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A Correggio Problem

Author(s): Roger Fry


Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 52, No. 298 (Jan., 1928), pp. 2-5+9
Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/863506 .
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A CORREGGIO PROBLEM
BY ROGER FRY
EHE small portrait in the collection
] of Lord Lee of Fareham, which we
reproduce on our Frontispiece by
kind permission, .presents the
his
[
amateur of Italian art with a pretty
problem. No external evidence as to provenance is there to help us, the picture comes into
Lord Lee's collection without history, fished out
of the common pool of the picture market by
We are face to face with
his discrimination.
with
the picture
nothing to guide us. But forits
has
own very special eloquence.
it
tunately
The firm construction of this head, which
underlies a surface modelling of extraordinary
subtlety and sensitiveness, is the work of no
The chiaroscuro, with a
ordinary painter.
and
transparency within the
peculiar luminosity
charm of the colour,
seductive
and
the
shadow,
in which extreme sobriety and reticence-a
a
predominant warm, silvery grey-reveal
All
these
peculiarly delicate voluptuousness.
qualities remind us emphatically of the works
of Correggio, and the more one looks at it the
more impossible it is-I
speak of my own
to feel that we are in the
experience-not
presence of that master.
But to claim a portrait to be by Correggio
is doubtless a daring adventure in art criticism,
since no portrait has hitherto made good such
a claim; nor have we, I think, any mention of
one in early records, though various pictures
have from time to time been labelled as portraits
of his wife and himself by his own hand.
Fortunately we can rely on something more
easily demonstrable in reproduction than those
general aesthetic evaluations which I have given
above. In those parts of the picture where there
is impasto, the surface is covered with an even
network of very sharp, clear, black craquelures.
The larger cracks outline fairly large islands of
approximately equal areas, which are again
divided up by a system of smaller cracks. Now
the blackness and sharpness of the cracks, and
the kind of network they make, are curiously
characteristic of the surface of many of
Correggio's pictures. For purposes of comparison, detail photographs of Lord Lee's portrait
and a part of a figure from the Vienna
are reproduced on PLATE II,
Ganymede
A and B. Some personal peculiarities of
technique must, under the action of time,
have led to this appearance; and indeed
artists have frequently felt a strong curiosity
The minds of
about Correggio's technique.
inferior painters, rightly dissatisfied with the
texture of their own pictures, are frequently

obsessed by the belief that some special secret


underlies the method of the masters they
admire, and it is no wonder that Correggio's
marvellously fused and yet perfectly frank and
expressive handling should have been the object
of such speculative inquiries.
Ricci1 says: " The sparkling effect of his
[Correggio's] lights gave rise to all sorts of odd
suspicions among the turbid colourists of the
baroque period, as to the supposed preparation
of panels on which he painted. A variety of
legends bearing on his technical methods were
current in the eighteenth century. ,Richardson,
among others, declared that Correggio painted
on a gold ground, and an artist admitted to
Lanzi that he believed ' Correggio habitually
exposed his pictures to the heat of the fire, or
to the sun, in order to blend his colours well
together and diffuse them equally, which process had given them the appearance of having
been melted together, rather than laid on with
the brush.'"
Nothing less than such wild speculations
appeared able to account for the magic of
Correggio's handling; but the mystery lay
entirely, one need not doubt, in Correggio's
Ricci goes
marvellous, nervous organization.
on to say that Correggio used the ordinary
white gesso ground, but the peculiar blackness
of his craquelure inclines me to think that at
times he must have used a very dark underpainting or even a dark-coloured ground; but
this is a mere supposition, as the use of dark
grounds was certainly unusual until much later,
and the dark cracks may be due to other causes.
The important point here is the fact that Lord
Lee's head certainly has, to my eye, the peculiar
beauty of Correggio's quality of paint, in which
the perfect fusion of the tones, the unanalysable
subtlety of the sequences, does not result in an
" surface, but retains all
inexpressive " licked
and suavity of his
the rapid incisiveness
drawing.
I must now leave it to other amateurs of
Italian art to substantiate or demolish the
theory that this is no less than that hitherto
unknown marvel-a portrait by Correggio. And
now, supposing for the moment that this thesis
is granted, I intend to leave the paths of even
let
approximately scientific demonstration and
into
only
guided
pure speculation,
myself go
by the vague intuitions to which the contemI
rise.
plation of this haunting vision gives
am
I
all
that
that
fair
warning
give the reader

*.,;H
?-

1 "Antonio Allegri
(Heinemann, 1896.)

da Correggio," by Corrado Ricci.

A
THE BURLINGTONMAGAZINE,No. 298, Vol. lii, January, 1928.

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going to say is based on data which are deeply


compromised by their subjective nature. What
I suggest is that the portrait is of Correggio
himself.
My reasons, if such surmises may be called
reasons, are, first, the impression I get that the
regard of these eyes has the intensity and concentration that the painter bends on his own
image in the glass; and, secondly, that my
reading of the physiognomy harmonizes with
the vague image which I build up from the
very little that is known of Correggio's perI should say then that what this
sonality.
picture presents to us is the face of a man of
almost excessive sensitiveness and delicacy of
feeling; one in whom these qualities would produce timidity and a shy, retiring disposition;
one who would shun the struggle of competitive life. And these qualities would appear to
have led also to a kind of gentle and tender
melancholy as the prevailing mood. And yet
withal there is intensity of inner life and fine
intelligence.
I believe most people would agree in some
such vague outline of the character which we
read from these lineaments.
And, if so, it
agrees rather curiously with what we know of
Correggio. He belonged to a middle-class provincial family, and had a good education in
letters and philosophy.
He lived an extremely
regulated bourgeois life and never quitted his
native province.
Unlike almost every other
considerable painter of the time, he never went
to Rome to try his fortunes in competition for
Vasari already complains
Papal patronage.
of the extreme difficulty that he encountered in
finding out anything about him, and all that
subsequent research has discovered merely confirms the notion of his shrinking, modest,
gentle character. Vasari says:He was of very timid disposition, and exerted
himself to excess in the practice of his art for
the sake of his family, who were a great care to
him; and although by nature good and welldisposed, he nevertheless grieved more than was
reasonable under the burden of those passions
which are common to all men.
He was very
melancholic in the exercise of his art, and felt its
fatigues greatly.
Elsewhere he says:
And indeed he had no conceit of himself nor
did he persuade himself that in his art-knowing
as he did the difficulty of it-he could attain to
that perfection which he would have wished; he
was contented with little, and lived a good
Christian.
In yet another passage he adds:
Antonio, weighed down by the cares of his
family, sought constantly to save money,
whereby he became exceedingly miserly.
He then goes on to relate a story, which has
been amply disproved by subsequent docu-

mentary research, of his having died from


exposure to the sun in walking with a large
sum of money on a hot day from Parma to
Correggio. Documents also throw doubt on the
extreme miserliness alleged.
Corrado Ricci
says:
That he was miserly we do not believe. An
amicable arrangement, due to his initiative,
brought a litigation over a disputed inheritance
to an end. We can well believe, on the other
hand, that he was careful and saving. It may
be that a presentiment of his own early death, a
desire to leave his family provided for ...

no

less than the disposition inherited from frugal


and laborious parents, induced a sense of wise
economy. This disposition, misinterpreted or
exaggerated by some, caused him to be considered miserly, a trait the more likely to excite
remark in his case, because of the absurd theory
which obtains among the herd, that an artist
must of necessity be eccentric, unmethodical,
extravagant and fantastic.
A further confirmation of the general impression of Correggio's personality which these data
afford is the fact that when, in 1521, he was
engaged in painting the cupola of San Giovanni
Evangelista at Parma, he obtained a diploma of
" affiliation to, and spiritual communion with
the brotherhood as a confrata.'2
One can well believe that this sensitive
creature would have had little temptation to try
his fortunes in Rome, where he was liable to be
crushed by a savage comment from Michelangelo, or stabbed one night by Benvenuto
Cellini.
Some critics have refused to credit Vasari's
picture of Correggio's character, alleging that
the painter of images which breathe a spirit of
such serene and voluptuous delight, could
Such a notion
not have been melancholy.
is not borne out by what we know of the
relation of the artist as man with the artist
as creator. It seems to me highly probable
that the melancholy, timid and pious character
Vasari gives, was exactly the kind, given
his innate genius, to realize in painting
imaginative moods that were in many ways
One could not
complementary to his own.
doubt that the sensuality of Rubens's or
Titian's works had a physical counterpart in
of
their temperament, but the sensuality
its
goes
expression
pictorial
Correggio, though
to the furthest limits, is all of the spirit and the
imagination, and might well find no expression
in his personal life.
I have thus tried to put side by side the impressions gained from the features of Lord
Lee's portrait and the impressions gained from
what we know of Correggio. I find, for myself,
the correspondence curiously exact, but I repeat
again that it has no sort of objective validity. If
2 Corrado Ricci, " Antonio Allegri da Correggio."

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A-Detail of tile pict-lrereproducedon th(^I4rontispiece,showing


the cracks on tile pigment
Plate II.

B I)etail of (CorregF,
io's Ganym>d??^
sllowinh
(Stslatlicllel\;Iuseen,Vienna)

A Corre>,gio Irol:)lem

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anyone likes to indulge in the dream that these


are Correggio's features, I have given him a
plausible excuse for doing so.
It must be added, in order to be honest, that
Vasari says:
I have been at great pains to procure his
[Correggio's] portrait; and I have not been able
to find why he did not do his own portrait, why
he never was portrayed by others, nor why he
lived in so retired a fashion.
This, of course, does not prove that no portrait existed, but simply that one was never
known of. If Correggio ever did paint his
own portrait, we may be sure the picture

would have been regarded as of interest


only to his intimate circle. And, on the other
hand, if we do grant that the handling and
quality of this picture compel us to ascribe it
to Correggio, the fact that he was never known
to paint portraits would greatly increase the
probability that the one exception would be a
portrait of his own features.
[As we go to press with the above article, Mr. Fry informs
us that he finds that Sr. Adolfo Venturi published the portrait
"
some time ago in
L'Arte," confidently ascribing it to
Correggio. Our" contributor expresses his satisfaction in
is only supporting so great an authority in
finding that he
making this bold claim."'-EDITOR].

RECENT ACQUISITIONS BY THE MAURITSHUIS


BY W. MARTIN
~N 1913 the Royal Picture Gallery

X_^

in the Mauritshuis, The Hague,


had the good fortune to acquire at
the Steengracht sale, at Paris, five
first-rate pictures. These were the
otherwise
and
important canvas by Jan
large
as the Old did; the Grey
do
The
Steen,
Young
Boy, by Backer; the silvery Landscape with
Mills, by Hobbema; the Mother and Child, by
Terborch; and the Peasant with a Pig, by A.
van Ostade. With such a start the Direction of
the Gallery felt confident enough to go ahead
of the
with a scheme of reorganization
of the
most
Mauritshuis. This meant removing
canvases
as
well
as
by
second-rate works,
large
academical painters of the Haarlem School
These
(Cornelis van Haerlem and Goltzius).
latter pictures have in fact been lent to the
Haarlem Museum. This policy made it possible
to find room for the new acquisitions
mentioned above, as well as for certain pictures
of later date, such as the little Winter Scene,
Ridder
by Aert van der Neer, from the de
Samson
the
with
Man
collection, and the
Medal, by a Bruges master working in I5Io,
from the Nardus collection.
In response to the invitation of the Editor,
I have pleasure in introducing to the notice of
readers

of

THE

BURLINGTON

MAGAZINE

two

newly purchased masterpieces.


iFirst there is Isaac van Ostade's Rest near
the Inn [PLATE I], which was acquired from
Madame Kleykamp, of The Hague, and came
from the heirs of the late Alfred de Rothschild,
of Halton Manor, who also owned a companion
The
picture, sold to an American collector.
"
in
Smith's
mentioned
Catalogue
is
picture
Raisonn6 " (V. Suppl., 3), and has a long
trace
pedigree, going back to 1772. ;We can
its movements since then to the Randon de
Boisset and to several other French collections.
In 1837 it was sold by the trustees of one of
these, the collection of La Duchesse de Berri,

At the
to Prince Demidoff of San Donato.
Demidoff sale it was purchased by Lord
Ashburton, who disposed of it to the late
Alfred de Rothschild.
As will be realized through the photograph,
this work is one of the very finest masterpieces
by Isaac van Ostade, who, it will be remembered, died when only twenty-eight years old.
It was painted when he was twenty-four, and
constitutes one more proof of his admirable skill
and of his refined taste as expressed in the
peculiar freshness of colouring, a certain silvery
quality of tone, and in the admirable rendering
of a really Dutch atmospheric effect. It should
be added that the picture is in the best
imaginable state of preservation.
The other picture reproduced [PLATE II] is a
famous
Rembrandt's
pupil,
by
portrait
Ferdinand Bol. It is fully signed and dated
1652. It shows a young man with large,
dreamy, dark eyes and curly, brown hair.
He is richly dressed in a black, goldembroidered coat with white collar and cuffs.
The picture has a wonderful golden-brown
tone, and still, so far as colouring is concerned,
bears a great resemblance to Rembrandt. This
is particularly obvious in the brushwork of the
Bol's
gold embroidery and in the chiaroscuro.
is
of
Rembrandt
splendidly
deep understanding
represented by the broad yet subtle effect of the
and
lighting and the peculiar choice of browns
is
the
there
all
Yet
that,
underlying
greys.
a
personality
strong personality of Bol himself,
Bol's
quite different from that of Rembrandt.
of
the
for
schemes
his
and
composition
ideas
influenced
more
were
by
clearly
portraits
of
European painting in general than by those
of
distinction
The
the miller's inimitable son.
certain
a
to
in
due
is
art
of
this work
part
" in the lines and to that
French " souplesse
dreamy and rather romantic appeal which
already forefeels the coming English art of the
It is a quality found
eighteenth century.

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