Francesco Mazzaferro
Dimitrie Belisare and the Romanian Translation of Cennino Cennini's Book of the art (around 1936-37)
Part Two
[Original Version: May 2016 - New version April 2019]
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| Fig. 12) Dimitrie Belisare, Christ Pantocrator, the dome of the Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Orăştie, 1940-1942 |
Actually, we do not know much about Belisare's biography. He came
from a family of religious artists: in addition to Belisare S. Paraschivescu,
his father [12], also his brother
Gheorghe Belisare was a painter of sacred art [13]. Paradoxically the only
source of information on Dimitrie Belisare’s life seems to be the introduction
to his own translation of Cennino. Here, he lets us know that he was a student
of George Demetrescu Mirea (1852-1934), the French-inspired portraitist, who
had however also tried his hand at painting religious painting frescoes in the
Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Constanța in 1884 (destroyed in 1941
under a bombardment, when the frescoes were already seriously impaired).
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| Fig. 13) The class of George Mirea Demetrescu at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest in 1903 (image taken from the introduction of the translation of the Libro dell'arte). Pictures of Grigore Untu, Constantin Constantin, Dimitrie Belisare, Gh Vasilescu, Teohary, Comanescu, Ionescu Ghoerghe, V. Damina, I. Sofronie, Ionescu I Gh, I. Dumirescu, Ionista Constantin, Paul Molda, Mihailescu Alexandru, Boicescu, Georgian, Episcopescu, Eduard Saulescu, Artriu, I. Walter, Marin Ioan |
According to Elena Cercel [14], who displays
one of the few pictures available of a detail of the Constanța frescoes, Mirea
had tried to innovate the Byzantine iconography in a more realistic and western
way, not without arousing controversy. Thus he belonged to that wing of the
Romanian religious painting that was more open to Western style. And outside
the field of religious painting, he was clearly part of mainstream Western European
art, in particular between academicism and symbolism.
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| Fig. 14) George Demetrescu Mirea, The Saints Spyridon and Nicola, of Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, Constance, 1884 (destroyed in 1941) |
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| Fig. 15) George Demetrescu Mirea, Pink Bow, undated |
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| Fig. 16) George Demetrescu Mirea, Young Japanese girl, undated |
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| Fig. 17) George Demetrescu Mirea, Spring, Cantacuzino Palace, Bucharest, 1906 |
Judging by the images, Belisare was instead a much
more loyal religious iconographer than his master Mirea was. And yet it should
be noted that, if in most cases his frescoes were clearly inspired by Byzantine
patterns, other images appear instead having a Giotto imprint and few others
even suggest an opening to contemporary influences. The fourteenth century
trace is very strong, for example, in the 1932-1935 fresco The Rest of the Mother of the Lord, in
the Patriarchal Cathedral of Bucharest. Instead, the 1940-1942 Judgement even seems to recall some of
the motives of Europe’s 'return to order' between the two world wars and the
classicism of the twenties and thirties, perhaps under the influence of the Atéliers des arts sacrés: it was a work of
his last years, painted much after the translation of the Libro dell'arte, and inserted in a cycle of frescoes (in Orăştie)
which has a general neo-Byzantine approach. One cannot exclude that over the
decades there was an evolution of the inspiration; nor can it be ruled out that
some other hands helped those of Belisare. It would be really useful if scholars
could dedicate themselves to a stylistic analysis of the many cycles of
frescoes of a painter who has produced so much art in the country.
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| Fig. 18) Dimitrie Belisare, The Rest of the Mother of the Lord, Patriarchal Cathedral of Bucharest, 1932-1935 |
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| Fig. 19) Dimitrie Belisare, Judgement (detail), the Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Orăştie, 1940-1942 |
In the introduction to the Book of the art, Belisare explains, however, that, despite having
been a student of Mirea, he applied throughout his career (until at least 1936-1937) nothing else but the traditional procedures for fresco painting he had learned
from his father Belisare S. Paraschivescu, who lived in the rural area of
Domnesti-Muscel. And not surprisingly, the translation of the Book of the art was
indeed dedicated to his father. Therefore, at least until those years, our
painter appears firmly rooted in the neo-Byzantine tradition, as it is apparent
from the majority of the images that we saw on the Internet.
Cennino in Romania -
Through what steps?
Unfortunately, Belisare did not give us any information about how he came into contact with Cennino’s treatise. An interest in the Orthodox world for Cennino existed since the late nineteenth century, with the publication of the text in the anthology of manuals on ancient painting techniques by Piotr Yakovlevich Ageev [15] (1887) in a series of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, and was confirmed by much later translations, that were part of anthologies having the same title as the Russian one of the late nineteenth century: the 1994 Bulgarian version [16] and the 1999 Serbian one [17]. However Belisare did not mention the Russian text (which in all modern editions of Cennino was reported only in the 1933 Russian translation by Alla Nicolaevna Luzhetskaya and thus probably had never had a wide circulation outside of Russia). The Romanian painter instead reveals a complete knowledge of all Italian editions, and all the translations in English, French and German up to the twenties. So he seems to be fully aware of the interpretations and studies on Cennino in the Western world, while ignoring the scholar work on him in the Eastern world.
Along which paths can we assume that Belisare
became aware of the Book of the art?
Obviously, we cannot rule out sheer chance (a legend says that Renoir found
a copy on the banks of the Seine, although it is hard to believe it), but it is
still useful to formulate some possible patterns of dissemination of that work
in Romania.
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| Fig. 20) Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch, Kerepesi Cemetery, Budapest, Mosaic with the Resurrection of Christ and an imaginary vision of the Transylvanian city of Kalotaszeg, 1904-1908. Picture by Nóra Mészöly (https://www.flickr.com/photos/nora-meszoly/15806977132/in/photostream/) |
The first vehicle of infection - if I may use a medical language - could be represented by the activity of the Hungarian painters in the regions which are annexed to Romania in 1919. The Palace of Culture in Targu Mures (Marosvásárhely in Hungarian), in the heart of Transylvania, for example, offers an external mosaic frieze and two internal frescoes of Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch (1863-1920), the leader of the Gödöllo school. He was the master of the Hungarian secession, but also an artist who found his inspiration in the reading of the Book of the art (another legend said that he never accepted to stay without that booklet, always retaining it in the pocket of his jacket): the fact is that, thanks to him, at least three generations of Hungarian symbolist painters, until the second World War, lived in the continuous worship of Cennini.
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| Fig. 21) Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch, Homage to Hungary, Mosaic, Culture Palace of Târgu Mures, 1911 |
The external frieze of the Palace of Culture is
entitled Homage to Hungary, while one
of the frescoes is the History of the
Transylvanian Hungarians. Indeed, Körösfői-Kriesch was more than fascinated
by this region: he imitated its folklore, spent many summers with the entire
group of Gödöllő in its mountains and displayed its traditional myths in many
of his frescoes. It is clear that we were here in a context of national claims
on the identity of a interethnic region that was actually populated by different
ethnic groups (Hungarians, Romanians and Germans). The Palace of culture in Târgu Mures was inaugurated in 1912 and the frescoes were of the same year.
Examining the frieze, there is an obvious iconographic similarity between the Homage to Hungary and the Pilgrimage to the art fountain which Körösfői-Kriesch
had completed in Budapest in 1907, the cycle of frescoes dedicated explicitly
to Cennino.
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| Fig. 22) Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch, The history of the Hungarians of Transylvania, Târgu Mures Palace of Culture, 1912 |
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| Fig. 23) Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch, Shamans, Fresco, Palace of Culture in Târgu Mures, 1912 |
The second path of penetration was the dissemination of Beuronese art across Europe: the translator of Cennino’s German edition (1914-1916), the Dutch painter Jan Verkade, a member of the Nabis, took on religious orders, became Father Willibrord and joined the art school of Beuron. He was very well known and respected in his days, not only for its artistic activity, but especially for the publication of the memoirs (published in German in 1920 and translated into French and German soon after), which had wide circulation for a few decades. Verkade created a close link between Cennino’s work and the Beuronese school (already founded a few decades earlier). It should be noted, in this regard, that Belisare wrote in the introduction that he considered his translation as the closest to the true spirit of Cennino.
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| Figg. 24 e 25) Gottfried Schiller and Iulius Ostermaier, The baptism of St. Basil the Great and The Ordination of St. Basil the Great, Bucharest, St. Basil's Cathedral, 1911 (lost frescoes). Source: https://sfantulvasilecelmare.wordpress.com/arhitectura/ |
It has already been said that in 1909 Raymund
Netzhammer, the Greek-Catholic archbishop of Bucharest, built the Cathedral of
St. Basil the Great, i.e. the first Greek-catholic cathedral in Bucharest, calling
two painters of the Beuron school (Gottfried Schiller and Iulius Ostermaier) from
Ravensburg to decorate it. For the first time in Romania, they used colours
based on potassium silicate, also known as Keim colours, using secco painting
instead of normal fresco painting [18]. Here too it becomes clear that adopting
a specific style of wall paintings equalled to mark the territory of the
young state, in an implicit struggle between religious groups (almost one third
of the population of Greater Romania was Catholic), but also in the (failed)
attempt to unite under the same cultural references all ethnic groups (from the
Greek-orthodox to the German and Hungarian ethnic minorities) that responded to
the church of Rome. Interestingly, from this point of view, the Archbishop looked
for a common stylistic reference point (that of Beuron Benedictines) which was external
to the diverse world of the Catholics in Greater Romania. That attempt to bring
together the varied Catholic world under one single cultural model failed, as
the Archbishop himself recognized. The Archbishop was indeed expelled from
Romania in 1925, following accusations of being traitor of his homeland and
supporter of German language groups [19].
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| Figg. 26 e 27) Gottfried Schiller and Iulius Ostermaier, Mercy to the poor and The healing of the son of the king, Bucharest, St. Basil Cathedral, 1911(lost frescoes). Source: https://sfantulvasilecelmare.wordpress.com/arhitectura/ |
The third line through which Cennino could have
entered Romania is represented by a number of sacred art international
exhibitions which were organized regularly in the Francophone world from 1911
until 1939. These initiatives sought to spread the message of the Atéliers des arts sacrés, created in
1919 by Maurice Denis (1870-1943) and George Desvallières (1861-1950)
throughout Europe. On the one hand, they tried to reduce the distance between
the impetuous developments of modern art and the classical religious
iconography; on the other hand, they promoted a retour of contemporary art back
to classical schemes. As evidence of success, starting from 1935, the monthly
magazine L'Art Sacré was published.
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| Fig. 28) An issue of the monthly L'Art Sacré, 1936 |
Obviously, we are talking about Catholic art only and a key role was played by the Vatican itself (think of the Pavilion of the
Holy See at the Paris International Exhibition "Arts
et Techniques dans la Vie moderne" of 1937) [20]. Also in Italy, after
the Concordat, the first and the second
International Exhibition of Sacred Art were held in Rome in 1930 and in
1934. Gerard Monnier and José Vovelle described the artistic movements of
renewal of sacred art that spread across Europe as an early form of "art without borders" and made an admittedly
brief reference to some success also in Romania [21]. Many of the artists who
participated in these attempts to marry modernity and religious art (think of
Maurice Denis and Gino Severini) were sincere admirers of Cennino Cennini and were
inspired by his techniques when they painted their frescoes decorating newly
built churches (the illustrations below show two examples of 1926). It seems
interesting to note that, in the introduction reproduced below, Belisare referred
to Maurice Denis as the true inspirer behind the second French translation of
the Book of the art by Henry Mottez in 1911 (and not to Renoir, who wrote the
introduction because of Denis’ encouragement). It was an entirely accurate
information, perhaps denoting a direct knowledge of French sources.
Cennini and his
Romanisation
Obviously, we have no certainties on what
happened. However, I have the impression that, whatever was the sequence of
events that brought Cennino in the hands of Dimitrie Belisare, his attempt was to
appropriate Cennino’s text as a source of legitimization for neo-Byzantine art,
in a period when culture was subject to an important nationalisation process in
Romania. From this point of view, the Romanian translation of Cennino’s text was
- culturally - very similar to the policy of building Orthodox churches in
Transylvania at that time, such as in Orăştie starting from 1936.
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| Fig. 29) The construction of the Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Orăştie, 1936-1943 |
It was a totally opposite perspective from the
reading of Cennino in Italy in those years, where the mediaeval author was
appreciated because he had been the first author defining Giotto as the maestro who
converted Greek into Latin art. Here, it is as if it the reverse path took
place: the conversion from Latin back to to Greek. After all, the concept prevailing in
Romania, as always, was that, while the language was Latin, the painting was Greek.
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| Figg. 30 e 31) Dimitrie Belisare, The Righteous Judge and the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Orăştie, 1940-1942 |
Belisare signed the translation of Cennino as a painter at the service of the Holy Patriarchate. His effort was - in my opinion - to show that the neo-Byzantine painting, so strongly linked to the old manner of the Romanian religious painting, also had noble roots in the ancient Italian art. And, above all, he wanted to state again that there were no spaces for experiments in the neo-Byzantine world, neither for iconography nor in technical terms: if the religious art of Körösfői-Kriesch, Denis, Severini and the Beuron painters can be read as a renewal (and therefore a modernization) of religious art, those spaces were barred to Belisare’s art.
TRANSLATION OF THE
INTRODUCTION OF THE BOOK OF THE ART
We thank Daniel Daianu
The Book of the art, by
Cennino-Cennini
To My Father-Painter Belisare S Paraschivescu -
to whom I owe all the knowledge about the techniques of the art that I am
performing.
FOREWORD
I translated this book into Romanian and
commented it only because I was moved by the sole purpose of helping my fellow
painters who intend to work in fresco. The original text that I have covered is
not the one of a writer, not even of an intellectual with literary aspirations,
but of a trecentist who knew his job very well. This explanation is necessary
to protect the readers from disregarding Cennino’s advices for a “lack of
literary talent”. His writing is so simple and naïve as he refrains from using
any abstract concept, or a scientific or an aesthetic theory or anything of the
kind; he is just listing the norms of painting, one after the other. I would
have also refrained from adding a foreword if the fresco painting Cennino
advocates hadn’t been so completely discredited nowadays.
Besides this, Cennino’s Treaty is an even more
precious document for the history of primitive artists, who followed each other
- or rather imitated each other - walking on their ancestors’ footsteps – and
were all specialized in religious painting. Reading it carefully, you’ll see
the hurdles of early artists, who enjoyed none of the advantages we have today,
as we no longer have to make painting brushes ourselves and we benefit of the
industrial-made, ready-to-use fine powder colours (*). You will realize that
this Treaty is more than welcomed especially as some painters - very strong on
theories – have emerged lately and their techniques or new interpretations,
spread via different leaflets, are effectively standing in the way of fresco
painting. Some label “Wasserglass”, known by Germans from ancient times, as a
novelty. Others are issuing scientific theories on colours’ chemistry but when
it comes to practical aspects they proved to be worthless: their paintings,
their so-called frescoes, are fading after no more than 3-4 years.
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| Fig. 32) Dimitrie Belisare, Frescoes at the Caldarusani Monastery, 1907 |
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| Fig. 33) Dimitrie Belisare, Frescoes at the archdiocese cathedral of Tragoviste, 1927 |
I’m stating this with great conviction and the
right I have earned during more than 30 years of experience. I have painted
many works like the Great Church for Caldarusani Monastery (inside and outside,
painted in 1907 when I was just 19); “Sf. Vineri-Herasca” Church; “Caramidarii
(brick-makers) de Jos” Church, Podeanu Church, “Sf. Patriarhii”
Cathedral-Church, Targoviste Metropolitan Church, and the Sinistratilor Church
from Costesti-Arges. To all these works I have applied the technique learned
from my father – Painter Belisare S. Paraschivescu, from Domnesti-Muscel - one
of the students of painter Niculae (Nicolae Teodorescu) from Buzau. [Editor's
note: as explained in the first part of the blog, we have accepted as true the information
that the date of birth was 1888, corresponding to the age of 19 in 1907. And yet,
all available sources refer to 1884 as date of birth, which is also in line
with the photo of 1903, portraying him in the class of Mirea with other
students painting at 19, and not at 15 years].
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| Fig. 34) Dimitrie Belisare, Frescoes at the Church of Saint-Trifon - Caramidarii de Jos, Bucarest (1929-1930) |
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| Fig. 35) Dimitrie Belisare, St. Jerome Ghelasie, Fresco in the Podeanu Church in Bucarest, 1930-1932 (recently restored by Dumitru Banică) |
Let’s return to Cennino’s Book of the art.
Hidden for more than four centuries (it was
written around 1400), this book first saw the light in Rome, in 1821. It was
the knight Giuseppe Tambroni that discovered and made it popular. But there
were some missing chapters; less accurate in many places, vague in others,
since the document (Vatican, Ottoboniano 2974) which Tambroni used was an
incomplete and a modern copy of the original. However the probity as well as
most of the work still must acknowledged to him.
In 1844, when painters begun to take an
interest in old fresco paintings, Cennino work was first translated in English
by M.Ph.Merrifield (A Treatise of painting by Cennino Cennini translated by Mr.
Merrifield, London, 1844), then in French by Victor Mottez, one of Ingres’s
students.
In 1859, an annotated edition by the brothers Gaetano and Carlo Milanesi, edited and augmented with the missing chapters, was
published in Florence based on a manuscript discovered in the Laurentian
Library. It was followed by a German edition by Albert Ilg, published in Wien
in 1881 and by a second print in 1888.
In 1899, a completed translation, based on
Milanesi brothers’ edition was released in London by the English authors Allen
and Herringham in their “The Book of Art of Cennino Cennini”. [Editor’s note:
this is a material mistake, Christiana Herringham translated the text, while
Allen published it.] In 1911, Henry Mottez (son of the first French translator
of the book), published a second edition, reviewed and supplemented with
support from painter Maurice Denis, while in 1913, the most accurate Italian
edition was published by Renzo Simi (Lanciano, 1913), who managed to compare
all three Cennino’s manuscripts he found in various Italian libraries.
Finally, Father Willibrord Verkade translated
the book again in German and published it in 1916 in Strasbourg.
To my knowledge, these are all the translations
and editions released so far [Editor’s note: This is also a material error: in
1933 were published translations in American, Polish and Russian]. And, because
none of the publishers were specialists, they may have made countless mistakes,
mostly related to the interpretation of the technical terminology. Therefore I
have myself faced many difficulties. Since some extracts were too
confusing/vague, I was forced to compare the original (G. Tambroni and Renzo
Simi’s editions) with the French version of Victor and Henry Mottez and with
the German one of P. Willibrord Verkade, which I consider the most accurate as
it manages to reveal the spirit of Cennino's work. I do hope all my efforts
enabled the achievement of my inner desire: to serve and be useful to our
artists.
With this aim, and seeking to bring added value,
I am currently working on a little Treaty, through which I’m explaining fresco
painting the way I know and understand it.
All income resulted from the sale of the
present book will go directly to the enlargement and upgrading of the house in
Domnesti-Muscel that I’ve donated to the Fine-Arts Union for resting house entitled
to the painter Belisare, which I intend to relocate to Campulung-Muscel.
(*) Besides
being a good thing, it can also turn badly, since producers willing to
“multiply the colour” are boosting its quantity by mixing it to other
ingredients thus altering its quality. That’s why I strongly recommend
fresco-painters the use of raw, natural, unprocessed colours, as Cennino has
also indicated. If they can’t find or they don’t have enough time, I will
advise them to use German-made colours that I’m also using with great
satisfaction.
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The translator of the present paper has under
preparation the following: A Christian Iconography and a Treaty about fresco
painting.
NOTES
[12] If
various sources seem to confirm that the painter Belisare S. Paraschivescu
(1847-1901) was the father of Dimitrie Belisare, it is not clear why he had a different surname .
[13] In
the mid-thirties Georghe worked at fresco cycles in several churches,
sometimes together with his brother Dimitrie; apparently, however, he also
devoted himself to oil painting. Another brother, Ion , was colonel in the
army.
[14]
See: Cercel, Elena, Goerge Demetrescu Mirea – Între faimă şi uitare, in: Noema,
Vol. X, 2011, pages 545-559. Available at: noema.crifst.ro/doc/2011_4_05.pdf.
[15] Агеев,
Петр Яковлевич - Старинные руководства по технике живописи, Вестник изящных
искусств, 1887.
[16] Шаренков,
Атанас - Старинни трактати по технология и техника на живописта, Български
художник, 1988-1994.
[17] Медић,
Милорад - Стари сликарски приручници, I, Издавачка делатност Републичког завода
за заштиту споменика културе, Београд, 1999.
[21] Monnier Gérard, Vovelle José - Un art sans
frontiers. L'internationalisation des arts en Europe (1900-1950), Paris,
Publications de la Sorbonne, 1995.
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