier to safely hold the egg with a rubber hand than with a metal hand; rubber will, to a certain extent, adjust automatically to shape of the egg, thus regulating
There is a fundamental affinity, then, between the body that interacts with the material and the material itself, an affinity that we could call, in the words of philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, an ‘adhérence charnelle’ – a ‘carnal adherence’.69 It may be asked to what extent, for the experienced modeller, deformations of the skin, or more generally, of the body, can be distinguished from deformations of the material. How can we define the point of interaction between the ‘docile hand’ and the ‘docile clay’? Archaeologist Lambros Malafouris, in a discussion of what he has significantly coined ‘material agency’, has argued that clay is ‘one of the earliest truly neuro-compatible materials in the history of humanity’. ‘Neuro-compatible’, he clarifies, ‘here refers to materials that afford the flow of noetic activity [that is, activity we usually relegate to the ‘mind’] beyond skin and skull thus bridging neural and cultural plasticity’.70 In other words, not only can agency be situated in the hand, but also in the material of clay itself; a rigid distinction between hand, body and material, between subject and object, seizes to exist. This, however, is only one side of the medal. Continuities between these domains are never so absolute that they can no longer be separated. By virtue of its graininess, but also its viscosity, its humidity, clay always remains other. If, in the activity of modelling, there are moments where it becomes difficult to say if the material responds to the hand or the hand to the material, ‘feeling touch’ can always be made aware of the points of contact; not withstanding clay’s affinities to the body, it can always be made accessible to the sense of touch.
∵
Even if, to return to our initial remarks, Magalotti’s intuitions regarding the connections between atomism, clay and touch were, we know now, fallacious, they do help us to understand something of – to refer again to Galilei – the ‘earthiness’ of the sense of touch. In the complex intertwining of touching, feeling, and shaping, a synagonistic tension comes into being, a tension between hand and matter that, in this tension, incorporates its own feedback loop; creation
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- Villani 2005↑
S. Villani, ‘Between anatomy and politics. John Finch and Italy, 1649–1671’, in: M. Pelling & S. Mandelbrote (eds.), The practice of reform in health, medicine, and science, 1500–2000, Aldershot 2005, 151–166.
- Volavková 1971
Z. Volavková, ‘The theory of material and material realization and the beginnings of modern sculpture’, Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty brněnské university 19–20. F14–15 (1971), 317–328.
- Walker 1998↑
D. Walker, ‘Surveying the history of collecting Italian sculptural models’, in: I. Wardropper (ed.), From the sculptor’s hand. Italian Baroque terracottas from the State Hermitage Museum, Chicago 1998, 14–29.
- Wallraven 2014↑
C. Wallraven, ‘Touching on face space. Comparing visual and haptic processing of face shapes’, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (2014), 1–8.
- Warnke 1987↑
M. Warnke, ‘Der Kopf in der Hand’, in: W. Hofmann (ed.), Zauber der Medusa. Europäische Manierismen, Vienna 1987, 55–61.
Valéry 1934, 142.
Bachelard 1983, 1.
Baxandall 1980 is an exception. For related approaches in other disciplines, see Ingold 2013; Sennett 2008; Malafouris & Knappett 2008.
Plotinus, Ennead, V.8.1, here cited after the trans. in Plotinus 1984, 237–239. Cf. Panofsky 1960, 15.
Cf. Panofsky 1960, n. 226.
Didi-Huberman 1998, 140 ‘une antivaleur’. For a further chapter in the treatment of this historiographical problem, see Volavková 1971.
‘Non ha’ l’ottimo artista alcun concetto / c’un marmo solo in sé non circonscriva / col suo superchio, e solo a quello arriva / la man che ubbidisce all’intelletto’. Cf. Panofsky 1960, 66–67. See also Summers 1981, 203–233.
Panofsky 1960, 68.
Vasari 1966–1997, vol. 6, 108: ‘abruciò gran numero di disegni, schizzi e cartoni fatti di mano sua, acciò nessuno vedessi le fatiche durate da lui et i modi di tentare l’ingegno suo, per non apparire se non perfetto’. Cf. Perrig 1991, 1.
Cf. Mangone 2020.
For the bust, see most recently cat. Rome 2017, no. IX.10 (F. Petrucci, with further literature).
Bernini 1713, 167: ‘In essa compendiò, e ristrinse tutta la sua Arte, e benche la debolezza del polso non corrispondesse alla gagliardia dell’Idea, tuttavia gli venne fatto di comprovare ciò, che prima ei dir soleva, che Un’Artefice eccellente nel Disegno dubitar non deve al giunger dell’età decrepita di alcuna mancanza di vivacità, e tenerezza, perche è di tanta efficacia la prattica del Disegno, che questo solo può supplire al difetto degli spiriti, che nella vecchiaja languiscono’. Trans. adopted from Lavin 2007, 295.
Cf. Cole 2001, 533; Panofsky 1960, n. 152, referring to Armenini 1988, 156: ‘l’idea del pittore si può dire essere quella immagine, che prima egli si forma e scolpisce nella mente’.
While, at least since Johann Gottfried Herder’s Sculpture the idea that the art of sculpture relates in interesting ways to the sense of touch has become a commonplace, the most tactile moments of sculpture’s creation remain largely unexplored. For an overview of related topics, see Dent 2014.
Di Capua 1689, 17: ‘dirsi potrebbe, che dal tatto abbia avuto il primo suo cominciamento la filosofia’. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are mine.
Galilei 1890–1909, 348–349: ‘Un corpo solido, e, come si dice, assai materiale, mosso ed applicato a qualsivoglia parte della mia persona, produce in me quella sensazione che noi diciamo tatto, la quale, se bene occupa tutto il corpo, tuttavia pare che principalmente risegga nelle palme delle mani, e più ne i polpastrelli delle dita, co’ quali noi sentiamo piccolissime differenze d’ aspro, liscio, molle e duro, che con altre parti del corpo non così bene le distinguiamo … : e questo senso, come più materiale de gli altri e ch’ è fatto dalla solidità della materia, par che abbia riguardo all’ elemento della terra’. Trans. from Dooley 1995, 77.
Aristotle, De sensu 439a; see the discussion in O’Rourke Boyle 1998, 6.
Cf. Camerota 2008; Shea 1970.
Galilei 1890–1909, 349: ‘di questi corpi alcuni si vanno continuamente risolvendo in particelle minime … mentre quelle vanno a ferire due parti del corpo nostro assai più sensitive della nostra pelle’. Trans. from Dooley 1995, 77.
In addition to Galileo, the ideas of Pierre Gassendi were important for Magalotti as well.
Magalotti 1943, 223: ‘Dell’infallibilità del tatto basta dire ch’ella si piglia per traslato dell’evidenza la più indubitabile, perchè quando s’arriva a dire: questa è verità che si tocca con mano, non si può andar più in là. E il bello è che in alcuni la finezza del discernimento delle dita è arrivata a metter la falce nella messe degli occhi; poiché, senza contare il Cieco da Giambassi, che a forza di brancicare faceva somigliare i ritratti ch’ei formava di creta, fu qui parecchi anni sono un Francese, che a occhi chiusi e, quello ch’è più, al buio, vi sapeva dire d’una quantità di nastri: questo è nero, questo è bianco, questo è verde, questo è giallo, questo è turchino; e la Serenissima Granduchessa Vittoria con molte delle sue Dame di quel tempo, che vivono ancora, ve ne saranno buon testimonio di vista: tanto il lungo studio sulle varie asprezze de’ veli, indotti sulle sete dalle differenti figure de’ minimi corpicelli componenti le varie tinte, aveva raffinato il senso, e ammaestrato il discernimento delle capillari delicatissime fibre de’ polpastrelli di costui, per fargliene, un nuovo, e forse fino allora inescogitato mestiere da buscarsi il vivere a sedere’.
Boyle 1664, 42ff. Cf. Schaffer 1998, 90–94.
Cospi 1643, 560: ‘Altri mettono in giuoco carte grosse con colori così grossi che fanno un certo rilievo, & essi tengono il dito di mezzo della mano dritta nella sommità ben raso, tanto che vi hanno una pelle sottilissima, e per questo in quella parte anno un senso esattissimo, e nel tastare con quel dito la carta sente quei colori, e conosce che carta è sotto’. Trans. adapted from Graham-Dixon 2011, 105.
For a more general discussion, see Meinel 1988.
Campanella 2003, 35: ‘Indi dico che il calore e freddore, sendo cose attive, di passivi athomi schietti, senza virtù agente non nasceno; ch’infiniti aculei e spine non mai scaldano, né le grosse farine affreddano’. Trans. from Dooley 1995, 42.
Bacon 1857–1874, 419–420.
Ibid., 464.
For the relation between Magalotti’s poetics and science, see Güntert 1966.
For this tradition, see Vermelho 2005.
Magalotti 1943, 78: ‘Solamente da pochi anni in qua veggo venire diversi animali di goffissimo disegno … fatti, cred’io, per tenere sugli studioli, e son per lo più leoncini, cagnoli, pecorelle, uccelli di più sorte, toccati quasi tutti, o, per dir meglio, impastricciati di bianco e di turchino e toccati d’oro, che a me paiono una porcheria, levandosi con questo barbaro ornato tutto quello che ha di buono questa terra, che consiste in quella finezza, in quella liscezza e in quella vivacità di colore’.
For Falconieri, see Bencivenni 1994.
Magalotti 1943, 80: ‘Di qui credo che il signor Paolo Falconieri, così barbaro come egli è in tutto quello che è delizia anche innocente de’ sensi, spaventato niente meno di me di quell’indegno pericolo a cui l’inconsiderata finezza del de Braz aveva esposta la nobiltà di quella terra, per redimerla in qualche modo da quell’uso obbrobrioso, s’avvisasse di destinarla a un altro tanto più nobile, quanto si è il servire all’intelletto di scultori insigni nella figurazione d’eroi sacri e profani. Che però, giunto questo buon cavaliere in Estremoz con la pietà, che ancora l’accorava, dello spettacolo veduto in Yelues, considerata l’estrema sottigliezza a cui vedeva ridur quella creta; anche col grossolano avventato maneggio di quelli artefici e la docilità con cui ella riceveva piegature ancorché aspre e crude, così in fuori come in dentro, senza dare apprensione non che apparenza di screpolo; la giudicò incomparabile sopra ogni altra terra; avvegnaché raffinata da lunga macerazione, per formare modelli di figure particolarmente vestite di panni fini secondo la maniera greca, e, presane dalla cava una quantità della vergine, ne fece una cassa e la mandò a Roma, per farne poi al suo ritorno un accettissimo regalo al Bernino’.
For a more recent related argument, though concerning a very different context, see Baxandall 1980. Cf. Lehmann 2014.
Maffei 1704, iv: ‘e qual ora o la congruenza, o la necessità portò quegli artefici a far statue vestite, fu da loro ciò eseguito con tanta grazia, e finezza nella panneggiatura, che svelarono quello, che mostravano di ricoprire’.
Bellori 1976, 291: ‘Qui lo scultore prese occasione di esporre nelle pieghe tutta l’industria dello scarpello; poiché il manto, spiegandosi dal gombito e sotto il seno, vela il resto del corpo e si solleva all’altro fianco, e con doppio scherzo ricade in un lembo e si scuopre sotto la tonaca a mezza gamba, scorrendo le pieghe sino all’altro piede, e tanto che v’apparisce la rotondità pura delle membra; e sopra il petto e le mammelle s’increspa gentilmente la tonaca in modo che il sasso, perduta affatto l’asprezza, s’assottiglia nelle pieghe e si avviva nello spirito e nell’atto’. Trans. from id. 2005, 229.
Cf. Montanari 2012. For further discussion of the collecting of models, see: Scherf 2004; Walker 1998.
For the academy and Falconieri’s involvement, see Goldberg 1983, 184–226.
Letter from Paolo Falconieri to Apollonio Bassetti, 6 October 1674, in: Goldberg 1983, 334, n. 72: ‘ne so che sia mai fatto scultore, che non sia stato buon modellatore, et il Lalgardi, che quando venne a Roma disse il Bernino per screditarlo, quando fu costretto a dire che modellava meglio di lui, che non avrebbe poi saputo fare una statua, si è poi veduto quallo che ha voluto dire saper maneggiare la grate, avendo fatte di quelle opere alle quale il Bernino non arriverà mai a pareggiarlo nella gloria’. Trans. from Bacchi 2012, 51.
Letter from Torquato Montauti to Apollonio Bassetti, dated 6 October 1674, Rome, in: Lankheit 1962, 251, doc. 92: ‘ha detto il Sig.r Ciro che i buoni Modellatori in un anno divengono perfetti scultori, et apportò l’esempio dell’Algarbi [= Algardi]’.
Letter from Ciro Ferri to Lorenzo Magalotti, dated 30 Septembre 1665, Bergamo, in: Bottari & Ticozzi 1976, vol. 2, 48: ‘Io mi confermo col pensiero di VS. illustrissima in quanto che la statua del re di Francia parrà unn pulcino che esca dell’uovo; e non mi posso immaginare perchè non abbia fatta tutta la figura intera’.
See most recently Körner 2013. Another blind sculptor, known as the Cieco Palermitano, was active in the beginning of the seventeenth century; cf. Mongitore 1977, 57–58.
For a recent overview, see Bellesi 1983–2023.
For the dating of the manuscript, see Delbeke 2004, 71.
Biblioteca Angelica, Rome (hereafter BAR), ms 1593, fol. 176r: ‘Che le mani che sono instromento dell’occhio pronte essecutrici e fide ministre di quanto lo sguardo comanda per se stesse senza direttione della ingegnosa pupilla architettassero quello che era proprio officio degl’occhi’. Cf. Delbeke 2004, 189, who gives a slightly different transcription. For other early references to Gonnelli, see Servio 1642, 58–62; Aurelii 1637, 678–679. A pamphlet in Latin by the same author has been found by Federici 2010, n. 91. The relevant passage in Servio is transcribed by D. Moreni in Baldinucci 1812, 268–270 n. 1. The short biography in Oldoini 1651, 11–12 referred to by Baldinucci follows Aurelii almost wordily. Both include a woodcut portrait of the sculptor, which provides an interesting addition to the discussion regarding his appearance (cf. figure 2.4). For this discussion, see Fitz Darby 1957.
Cf. Leinkauf 2017, vol. 1, 148–153.
Van Gastel 2013a; Warnke 1987.
BAR, ms 1593, fol. 176v: ‘Osservò col tatto si minutamente tutte le sue parti et in questa guisa si impresse nella memoria le specie [illegible] dal simulacro per il contatto, che immediatamente prendendo una massa di creta quella adattò in guisa, che quale era appunto l’effiggie della statua di marmo di Cosmo tali con tutte le sue misure e proportioni nella creta si scorse’.
Baldinucci 1618–1728, vol. 6, 254–255: ‘Accomodava egli primieramente la sua massa di terra, formandone con mano così alla grossa, un busto colla testa d’avanti a se sopra deschetto o tavola: e dato luogo oppostamente ivi vicino a chi doveva essere ritratto, in modo di poterlo toccare a sua comodità, accostava insieme aperte le mani, piegandole gentilmente, tanto quanto avesse potuto formarne come una maschera, la quale egli presentava al viso del suo naturale: con che di primo tratto concepiva, a mio parere, una cognizione universale dell’altezza e larghezza di quella faccia, e delle parti poco o molto rilevate. Disgiungeva poi esse sue mani appoco appoco, mentre le due dita grosse, una verso una parte, una verso l’altra, andavano ricercando e gentilmente toccando le superficie delle labbra e d’ altre parti da i lati del volto rilevate o cupe, in cui incontravasi. Dopo ognuno di questi moti o ricercamenti tanto universali, quanto particolari, egli applicavasi alla sua statua, ponendo e levando terra, e poi coprendo colla medesima maschera fatta dalle sue mani, poi colle dita grosse, e cogli due indici tornando a ricercare, finchè si accorgeva, e che vedevano anche gli astanti, che nella sua creta incominciava ad apparir la forma della persona ritratta: alla quale dava tuttavia perfezione col nuovo tatto [in 1812 ed. as ‘tratto’] e ricercamento, sempre colle due mani intente all’operazione, una dall’una, ed una dall’altra parte del viso: e questo, cred’io, per mantenere nell’egualità delle due dette parti, e nel tutto, oltre alla somiglianza, anche il buon disegno.’
Letter from Lelio Guidiccioni to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, dated 4 June 1633, in: Van Gastel 2013b, 217: ‘ò Vostra Signoria tenga in punta de dita l’imagini […] per esprimerla sul marmo; ò che trovandosi quelle forme virtualmente occultate nell’istesso marmo, Vostra Signoria spogliandolo di rozzezze le scopre et le faccia uscire fuori con l’imperio della sua mano, à cui comanda, che le ritrovi’.
BAR, ms 1593, fol. 177r: ‘Questi giunto che fui presa una statua di marmo di N.S. Papa Urbano VIII, con l’istesso artificio del contatto talmente l’espresse nella creta che fattone humilissima offerto di persona a N.S. gli vedde se stesso fuori di se solo da se medesimo diverso a’ gl’ occhi il colore’.
Wallraven 2014; Matsumiya 2013; More generally, Lederman et al. 2007.
For recognizing individuals in sculpted portraits, see: Van Gastel 2013b, 56–73; Van Gastel 2013c.
Gibson 1962. For a more recent overview of the state of research, see Symmons, Richarson & Wuillemin 2004.
Gibson 1962, 479.
Ibid., 477.
Ibid., 481.
For a discussion of the problem of the visual perception of sculpture, see Van Gastel 2014.
Gibson 1962, 479.
Pfeifer, Lungarella & Iida 2012; Trivedi et al. 2008.
Pfeifer, Marques & Iida 2013, 7.
Merleau-Ponty 1964, 185; translation from Merleau-Ponty 1968, 142.
Malafouris 2008, 22.
Imperato & Ferro 1672, 27: ‘Lavorasi l’argilla, e da se stessa figurandosi, e pigliando impronti delle figure altrove fatte: e sottrahendo, e giungendo: ne solamente molle, ma secca scalpellata. e li membri separatamente figurati facilmente con l’istessa materia si commettono’.