As
far as I know the most important iconographical detail in Giorgione’s “Boy with an Arrow” has never been
discussed. It is the color of the young man’s tunic. Why did Giorgione
deliberately choose to clothe him in red? The following is a slight revision of two earlier posts on this subject.
The painting now in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum measures only 48 x 42 cm. The
exhibition catalog for the 2004 Giorgione exhibition jointly held by the Museum and the Accademia in Venice provided a full discussion of the interpretive history of the “Boy with
an Arrow.” Marianne Koos, the author of the catalog entry, noted that the
painting was not always attributed to Giorgione and that his authorship was only
generally accepted after 1955. She also noted “it is usually dated to his
mature period, between 1506 and 1508.” *
“Boy
with and Arrow” is another of Giorgione’s mysterious paintings and a number of
different interpretations have been put forward. Koos, whose essay derived from
her own doctoral dissertation, did a very nice job of summarizing and analyzing
the different views.
While there is general agreement on the painting’s attribution and dating, its subject…remains controversial. Marcantonio Michiel described it as a “boy with an Arrow” in his inventory…compiled in 1531,…Nevertheless, to this day art historians are dissatisfied with the title “Boy with an Arrow”. Thus the figure is alternatively interpreted as “St. Sebastian”, “Apollo” or even “Eros”, respectively to identify the boy as a figure from Christian iconography or classical mythology.…Joannides recently suggested the identification of the boy as “Paris”, who would grow up to slay Achilles with his arrow.
She
indicated that Bernard Berenson accepted the Sebastian identification in 1957
but that most scholars since have supported the Apollo or Eros readings. She
then proceeded to point out the shortcomings of each interpretation.
None of these interpretations, however, is totally convincing. Against the boy’s identification as “Sebastian” there is the fact that in the art of the early modern period the saint is depicted either as a male nude pierced with arrows, or as a young man in courtly dress….Also absent are the saint’s halo and the contemplative sideways glance, which—as in Raphael’s Sebastian, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo—manifests the painting’s religious content. On the other hand, the classical god Apollo, iconographically related to St. Sebastian via his function as a protector against pestilence is represented in Renaissance art as a blond male nude with laurel wreath, bow and quiver or with a lyre….In 16th century iconography the god of love, Eros, is depicted as a mischievous boy with wings, bow and arrows—not as a melancholy, self-absorbed youth. And in the iconography of the early modern period, Paris, the son of the king of Troy, is depicted holding the apple of Eris rather than an arrow.
Koos
believed that some more recent “metaphorical interpretations” pointed in the
right direction and proceeded to devote the lion’s share of the catalog entry
to her own.
The metaphorical interpretation of the arrow is—both here and in the context of Giorgione’s broader oeuvre—a most promising shift of perspective…which has the advantage of corresponding to Michiel’s description as “Boy with an Arrow”, while simultaneously taking into consideration the iconographic connotations of love and pain proposed for the painting.
Her
own conclusion was pretty much what one would expect from a contemporary Art
historian.
Giorgione’s youth remains primarily a subject in the discourse of love, an ideal male figure, with whom the male observer may also form an alliance in thought. The ideal-boy picture is not only a painting of…desire, but also of narcissistic identification and a homosocial avowal of brotherhood.
I’ll
leave her objections to the mythological figures to their supporters, but I do
not believe that her argument against the St. Sebastian interpretation is very
strong. It is certainly true that most depictions of the martyr show a
full-length nude figure riddled with arrows. Yet it is also true that a fully
clothed, half-length figure of a doleful young man holding an arrow was popular
at the time.#
Raphael painted
a half-length, clothed St. Sebastian holding an arrow just a few years before
Giorgione’s young man. Raphael’s “St. Sebastian” bears a striking similarity to Giorgione’s
“Boy with an Arrow.” Both paintings depict a soulful young man, head tilted to
the side, holding a single arrow in his hand. Raphael’s version is dated around
1501 and scholars guess that Giorgione’s dates around 1508. Both are small
paintings of about the same size.
Starting with Vasari scholars have speculated on the possible influence
of Leonardo on Giorgione, but it is interesting to speculate on the degree to
which Giorgione was aware of Raphael’s work, especially after the sojourn of
Fra Bartolommeo in Venice in 1508. The following description of Raphael’s
painting could easily fit the “Boy with an Arrow.”
The saint grasps the fragile arrow of his martyrdom like a scepter; it is a marvelous image, a tour de force. The subtle treatment of the head, slightly tilted away from the spectator, is close in style to the Madonna with St. Jerome and St. Francis in spite of the difference in scale and like that painting, striking in its icon-like character and lack of three-dimensionality… **
Personally,
I believe that the similarities between Raphael’s “St. Sebastian” and
Giorgione’s “Boy with an Arrow” greatly outweigh the dissimilarities.
Typically, Giorgione removed an obvious iconographical sign like the halo and
replaced it with something that I have come to believe characterizes much of
his work. He used color to identify the subject.
Red
is the symbol of martyrdom. It is the color of the vestment of the priest at
every Mass that commemorates a martyr. In an essay on Giorgione’s “Three Ages of Man” I have argued that the color of the garments of the three figures in
that mysterious painting now in the Pitti Palace identifies them as Jesus,
Peter, and the rich young man of the Gospel of Matthew. Peter’s robe is bold red,
a symbol of his eventual martyrdom. Christ is shown in green, in what looks
like the vestment that a priest commonly wears on most Sundays of the
liturgical year.
I
have also argued that the colors of the garments worn by the three men in
Giorgione’s “Three Philosophers” support those who interpret that mysterious
painting as the Three Magi. The color of their garments refers to their gifts
of gold, frankincense and myrrh. (see "Three Philosophers" post on this site)
Giorgione
dressed the young man in the “Boy with an Arrow” in the color of a martyr.
There is perhaps an insight contained in the metaphorical interpretation noted
above of Marianne Koos. Neoplatonic discussions of love and desire were not regarded
as antithetical to Christian belief. On the contrary, in many respects they
brought, if only for a brief moment, Christian beliefs to a new level on the
eve of the Reformation.
Where
it had been common to invoke St. Sebastian as a protector against the plague,
now it would appear that Giorgione and others were seeing him again in his
original guise, as one who gave his life for his fellow man. In this respect,
he was truly a symbol of Christ-like love. No wonder his story inspired
Christians throughout the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and even beyond.
###
*Marianne Koos, catalog entry, pp. 184-187 in Ferino-Pagden,
Sylvia, and Nepi-Scire, Giovanna: exh. Cat. Giorgione, Myth and Enigma,
Vienna, 2004.
# See the comprehensive discussion of St. Sebastian in art in a post at Three Pipe Problem.
# See the comprehensive discussion of St. Sebastian in art in a post at Three Pipe Problem.
** Jean-Pierre Cuzin, Raphael, His Life and Works, 1985, p.
20.
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