Disegni da Fra’ Angelico a Leonardo: intervista a Hugo Chapman
di // pubblicato il 27 Maggio, 2011
I grandi eventi meritano molta attenzione.
L’8 marzo scorso, come immediatamente riportato da Elisabetta Morici, la mostra Figure, memorie, spazio. Disegni da Fra’ Angelico a Leonardo ha inaugurato la sua tappa italiana (fino al 12 giugno visibile gratuitamente presso la sala delle Reali Poste, e presso il Gabinetto disegni e stampe con biglietto incluso nell’accesso alla Galleria degli Uffizi).
Nata da una sinergia tra il Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi, e il British Museum, Prints & Drawings Department, abbiamo ritenuto interessante approfondire direttamente con i due curatori i punti salienti di questa mostra che, come abbiamo già avuto modo di riportare, si incontra “Once in a lifetime”.
Dopo aver pubblicato la prima parte dell’intervista alla direttrice del GDSU (Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi) Marzia Faietti, torniamo per la terza volta sull’argomento proponendovi, direttamente dal BM (British Museum), l’intervista a Hugo Chapman.
Infine, il 2 giugno, concluderemo il nostro excursus pubblicando la seconda e ultima parte dell’intervista a Maria Faietti.
E ora la parola a Hugo Chapman, Curator of Italian and French drawings before 1900, Prints & Drawings Department.
Looking at the excellent results of the exhibition Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance drawings that took place last year and is currently been replicated at the Uffizi, do you think that the intent of investigating the importance of the contribution of Domenico del Ghirlandaio and the whole Italian Quattrocento to the work of Michelangelo has been attained? Also, which aspects do you think should be further highlighted?
A good exhibition is, for me, one that provokes further questions to be asked and is never definitive, but I hope that the current show does give the viewer a strong idea of how the design practices of Michelangelo and his focus on the expressive potential of the male body developed out of an existing tradition that began to take shape in Florence in the mid-quattrocento. I think there are many avenues of investigation to explore, perhaps the most exciting is the use of non-invasive investigative methods (namely infrared and ultraviolet imaging) to find out more about the technique and sequence of execution of the drawings. As you can see from the catalogue a huge amount of knowledge was added to what we know about a group of drawings that have been exhaustively studied by generations of scholars, so if similar campaigns of study could be instigated with scientists, conservators and drawing scholars working together I think there would be significant new discoveries.
As you recently wrote: “Riunire i disegni delle due collezioni, accostando tra loro fogli che non sono mai stati visti insieme prima d’ora, susciterà sicuramente nuove domande e provocherà ulteriori discussioni sulla loro attribuzione, funzione e datazione”, As of today, do you think that these goals have been attained? If so, which goals?
It is too early to say if the goals of stimulating new discussion have been met as scholars need time to ruminate after seeing the show. In the realm of attribution I hope by presenting the Antonio Pollaiuolo St John the Baptist (no. 30) among drawings by the same artist along with those of his contemporaries scotches the idea that it could have been drawn by his obscure brother, Salvestro di Jacopo. For me this was one of the most profound and expressive drawings in the whole show and could only have been drawn by an artist of the very highest calibre which would exclude Salvestro. Scholars have sometimes found it difficult to accept that artists adapted their way of drawing according to the function of the work on paper they are producing, akin to the way that we today effortlessly switch our written style when writing a SMS or a formal letter, and I hope that the variety of works on show in the exhibition gave a sense of this creative flexibility. The double-sided Lippi drawing (no. 12) is a case in point where the variety of function between a very finished, pictorial design for a picture on the recto and the sketchier design on the verso explains I think why they look different, not – at least to my eyes - that they are by different hands. If the show makes people think more about the functional goal of the artist in making the drawing, and how that might affect their way of drawing, then I would be very happy.
Is there a work, among the ones exposed, that is particularly interesting from a technical point of view?
Many but the discoveries concerning the technique of no. 71 Boltraffio drapery are particularly fascinating with the silverpoint drapery study put on top of a figure in chalk traced taken from an earlier study. The sophistication of this design method is remarkable and requires more investigation to see if there are other Leonardo school drawings of the kind, plus it opens up the question as to whether the figure drawing used as the starting point for this study was by Boltraffio’s partner, Marco d’Oggiono.
The presence of three important sketchbooks from BM collections did not go unnoticed: the sketchbook of Jacopo Bellini, the Cronaca illustrata fiorentina and the volume containing the drawings of Marco Zoppo. The BM can boast one of the bigger collections of these rare sketchbooks: was there a market for such objects, as the considerable amount of time invested in their making would suggest?
That’s a very good question but a hard one to answer as there are so few volumes of the kind. As I say in the catalogue if there was a market for drawing books it did not last long because the arrival of engraving in the last quarter of the quattrocento killed it off. I hope the exhibition will inspire more thinking to be done on the function of each of these volumes as each of them is slightly different.
Is there any work that you could not include in the exhibition due to conservation issues and that you would like to mention?
Yes, in an ideal world the GDSU Uccello study for the painting of the English mercenary captain John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto) or the wonderful Raphael study for the Piccolomini library (both included in the exhibition in the gallery outside the GDSU). From here the Marco Zoppo double-sided Dead Christ and St James on his way to execution would have been in the selection had the vellum not be so vulnerable. The long term conservation of the works in our care counts above everything else, plus these works are accessible by visitors to both institutions.
As an englishman and a distinguished scholar, could you briefly explain the interest of the Anglo-Saxon people in the italian drawing, an interest so strong that has led them to be the among the greatest and earlier collectors of these crafts?
A love of the people and culture of Italy is something that develops in the hearts and souls of most inhabitants of these islands, and it is a feeling that stretches right back to Shakespeare who choose to locate some of his most memorable plays in an imaginary Italy that he knew only from books and prints or paintings. The history of collecting drawing in England begins in the mid-seventeenth century, a generation after Shakespeare’s demise, and of course the beauty and historical importance of Italian drawings made them highly prized. Some of the greatest collectors of drawings in England were artists – such as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Lawrence – who used Italian drawings as a source of inspiration for their work and as a means of getting to the heart of the creative imaginations of the artists they most admired, such as Raphael and Michelangelo.
Have english artists from the pre-raphaelite group ever had any documented direct contact with the Italian Quattrocento drawings from the BM collection?
I don’t know about direct contact although they may have visited the Department as many 19th artists used our collection as source material for their works. John Ruskin the champion and patron of the pre-raphaelites owned the album in the exhibition known as the Florentine Picture Chronicle so that is direct proof of his admiration for Italian quattrocento drawings.
