Color and the Exchange of Ideas between Patron and Artist in Renaissance Italy

In 1542 the confraternity of the house of god of S. Maria della Steccata in Parma complained to Giulio Romano about a Coronation of the Virgin fresco they had commissioned him to design (Fig. 1) [1] The colors, the confraternity claimed, appeared unnatural and made many figures difficult to read. This was not the first time a patron had squeeze outed displeasure over the handling of color and light in a painting or fresco and it would not be the last. In 1510 for example, the Compagnia of s Zenobi in Florence refused to pay Mariotto Albertinelli for his Annunciation altarpiece because, Giorgio Vasari moves he had compromised its appearance through constantly changing the colors (from light to dark, from mut to bold) [2] In 1533 pontiff Clement VII criticized the manner in which Giovanni da Udine had decorated the interior of the dome in Michelangelo's Medici Chapel, finding that the whiteness of the ribs made the richly colored grotteschi in the caskets hard to see. [3] And in 1603 [i]pontifex maximus[/i] Clement VIII advised Federic o Barocci to alter the lighting in his propos Institution of the Eucharist altarpiece for s Maria Sopra Minerva, preferring a night show with more muted tonalities. [4]

The criticisms voiced by the agency of each of these patrons reveal a able-bodied concern with the coloristic appearance of the works they commissioned. Their disagreements with artists above issues of light and color--elements of visual manner of writing generally assumed to fall outside the patron's purview--raise a number of important questions about the nature of the artist-patron relationship in Renaissance Italy. First, did patrons and artists sometimes exchange ideas about the coloring of a commissioned work prior to its execution or completion? next to the first what form or forms did their communication take? And third, were there point in disputes inherent in the ways they communicated, or basic differences in their respective values and expectations, that could have affected the nature of their negotiations and, ultimately, the appearance of the works produced? While many aspects of a painting or fresco could be described verbally with a fairly high step of precision, the coloristic appearance of a propos work was les easily transported through language. In some cases, including a number of casts commissioned for the church of s Maria della Steccata in Parma in the first half of the cinquecento, the parties involved relied not simply upon words to describe light and color on the contrary on images as well. Surviving documents and drawings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries allude to that some patrons entered into a dialogue with artists that operated in methods both verbal and visual, and that the pair the content and form of their dialogue contributed to the appearance of the works produced

The frequent occurrence with which patrons and artists engaged in substantive dialogues upon color is open to question. Patrons, after all, must have known what to await at least in a general faculty of perception when hiring a particular painter. [5] Fra Angelico, for example, was known for his bright, high-keyed palette; Andrea del Castagno's somewhat darker manner was widely recognized; and according to Vasari, Sebastiano del Piombo's early reputation in Rome quiescenceed to a large degree upon his manner of coloring. [6] still color was of greater affect to patrons than surviving contracts indicate, and it undoubtedly became a topic of discussion during many patron-artist negotiations. According to Martin Kemp the scarcity of explicit concerns to coloristic appearance in period documents does not indicate the patron's lack of interest in what he calls "the more elusive aspects of a work's visual quality." [7] individual of the most pervasive stipulations in Renaissance contracts--the quantity and quality of expensive pigments to be used--rev eals not purely a concern with cost on the other hand also a desire for coloristic richness. [8] Color was individual of the primary criteria that Sixtus IV used to evaluate Cosimo Rosselli's frescoe in the Sistine Chapel, and the reason he singled on the outside Rosselli for praise. [9] The nun at Monteluce also exhibited a relate to with coloristic appearance when they instructed Raphael to emulate not sole the composition of the altarpiece he had been hired to transcript but also its coloring. [10] Advisors hired through patrons to supply iconographic programs for artists sometimes took an interest in color as well; Charles Davis has noted that iconographic programs by the agency of Cosimo Bartoli describe several results of light and color that can be discerned in Vasari's frescoe in the Palazzo Almeni. [11] Further evidence of patrons' bear upon with color is provided by dint of Clement VII's criticism of Giovanni da Udine's frescoe in the fresh Sacristy and Clement VIII's advice to Barocci, one as well as the other mentioned above, as well as the interaction between the confraternity of s . Maria della Steccata and the various artists it engageed discussed more fully below.

The patron's part in the creation of works of art in Renaissance Italy has received a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of attention in recent decades. [12] While the nature and amplitude of the patron's influence varied tremendously from commission to commission, artists' contracts from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries glance at that it was not unusual for the patron to specify the bring under rule to be depicted and the amount of expensive materials to be used. In a certain quantity of cases, the patron took a more active part. In an addendum to their 1438 contract with Sassetta for an altarpiece, for example, the friars of s Francesco in Borgo S. Sepolcro specified which saints were to be showed where they were to stand, and plane how some of them were to be posed; [13] Domenico Ghirlandaio's 1485 contract for his frescoe at s Maria Novella stipulated that the landscapes were to be rich and replete of details, including figures, cities, castles, mountains, and a variety of birds and animals. [14]