Francesco Mazzaferro
Jan Verkade, Cennino Cennini and the Quest for Spiritual Art in the Mid of World War I
Part One
[Original version April 2014 - new version April 2019]
Part One
[Original version April 2014 - new version April 2019]
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| Fig. 1) Cennino's second translation in German by Jan (Father Willibrord) Verkade (1916) |
TEN THINGS WE LEARNED ON JAN VERKADE - AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
First, in his preface to the (second) German translation of the Book of the Art by Cennino Cennini, Jan Verkade (alias the Benedictine Father Willibrord Verkade) wrote that “the newest direction of painting will be a spiritualist one”. This is a research on Verkade’s quest for spiritual art, across countries, languages and art schools. Cennino’s translation was a stage in this search.
Second, Jan Verkade published his translation in Strasburg (at that time, a part of Germany) in the midst of World War I. His intention was to offer to contemporary painters the possibility to have direct access to the art technique know-how of the late Giotto school. Of course, he expected that his work would have helped strengthening the interest of his contemporaries for the use of colours (tempera) and those techniques (in particular, frescos) which - as from the end of the nineteenth century - had captured the interest of religiously motivated painters. The translation was finished in 1914, the book appeared in 1916. While the translation of the late mediaeval treatise was in German, the main cultural background of Verkade’s interest for Cennino ultimately went back to his acquaintance with France (Germany’s main military enemy during that conflict).
Third,
the aesthetic roots of Jan Verkade were in the
resolute anti-naturalist and anti-positivist reaction of French literature and
art in the last decades of the nineteenth century (Baudelaire, Verlaine). Some
of the constitutive myths of the symbolist movement accompanied all phase of
his diverse art production.
Fourth,
the French (1911) and German (1914-1916)
translations of Cennino Cennini were indirectly linked via the interest which catholic
circles in both countries had to understand mediaeval art techniques, mainly
through the artist and art and music critic Maurice Denis. Unfortunately,
there is evidence that the war broke those links between Verkade and France,
which had existed since 1891, when Verkade became member of the Nabis art group and made his
acquaintance with Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis, the theoretical core of the Nabis movement. The three formed a trio
sharing interest in art and religion, with a common disdain (against naturalism)
and a common passion (for symbolism).
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| Fig. 2) Cennino's second translation in French by Henri Mottez in 1911 |
Fifth, there is a line of continuity between Verkade’s admiration for Paul Gaugain, of whom he was a disciple (1891), his participation in the Nabis art circles in Paris and Brittany (1982), his belonging to the Beuronese art school (after his decision in 1894 to enter the monastic order of the Benedictines in Beuron, Germany) and his translation of Cennino Cennini’s treatise. Verkade interpreted Cennino as a precursor of several aspects of synthetist and symbolist painting: the treatment of colours, the simplification of the composition, the interest for frescos.
Sixth, Jan Verkade signed the translation of the Book of the Art (see
front page of 1916 edition) as a representative of the Beuronese art, the art
movement founded by Peter Lenz (alias Pater Desiderius Lenz) in the late 1860s.
This movement lasted until the 1930s, and aimed at a comprehensive renewal of sacred
art in Europe. Originating from Benedective monasteries in Germany, it
attracted great attention in those decades (including from the future Pope Paul
VI, who wrote an article on it in 1929), as it tried to create a link between
symbolism, old Egyptian and Greek art, normative use of canons and proportion,
and spiritualism. It was an attempt to distill a synthesis between modern art
and tradition, keeping pace with contemporary aesthetic but trying to find a
new spiritual equilibrium, with some aspects common to art abstraction
(aesthetic geometry; canon for proportions of human representations). The
Beuronese art, in aesthetic terms, tried to establish a collective style, where
common and typical aspects would have had prominence on any individualistic features.
Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis accompanied this movement in France,
translating reference texts.
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| Fig. 3) Maurice Denis. Theories 1890 - 1910 du symbolisme et de Gauguin vers un nouvelle ordre classique |
Seventh, Jan Verkade was the ambassador of Beuronese art across Europe, and the one who established personal links with several artists and art movements outside the monasteries. His memories (covering his life from his youth until World War I) were a bestseller of their time, and were translated in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech and Polish. Verkade did not have only intense relations with Sérusier and Denis, but also with the Vienna and Prague Secession, the member of “The Blue Rider” Jawlensky, the editor of “Leonardo” Giuseppe Prezzolini, and many others. It should also not be underestimated that the Beuron monastery was not only a religious centre, but also a cultural centre (with a 400,000 volume library established in the 1920s) which hosted – under the lead of the Archi-Abbot Raphael Walzer – some of the most important representatives of Catholic resistance to Nazism in the 1930s (among them, Edith Stein, who was killed in Auschwitz and has been proclaimed Saint and one of the six patrons of Europe).
Eight, the interest for Cennino Cennini in the French culture dated back
to mid-1800, mainly as an import from Ruskin’s admiration for gothic revival.
While in Britain this stream of thinking was linked to the idea of social
progress, in France it turned to become a feature of most conservative catholic
culture. Cennino captured the hearts of that part of the French cultural élite
which regretted the French revolution, was horrified by the Paris Comune, fostered the plot against
Dreyfus, contributed to the nationalist and ultimately filo-fascist Action Française
(condemned by the Pope) and wanted political and cultural conservation, at any
price. Ultimately, Cennino Cennini became in France a cultural reference for
artists (like Auguste Renoir) who were substantial unconvinced about any
possibility to recover the greatness of past mediaeval art, after the centuries
of cultural corruption inaugurated by Renaissance. An anti-rationalist and
anti-illuministic hero. It was Maurice Denis who was at the origin of the new
version of Cennino in France in 1911, convinced Renoir to write an anti-modernist
programmatic text as preface to it and published it in the publishing house
(“The Occident”) of which he was the art critic.
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| Fig. 4) L’Action française (1912), Organe du Nationalism Integral |
Ninth, Maurice Denis – at the very centre of the network of contacts
between the French and the German versions of Cennino – oscillated between the
forward-looking attempts to renew spiritualism and the backwards attempts to
re-establish tradition. In art, he defined the Nabis culture as ‘neo-traditionalism’ and interpreted the line
Gauguin, van Gogh and Cezanne as a new form of classicism. With his “Workshops
of sacred art” established in 1919, he tried to create – in vain - a new
generation of French spiritual Christian artists. Other groups of artists and
art critics (the group ‘Haute Claire’ and the review “L’indépendence” also made
reference to Cennino Cennini as original aesthetic symbol of pure art, but
their interpretation was more radical (in terms of nationalism and
conservatism) and ended up to support and legitimate early French fascist
movements, much ahead of the Vichy experience.
Tenth, a comprehensive reading of the role which Cennino Cennini played in conservative Catholicism – as an ‘original myth’ for the spiritualist art streams across the nineteenth and the twentieth century – is therefore possible. Why did this attempt to renovate art in the sense of religion and mediaeval techniques fail? In a certain sense, it was defeated by history, by crisis, by war, (after World War I erupted, Verkade did not paint for several years), and by the abyss in which the human kind fell. Jan Verkade debuted in an art circle (the Nabis) which had adopted the Hebrew name for ‘prophets’. He passed away in 1946, which implies that his dream of a spiritual art was most probably crashed by the discovery of the shoah.
Common roots in a time of war
The second translation into German of
Cennino Cennini’s Book of the Art by the Dutch painter Jan Verkade (1868 – 1946)
came to light in the mid of World War I. Verkade signed it as Benedictine
Father Willibrord Verkade. The title page includes a reference to Verkade’s
belonging to the Beuronese Art School. While the translation had been finished
in 1914, the preface is dated October 1915 and the book was published in
Strasbourg, (at that time, still part of Wilhelm II’s Germany) in 1916. In the
midst of World War I.
Only a few years before, a French painter,
Henri Mottez (1858-1937), had published the second French version of Cennino’s
treatise (1911). This had occurred thanks to the encouragement and support by a
colleague of him, Maurice Denis (1870-1943). It was the revision of the first French version, performed by Victor Mottez (1809-1897), Henri’s father, in 1858.
Maurice Denis, a painter and critic of art in “L’Occident”, a conservative catholic journal, also advised Auguste
Renoir (1841-1919) to draft the introduction - in the form of a public
supporting letter, addressed to Henri Mottez - and made sure the book would be
published in 1911 in the Biblioteque de
l’Occident series (see: Helbert). According to d'Ayala Valva, Denis’ role in
the translation of Cennino Cennini’s book might have been even more important
than a simple adviser.
The common root of the two translations (French, 1911, by Henri Mottez; German, 1914-1916, by Jan Verkade) lies in the intense exposure of Jan Verkade to the French culture. In 1891, at the age of 23, Verkade had spent some crucial months in Paris and Bretagne, making acquaintance with Paul Gauguin and becoming part of the artist symbolist group Nabis, including Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul Ranson, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Paul Sérusier, and Édouard Vuillard, at that time all very young.
In the pages below, the focus is on the relationship between Jan Verkade and the two Nabis members with the strongest interest in aesthetics and theory of art: Paul Sérusier, who had been the closest disciple of Gaugain and introduced Jan to the group, and Maurice Denis, who put into writing the main theories of the group. Many factors are common to the three: the attention to art theory and the writing of books on art, for common interest for religion and spirituality and – in stylistic terms – the similar use of colours. All these aspects will be treated below. There is evidence of an intense interaction from 1898 to 1913.
It is most probably Maurice Denis who brought Cennino Cennini to the knowledge of Jan Verkade. According to Robert L. Herbert, Denis had read Cennino already in 1902. Already at 20 years – as Verkade wrote in the first volume of his memories, entitled “Yesterdays of an artist-monk” and owned by this library in the German version “Die Unruhe zu Gott” (1920) – Denis had a strong interest in art theory, philosophy and Catholicism. Verkade spoke of him as “a true friend” with a “serious, deep interest in religion”. He admired his broad interest in philosophy of art and politics. Of him Verkade said: “Maurice Denis has made of me a French man”.
Contacts between Verkade and Denis remained intense also after Verkade entered in the Benedictine order in the German monastery of Beuron in 1902. Denis visited him in Beuron several times, and they also met in Montecassino and Paris (accompanied by Paul Sérusier). They also maintained an intense correspondence.
It was also not only a one-way direction of influence, by which Germany imported French art. The Munich born Peter Lenz, later Father Desiderius Lenz (1832-1928) described the symbolism-based aesthetic of the Beuronese Art School with a writing of 1898, entitled “Zur Ästhetik der Beuroner Schule” (owned by this library in the English version ‘The aesthetics of Beuron and other writings’). In 1905, the text was translated into French by Paul Sérusier, with an introduction of Maurice Denis, in the Bibliotheque de l’Occident. This was the same series of the translation of Cennino by Henri Mottez in 1911.
In an age when Germany and France were at war, many common cultural roots linked therefore the two countries. Let us list them. First, as mentioned above, both Verkade as well Denis had been members of the artist group of the Nabis, and had been both disciples of Paul Gaugain. Second, they were both convinced of the central role of symbolism, synthetism, spiritualism and religion in art. Third, they were both integral members of what Renoir called, in his letter prefacing Mottez’s translation, the “catholic culture”. Fourth, they also shared an interest for common art technique, with common passions for themes like colours and frescos.
Moreover, the shared roots between France and Germany dated back to the earlier generations. Victor Mottez (Henri’s father and – as already mentioned – the first translator of Cennino in French in 1858) was strongly influenced by the Nazarenes. He had learned the fresco technique from Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789- 1869) and had worked together with Peter Cornelius (1783-1867) at Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois (d’Ayala Valva). The same Nazarene painters played a role in Peter Lenz’s artistic formation. Cornelius provided him with a scholarship to pay a visit to Rome, where he met with Overbeck. While Lenz did not eventually follow the Nazarene style, he was certainly influenced by their techniques and mystics.
These observations show that the two German and French translations had a common (or at least a similar) cultural background. Unfortunately – notwithstanding the long friendship, the common religious ardour and the similarity of views on art - commonalities and similarities were not sufficient to compensate and overcome the rifts between the two cultures at war.
On 25 November 1916, Maurice Denis wrote an article for Le Correspondant on “The present and future of French painting”, to discuss how to eliminate any residual German influence on French art (see: Denis, 1922). Even more: in the article, he extensively explained that he had never been subject to any German influence and clarifies that – in the case of his frequent contacts with the Beuron monastery, located in Germany- he had only gained very general views on modern art (p.26).
Even Jan Verkade, the artist-monk, in his second book of memories, “In quest of beauty” (owned by this library in the 1930 original German version entitled “Der Antrieb ins Vollkomene”) wrote about “the courage and the competence of the German army”, thanks to which the Beuron monastery had not been touched by war. It is known that Verkade did not paint anymore between 1915 and 1924, possibly a consequence of the war shock.
A third volume by Verkade (“Spuren des Daseins” – Traces of existence) was terminated in 1935, two years after Hitler had taken the power in Germany, and published in 1938. It was not the third part of his memories, but more a compilation of aphorisms, with few mentions of art, like if Verkade had withdrawn from the world. In any case, there is no reference anymore to Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier, with whom he had written – in 1920 – to form the ‘catholic trio’ of painting. Also Verkade’s correspondence with Sérusier, published by the latter in the book “ABC de la peinture”, terminated with a letter dated 1913.
I sincerely hope that contacts continued, among these three friends who had been so active in sharing common ideas about art and religion, but unfortunately I did not find any trace of it.
Common Themes on Cennino Cennini's Book of the Art
In his Preface Verkade wrote: “if one asked me, what is the benefit of this writing [the Book of the Art], it consists mainly in a better understanding of that art – which today has become again so dear to us – whose heroes are Giotto, the Memmis, Lorenzetti and Orcagna. Through Cennini’s treatise – seemingly so dry, - the same lovely spirit waves which is touching us in the work of those masters. It is the spirit of reverence and piety, of love and enthusiasm, which - naïve, but staunch in faith – tries to shape clear mirror pictures of its almost unrecognised strength and delicacy. The book brings closer to us that spirit, which does not belong anymore to our times”.
He added: “The new direction of painting will be a spiritual one. Painting has been however supported so far by techniques of the age of pure realism. May perhaps Trecento painters and the teacher on their painting methods [note of the editor: Cennino Cennini] help to develop better fitting methods of expression? ”.
In those years, Maurice Denis would have agreed with the reference to spiritualism as main direction of modern art. In a 1919 speech entitled “The new directions of Christian art”, he took the view: “If there is anything characteristic and certain in the general evolution of art since 50 years is that it striving more and more to escape naturalism – in the literal sense of reality – to orient itself towards spiritual sense, towards synthesis, towards decorative expression.”
Renoir’s reasoning was not very dissimilar. However, he did not refer to spiritualism, and even doubts it would be ever possible to recover the state of mind of the old masters. While praising Cennino’s work in the introductory letter to Mottez’s translation, he dwelled on the causes of decadence of painting in his age, and identified three of them. First, the loss of religious feeling (the past splendour of the culture catholique was at the basis of the blossoming of arts), replaced by rationalism and technology (at the time of Cennini artists decorated temples; today they decorate railway stations); second, the emancipation of the artist from shared traditions, which had previously preserved the ultimate cultural basis for the production of collective art works (i.e. cathedrals); and third, the specialisation of labour and labour division in industrial production, which had greatly reduced the role of crafts in material creation, replacing creative manual work with alienated mass production.
For Renoir, the reading of Cennino in the
early 1890s was one of the reasons confirming and even reinforcing his
anti-modernist attitude in the last phase of his painting (together with the
previous journeys through Italy in 1881-1882 and the discovery of classicism in
Venice). This phase of Renoir’s art production was already at that time subject
to severe criticism.
The writer Camille Mauclair (1872-1945)
told us in his Servitude et Grandeur
littéraires of 1922 that he had visited the old Renoir in Cagnes, where he was living as from 1889 until his death in 1919. “Since long time, this master – who
had previously signed the most gentle masterpieces of a well-adjusted
sensuality – was not producing anything more but overweight naked women,
deformed by elephantiasis, smeared in red-violet, carrying enormous bodies with
small heads on the top, with mouths à la
femme fatale, flat noses, stupid eyes; those
paintings are however sold at very high prices and appreciated for human
respect.(…) I found that suffering old man fully mesmerised by a reading, of
which he spoke with a naive and touching enthusiasm. ‘An Italian of the XIV
century. It is astonishing what those people knew. Today, people do not know
anything more. I am learning things here on which I had doubts. … I know what I
still miss, I cannot believe it. … I just borrowed it’. Very moved from this
modesty, I looked at the book. It was the small treatise on painting of the
good and mediocre Cennino Cennini”. Unfortunately, Mauclair does not inform us
precisely on the year of that meeting.
If the late phase of Renoir’s painting was
criticised by Mauclair, it encountered to the contrary the unconditioned
support of the art critic Denis, as a sign of the possibility to combine “synthesis
and tradition”. Already in the 1890s, Denis spoke of “The definition of Néo-traditionisme”; in 1910, he wrote an article
entitled “From Gauguin and Van Gogh to
Classicism”. Gaugain’s last years, together with Cezanne’s art production,
were considered by Denis as the climax of art.
In any case, the admiration for Cennino in
Renoir’s letter was explicit: “Cennini’s treatise is not only a technical
manual; it is also a history book which does not speaks to us about battles or
court intrigue, but which initiates us to the life of these élite workers. It
is thanks to them that Italy, like Greece and France, has achieved the purest
glory. If they did not always make fortune or left their names to history, they
have enriched their mother countries of an invaluable treasury. And they have
created the features by which we recognise their countries from the others. One
has to insist on it. It is the ensemble of art pieces left by numerous artists
– forgotten or unknown – which makes the grandeur
of a country – and not the original masterpiece of a genius. The latter,
isolated among his contemporaries, cannot – most frequently – be boxed within
any borders or at any time: he overcomes them. The former ones – to the
contrary – personify at the same time their era and their territory, almost
their soil. Having said that (and without underestimating the glory which binds
artists like Rafeal, Titian, Ingres or Corot to their times), it would not make
any sense – isn’t? – to pretend writing a treatise on painting for such
exceptional human beings. Those to which the Italian master addressed himself
were not all geniuses, but always remained wonderful workers. Indeed, to build
up good craftsmen is the unique goal which Cennino proposed himself“.
Cennino Book of the Art had been already translated in German by Albert Ilg in 1871. What are the reasons why Jan
Verkade felt necessary to produce a new German version in 1914-1916? The pages
below will consider two sets of reasons: (i) the technical-practical reasons, linked
to the interest for art techniques, and in particular colour and frescos; and (ii)
the role of Verkade’s beliefs from an aesthetic point of view, linked to his
acquaintance with Gaugain, his participation in two art movements (the Nabis in
France and the Beuronese art school in Germany) and the role of conservative
Catholicism in art.
The technical-practical reasons of the new German version
Many factors indicate that Verkade’s
primary goal was linked to technical and practical reasons, as mentioned by the
translator himself. The translation is a gift by a painter for the painters. It
is a technical-pratical purpose which Jan Verkade shared with several other
translators of his time (d'Ayala Valva).
However, also in absence of any specific
practical reasons, Verkade would have been probably tempted to replace Ilg’s version
with his own one, simply to offer a more modern German language to the readers.
All previous pages have also made abundantly evident that both the cultural
environment as well the aesthetic beliefs of Verkade were profoundly different
from those of the first German translator of Cennino Cennini. The young Ilg (his
work was completed at 24 years) would have challenged many of the above
statements by Verkade, Denis and Renoir on art in general, but also on Cennino
in particular. Moreover, Verkade’s views on Cennino also diverged from any of
the diverse other opinions on Cennino by members of the Vienna School of
History of Art, like Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg or Julius von Schlosser.
In the second volume of his memories, Verkade
told us about an episode in 1900, when he was already active in Beuron: “I took
part in the painting of the entrance of our church. At that time, I tried to paint
with fresco technique following exactly the prescriptions of Cennino Cennini,
an indirect disciple of Giotto, whose famous Booklet (Büchlein) entitled Il Libro
della Pittura I had studies (and I would later on translate). I came
however to the conclusion that in our region it is better no to mix any calcium
line to the colours, because the colour shades – once the plastered has dried –
hardly become lighter and it gets possible to obtain a deeper colour scale,
which is better fitting with our Northern landscape. (…)” (Verkade, 1931). In
other words: Verkade had tried to experiment already at an early stage of his
career the techniques of the Book of the Art and had been confronted with
technical difficulties: hence, perhaps, the desire to clarify some technical
problems through a new translation of the Book.
The choice of the title, with the reference
to the term “Büchlein”, the small
book, or the booklet (perhaps, today one would speak of a pocket book) also reveals
the intention to avoid any reference to a proper book and even more to a
treatise. Interestingly, in his memories Verkade used the term “Büchlein” also to
define his own catechism: a small book with a clear practical doctrine
orientation. The term is in any case a unique choice among Cennino’s
translators. It should be however mentioned that the term was – most probably
–a term which could be used as a synonymous for book (differently from today’s
German): Julius Schlosser uses it 37 times in his Kunstliteratur of 1924.
It has been already mentioned that the
front page includes a reference to Jan Verkade’s belonging to the Beuronese Art
School, another sign of his intention to present himself as a painter. This is
also his first statement in the Preface: “The following translation is not a
strictly scientific work, and does not want to be one, as the translator is a
practicing painter, but not a scholar (…) I have considered first of all the
needs of the artists, and therefore added to the book a few aesthetic
orientations and technical painting prescriptions” (p.v).
In a dry and at times even pedantic book,
like the treatise of Cennino, consisting of more than 100 pages of recipes and
prescriptions applicable to mediaeval times, it is crucial to identify
selection criteria and offer them to the reader. While Ilg’s preface contained
an upfront reference to those (very few) chapters which contained statements of
general reference on art (and on which a reader interested in history of art
should therefore focus its attention), Verkade explains that he has put into
evidence - by using a different and more readable font - those passages which
appear important for the purposes of a contemporaneous artist. This ensures –
says the translator – to avoid that an impatient colleague would miss the most important
passages, before setting the book aside. And also avoids that a painter would
lose time, by testing all procedures, including those which are today not any more
relevant in technical terms.
This is therefore the main difference
between Albert Ilg and Jan Verkade. The first one aimed at assessing Cennino in
his past historic and cultural context (Gesammtgeist),
while for the second Cennino was a book written for contemporaries, to validate
technical aspects of painting which are still relevant.
From Verkade’s point of view two technical aspects
treated by Cennino were still relevant: the art of producing colours and the art
of producing frescos. The two aspects are intertwined.
Synthetist colour: Gauguin, Sérusier, Verkade e Denis
Let us give the floor to Verkade himself,
commenting the use of colours in Cennino’s Book of the Art (pag. 76, footnote
1. A number of key footnotes in the translation are crucial to understand
Verkade’s stance on arts in 1914-1916):
“When Michelangelo painted the Cappella
Sistina, he renounced to make use of the splendid use of colour of a Titian and
of the much easier technique of oil colours, to go back to the much elder
technique of fresco and the more laborious dotting technique, which is the most
reasonable and pays most, if you paint with watercolours. Cennini speaks always
about the art of “colorire”, in contrast to drawing, and this expression is
highly appropriate. The works from Giotto’s school until Angelico are indeed coloured
drawings, no painting in the sense of Rubens or Velazquez. And rightly so,
because they are almost completely religious (and therefore monumental) works.
They want to serve, not to be a goal by themselves, and therefore they are
simple and plain, as it is appropriate for somebody serving. They serve however
the Highest, and here applies wonderfully the truth of the say “Like the Lord
so the servant”. In the moderation on the use of their means of expression, the
painters of Giotto’s school are luminous instances for the concentration of
power. An example: they do not let themselves in the chromatism of colours, in reflex
effects and in tonal value contrasts in the modern meaning. And however they
are able to provide in the easiest way a full richness in the appearance of their
works, which correspond to nature: through the rich gradation of tones, from
pure colour to white. Every form has a telling colour, not ten ones or even
more, and therefore it has a great effect.”
A few years later, in 1920, Verkade wrote
in his memories: „Gaugain searched for what obeys rules in the art of all times
and taught his disciples – who considered that the generation of the open air
painters and the pointillistes had to be dismissed – to appreciate and
understand the old masters. He brought the composition of the painting again to
its right and learned from Goethe that the artist can show his strength only in
the limitation of the means. Thus he permitted to his disciples at the
beginning to make use only of 5 to 6 colours: Prussian blue, rose madder,
vermilion, chrome yellow or cadmium, yellow ochre and white. (Verkade, 1920, p.
64)
In sum, Cennino’s concept of ‘colorire’ (mentioned
in the 1914-1961 translation) was seen as a prototype of Gaugain’s ‘colourism’
(mentioned in the 1920 memories).
Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff identified Paul
Gaugain and his followers Paul Sérusier, Jan Verkade and Maurice Denis as the
four representative of a specific colour practice which she calls “synthetist
colour practice”, based upon the tertiary combination of yellow, violet, blue,
red, green, orange (with a tertiary combination, like if it were tones combined
in music accords). For instance, Gauguin refers to the ‘mysterious’ tertiary
close-tones and subtle resonances of bluish-greens, purplish-reds and
orange-yellows. Tertiary combinations are used to enhance the power of the
colour and the expressive force in painting to the extreme. The key words for “synthetist
colours”, writes von Bonsdorff, “are supernatural, vision, dynamism, primitive,
emotion, sensation and dream image”. The colour range becomes the key
expressive force in painting.
The reference to musical categories has its
own basis in the concept of ‘global art’, typical of symbolism. Maurice Denis
was also a music critic, and several works have been written on his musical
aesthetics. He was close, among others, to Albéniz, Fauré, Koechlin, Debussy
and Ravel. He promoted ancient and religious music.
In musical terms, I feel however that the most
relevant reference (more than the symbolism of Debussy) is the work of Olivier
Messiaen (1908-1992), an incredibly talented musician with a strong interest in
religion and mysticism. I own a book by Andrew Shenton entitled “Messiaen the
theologician”. Messiaen entered the conservatory at 11 and became organist at
the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris in 1931, a post held until his death.
He combined serialism and colourism, without losing harmony. Maurice Denis
inspired him for his opera “San Francis of Assisi”. Messiaen remains one of the
most fascinating musicians of the XX century. He theorised the combination of
music and colours. I would recommend anybody who did not do it yet, to listen
at least once in the life to the Vingt
Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus (20 Contemplations of the Infant Jesus) or his
rich music inspired to birdsongs.
The spiritual strenght of frescos
Again from Verkade’s memories: “At the beginning
of the 1890s a battle cry passed from a painting studio to the other: ‘Get rid
of the easel painting; away with this useless furniture. Painting is again due to
pay service to global art, not to be an end in itself. The work of the painter
begins where the architect considers his own work finished. Therefore walls
here, so we paint! Way with the perspective! The wall must remain a surface,
not be broken by the appearance of endless horizons. There are not paintings,
only decorations. This somehow hasty program, which benefited more arts and
crafts than painting, seemed to have served as a directive to the Italian primitives,
who were therefore the focus of the artists’ interests at that time”. (Verkade,
1920, p, 80).
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| Fig. 5) Gabriel-Albert Aurier (1865-1892) |
In this article - von Bonsdorff writes – Aurier summarised the characteristic criteria “for the new (…) symbolist art which, he claimed, was essentially subjective, synthetic, symbolist and ideist. (…) It is important to stress how strongly Aurier considered symbolist art to be linked to the decorative aspect. Admiration for ancient and primitive frescoes was an essential link. The mysterious archaic and Early Renaissance art was the ideal model for the complexity of symbolist art. The possibilities of pictorial narrative, combining word, image and history, or imagined history, found its true means of expression in the decorative mural art of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, calling it l’art célébral pur. (…)
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| Fig. 6) Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) |
Aurier, writes Von Bonsdorff again19, was in the tradition inaugurated by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), who, in Le Peintre de la vie modern (1863) “comments strongly on archaic art as a powerful style which should be admired. Baudelaire, moreover, accepted – indeed recommended – that drawing departs from the perspectival approach to Nature developed since the Early Renaissance by naturalistically-inclined artists so as to accentuate its elements of musicality. He specifically advocated a return to the expressive power and harmonious effects achieved by archaic artists through abridgment and deformation.”
The tradition of fresco had been kept alive in France also by the disciples of Ingres, and above all by Victor Mottez, the already mentioned author of the first translation of Cennino in 1858, and father of Henri Mottez. Literally, almost all Mottez’s frescos succumbed to weather conditions, poor maintenance and possible art technique failures. The pictures of the frescos from Saint Martin in Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois and from Saint Sulpice in Paris are scanned from a 1910 monograph by the French artist Abel Fabre (1846-1922) on Christian art.
It will be Maurice Denis – in his late
phase - to develop most the theme of the fresco, both in practice as well as in
theory. Interestingly, at that time he will have abandoned is strong rejection
of naturalism, at the search of a median solution between modern art and
classicism. The new art – represented by Cezanne - will not reproduce the nature, but it will represent it. In the already quoted article
entitled ‘The present and future of French painting’ published in 1916 (the
same year as Jan Verkade’s translation of Cennino) he saw the fresco as a
technique which would permit the return of tradition, of common sense against
deformation (the same ‘deformation’ which Baudélaire supported in the 1860s and
which was central to the ‘synthetist’ art), and of poetry in painting. The
fresco becomes the ‘weapon’ of decorative painting against futurism,
expressionism, cubism and other avant-garde art movements.
It goes without saying that murals will be at the very core of the Buronese art, on which more will be said below. Verkade himself, in a letter to Maurice Denis of 1906, writes: “As far as the walls are concerned, I have been all in all the most faithful to the programme we had” (Kehrbaum).
BIBLIOGRAPHY IS AT THE END OF PART TWO
GO TO PART TWO
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