Eureka!

Alessandra Pedersoli

Expressive formulas of pain in Domenico Veneziano and Niccolò Dall'Arca: polygenesis from a common prototype?

Essay

Marianna Gelussi
 
The Danza di nudi by Antonio del Pollaiolo (1460-75)

A theoretical recognition of Dionysian iconography from antiquity taken from Hellenistic-Roman sarcophagi
 
The Danza di Nudi in Villa Gallina in Arcetri (Florence), painted by Pollaiolo between 1460 and 1475 depicts an ecstatic dance all'antica, and is a unique example of iconography in the middle of the fifteenth century.
 
Critics during the last century analysed these paintings, dwelling particularly on the origins of the composition in relation to the art of antiquity, a connection which was blatantly apparent both because of the dance and the nudity of the figures and their frieze-like arrangement, and because of the contrast created by their clarity against a dark background, typical of vase painting in antiquity.
 
These mainly stylistic considerations indicate alternative sources of inspiration for the artist: either the painted motifs on Greek vases or the red figures of Etruscan vases. These studies, however, on the evidence available from the sources, make no attempt at establishing definitively that the inspiration is derived from ancient models.
 
The possibility that the iconographic sources available to Antonio Pollaiolo could have been the Dionysian images sculpted on Hellenistic-Roman sarcophagi which supplied the repertory of classical forms Florentine artists increasingly sought during the Quattrocento, and from which they took those forms that signalled the irruption of movement and expressiveness all'antica in modern Renaissance painting, has never been fully explored, although Eve Borsook, in her work on Florentine wall-painting (1980), observes the postural similarity between the figures in the frieze in Villa Gallina and those of some Bacchantes on the Hellenistic-Roman sarcophagi.
 
A systematic analysis of the decorative repertory on the sarcophagi with Dionysiac images has made it possible to identify with a fair dose of approximation the types from which the postures painted in Villa Gallina derive. Each of the dancers derives from a precise typology of Bacchante as represented in antiquity, but unlike the way they appear on the sarcophagi, they are depicted naked and without the attributes typical of the Dionysian retinue. The types that have been taken up by Pollaiolo can been seen systematically within the decorative schemes of the sarcophagi which were composed like a collage of standard figures taken from a fixed workshop repertory and were produced in serial fashion. Only in the case of one dancer is it necessary to resort to one single sarcophagus - the sarcophagus that comes from Orvieto and is now preserved at Arbury Hall, because it was known and copied by other Florentine artists contemporary with Pollaiolo, evidence of which can be seen in the drawing by Cassiano dal Pozzo, in the Royal Library at Windsor.
 
For each of the figures painted by Pollaiolo in Villa Gallina one can find several drawn from various well-known ancient models. It is precisely the typology of the dancers, the presence of a series, as well as the obvious specularity of the painted figures by Pollaiolo in relation to the models represented, that legitimises our hypothesis of their derivation, and that makes the identification of the precise model studied by Pollaiolo of secondary importance because he took his inspiration only from a few of the examples of the series which match perfectly and were known at the time.

Peitho &
Mnemosyne

Ripples and waves of memory: from the Elgin Marbles to the cat-walks of high fashion - 'the classical' is always fashionable.

Milan, fashion shows autumn-winter 2002/2003: models dressed in floaty garments, wrapped in pleated fabrics and girded with ribbons that hold their garments like peplos - these are positive references to the paradigm of Phidian art.

From a Renaissance emblem of the Gonzaga to the publicity spot for a car: the enduring eloquence of symbols.

After hundreds of years the same object is loaded with the same symbolic and allegorical meaning.
In both the ancient language of imprese and the modern language of publicity, the muzzle is an emblem of safety and strength restrained.

Botticelli and the art of mechanical gears

Replacing the detail of a work of art and its use as a testimonial.
Half Kitsch and half naïf, the authority and the recognizability of an image known to the public guarantees the communicability of a low-cost publicity campaign.

Plate

Plate 45 from Mnemosyne Atlas

Antiquity in the forefront: the loss of 'the how of metaphor'

Superlatives in the language of gesture, the pride of self-consciousness, heroic individuality taken from the typology of grisaille. The loss of 'the how of metaphor'