There is a painting, identified as "Allegory", in the Philadelphia Museum of Art that bears a striking resemblance to Giorgione’s “Tempest,” even though there is no trace of a storm.
Edgar Wind, who identified the subject of the “Tempest” as “Fortezza e Carita,” pointed out the resemblance in his 1969 study, "Giorgione’s Tempesta."
In the Philadelphia Museum website the painting is given the title “Allegory,” and is attributed to “a follower of Palma il Vecchio.” It is dated 1510. It is not currently on view. Upon request a curator at the Museum very kindly allowed my wife and I to view this spectacular painting last year. It is a very large canvas, much larger than the Tempest, and despite the need for restoration it is still a beautiful painting.
It seems obvious that this painting is a version of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” The man is St. Joseph, dressed as a young Venetian patrician, standing watch over the Madonna who is seated on the left. The two children are the Christ child and John the Baptist, who is also identified by the lamb in the background. John is often introduced into the Flight into Egypt legend when he meets the Holy Family in the desert on their return.
The other painting mentioned by Wind is now on loan to the Fogg Art Museum. Attributed by Wind to a “Follower” of Giorgione, there are three figures in a landscape. In the foreground a fully clothed plainly dressed woman sits on the ground with her infant son standing beside her supported by her arm. She is left of center and looks to the right in the direction of an armored soldier standing guard. He leans not on a staff but on a formidable looking halberd. For Wind the subject of the painting was an allegory, “Fortezza and Carita,” the same subject he claimed for the Tempesta.
This painting also should be recognized as "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt." After all, wasn't it originally an altarpiece? The only objections would be the plainly dressed Madonna and the armed virile Joseph.
In each painting Joseph’s staff has become a halbred, the weapon of choice of the famed Swiss soldiers who had been introduced into Italy a few years earlier by Pope Julius II. Why is Joseph now being presented as a heavily armed and armored protector of the Madonna and Child? Perhaps the Cambrai war required Joseph to take on a more martial aspect. It seems that it would be easier to answer that question than to try to fit these two paintings, which bear a striking resemblance to the "Tempest" into an "allegorical " interpretation.
Another question arises about the plainness of the woman's attire in each painting. It is so plain that viewers have argued that the women are gypsies. More on that in another post. ###
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| Palma Vecchio: Allegory |
This subject. Fortezza e Carita, was trivialized, inevitably, by some of Giorgione’s disciples. A Giorgionesque painting in the collection of the Marquess of Northampton and a painting by Palma Vecchio in the Philadelphia Museum omit the ominous character of the storm-swept landscape but retain the easy contrast between a soldier leaning on his lance and a woman seated on the ground, with a child or two. (p. 3)In a footnote, Wind elaborated.
In Palma Vecchio’s tame conversation piece, which might be called ‘The Peaceable Warrior (ex bello pax)’, the children play like Eros and Anteros, whose mythological parents were Mars and Venus....The lethargic guardsman in this picture is a surprisingly weak invention, particularly if compared with the fine paraphrase of Giorgione's s soldier in the altarpiece for Santo Stefano in Vicenza... (p, 21, n.13).
In the Philadelphia Museum website the painting is given the title “Allegory,” and is attributed to “a follower of Palma il Vecchio.” It is dated 1510. It is not currently on view. Upon request a curator at the Museum very kindly allowed my wife and I to view this spectacular painting last year. It is a very large canvas, much larger than the Tempest, and despite the need for restoration it is still a beautiful painting.
It seems obvious that this painting is a version of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” The man is St. Joseph, dressed as a young Venetian patrician, standing watch over the Madonna who is seated on the left. The two children are the Christ child and John the Baptist, who is also identified by the lamb in the background. John is often introduced into the Flight into Egypt legend when he meets the Holy Family in the desert on their return.
The other painting mentioned by Wind is now on loan to the Fogg Art Museum. Attributed by Wind to a “Follower” of Giorgione, there are three figures in a landscape. In the foreground a fully clothed plainly dressed woman sits on the ground with her infant son standing beside her supported by her arm. She is left of center and looks to the right in the direction of an armored soldier standing guard. He leans not on a staff but on a formidable looking halberd. For Wind the subject of the painting was an allegory, “Fortezza and Carita,” the same subject he claimed for the Tempesta.
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| Follower of Giorgione: Rustic idyll |
In each painting Joseph’s staff has become a halbred, the weapon of choice of the famed Swiss soldiers who had been introduced into Italy a few years earlier by Pope Julius II. Why is Joseph now being presented as a heavily armed and armored protector of the Madonna and Child? Perhaps the Cambrai war required Joseph to take on a more martial aspect. It seems that it would be easier to answer that question than to try to fit these two paintings, which bear a striking resemblance to the "Tempest" into an "allegorical " interpretation.
Another question arises about the plainness of the woman's attire in each painting. It is so plain that viewers have argued that the women are gypsies. More on that in another post. ###
Interesting examples! I've never seen either of these paintings before. They are very similar to the "Tempest."
ReplyDeleteFascinating post Frank!
ReplyDeleteI think Giorgione's treatment of the landscape held a very deep influence on later artists.
I've included a link to this in my new post about Caspar David Friedrich
http://2.ly/d24g
H
H:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. Yu might be interested in the following from dal Pozzolo's recent Catalog of the Giorgione Castelfranco exhibition. I'll also put it on yoursite in a comment to your recent excellent post.
"It is commonly known that many of the connections made in Marian hymns…between natural elements and the figures of Mary and Jesus actually contributed to the development of landscape in religious Veneto painting…." p. 272.
Frank