FIRST RENAISSANCE SELF-PORTRAIT in SCULPTURE

FIRST RENAISSANCE SELF-PORTRAIT in SCULPTURE

With another blog entry devoted to self-portraits in Renaissance painting, it seems appropriate to spend time looking at the origins of self-portraiture in Renaissance sculpture.
Who, then, is the FIRST to represent himself in sculpture in the Quattrocento?
GHIBERTI
Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), after winning the competition in 1401 for the design of the bronze panels of the Florence Baptistery doors, works from 1403-1425 on the stories from the LIFE OF CHRIST in panels that eventually are installed in the North Doors of the Baptistery.

 







He is the earliest artist to put an image of himself in sculpture in Western Art. He advertises himself as the artist who has created the work by placing a high relief portrait in gilded bronze on the left north door of the Baptistery. The self-portrait is placed in the molding just to the right above the panel of the Annunciation, the first panel in the LIFE. (8 panels below the Annunciation are devoted to the 4 Evangelists and 4 Fathers of the Church - more about that in another blog.) The self-portrait is not lifesize but grand nonetheless.
 

The artist presents himself with a turban to cover his bald head, with slightly bulging eyes, a large nose and simple closed mouth. He dresses up for this portrait, wearing the turban in a fashionable twist and formal clothing that has lace at the collar with two buttons closing a pleated tunic. Ghiberti singles out his own face with tre-foil moldings of bronze. His head juts out in high relief from the background of the door. As his face is close to viewer's eye-level, he seems to project his head there to look out at the public while they look at his door - a protective gesture or welcoming or curious or all three?  To the right of his head from the viewer's point of view are the panels of the Nativity on the left door and the Adoration of the Magi on the right door. Lightly engraved inside the quatrefoil and above each scene is the inscription that serves as a signature for Ghiberti on the door:
                                        Left door                                               Right door
                OPUS                LAUREN                                                      TII    FLOREN         TINI 
                                                    (the work of Lorenzo the Florentine)

 
                      NATIVITY                                                                                                                                                        ADORATION OF THE MAGI

 
The three split-up Latin words are the 2nd EARLIEST SIGNATURE in Florentine Quattrocento art, the first being Ghiberti's signature on his John the Baptist bronze statue.  The portrait and signature clearly mark the door's sculpture as his own.  He is proud of his art and feels it is important to let others know that he is responsible for it. Even though the letters are not carved in cursive writing, the fact that the artist has engraved these words means this is still a signature that records the name of the person responsible for the bas-reliefs. While Masaccio, another Florentine painter, may have been the first painter to paint his own self-portrait looking at the viewer on the wall of the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, nowhere can we find a place where Masaccio "signs" that work or any of his other works with words or letters that indicate his authorship or name. Ghiberti himself engraves his name alone without self-portrait on the statue of St. John the Baptist (1405-22) for Orsanmichele in Florence (subject of another blog entry).
            Here then we have the FIRST example in Western art of an artist placing his signature and sculpted self-portrait together next to each other in the same work of art. Ghiberti's engraved name, town of origin, and the Latin word "work" (opus) together with the bronze self-portrait guarantee his identity as the artist by name and face. Masaccio's painting is 1424-27 while Ghiberti's bronze may be earlier, 1403-1425. Since there is an overlap of dates, it is possible that Masaccio gave Ghiberti the idea for a self-portrait in 1424 or1425 and then Ghiberti carried his own out in sculpted bronze in 1424-25, but it is equally possible that Ghiberti's own sculpted image gave Masaccio the idea for painting himself into the Enthronement of Peter, since the Enthronement is painted last on the wall of the Brancacci Chapel, probably around 1427 and we know Ghiberti completed this door in 1425.
        Ghiberti has more motivation than Masaccio to present his face and name. His own identity was a cause of anxiety because his birth father was different from the father who raised him. He purposely avoids his last name in this inscription and prefers to be known only as "LORENZO THE FLORENTINE", aligning himself with the city-state that has given him employment.
       But the anxiety about origin catches up with him on the second set of doors. He liked confronting his audience so much on the first door, he repeats the self-portrait with signature on the second set of doors, the EAST DOORS, 1425-52. To the right and below the panel of the Jacob and Esau story he places his own head. At the same viewer's eye-level and across on the opposite door, he sculpts the head of his son, Vittorio, who worked for him in his workshop and who probably finished the frames of the South door.

 
Here Ghiberti presents himself without turban, bald, smiling, nicely dressed again with tunic and lace, and clearly a man of confidence from years of successful artistic production. The portrait of his son, too, has an air of easy formality. Both wish people to recognize them around town as the artists who worked on the Baptistery, so their portraits are realistic. Their heads turn slightly in towards each other, acknowledging their blood and professional relationship while at the same time appearing to be moving to look at the viewer whose eyes are looking back at them. The turn of head suggests subtle conversation with each other and the crowds below.

Artists in the Renaissance become increasingly aware of their own place in the chronology of the history of art and they wish to promote their own work to have people compare them with the great artists of ancient time. But no ancient artists that I know of left sculpted self-portraits to posterity.  Even for Ghiberti the image is not enough - he must leave words in Latin again here to identify himself as the artist of the work: on the left door below the Esau scene and above the Moses scene, Ghiberti engraves his name:
                                                    LAURENTII  CIONIS   DE   GHIBERTIS
  

As God hands Moses the tablets of the 10 Commandments, Ghiberti hands the viewer his signature in writing. Then on the right door above the Joshua scene and below the Joseph scene, at the same level as his name, he inscribes:
                                                                                                 MIRA ARTE FABRICATUM

Taken together the Latin phrases read:           Wonderful art made by Lorenzo Cione dei Ghiberti

The signature in this case is longer and asks the viewer to acknowledge the work, but it still spans both doors, as does the North door signature.  He purposely sets the word "fabricatum" over the strong towers built for the city of Jericho. The Biblical scenes on both doors are central and visible to the standing viewer.

         When he begins his doors for the Baptistery, Ghiberti chooses the Nativity and gift-giving scene of the Magi as the subjects with which he wishes to associate his name.

 

The birth of his art and the gift of it are primary in the North Doors. 
As he is finishing the work, he chooses the molding above the Old Testament stories of Moses and Joshua and below the Joseph stories for his name.

 He glories in the God-given talent in the panels suggested by the tablets and blessed by Isaac, and he realizes the hard human work that has gone into the production of the panels in the towers of the walls of Jericho and the walls of the temple in the Joseph scene. 

God-given talent and human creation are both implied in     
                LAURENTII CIONE DE GHIBERTIS MIRA ARTE FABRICATUM

What Ghiberti leaves out in the second inscription is his identification as Florentine. While the first left door only mentions Ghiberti's first name, the second set of doors emphasizes his family name over the city-state.
Ghiberti's own birth and hence, his last name, is a worry to him. Born to Cione dei Ghiberti in a village outside of Florence, Pelago, he is transported by his mother soon after birth to live in the household of a goldsmith named Bartoluccio de Michele, where he receives his training. His mother had left his biological father, however, and she marries Bartoluccio after Cione's death in 1406. When the Florentine city government discovers that LORENZO is not "di Bartoluccio" but "di Cione", they force Ghiberti to pay a fine for the deception and to sign documents that legitimize his birth by the original father. Ghiberti's acknowledgement on the public door of the Baptistery, where all Christian children in Florence went to be baptized in the 15th century, is a further documentation of his original birth name. But in the process of awarding the first father with the fame Ghiberti had garnered for himself, he purposely omits the name of the city-state which has pushed him to this revision. His self-portrait turns away from this part of the inscription and towards his son, whose legitimate birth can never be the same source of unease.

Ghiberti has "revealed" his true self in this second self-portrait as he removes any turban to hide under. And the rules of the city-state, like God's commandments, are obeyed. But his true rebellion against those rules, out of loyalty to his mother, is implied in the walls of Jericho under the right door inscription; they are about to tumble under Joshua's own prodigious power.
 

10 REASONS WHY THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE BEGINS IN FLORENCE

               10 REASONS WHY THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE BEGINS IN FLORENCE                 

1) First, Italy itself is just a beautiful place. The coastal waters, mountains, and fertile plains combined with a mild climate inspired many artists to imitate the colors and shapes of the landscape.
 

 

 

2) Florence was an intimate society in the 1400's; people knew each other by first name and even nickname. Alberti refers to five artists by nickname in his Treatise on Painting in 1436:

Pippo -Filippo Brunelleschi  - architect of dome of Florence Cathedral (1420-36) and inventor of one-point  perspective (1409)

Nencio - Lorenzo Ghiberti (enzo becomes nencio) -bronze sculptor of Baptistery doors (1403-25 and 1425-52)

Masaccio - Big, ugly TOM - 1st painter to use one-point perspective; painter of Brancacci Chapel (1424-27) in Florence

Luca - Luca Della Robbia - stone sculptor who carved the Cantoria (1431-38) for the Duomo

Donato - Donatello -stone sculptor who carved the Cantoria (1433-39) for the Duomo

The fact that Alberti can use those nicknames and know they would be understood by the reader shows how familiar these men were with each other. While that intimacy meant rivalry and competition for commissions (such as the Baptistry panel competition), it also fostered pride in individual work and meant that groups of artists gave support to one another. The influence of great men spread more easily in such an intimate setting and their reputation drew other wonderful artists in from outlying areas. The political power of the guilds made up of wealthy merchants contributed to the pride of the individual artists hired by them.

3) In 1401 the Arte di Calimala held a competition for decorating the north and east doors of the Florentine Baptistery; many competed but only 2 were finalists, Ghiberti and Brunelleschi. Their competition panels still exist (Bargello) and can be compared (another blog entry). This contest inspired other artists to create their best work. Competition instilled excellence in the artists in general.

4) Florence had always been, even in ancient times, a center for the dyeing of cloth. (Ancient Roman vats discovered when Piazza Signoria was dug up in the 90's still had traces of dye on them). The river Arno was used for treating cloth in the Roman period and the dyeing practices of the 1400's in the city were considered state secrets not to be transported outside of Florence. In this way Florence could retain its monopoly on the European cloth trade. Wool would be shipped down from England in raw state to Florence; it would be refined and dyed, then shipped back to Europe as full cloth. The process of dyeing meant that Florence was a color center, primed for artists to learn about pigments for their own arts from the major industry, the cloth trade. The rules about state secrets meant that Florentines regarded their cloth and color knowledge with city pride. The same pigments used in the dyeing of the cloth were used by painters for panels and frescoes.
pigment jars in Florence                       Ghirlandaio, Three Magi, 1485-88

5) In the 15th century the Medici family became the bankers for the papacy. What this meant, in essence, was that they were in charge of the income from the taxation on 2/3 of the real estate in Europe, no small amount. At the same time the church relaxed its restrictions on usury, so the Medici had great interest, literally, in supporting the church.

6) Unlike some other city-states, Florence made a law in the early 1400's that patrician families had to own at least one residence in the city walls for tax purposes; what this meant was that the money stayed within the city walls and was available for architects to build lavish palaces and for painters and sculptors to decorate them. What it meant also was that the aristocrats built parish churches to worship in while they were in town. Many artists were employed for the altarpieces for those churches as well as for the secular paintings for the town palaces. (Medici palace by Michelozzo, 1445, Procession of the Magi, painted in the palace chapel, 1459 by Benozzo Gozzoli)

 

 Filippo Lippi's Annunciation, 1440,
made for chapel in Brunelleschi's San Lorenzo, parish church of the Medici (interior shown) - 1419-21.

7) The peninsula of Italy was already the site of Ancient Rome and ancient statuary and architecture. Artists did not have to go far to learn from the classical past.

 Uccello's Hawkwood, 1436/
Ancient bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, 175 CE.

 Masaccio's tax collector in The Tribute Money, 1424-47, and Roman statue of Antinous, c. 130 CE, now in Naples, in Farnese collection before.

8) The pharmacists who dispensed pigments to painters were also notaries who were required to know Latin and Italian; they were able to help artists understand ancient texts for the stories they were painting.

9) In 1406 Florence won the city-state of Pisa and with it the alum mines of Volterra. Since alum was used to fix color to wool, it was a victory for the cloth industry of Florence, the major industry. The alum helped artistic output as well, especially in altarpieces where it was used to adhere color to the wood surface.

 

 

10) In 1409 Brunelleschi's two presentation panels (now lost) of one-point perspective showed painters how they could mirror reality by using his system of receding diagonal lines that converged at one point. That invention allowed for naturalistic representations of space and figures on walls and in panel paintings. 
Baptistery                                  Palazzo Vecchio

 

11) In 1427 Florence instituted the catasto, a personal income tax system where each household was required to pay taxes according to how many mouths (bocche) they fed and how much income they generated from land and from work.  The written documentation in Italian of contemporary lives generated interest in artists for documenting contemporary lives visually.

12) The quarries of Maiano and Fiesole, close by Florence, as well as Carrara, further away, provided not only pietra serena for the building of palaces, churches, and civic buildings, but stone for sculptures as well.
 

Are those twelve reasons? Yes. And a thirteenth? 

13) the je ne sais quoi of the Arno River Valley? If beauty is nourishment, which I believe it is, the natural setting for the city was a perfect three-course meal of valley, river, and hills.