Alexander Auf der Heyde, [For the "Future of Art in Italy": Pietro Selvatico and the Aesthetics Applied to the Drawing Arts in the XIX Century]

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Alexander Auf der Heyde
Per l’«avvenire dell’arte in Italia»:
Pietro Selvatico e l’estetica applicata alle arti del disegno nel secolo XIX
[For the "Future of Art in Italy": Pietro Selvatico and the Aesthetics Applied to the Drawing Arts in the XIX Century]

Pisa, Pacini Publishing House, 2013

N.B. On Pietro Selvatico, please see in this blog also: Pietro Selvatico and the Renewal of the Arts in 19th-Century Italy, edited by Alexander Auf der Heyde, Martina Visentin e Francesca Castellani

An unloved man

During his life, the Marquis Pietro Selvatico was not particularly popular. If he was not beloved, it was primarily because he first held the post of Secretary and then Acting President of the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice between 1849 and 1859. These were crucial years in the lagoon city. Selvatico was appointed directly by Metternich, who a few months earlier had ordered the bombing of the city and suppressed the Republican uprising with violence. Moreover, the theses of the scholar of Padua (1803-1880), who for example censured Titian as a "degenerate son" of Giovanni Bellini, and was certainly not well-disposed towards Canova, seemed exactly made to clash against Venice’s cultural world, which had lived for centuries in the myth and the memory of the greatness of the Republic and its ancient or modern creators.

The book that Alexander Auf der Heyde offers to the reader has a major advantage: it takes into account Pietro Selvatico’s writings and work without denying anything or sanctifying anyone. The result is the image of a man who was often contradictory and difficult to label: a supporter of purism, soon he distanced himself from it; a liberal Catholic before 1848, he was obviously traumatized by the violent uprisings for Italian independence (Risorgimento), where an idea of ​​"people" as class emerged that did not correspond to the "idealized" image he cultivated until then; first an advocate of the Academy as helpful institution (provided its programs are reformed), he was then willing to recommends its closure to divert the economic resources that it absorbed in favour of public art commissions. Yet, it turns out that Selvatico was also a man of keen insight, with his own vision of historiography and frequent and certainly not trivial readings.

One of the themes that characterized the figure of the scholar from Padua is mentioned in the title of the work: it is his interest in drawing, as a precursor to whatever approach about teaching in the arts. And we are not talking here of imitation design, but of an approach to design in an instrumental key, and as such learnable in any education system. It is thus about teaching the design of geometric bodies, a more detailed study of perspective, the introduction of design based on the memory: all aspects that Selvatico enhanced in his academic experience and resurfaced, in similar terms, in the Padua school of practical design, modelling and carving, which occupied the last years of his life.

Behind it all, he had an unwavering belief in how teaching and school can and should contribute to the social progress of people. The author points out very pointedly that "from the articles that Selvatico published in the sixties and seventies emerges the intention to raise the issue of drawing to the level of a social debate, precisely like it happened with the famous Question of the language [Note of the translator: the public debate on how authorities should select Italy’s common language after the country’s unification]. Italy, even before having a common language, adopted a common formal grammar that united Italians beyond the divisions of gender, age and social class." (p. 278).

On the education of the contemporary history painter in Italy

The work for which Selvatico is most famous, i.e. Sull’educazione del pittore storico odierno italiano (On the Education of the Contemporary History Painter in Italy) was actually released pretty soon, in 1842 [1]. 

The frontispiece of the 'History Painter' (1842)

We are not confronted with an artistic treaty, at least in the intentions of the author, but with "views" (which however cover more than 500 pages) in which Selvatico tries to take stock of the situation of art in Italy in the early 40s of the XIX century. On the Pittore storico, almost everything has been written. For example, that it was a purist text. It was actually a work whose processing is easier to understand if you follow the intense publishing activity on specialised magazines with which Selvatico had anticipated some parts hereof (which he later reworked). In this way, one can identify phases in which he either approached or took distance from the (by itself composite) purist doctrine. In any case, three things stand out in a clear manner: the interest in the educational aspect of the artists (as mentioned above, the real fil rouge of the whole life of the Marquis); the idea that the artist is no longer an isolated entity, but is confronted with the society in which he lives; and the awareness - very clear, and completely conscious – of the peripheral role in which Italian art has fallen in the international context (see p. 47). From this point of view, Selvatico is one of the very few scholars (probably preceded only by the experience of the Antologia in Florence) to think in a European perspective and to feel the need to visit France (his mother was French), Austria and Prussia, the locations of the real debate on history and on religious painting. A series of trips punctuate the 40s, with a view to keep himself updated. From the reports that Selvatico drafts in the specialized press of the time – as Auf der Heyde rightly points - emerges, however, that these writings "are not to be understood as media information, but as reflections on whether to adopt educational solutions which have  been tested elsewhere" (p. 57). On a purely theoretical plan, it is clear that, in the field of modern art, Selvatico proves to be a liberal Catholic (one of those who, for example, nourished high hopes at the time of the election of Pius IX on the papal throne). Over the years, he progressively overcame the division between monumental history painting (intended to represent the roots of national identity: a subject that in divided Italy obviously clashed with censorship at that time) and instead genre painting, which seemed to identify better with philanthropic ideals of most "modernist" Catholicism: "Let us love our people, and let us teach them with the reverence of disciples" (p. 71) wrote Tommaseo (who was a friend of Selvatico): "genre painting reflected this optimistic spirit of cultural elites, who tentatively disseminated abstract Catholic-inspired ideals among people" (idem).

Facsimile edition of the History Painter.
Afterword and indices by Alexander Auf der Heyde
Pisa, Edizioni della Normale, 2007

Teaching and historiography

If Selvatico’s attention was always focused on the teaching of art, admittedly he was well aware that didactics can never be divorced from a historiographical vision of the discipline which is taught. The renewal of art was combined inseparably with the knowledge of art history. Selvatico’s knowledge could be called an "empirical" one, based on the recognition and observation of the artwork. He gave a brilliant proof of it already in 1836, with his Osservazioni sulla Cappellina degli Scrovegni (Observations on the Scrovegni Chapel), where he demonstrated his ability to enhance the historical and artistic heritage of the city. Besides, the historical viewpoint was particularly clear in Sulla architettura e sulla scultura in Venezia dal Medio Evo sino ai nostri giorni, studi di P. Selvatico per servire di guida estetica (Architecture and sculpture in Venice from the Middle Ages to the present day, studies of P. Selvatico to serve as aesthetic guide), published in Padua in 1847. The hint that we are, once again, faced with an aesthetics guide makes us realize that the work was designed for educational purposes (and, most likely, will be used to support his nomination at the Academy, together with other more strictly methodological writings). When we speak of "aesthetic", however, the term no longer refers to a matter of taste, but to style. One of the main tasks of the future artist was to recognise styles, from the optical examination of churches and palaces: all styles (except for Baroque, which still had to wait a few decades before it would be recognised a "right to exist"). Selvatico (who was trained as an architect) delivered the role of mother of the arts to architecture; the scholar identified a historical parable that ascends through the early Christian ("Roman-Christian") to the Byzantine age, and from the Italo-Byzantine, Gothic (or "Arab-Pointed Arch") age to the early Renaissance. Selvatico then identified a break that occurred around 1530, with the dissemination of printed treatises (these are the years of Sebastiano Serlio) and consequently the spread of architectonic orders. With the appearance of the Treaties, "buildings lose their original communication role, because architects started to imitate the Vitruvian orders they learned about through publications" (p. 81). If there was a common theme in all aesthetic guides, it was certainly the awareness of the role Venice had played in Europe in the implementation, elaboration and diffusion of styles. This was the case of the Gothic, which Selvatico called Arab-Pointed Arch style, highlighting what in his view was the origin of the style; he assigned a central role to Venice in this regard, to first receive this style, to rework it in its palaces and then to extend it to the rest of Europe.

Now, our readers can well imagine how happily these ideas were received in the Venetian cultural circles; those milieus - it is to be said - still lived largely in the nostalgia of the greatness of a republic that no longer exists. In that republic, the development of arts (architecture, painting and, albeit to a lesser extent, sculpture) was first of all the result of the existence of a native Venetian style, independent of any external conditions. It soon becames clear what kind of reception awaited Selvatico in Venice. Even more so when, regardless of his personal tastes, the Padua Marquis reiterated the need to study all styles, because the future artist should be involved in the practices of restoration and be very precise in the compliance with the original styles. One of the main accusations that hit Selvatico was precisely to be an eclectic (p. 211), meaning as eclecticism the claim to know all the styles; while actually Selvatico always sided against all forms of stylistic eclecticism, or against any attempt to contaminate styles between them, especially for restoration.

When Selvatico arrived in Venice, he was indeed viewed with suspicion. He was accused of being an Austrian spy (he mastered German well). This suspicion was fuelled primarily by the fact that he was noble, but not Venetian; then, it was confirmed surely by his Austrian acquaintances (first of all, in terms of the importance and calibre, the figure of Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg, who estimated him unconditionally). However, that suspicion was above all confirmed by historiographic proposal: in architecture, the "principles" contained in the treatises by Serlio, Palladio, and Scamozzi were widely resized; and in terms of optical examination, all achievements by Sansovino followed the same fate. In painting, quite similarly, Selvatico reinforced the view that, after Giovanni Bellini, Venetian painting had developed in two directions: on the one hand, religious painting, more attentive to preserve the purity of the teachings of the masters (Cima da Conegliano and others), on the other the "licentious" painting, which, from Giorgione, abandoned that purity to finally lead to the "degenerate" art of Titian and Tintoretto. Only Veronese was saved (pp. 191-193). Selvatico broke down Venice’s myths. It was impossible that his inclusion in the Academy would be easy-going.

At the Academy

Selvatico was elected Secretary of the Academy at the end of 1849. If he reached that position, it is because he was playing his cards well. Until his death (January 1, 1847), the Academy had Antonio Diedo as Secretary, succeeded afterwards by Agostino Sagredo. At the end of the revolutionary period, the Austrian repression led to the need to identify a person breaking with tradition: Selvatico was perfect for this. He was not an expression of the Venetian world, while knowing it well; during the proclamation of the Republic of Venice, he had intentionally keep himself apart, away from the city, as he had moved to Trento; he spoke good German. He understood well where things were really decided and managed therefore to ingratiate the Viennese ministerial world, but enjoyed prestige in the cultural ones too. On a personal level, the 1848 riots had led him towards more conservative views: the "people" that were to be the beneficiary of philanthropy for the enlightened liberal class had proven to be capable of outbursts of such a violence that Selvatico had never considered conceivable. Pietro spoke again, on the occasion of official speeches, of the opportunity to practice "genre painting", but this time to promote a return to order and the private dimension of human life that has its cornerstone in traditional family values; philanthropy and (albeit moderate) political progressivism disappeared.

Nevertheless, Selvatico now had chance to put into practice what he had advocated in previous decades, from a didactic point of view. In this way "matures the idea of ‘coordinated studies’, based on two pillars: the linear design and the teaching of art history. His ambitious reform of the Academy tends, in fact, to resurrect the figure of the artist-scientist of Renaissance memory, an artist able to act at the same time as art historian, designer and restorer" (p. 150).

We somehow anticipated what were the main measures taken by Selvatico: introduction of the design from the solids, mnemonic drawing, study of drapery not on mannequins, but on models and outdoors, strengthening of the study of perspective, revision of the awards system. In his L’Accademia di Venezia. Relazione storica per l’Esposizione [n.d.r. Universale] di Vienna del 1873 (The Academy of Venice. Historical relationship to the [editor's note Universal] exposure of Vienna of 1873), Antonio Dall’Acqua Giusti spoke in flattering terms about Selvatico and the reforms he introduced [2]. It should be said though that Dall’Acqua Giusti wrote for an event that took in Vienna, only seven years after the Veneto had passed to Italy, and the author succeeded in ignoring the hatred that the Venetians had fed against the Austrian domination in previous decades. However, he also mentioned that, eventually, what had induced Selvatico to give up his office and resign already in 1857 were "disagreements between some teachers and the Secretary." There is no doubt that this was an issue that had its weight. The system of "coordinated studies" included, in fact, limited autonomy of individual teachers in favour of the Secretary. Selvatico was not, however, a consensus maker and therefore frictions were really persistent: they were particularly evident with the South Tyrolean professor of painting Karl Blaas.

Antonio Dall'Acqua Giusti,
L'Accademia di Venezia. Relazione storica per l'Esposizione di Vienna del 1873, Venezia, 1873

As long as the relationship of mutual trust with the Viennese circles remained intact, Selvatico did not seem to worry much about. On this, it should be mentioned that this report was probably based on two factors, albeit completely divergent among each other: on the one hand (that surely most obnoxious) the discipline scrutiny and the reporting of any individual cases potentially dangerous to the regime; on the other hand, however, the consonance of views with Rudolf Eitelberger von Edelberg [3]. Eitelberger aimed to rediscover and study techniques as an essential component of artistic activity and became promoter of a vision of art that combines arts and crafts "paving the way for an overall plan to reform art institutions that embrace academies and art schools, but also sponsor institutions, bodies protecting art heritage and archaeological organisations." The consonance with Selvatico was total. We do not know to what extent this agreement was even on a political level: Eitelberger (who had participated in the riots of 1848) believed in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Empire, where Austria was a unifying and not oppressing power. In this vision of the Empire, Selvatico’s plea was not to marginalize the Venetian Academy to the benefit of those in Vienna and Prague.

Yet not all went into the right direction for him. Particularly frustrating must have been the failure of a reform of the School of Architecture, and in particular the refusal by Austria (1856) to create the Scuola superiore pegli architetti, in Venice (the Venice High School for Architects) (p. 219). It is probably this episode that marked the fatal disconnect between Selvatico and the world of Vienna, and the origin of his wish to step down. After seven years divided between the Secretariat and the Presidency, the Paduan Marquis concluded that, as it stood, the system of academies was essentially useless. He claimed it by bringing forward economic arguments, and showing that his attention to the ''industry” world still remained constant. In substance, Selvatico said that art in Venice was not flourishing because there was nobody "consuming" it, i.e. there were no public or private commissions. Public spending was allocated instead in maintaining the system of academies, producing artists who lived in poverty. "Instead, within the current policy goals of the monarchy, there is great need to enhance industries, and this cannot be finalized if not by maximizing the role of design in manufacturing; and this is far from being conducted to that point, both because there are no more special courses, and because the teachers are inept, very little being paid, and badly chosen." (p. 253). It would therefore be better to abolish the Academies, to return to the corporate system of teaching artists in ateliers, and organize courses of basic design for all: a certainly provocative thesis, that on the one hand betrayed disappointment and disillusionment and on the other confirmed Selvatico’s attention to the world of manufacturing.

After the Academy

Actually Selvatico was permitted to resign in 1859 only. He resumed his activity as art scholar, but without much fervour, and substantially interrupted his studies for a couple of years for health reasons. During the final years of his life, from 1867 onwards, when even Veneto joined the Kingdom of Italy, he undertook with renewed enthusiasm the project of the municipal school of practical design, modelling and carving for artisans in Padua. The school quickly multiplied its courses, also thanks to the efforts of Pietro, who saw the fulfilment of his projects thanks to the involvement of enlightened bourgeois figures, such as Alessandro Rossi, who proposed a model of industrial development based on a paternalistic relationship (and not on pure capitalism) vis-à-vis workers. Mastering the basics of drawing established a common language (mind you: it was not as a tool for social mobility, but simply a way to transmit culture and values) to be taught to all citizens, without distinction of class or income. And somehow we can therefore assess - albeit amongst a thousand contradictions and alternatives – that right on education, on the teaching of design and an empirical historiography, Pietro Selvatico can prove he featured the consistency and depth that many have denied to him.


Proceedings of the Conference dedicated to Pietro Selvatico, held at the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti on 22 and 23 October 2013

Please, have a look at them by clicking here. 

NOTES

[1] Reprinted in facsimile edition by Edizioni della Normale of Pisa Publishers, with an afterword of Mr Auf der Heyde.

[2] A. Dalley Giusti, L’Accademia di Venezia. Relazione storica per l’Esposizione di Vienna del 1873. (The Academy of Venice. Historical report to the Exhibition of Vienna 1873), Venice, Printing House Marco Visentini, 1873, pp. 65-68.

[3] See, in this blog Andreas Dobslaw, Die Wiener "Quellenschriften" und ihrEditor Rudolf von Eitelberger Edelberg, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2009 and Francesco Mazzaferro. Albert Ilg and Julius von Schlosser: Two DifferentInterpretations of Cennino Cennini in Austria-Hungary of 1871 and 1914.