Francesco Mazzaferro
Cennino Cennini, Alf Rolfsen
and the Art of Fresco in Twentieth Century Norway
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| Fig. 1) The Book of the Art in the Norwegian edition of 1942. The beautiful illustration in the cover page is by Terje Starnd |
“With the
possible exception of Mexico, no country has in recent times given its artists
such numerous and inspiring commissions in decorative arts [as Norway]. So
varied is the scope of art to-day, that in its short span of existence Modern
Norwegian mural painting has tackled practically every problem which has ever
arisen in the decoration of room. Even
the earliest frescoes range from the Mediaeval principles of the suppression of
depth to the Renaissance conquest of space.” So writes Jan Askeland in an essay
entitled “Norwegian painting. An introduction”, compiled for the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in 1954: in other words, a presentational essay to display the
best of Norwegian painting worldwide. [1]
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| Fig. 2) The oil paintings by Edvard Munch, integrated as murals in the architecture of the Aula of the Oslo University (1909 - 1916). On the background, The Sun; at the sides, Alma Mater on the right and The History on the left) |
Murals
become the national art. The first to use them is Edvard Munch (1863-1944),
with the oil paintings on panels covering the walls of the University Aula in
Oslo (at that time still called Christiania). One-two generations later, the
so-called ‘Fresco Brotherhood’ (freskobrødrene)
expands fresco and oil painting on wall as the genre of their time. The
brothers are mentioned hereafter in chronological order of their
birthdate: Henrik Sørensen (1882-1962),
Axel Revold (1887- 1962), Per Krohg (1889-1965), Alf Rolfsen (1895 –1979) and
Aage Storstein (1900-1983). It is not a
formalised group, and often only Krohg, Revold and Rolfsen are mentioned as
‘fresco brothers’. Between 1920 and 1950 years, hundreds of public buildings in
Norway (city halls, libraries, schools, universities, other public
institutions) host their frescos. Sigurd Willoch refers to Norwegian murals as
part of a ‘democratic’ mission, commissioned by public powers to make sure the
public at large would enjoy art in public spaces [2]; much later, in 2008, Roger
Jonsen refers to them as being in line with the ideology of socialdemocratic
Norway [3].
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| Fig. 3) Axel Revold, Technics, Science, Poetry, Fresco in the Oslo Public Library, 1932 |
The “Fresco Brotherhood” and architectonic painting
Jan
Askeland continues: “All the frescoes are executed as ‘architectural
paintings’, though this does not apply to Munch’s celebrated murals in the Oslo
University ‘Aula’, painted in oils during the first World War. Despite their
lack of architectural arrangement they nevertheless merge with the Classical
architecture of the room. They constitute not only the first entirely modern
example of monumental decoration in Norway, but are generally regarded as the
fore-runners of modern Norwegian mural painting.”
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| Fig. 4) Per Krohg, Grand Café Oslo, fresco, 1928 |
“The
fresco painters who followed Munch concentrated almost entirely on the problem
of subordinating their paintings to the architecture of the building they were
commissioned to decorate. In the words of one of the pioneers of this epoch
[note of the editor: whose name is not mentioned] ‘This type of painting has
been accused of being too reflective and studied, compared with the impulsive
emotional painting of the preceding generation, but its future lies precisely
in the fact that it is an essential adjunct of architecture, expressing a set
idea in every single case’. ”
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| Fig. 5) Per Krohg, Life in Oslo, Fresco in the Oslo City Hall (1940-1949) |
“Of his
first fresco painting, the decorations in the Bergen Exchange, Revold wrote that
the theme common to all the pictures was the beauty of the young, strong
worker. The entire series was intended as a well-balanced eulogy to daily work.
In these words Revold defined the programme which Norwegian monumental art was
to follow in the decades that lay ahead. In its subject matter the Norwegian
fresco is essentially a narrative art, depicting as a rule various aspects of
life in Northern Europe. The life and work of the fisherman, the sailor, the
factory-worker, and many others are presented by the artist, as a rule with an
epic treatment of their daily toil or as a hymn of praise to everyday life and
the love of adventure it inspires. Thus the individual fisherman, sailor or
worker is really a denominator, a representative type, of all Norway’s fishermen,
sailors and workers”. [4]
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| Fig. 6) Axel Revold, Mural in the Bergen Exchange, 1918-1923 |
Axel
Revold’s frescoes in the Bergen Exchange between 1918 and 1923 are the first
case in which a very old technique (fresco) is used under the direct influence
and to service of contemporary avant-garde art. The reaction, as Jan Landro
writes, is enthusiastic: “The art painter Alf Rolfsen did not spared
compliments. He writes: ‘The Exchange has reached a coloristic strength which you
have to go back to the 1400 figures artist of Piero della Francesca to find in
mural paintings’. His colleague Per Krogh is even stronger: "the best
mural since Giotto and Orcagna," and then we are back in the 1300s.” [5]
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| Fig. 7) Axel Revold, Mural in the Bergen Exchange, 1918-1923 |
Stylistically,
Krohg and Revold have been students of Henry Matisse in Paris, like several
other Norwegian and Scandinavian painters of their time (the Académie Matisse specialised in
Scandinavian and American students): “Students of Matisse had discovered –
writes Håkon Stenstadvold in “Norwegian paintings” – that the age-old problem
of depth and surface could be solved through color experimentation: they
learned that it is not necessary to reproduce nature’s colors to achieve form,
light, or depth, and that a modern painting could therefore be executed using
colors peculiar to Norwegian peasant art.” [6]
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| Fig. 8) Axel Revold, Mural in the Bergen Exchange, 1918-1923 |
Matisse
himself differentiates, in his correspondence with Alexander Romm, between “peinture architecturale” (architectural
painting) and “peinture de chevalet”
(easel painting), defines the former as “peinture
décorative faisant corps avec l’architecture” (decorative painting integrated
with architecture) (1933), speaks of the “fonction
architecturante de la peinture murale” (architectonically structuring function
of the mural), and states that “la
dimension publique de la peinture architecturale invite à croire à ‘la
possibilité d’un art en commun’ ("the public dimension of
architectural painting invites to believe in 'the possibility of a public art’)”
(1929). [7] In fact, Matisse obtained a commission for ‘architectonic painting’
only in the United States, with “The Dance II” at the Barnes Foundation of
Filadelfia in 1932. It was executed in the form of oil mural applied on canvas.
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| Fig. 9) Henri Matisse, The Dance II, 1932 |
It goes
without saying that the term ‘architectonic painting’ refers to aesthetic
issues which are common to many modernist movements of that time: the
combination of architecture and painting. It is sufficient to thing about
Cezanne and the cubists in France, the constructivists in Russia, and
metaphysical painting in Italy.
Alf Rolfsen between modernism and Renaissance art
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| Fig. 10) Alf Rolfsen, Planting the Tree of Life, Fresco in the Oslo Crematorium, 1933/1937 |
As member
of the “fresco brotherhood” Rolfsen specialises on the fresco technique, and –
differently for example from Henrik Sörensen, another painter who decorated
with murals the Oslo City Hall - does not produce mural based on oil. Besides,
Rolfsen has other specific features. First, also in his preferences among contemporary
artists, he has a strong attraction for a more classical style. The influence
for Cubism is evident since the early days of his academic studies in
Copenhagen in 1916, and is still shown in the fresco in the Telegraph building
in Oslo of 1922, his first large work (he is only 27 years old). In those years, however, his art turns to be
more influenced by classicism: or, better, as he said in 1920: "I think that
cubism is a transition to a new period, which will link himself to Renaissance".
[8] During his stay in France in 1919-1920, he is also not a scholar of
Matisse. The main reference is André Derain. As he himself explains: “I think
France has three great artists at the moment: Matisse, Picasso and Derain. (…)
Derain is the least extreme, and the artist I personally have learned the most
from.” [9] These are the years of the ‘retour à l'ordre’ in Paris and across
Europe.
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| Fig. 11) Alf Rolfsen, the fresco in the dispatch hall in Telegraph building in Oslo, 1922 |
Second,
he has an irresistible passion for Italian mural art, from Giotto to
Renaissance, which he integrates in Derain’s teaching, copying with the problem
of depth in the classical form of perspective. The young Rolfsen visits Italy
in 1920-1921, at the age of 25-26 years, after a multi-annual stay in France.
Third,
being a very cultivated painter (he comes from a family of literates; the
father is a famous novelist), he tends to put things on writing. Thus, back in
Norway, Rolfsen writes a programmatic article in 1923, entitled precisely “Arkitektonisk maleri” (architectonic
painting), in the architecture magazine Byggekunst.
The text is unfortunately not available on the net. What I understood from a
number of available sources is that it includes a contrast between Raffaello’s
frescos in the Vatican Rooms and on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, and sees in
them two different forms of dialogues between “painting and rooms” (samtale mellem billedet og rummet).
Rolfsen is influenced by the theories of the Danish art historian Vilhelm
Wanscher (1875–1961) concerning the formal analysis of Italian Renaissance
painting, and in particular a 1908 monograph exactly comparing the frescos of
Raffaello and Michelangelo in the Vatican [10].
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| Fig. 12) The catalogue for the retrospective exhibition in Oslo in 1995, in occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth |
Turning
again to architectonic painting, Rolfsen assigns a crucial art to the
architectural/structuralist element in Italian Renaissance art and sees a
vital element in abstract architecture (som
livgivende elementer i den abstrakte arkitektur). Having being partly educated as architect in Copenaghen, the theme of “architectonic painting” is very close to
his heart. Besides him, other modernist painters also discover during their
journeys to Italy the special liaison between Italian architecture and the
architectonic aspect in painting, and are inspired by it once they go back to
their countries. In the German speaking word, for example, similar tones can be
found in the (at that time not yet published) memoirs of Karl Hofer and Paul Klee.
It is impressive that the term “pictorial architecture” (Живописная
архитектоника) is used in those days in Russia by the constructivist female
painter Lyubov Popova (1889 –1924), famous for her interest in Italian
Renaissance painting.
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| Fig. 13) Lyubov Popova, Orange pictorial architecture, 1918 |
Moreover,
Rolfsen is at the same time a true cosmopolite and a modernist painter. He
meets the Mexican Diego Riveira (1886—1957) in Italy – more precisely in Assisi
– in 1921 (Riveira stays in Italy 18 months, between 1920 and 1921). It is the
common passion for Giotto which let them meet.
Jan Askeland, in the catalogue of the retrospective exhibition of 1995
for the 100 years of his birth [11], quotes a passage from Rolfsen
himself: “I had come from Rome, from
Raphael. He had come from up north, from Uccello, from Piero. He was bursting
with his new discoveries in Italian art, and by nature of his generosity, he
shared his knowledge with me in the course of a long night.” The same year, Rolfsen
signs his Manifiesto estridentista
[12], together with many other European intellectuals. Thus,
there are some common roots between the murals in Mexico, Norway and our
Renaissance.
Alf Rolfsen and Cennino Cennini
As already mentioned, among the
different techniques used within the ‘Fresco brotherhood’ for their murals,
Rolfsen opts for the Renaissance technique of fresco.
Thus, it is certainly not surprising that in 1942, in the midst of his preparations
for the frescos in the Oslo City Hall, Rolfsen signs the 3-page introduction of
the Norwegian translation of Cennino Cennini’s
Book of the Art, in Norwegian “Boka
om Kunsten” [13]. For the first time, the text of his introduction
(together with the note by the translator, Trygvve Norum) is published in
English in this post. The translation is by Alison Philip.
The
translator, Trygvve Norum, explains that “this Norwegian translation was made
on the initiative of a group of painters”, but unfortunately fails to explain
who they are. One of them is certainly Alf Rolfsen. Another one might perhaps
be the illustrator on the cover page, Terje Strand (1896-1966). The others
might well be some of the freskobrødrene,
the members of the ‘Fresco brotherhood’. Norum also thanks a Danish painter, Knud
Windfeld (1883-1966), who helped him in the translation: forgotten as a
painter, he is still known today for his studies on the chemistry of colours. To
my knowledge, he did not produce murals.
Turning
to Rolfsen’s short introduction, not by chance it terminates with the words
which Cennino writes, “in the name of the most Holy Trinity”, on painting on walls as “the most delightful and charming
kind of work that there can be.” This is the main element of
interest of Rolfsen for the Book of the Art: it
is one of the historical sources on the art of fresco.
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| Fig. 14) Alf Rolfsen, Oslo City Hall, St. Hallvard (patron of Oslo), 1950 (fresco) |
What are
the other reasons of interest of Rolfsen for Cennino’s “Libro dell’arte”? The Norwegian artist identifies three further
motives. First, Cennino is the symbol of a detailed technical knowledge of the
artist on colours. “This tradition has been broken. Colours are no longer
extracted by artists from the bosom of the earth. Those who now produce colours
may be more proficient, and the colours they produce may be better. But artists
have lost their intimate connection with the materials, the deep-seated
knowledge of their precious nature and of the demands this makes and the inspiration
it provides.” Second, the Book of the
Art may teach new techniques to contemporary painters too: “Cennino gives
precise instructions on painting with tempera and in fresco. These often seem
bizarre – I admit I was surprised to learn that the pigment used for retouching
young faces like that of the Virgin should be tempered with eggs from town
chickens, since these are more suitable for this purpose than the eggs of
country chickens. However, experience soon taught me that pallid egg yolks are
in fact better for retouching pale colours.” Finally,
the Book of the Art has a deep ethical meaning, and is not simply a recipe
books: “A humble but passionate love of his craft runs through Cennino’s work.
This ‘book of the art’ is not about art, it is about the noble profession that
demanded two six-year apprenticeships before it could be mastered, and that
once mastered filled the craftsman with the deepest delight and sense of
fulfilment.”
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| Fig. 15) Alf Rolfsen, The Spanish Dancer, 1919 |
Tryggve Norum, the translator
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| Fig. 16) Alf Rolfsen, Gruppo, 1931, oil on canvas |
About
Tryggve Norum we know that the text of Cennino Cennini was the first of a long
list of translations he produced of classics of literature, mainly from Italian
and French, but also from English and Swedish. After the Book of the Art, he did not abandon art literature, as he
translated in Norwegian the Life of
Benvenuto Cellini in 1947 and the Notebooks
of Leonardo in 1967. [14]
The note
of the translator explains: “In my own translation I have had access to
Thompson’s two works [note of the editor: in Italian (1932) and English (1933)]
and the works of Tambroni [in Italian, 1821], Ilg [in German, 1871] and
Herringham [in English, 1899].” Surprisingly, he quotes, but does not use for
his translation the version of Renzo Simi of 1913. The note also includes some
inaccuracy (for instance, he wrongly states that the Renoir letter is included
in the 1922 version only, and not in the original 1911 one by Henri Mottez).
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| Fig. 17) Alf Rolfsen, The great station, 1932, oil on canvas |
Nevertheless,
Professor Mogens Henckel still pays today sincere compliments to the
translator. “Of all the different editions and translations that exist, the
Norwegian (although it may not be the most accurate) is the best. Tryggve Norum
has done a fantastic job with the translation, and has chosen a language style
appropriate to the time the book is written in, unlike the English translations
that are more modern in the language.” [15] Indeed, in his note Norum explains:
“Cennino was a painter, not a writer. This is clear from his language and
rhetoric, which are often clumsy and awkward. I have tried to preserve this
aspect in my translation, except where doing so would make the text difficult
to understand.”
A few unanswered questions
on Norway in 1942
The translation
into Norwegian of Cennino’s Book of the
Art is published in a terrible year for the country, which had been
militarily occupied by the Third Reich in 1940. In 1942, the country is
governed by the fascist collaborationist government of Vidkun Quisling. In May,
an exhibition on “good” and “bad” art is organised in Oslo, with the title “Kunst og ukunst” (Art and Non-art) [16],
according to the same pattern as the 1937 Munich exhibition organised by
Himmler on so-called degenerate art (entartete
Kunst). In October 1942, the 800 Norwegian Jews are arrested and sent to
Nazi concentration camps by the Norwegian authorities. It is a unique case in
Scandinavia (in Denmark, under the protection of the King, almost all Jews
escape death). The term “Quisling” is adopted everywhere in free Europe as the
synonymous of collaborationism with Fascism and Nazism.
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| Fig. 18) Alf Rolfsen, Oslo City Hall, The occupation frieze, 1947-1949 |
Both Rolfsen's foreword and the translator note are exactly dated October 1942. The publication of the
Norwegian version of Cennino Cennini is therefore finalised in tragic times,
most probably with the Germans exercising – directly or indirectly, through
local authorities - censorship on everything printed. Alf Rolfsen’s short introduction
contains indeed a reference to Germany. He comments on the difference between
painters (and colours) in Cennino’s times and his days. He writes: “The image
of the young Cennino discovering the vein of ochre, much as the Norwegian
fairy-tale hero Askeladden came across an axe felling trees of its own accord,
has very different associations from those aroused by the words
‘Aktiegesellschaft Farbenindustrie’.”
The
sentence is based on the contrast/association between three different concepts.
First, Cennino is seen as a painter searching his pigments in nature; in fact,
he writes at length in his Book of the
Art that he was often around with his father at the search of natural pigments for colours, like for instance ochre.
Second, the hero of Norwegian popular tales Askeladden [17] (a sort of male
Cinderella with the same etymology (ashes), because he is forced to stay home
to guard fire: a youngster persecuted by difficulties who, at the very end,
always get rids of obstacles and wins where others fail) finds a magic tool (an
axe) which fells tree by itself, without the need for human fatigue. Third, the
German chemical giant IG Farben produced chemical colours, one of the largest
colour producers in the world at that time. It should be added here that IG
Farben was most deeply involved in the nazi regime (notoriously, it produced
the pesticide Zyklon B, used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz).
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| Fig. 19) Alf Rolfsen, Oslo City Hall, The occupation frieze, 1947-1949, detail |
What is
the meaning of the comparison between these three elements? We can formulate
three hypotheses.
The first
one is that there is no hidden meaning: the author wants simply to compare two
figures of the past (one real, Cennino, and the other produced by human
phantasy, Askeladden) with an important chemical corporation of his time, which
– by coincidence – is German. What prevails is simply the melancholic sense of
reminiscence for an intact past (good old times).
The
second interpretation is metaphoric. Exactly like the Norwegian hero Askeladden
always unexpectedly wins in all folk-tales, the Norwegian people – also
benefiting from the humility of Cennino – will finally prevail on the German
occupants. It must be recalled, after all, that Alf Rolfsen painted the
Occupation Freize in the central hall of the City Hall of Oslo, between 1947
and 1949, documenting the sufferance of the Norwegian people during the war.
[18]
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| Fig. 20) Alf Rolfsen, Oslo City Hall, The occupation frieze, 1947-1949, detail |
What may
be the authentic interpretation?
Available documentation shows these were indeed tragic, but also confusing
and peculiar, times. The catalogue of the 1942 Oslo exhibition on “Art and
Non-art” condemns the ‘perverse impact’ of Matisse on Norwegian national art,
but does not include any of the “freskobrødrene”
among the condemned painters. Even the expressionist Edvard Munch (who is
still alive and resident in the country) is not included in the prohibited art
(and some of his pictures – with a national flavour – are displayed as ‘good
example’ of art), contrary to what had happened in the 1937 Munich exhibition
of so-called degenerated art.
The
Norwegian biographic lexicon [19] explains that Alf Rolfsen wins the
competition to decorate the central hall of the Oslo City Hall in 1938, and
that he can start his work in 1943. The catalogue of the 1951 Paris exhibition
on Norwegian mural painting includes his sketches for the North wall of 1942, and
also shows that some of the other freskobrødrene (for instance, Aage Storstein) decorated the
Oslo City Hall in 1941, 1942 and 1943.
The
documentation on the German occupation, available on line, includes the
information that the illustrator of the cover page of the Boka om Kunsten, Terje Strand, is arrested by the Gestapo in 1941
[20]; however, in 1944 he can decorate the lexicon of Norwegian artists [21].
To be
finally noted, in December 1944, Rolfsen's son – who was fighting with the
Norwegian forces within the British Navy – lost his life when his ship was
mined by a German submarine.
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| Fig. 21) Alf Rolfsen, Oslo City Hall, The occupation frieze, 1947-1949, detail |
It
remains that Rolf Alfsen has not only been chosen – a few years after – to
documents the strains of the Norwegian occupation, but received several honours
and awards in the after-war time, probably a sign that he was not considered as
part of the collaborationist regime.
Conclusions
In the
1920-1950s a national school of mural painting develops in Norway, around the
‘fresco brotherhood’ (freskobrødrene);
the same happens in several other countries, for instance in Poland, with the
Brotherhood of St. Luke (Bractwo św.
Łukasza) and in Hungary, with the several groups of artists based in Gõdollö,
but also in France, with the Ateliers
d'art sacré promoted in those years by Maurice Denis, and in Germany, with
the Beuronese art. In different form – and with different equilibria between
old and new – all these experience mark an encounter between the monumentalism
of Italian fresco tradition (from Giotto to Renaissance) and the
experimentation of contemporary art (symbolism and secessionism;
postimpressionism and sincretism; cubism and fauvism).
What is
common to all above mentioned experiences is the interest for Cennino Cennini
and his Book of the Art, which is
translated in those years in all those languages (with printed editions
available to the large public, with the exception of Hungary, where the
translation as we know, happens clandestinely after the Soviet regime is
imposed on the country). For the complex vicissitudes of history, the
publication of the different linguistical version occurs in the most diverse
occurrences: in Norway during the years of the military occupation by and the
collaboration with the Nazis. A summary of the fortune of Cennino is offered in
a recent post of my brother Giovanni.
A
fundamental role in Cennino’s modern interpretation is played by some reference
painters, who are able to transform the lessons they draw from the reading of the
Book of the Art into new visual
experiences: Maurice Denis in France, Aladár Körösfói-Kriesch in Hungary, Jan Verkade
in Germany, Jan Zamoysky in Poland. In Norway, the role is played by Alf
Rolfsen, a very educated painter, with a passion for the architectonic aspect
of painting and for its translation into monumental frescos in public spaces.
Together with Per Krohg, Axel Revold and others, Rolfsen creates a national
painting which is characterised by a mural narrative to the public, making use of public services (in the same way in which the frescos in Italian churches
were a form of narrative addressed to churchgoers). We are in the labourist,
social-democratic Norway, a newly-born nation whose new cathedrals are
libraries and schools, city halls and stock exchanges, universities and
crematoriums. It is a country where the production of public goods is given the
highest rank. This is relevant in two respects: mural painting in public space is
seen as a public good by itself; mural paintings also aim – thematically – at
celebrating the provision of public goods to the community.
After the
1950s, this rich tradition – which had led Norwegian frescos across the world,
up to the meeting room of the Security Council of the United Nations, with a fresco by Per Krohg – seems
suddenly to run out. Perhaps it is because the world has changed: the true form
of communication to the large public becomes television. It is not anymore by
tracing messages in all available public walls that it is possible to
communicate and pass messages to society. The new powerful tool to foster a
common identity invades the privacy of the households, hypnotising them every evening.
* * *
INTRODUCTION BY ALF ROLFSE TO THE 1942 NORWEGIAN VERSION OF THE BOOK OF THE ART
(Translation by Alison Philip)
Cennino
Cennini worked for 12 years under Agnolo Gaddi, who had worked under his
father, Taddeo, who had worked under Giotto for 24 years. In The Craftsman’s Handbook he allows us to
participate in this workshop tradition.
Cennino
was a methodical man, and he begins right at the beginning, with the creation
of the world. He gives us to understand that after the Fall, one of man’s first
needs was to obtain materials with which to draw – take a kid parchment and
scrape it until it is transparent; this will give you tracing paper. Make a
style of two parts lead and one part tin, well beaten with a hammer. And he
teaches us about colours, how to pound lapis lazuli in a mortar and knead it
into a dough composed of resin, gum mastic and wax, and then use lye to draw
off the precious ultramarine. He tells about the day he was taken by his father
to the outskirts of the common woods of Colle, near Casole, above a villa
called Dometaria; there they dug in the earth and found veins of many colours,
ochre, light and dark sinopia, azure-blue and white.
This
tradition has been broken. Colours are no longer extracted by artists from the
bosom of the earth. Those who now produce colours may be more proficient, and
the colours they produce may be better. But artists have lost their intimate
connection with the materials, the deep-seated knowledge of their precious nature
and of the demands this makes and the inspiration it provides. The image of the
young Cennino discovering the vein of ochre, much as the Norwegian fairy-tale
hero Askeladden came across an axe felling trees of its own accord, has very
different associations from those aroused by the words ‘Aktiegesellschaft
Farbenindustrie’ [Note of the editor: a very large German industrial
conglomerate which produced chemical products, and especially colours].
Cennino
gives precise instructions on painting with tempera and in fresco. These often
seem bizarre – I admit I was surprised to learn that the pigment used for
retouching young faces like that of the Virgin should be tempered with eggs
from town chickens, since these are more suitable for this purpose than the eggs
of country chickens. However, experience soon taught me that pallid egg yolks
are in fact better for retouching pale colours.
Other
instructions are less appetising, such as the chapter where Cennino describes
how to make a mould of one’s own person and cast it in metal: you should make a
dough of wax and spread it on a board to a depth of half the length of an arm,
place the board on the ground and throw yourself forwards onto the wax, and
when it has set firmly, you should be carefully extracted from the wax; then
you should throw yourself backwards onto a fresh wax dough; and you should then
join the moulds together and fill them with molten lead. I have not tried this
myself, but one can only speculate as to the result.
A humble
but passionate love of his craft runs through Cennino’s work. This ‘book of the
art’ is not about art, it is about the noble profession that demanded two
six-year apprenticeships before it could be mastered, and that once mastered
filled the craftsman with the deepest delight and sense of fulfilment.
‘Delight’ is a word Cennino often uses. Delight and pleasure should fill the
man who practises the rare art of engraving on gilded glass, for this is so
difficult that the day before he wishes to work at such works, he should hold
his hand in his bosom, so that it should be unburdened of blood and weariness.
Delight fills the painter on panel, whose art is so skilful that it is the
proper employment of a gentleman; if you may wear velvet on your back you may
do as you please. And it is the craftsman’s delight in his craft that is
extolled in the famous 67th chapter on frescos: in the name of the most Holy
Trinity, I will now put you to painting on walls, which is the most delightful
and charming kind of work that there can be.
October
1942
Alf Rolfsen
Note by the translator Tryggve
Norum
Cennino Cennini and Il
Libro dell’ Arte
(Translation by Alison Philip)
Cennino
Cennini’s date of birth is not known, but if he was 12 years old when he began
an apprenticeship like that he describes in Chapter CIV, he would have been
about 24 on the death of his master, Agnolo Gaddi, in 1396. At any rate he had
completed his apprenticeship by this time. We also lack many other details of
his life. According to two documents Milanesi found in Padua, Cennino was
living there in 1398 in the street of San Pietro, he belonged to the household
of Duke Francesco di Carrara, he was married to Donna Ricca of Ricca in
Citadella, and his brother Matteo was born in Padua, where he was at the same
time a trumpeter for the Duke. None of Cennino’s paintings has survived, but
although he seems to have been a good painter, his most important contribution
to our art and cultural history is his treatise on the techniques of painting.
Certain details, such as the fact that Cennino addressed his prayers to St
Anthony of Padua, together with a number of words in the Paduan dialect in the
introduction, indicate that the book was written in Padua. The general belief
that Cennino ended his days in the poorhouse in Florence is based on the
inscription ‘ex stincharum’ at the end of the Medicea Laurenziana copy of the
manuscript. However, since these words are only found in this copy, it seems
reasonable to believe that it was the copyist who was in Stinche, the debtors’
prison in Florence.
The
original manuscript of Cennino’s treatise no longer appears to exist. At any
rate, its fate is unknown, but Vasari writes that in his time the manuscript
was owned by Giuliano, a goldsmith of Sienna. Nor do we know when Cennino wrote
his book. It could hardly have been written before the death of his master,
Agnolo Gaddi, in 1396, and the oldest known copy was made in 1437. This manuscript
is now in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, and is referred to in
the present Norwegian edition by the letter L. There is also another, much more
recent, copy in the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence, but this probably only
dates back to the 18th century. It is referred to here by the letter R.
Finally, the Vatican library has a copy of L.
Painting
in Renaissance Italy had its roots in Byzantine art, and Cennino presents us
with the experience of centuries, from the art of the ancient Greeks to that of
Giotto and Cennino’s contemporaries. The
Craftsman’s Handbook is part of a tradition dating back to Theophrastus,
the first Greek to discuss the techniques of art. The tradition was continued
by Vitruvius, under the Emperor Augustus, and by Pliny the Elder (AD 23–AD 79).
There are also a number of medieval manuscripts on the subject. But Cennino was
the first Renaissance figure to write about the art of painting. His work is
very different from that of his predecessors, and has a far wider scope than
the monks’ collections of recipes. The
Craftsman’s Handbook represents a school, and is written by an artist: thus
by a man who was able to put the lessons into practice. The book is also an
interesting document of cultural history; it shows the meticulous
craftsmanship, and the humility in the face of such a great task, that were
considered the primary requirements for a painter. These qualities of Cennino’s
treatise later made a strong impression on Renoir.
Cennino
was a painter, not a writer. This is clear from his language and rhetoric,
which are often clumsy and awkward. I have tried to preserve this aspect in my
translation, except where doing so would make the text difficult to understand.
There are
four Italian editions of Cennino’s treatise. The first was by Tambroni in 1821,
based on an 18th-century copy of L. The edition of 1859 by Carlo and Gaetano
Milanesi is based on both L and R. Renzo Simi’s 1913 edition is mainly based on
L. The most recent edition is that of the American Daniel V. Thompson Jr.,
which was published in 1932. Three translations were made from the Milanesi
edition of 1859: two into German, by Albert Ilg (Vienna 1871) and Willibrord
Verkade (Strasbourg 1916), and one into English, by Christiana J. Herringham
(London 1899). Previously the book had been translated into English by MrsMerrifield (London 1844) and into French by a pupil of Ingres, Victor Mottez
(Paris 1858). A new, complete translation was published by his son Henri Mottez
(Paris 1911), and reissued in 1922 with a preface by Renoir. Finally, Thompson
published an English translation based on his own Italian edition (New Haven
1936).
In my own
translation I have had access to Thompson’s two works and the works of
Tambroni, Ilg and Herringham.
This
Norwegian translation was made on the initiative of a group of painters. I
would especially like to thank Knud Windfeld for his useful advice and
information, and my wife for her help with the manuscript.
Oslo,
October 1942
Tryggve Norum
NOTE
[1] Askeland, Jan –
Norwegian Painting. An introduction, 1954, Oslo, The Royal Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, 80 pages. Quotation at page 56
[2] L’art mural norvégien. 1920-1950
Esquisses – Projets et cartons de fresques (The Norwegian wall art.
1920-1950 Sketches - Projects and fresco
cartoons). Exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Paris, April 1951
[4] Askeland, Jan –
Norwegian Painting (quoted), p. 58
[6] Norwegian Paintings.
With an introduction by Håkon Stenstasvold, 1951, Oslo, Dreyer Publishers, 120
pages. Quotation at page 9
[7] Alliez Éric and Bonne
Jean-Claude, Matisse en Amerique, in: Multitudes, 2005/1 (no 20), Pages 33 – 45.
See also: http://www.cairn.info/zen.php?ID_ARTICLE=MULT_020_0033 Matisse, Henri - Matisse on art, edited by
Jack Flam, 1995, University of California Press, See also: https://books.google.de/books?id=xm-4k5Xs9DcC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=architectural+painting+Matisse&source=bl&ots=xhK0zJld8i&sig=aYbmTaJUJkBv5SFsRKZWP4cM550&hl=it&sa=X&ei=qv0wVfmrHIf7auDmgLAK&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=architectural%20painting%20Matisse&f=false
[9] Alf Rolfsen 100 År Jubileum (100
years anniversary), Exhibition at the Kunstnerforbundet, 22 June – 13 August
1995
[10] Wanscher, Vilhelm - Rafael
og Michelangelo: Deres Arbejder i Vatikanet og det sixtinske Kapel beskrevne, Aarhus,
Kbh. og Christ, 1908
[11] Alf Rolfsen 100 År Jubileum
(quoted).
[13] Cennini, Cennino –
Boka om Kunsten. Il libro dell’arte. Norwegian version with foreword and notes
by Tryggve Norum. Introduction by Alf Rolfsen, 1948, Oslo, Publication by Johan
Grundt Tanum, 177 pages
[14] Among modern Italian authors, he
translated Vittorini, Moravia, Pavese, Arpino and the entire Don Camillo series
by Guareschi.
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