Leonardo and drapery studies on 'tela sottilissima di lino' - Critical Essay

The opportunity to diocese again significant numbers of drawings by dint of the young Leonardo gathered together in three new exhibitions seemed simply extraordinary, (1) and among the corpus of exhibited early drawings through the precocious genius, very scarcely any could match the aesthetic beauty, monumentality of expression, and technical innovation of the much-debated assemblage of drapery studies painted in tempera with the brush upon finely woven linen, prepared with a thin layer of blue-green grey or beige, or nearly brown colour. (2) The drift of this article is to tender evidence that should be taken into account in arguments about the attribution of the greatest in quantity famous, and at the same time greatest in quantity controversial of these studies--that now in the Musee du Louvre no. 2255--here illustrated and discussed as an autograph work through Leonardo (Fig. 1). (3) For, as was again plainly evident during the course of the Leonardo exhibitions of 2003 in novel York and Paris, in bourns of artistic execution alone, this is the greatest in quantity dazzling example of its mark among the sixteen or in the way that drapery studies in tempera upon tela di lino from the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio that are soon known. In 1899, Heinrich WOlfflin and Franz Wickhoff annotateed on the tantalisingly close similarities of design between the Louvre drapery research and the arrangement of the Virgin's mantle in Domenico Ghirlandaio's high altarpiece for the house of god of S Giusto alle Mura, now in the Galleria degli Uffizi (Fig. 2) which may have been painted as early as 1479 and which was certainly finished by dint of 6 June 1486. (4) While Wolfflin's carefully measured words appear to imply that he in the extreme point retained the traditional attribution to Leonardo for the Louvre drapery inquiry albeit very tentatively, Wickhoff took the hardy step of assigning the drawing to Ghirlandaio, precisely because of its shut up similarity to the painting. (5) Wickhoff's attribution of the Louvre research to Ghirlandaio was endorsed through Paul Erich Kuppers in 1915 (6) Bernhard Degenhart in 1932 (who revolveed in favour of Fra Bartolommeo in 1934) (7) Everett Fahy in 1969 (8) and Jean K Cadogan in 1983 (9) The Ghirlandaio opinion has also been more lately reaffirmed by the latter sum of two units authors, respectively in 2003 and 2000 (10) as well as by dint of David Alan Brown in 1998 (11) and--somewhat more ambiguously--by Johannes Nathan, who published the Louvre drawing as by the agency of 'Leonardo (or Domenico Ghirlandaio?)' in the latest comprehensive monograph upon Leonardo. (12) The attribution to Ghirlandaio, therefore, loom large especially in the generally received literature. More isolated attributions were also propos to Verrocchio through Wilhelm Suida in 1929, (13) and to Lorenzo di Credi by the agency of Woldemar von Seidlitz in 1935 (14) above the years, however, a substantially greater number of scholars have advocated the attribution of the famous Louvre drapery investigation to Leonardo, but in the proces have side stepped--rather ineffectively in my opinion--the Ghirlandaio connection.

[FIGURES 1&2 OMITTED]

The shut although by no means exact similarity of design between the Louvre drapery inquiry and Ghirlandalo's S Giusto Virgin is an inescapable fact, despite attempts by means of some scholars in the pro Leonardo camp to minimise--or level disregard--this visual evidence. Based upon a reading of a variety of emblems of archaeological data, however, the not absent author would argue that this rightly noticed resemblance in no wise militates against the attribution of the Louvre drawing to Leonardo, and that, in fact, it may well reinforce it. Here it appears crucially important to insist upon a more refined characterisation of the drawing techniques and practices that were prevalent in Florentine workshops during the period from 1460 to 1485 in order to pinpoint more precisely the aspects that have the appearance to stand out as verily innovative. Moreover, it also present the appearances worth emphasising that, as an invenzione--an issue that is separate from that of drawing technique--the arrangement of draperies seen in the famous Louvre investigation was frequently emulated by Florentine artists well into the sixteenth hundred as is demonstrated by the sheer numbers of copies and freer reprises of the motif that are extant (and which are more abundantly discussed below).

As art historians have recognised since the 1860 the design of the famous Louvre drapery close attention is extremely similar to that of the Virgin's mantle in Leonardo's panel of the Annunciation in the Uffizi, which has encouraged a certain quantity of scholars to argue that it was made with that painting in mind (Fig. 3) For it is a truism concerning Leonardo's design proces that he not seldom composed his pictures by fairly untidy meanss of permutation; more over, whether in 'brainstorm' sketches or in more finished studies offering variations, individual idea is often pursued more or les simultaneously with several others in his drawings, (15) and consequently his preliminary studies for his early paintings rarely contain designs that exactly conform to the arrangements of the final compositions. (16) The correspondence of design of the Louvre drape[y research is closer--in the details, studied enclosure by fold--to the drapery of Ghirlandaio's s Giusto Virgin than to that of her counterpart in Leonardo's Uffizi Annunciation. In Ghirlandaio's altarpiece, however, the overall design of the Virgin's lap--with leg and knee locate rather far apart--exhibits much les anatomical and by spectival coherence than is seen in the Louwe close attention In contrast, the drapery of the seated figure of the Virgin in Leonardo's Uffizi Annunciation (a picture whose legibility has been increased thanks to its novel cleaning, which was completed in 2000) (17) is a tour-de-force of emotive put in motion merit in repose, and work fors as a dramatic foil to the Virgin's state of 'conturbatio'. In comparison, the Louvre application of mind has a much more compact sculptural vicinity a greater definition of the material substance beneath the draperies, and a contained, more optically precise description of the web of the cloth on the figure. The seated figure is envisioned with the lower part of its left leg resting forward and slightly turning to the left (instead of agitatedly moving backwards and to the right, as in the Uffizi Annunciation), which arises in a more natural settle of the draperies on the ground; the woven fabric seems thicker, softer, and its more circulared folds appear as if subtly inflated through air. The figure is in a deliberately static posture designed for a study of light and shadow. Indeed, the artist of the Louvre drapery inquiry captured the light as if in arrested change across the complex forms of the enclosures in infinitely modulated gradations of tone. The optical events created by the lighting appear entirely unified (their objective accuracy is strikingly scientific in method) despite the great intricacies of form involved. As a number of scholars have rightly observ however, the composite control of light that is evident in the Louvre close attention is not achieved in Ghirlandaio's s Giusto Altarpiece.