Vasari on technique

by Giorgio Vasari

Is all the hand that serves the brain can do.’

The conceit is really a classical one, and is probably due to some Greek writer used by Cicero in his tract De Divinatione. Some one had testified to the fact that, in a certain marble quarry on Chios, a block, casually split open, had disclosed a head of Pan; and Cicero, or the writer he had before him, remarks that such a chance might occur, though the similitude would only be a rude one. In any case however, he goes on, it must be conceded that even the very finest heads imaginable are really in existence throughout all time in every block of stone of sufficient size. All that even a Praxiteles could do would be to bring them into view by taking off all that was superfluous in the marble. He would add nothing to what was there already. The whole process would be the removal of what was superfluous and bringing to light what was concealed within.

SCULPTURE TREATED FOR POSITION.

[§ 38, Works of Sculpture should be treated with a view to their destined Position, ante, p. [145].]

Vasari is dealing with sculpturesque treatment as conditioned by the position and lighting for which works of statuary are destined, and a somewhat interesting question in the aesthetics of the plastic art is opened up.

There are here two matters to be distinguished; one is the general treatment of a figure or relief in relation to position, and the other is the deliberate alteration in the proportions of it, with a view to the same consideration. It is almost a matter of course that an artist, in preparing his model, will keep in view the aspect under which the finished work will be presented to the spectator, but the definite change in proportions is another matter. Vasari is clear in his own mind that Donatello and other sculptors did make changes of proportions as well as of general treatment on the grounds indicated, but in alleging this he is not drawing on his own expert knowledge as an artist, so much as echoing a judgement of literary critics often expressed in both ancient and modern times. There is a passage in Plato’s Sophist which shows that in Greek aesthetics this question was discussed, and a distinction is there drawn, pp. 235–6, between exact imitation of nature, and an imitation that modifies the forms of nature for artistic effect. In large works, Plato points out, if the true proportions were given ‘the upper part which is further off from the eye would appear to be out of proportion in comparison with the lower, which is nearer; and so our artists give up the truth in their images and make only the proportions which appear to be beautiful disregarding the true ones.’ The same idea connected with a concrete instance is embodied in a legend preserved in some verses by the Byzantine writer Tzetzes, to the effect that Pheidias and Alcamenes competed on one occasion with rival figures of the goddess Athene. Alcamenes finished his with great delicacy, and on a near view it was preferred to that by Pheidias. The latter sculptor, ‘being versed in optics and geometry,’ had allowed for distance and exaggerated certain details. When both figures were put into position the superiority of that by Pheidias was at once apparent. It has been argued from a passage in Eustatius that Pheidias fashioned his Zeus at Olympia with the head slightly inclined forwards, so as to bring it more directly into view from the floor of the temple below.

In modern times Donatello’s works have been specially singled out as illustrating this same principle, and not by Vasari alone. The following, for instance, is an obiter dictum of the Florentine writer Davanzati in a letter affixed to his translation of Tacitus published first in 1596, (see Opere di Tacito, Bern. Davanzati, Padova, 1755, p. 656), where he says, ‘You must look at the way an effect is introduced, as in the case of Donatello and his famous Zuccone (Bald Head) on our Campanile of the Duomo. The eyes of this statue as one looks at it on high seem as if dug out with the spade, but if he had worked it on the ground (for a near view) the figure would appear to be blind. The reason is that distance swallows up all refinement of work (la lontananza si mangia la diligenzia).... In the same way the rudeness of rustic work on great palace walls does not take away from but rather adds to the effect of majesty.’ Modern critics have agreed in commending Donatello for his judicious treatment, with a view to situation, of works like the statues on the Campanile, which are more than fifty feet above the ground. Hans Semper praises specially from this standpoint the ‘Abraham and Isaac’ on the Campanile, and remarks that if this group were taken down and seen on the ground there would be a great outcry about faults of proportion in the legs, (Donatello, Wien, 1875, p. 122.) In Lord Balcarres’s recent book on Donatello there is a discussion of the Campanile statues, and other works by the master, in relation to the same aesthetic principle, (Donatello, London, 1903, p. 17 ff.)

There is no question that the boldness and vigour which were characteristic of Donatello were well suited to give his works a telling effect at a distance, and this may be noticed in the case of his ‘Cantoria’ with the dancing children in the Opera del Duomo at Florence. We are reminded here of the Pheidias and Alcamenes story. On a near view Donatello’s Cantoria suffers in a comparison with the more delicate work on the same theme of Luca della Robbia, but when both galleries were ‘in position,’ high up, and in the semi-darkness of the Duomo, the effect of Donatello’s relief must have been far finer. This bold and sketchy treatment was not due to the fact that the master could work in no other way, for Donatello treated very low relief, spoken of later on by Vasari as ‘stiacciato,’ with remarkable delicacy and finish. Hence we may fairly credit him with intention in the strong effects of some of his monumental works.

This is however quite a different matter from deliberate alteration of the proportions of a figure in view of the position it is to occupy. In spite of what Vasari and some modern writers have said, it must be doubted whether Donatello or any other responsible sculptor has done anything of the kind. Vasari speaks of figures ‘made a head or two taller’ when they have to be seen in a near view from below, but he does not refer to any examples. Decorative figures of elongated proportions may be instanced, but it does not follow that these proportions were intended to correct perspective foreshortening. The twelfth century statues in the western portals at Chartres are curiously elongated, and so too are the stucco nymphs of Primaticcio in the Escalier du Roi at Fontainebleau, but in both cases the figures are but little above the level of the eye, and their shape is certainly not due to any such consideration as was in the mind of Vasari. The actual proportions of Donatello’s Campanile statues seem perfectly normal, though the works may have been deliberately treated with a view to position.

It is worth notice that, proportions apart, the principle of ‘treatment for position’ has by no means been generally observed. In the greatest and most prolific periods of sculpture indeed, there seems to have been little consistency of practice in this regard, while some of the finest decorative works in the world appear to have been very little affected by any considerations of the kind. As in duty bound, Vasari appeals to the antique, but as a matter of fact, classical decorative sculpture exhibits only in a very minor degree these studied modifications of treatment in relation to position. In the frieze of the Parthenon the background is cut back a little deeper above than below, so as to increase the apparent salience of the parts farthest from the eye, and on the column of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, which may have been in Vasari’s mind when he mentions reliefs on columns, the salience of the relief is much bolder above than below. The well-known band of ornament on the framing of Ghiberti’s ‘Old Testament’ gates shows similar variety in treatment. On the earlier column of Trajan, on the other hand, the eye can detect no variation in treatment of the kind. The groups from the pediments of the Parthenon give little indication that they were designed to be looked at sixty feet above the eye, while the heads by Scopas from the pediments at Tegea are finished with the utmost delicacy, as if for the closest inspection.