Bernard Berenson
Bernard Berenson (born June 26, 1865 in Butrimonys , now Rajongemeinde Alytus , Lithuania , † October 6, 1959 in Fiesole near Florence ) was an American art historian , art collector and writer. He was one of the first historians to specialize in the Italian Renaissance. Berenson is one of the founders of the international art market for the old masters .
Life
Berenson was born as Bernhard Valvrojenski into a Jewish family who emigrated from Lithuania to Boston in 1875 , where the family took the name "Berenson". He graduated from Harvard University and finished his studies with a thesis on Gogol .
After graduating from Harvard, Isabel Stewart Gardner , who had a keen sense of talent, hired him to search Europe for works of art for her collection. Berenson spent around three million dollars on objets d'art over the next three years, at a time when there was still no sense of religious art from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and in which there was no corresponding market, so pictures were not expensive. During his stay in Europe he met Mary Smith Costelloe, a married woman with two children, with whom from now on lived together and led a restless wandering life. The couple lived alone and in difficult circumstances for the next ten years until the marriage could be legalized after Mary's spouse died, as few friends tolerated the marriage. Mary was the sister of Logan Pearsall Smith and Alys Pearsall Smith , the first wife of the philosopher Bertrand Russell .
From 1900 the couple lived in the Villa I Tatti in Fiesole near Florence, where Berenson spent most of his life. The villa soon became a destination for American and European art connoisseurs, collectors, and art patrons, and a lively meeting place for Florentine society. Gertrude and Leo Stein also visited him here . The latter, who was looking for interesting modern painting, encouraged Berenson on a visit to Paris to make collecting activities of his epoch by asking him in 1903: "Do you know Cézanne ?"
Although he lived mainly in Italy, Berenson never lost his American citizenship, but he converted to Catholicism during the war. Even during fascism in Italy, during the presence of the Germans in the last phase of the war, when the villa got between the front lines of the Americans and the fascist troops, Berenson, his villa and his library remained undisturbed, he and Mary found refuge with one Italian nobles.
Berenson has published his diaries under the title Rumor and Reflection and Sunset and Twilight and a self-biography under the title Sketch for a Self-portrait . Among his friends was the American writer Ray Bradbury , who wrote about his friendship with Berenson in the Wall Street Journal and in his collection of essays, Yestermorrow .
The art connoisseur
Among American art collectors of the early 20th century, Berenson was the undisputed authority on the assessment and attribution of Renaissance art. Berenson's judgment on the author and authenticity of a work of art made its value rise or fall. While his evaluations, which were based less on facts and data and more on the intuition and experience of the intensely comparative “connoisseur” - Berenson was a typical connoisseur - and his judgments remained controversial among European collectors and art scholars, he played an important role as Adviser to American art collectors such as B. by Isabella Stewart Gardner , who needed a guide through the confusing market of the fashionable Renaissance art. Berenson's verdict was accepted unseen by his clients; 5 percent commission each for his services made him a rich man.
His first book, the Venetian Renaissance Painters published in 1894 with a list of their works , was extremely successful with its mixture of connoisseurship and systematic approaches. The volume Florentine Renaissance Painters of 1896 was praised by the American philosopher and psychologist William James for introducing psychological categories into the interpretation of works of fine art. The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance appeared a year later . After a hiatus of five years, Berenson's book The Drawings of the Florentine Painters came out, which is considered to be his most profound and important work to this day. In his next work - The North Italian Painters of the Renaissance of 1907 - he passed a damning judgment on Mannerism , for which, as a lover of the early and high Renaissance art related to antiquity, he showed no understanding. Berenson's previous publications found their way into The Italian Painters of the Renaissance , which first appeared in 1930, has been translated into many languages, and has been reprinted in several new editions.
In 1912 Berenson entered into a secret agreement with the English art dealer Joseph Duveen , the most influential art dealer of his time. Duveen relied on Berenson's expertise in negotiating the sale of works of art to rich but inexperienced collectors . The mutually beneficial collaboration ended abruptly after a dispute sparked over Berenson's attribution of the so-called Allendale Nativity ( Adoration of the Shepherds ). Duveen had sold the picture to the American philanthropist and art patron Samuel H. Kress as Giorgione's work , while Berenson thought it was an early Titian . Today the work is generally considered to be the image of Giorgione. After the break with Duveen, Berenson worked as a consultant for various other art dealers, especially Daniel Wildenstein .
The Villa I Tatti in Fiesole
From 1890 to 1921 Berenson bought paintings from dealers, mostly at low prices, from churches, monasteries and aristocratic palaces. In 1900 Berenson moved into the Villa I Tatti in Fiesole , which he lived in until his death in 1959.
His collection shows a cross-section of religious art in Italy from the 12th century to the Renaissance. Berenson did not arrange the art objects according to historical aspects, according to themes or other museum-appropriate principles, but related them to one another according to purely aesthetic principles. The ensemble in the historic rooms of the villa, shaped by the taste of the connoisseur, reflects the personality of the collector. Since Berenson seldom sold pictures and they always stayed in place, most of them are in excellent condition.
In his will he bequeathed the villa including his private art collection, his library and the extensive photo collection to Harvard University . Harvard a study center for young scientists from around the world should at Villa set and there offer them the opportunity to present their research (in the humanities humanities continue) and deepen. Today, 12 to 15 postdoc scholars from all over the world have the opportunity to conduct research at the study center every year , and young Italian young scientists are regularly invited to the study center.
honors and awards
- 1922 member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1955 honorary doctorate from the University of Florence and the Sorbonne, Paris.
- 1958 member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fonts
- Venetian Painters of the Renaissance . 1894.
- German: Venetian painters of the Renaissance with a list of their works. Munich: Wolff 1925.
- Lorenzo Lotto : An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism. 1895.
- Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. 1896.
- German: The Florentine painters of the Renaissance. Translation by Otto Damman. Opole, Leipzig: Mask 1898.
- The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 1897.
- German: The Central Italian painters of the Renaissance . From the English by Robert West. Munich: Wolff 1925.
- The Sense of Quality: Study and Criticism of Italian Art. 1901.
- German: Italian art. Studies and considerations . From the English by Julius Zeitler . Leipzig: Seaman 1902.
- The Drawings of the Florentine Painters. 1903.
- North Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 1907.
- German: The Northern Italian painters of the Renaissance . Munich: Wolff 1925.
- A Sienese Painter of the Franciscan Legend. 1910
- Seeing and Knowing. New York Graphic Society, 1953
literature
- Meryle Secrest : Being Bernard Berenson. A biography. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York NY 1979, ISBN 0-03-018411-8 (1980 Pulitzer Prize Nominated)
- Ernest Samuels: Bernard Berenson. The making of a legend. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1987, ISBN 0-674-06779-7 .
- Mary Ann Calo: Bernard Berenson and the Twentieth Century. Temple University Press, Philadelphia PA 1994, ISBN 1-566-39116-4 .
- Gabriele Guercio: Art as Existence. The Artist's Monograph and Its Project. MIT Press, Cambridge MA 2006, ISBN 0-262-07268-8 .
- Rachel Cohen: Bernard Berenson: a Life in the Picture Trade . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-030-014942-5 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Bernard Berenson in the catalog of the German National Library
- Kurzbiographie (English)
- The Biblioteca Berenson; History, online catalog
- Website Villa i Tatti
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brenda Wineapple: Sister Brother. Gertrude and Leo Stein. Arche, Zurich et al. 1998, ISBN 3-7160-2233-0 , p. 294.
- ↑ Linda Wagner-Martin: "Favored strangers". Gertrude Stein and Her Family. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ 1995, ISBN 0-8135-2169-6 , p. 262.
- ↑ Scientific articles on the Duveen / Berenson relationship, as of 2019 , accessed June 14, 2019
- ^ Members: Bernard Berenson. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 16, 2019 .
- ^ Villa i Tatti. The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Retrieved March 11, 2015
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Berenson, Bernard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American art historian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 26, 1865 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Butrimonys (now in Vilnius), Lithuania |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 6, 1959 |
| Place of death | Florence |