Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes (original) (raw)
Abstract
Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes The National Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 November 2011-8 April, 2012 and the Frick Collection, New York, 1 May 2012-29 July, 2012 Eleonora Luciano (ed.), Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes, exh. cat., Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2011, pp. 210, 157 colour and 6 b/w illustrations, £30. ISBN 978-1-907372-27-8If ever an artist carried an appropriate nickname it is the Italian Renaissance sculptor known as 'Antico'. Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi (c.1455-1528) worked in Mantua for various members of the Gonzaga family and made his main artistic contribution as a sculptor of remarkable reinterpretations of classical themes. Though he produced a variety of objects (including medals and busts), and must have created myriad others as court artist, his reputation rests on a group of small-scale bronzes, most of them with a striking dark patina often adorned with silver and gold highlights. These beautiful, expertly cast and finished works are among the earliest and best examples of art that fully encapsulates the Renaissance in style, spirit and by any other measure.Studies of Antico have come a long way in recent years,1 culminating in his first substantial modern exhibition, in Mantua, in 2008-09.2 That exhibition, in the inimitable setting of the Palazzo Ducale, admirably showed Antico's art in context, and was accompanied by a catalogue rich in documentation and scholarly analysis. Close on its heels, the Antico exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Frick Collection in New York offered something different. Curated by Eleonora Luciano in collaboration with Denise Allen and Claudia Kryza-Gersch, it included almost forty works by Antico (roughly three-quarters of his extant oeuvre), with complementary additions at each venue. In contrast to the Mantuan show, the Washington and New York exhibitions concentrated more on the artist himself and on understanding his works as objects. At its best it also pointed to new directions in scholarship, with attendant opportunities for investigation and discovery.Lurking throughout was a thoughtful attempt to amplify the traditional exhibition experience by changing the way we see, and thus understand, objects. Details of the displays were carefully considered in both venues (fig. 1).3 Where possible, lending institutions allowed the works to be removed from modern plinths, granting an extraordinarily rare chance to unobstructedly inspect the balance, scale and stance of each figure. At the Frick, cases were positioned for minimal visual interference, and most objects could be inspected from all sides. In this intimate setting the organizers enabled the viewer to look closely at each piece and for a brief moment become like one of the Gonzaga, marvelling at the work of their court artist. In another nice touch, the figure of Pan was displayed below eye level and the Spinario just above, reminding the viewer that none of these statuettes were intended for single, straight-on viewpoints. In Washington, Luciano took advantage of the National Gallery's holdings, and evoked the Mantuan artistic milieu by interspersing works by Mantegna. The Gonzaga Urn from Modena, though still enigmatic, thus spoke eloquently to related medals and Mantegna prints, demonstrating the crucial interplay among the arts, artists and ideals of the Mantuan court.Both venues offered meaningful pairings of related objects. Classical precedents were emphasized through juxtapositions such as the Getty Bust of a Young Man with a Roman marble from the Hispanic Society, or Antico's two statuettes of Hercules alongside a similar bronze from the Louvre thought to be Roman. The most alluring pairings showed early and later versions of similar themes; the Seated Nymph from the Smith collection and the socalled Bedford Nymph (private collection); Atropos from London and Vienna; Hercules from New York and Vienna - in each case the earlier works showing finer detail and refinement, but the later holding their own as different, but not inferior products. …