Giovanni Morelli

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Giovanni Morelli, painting by Franz von Lenbach (1886)

Giovanni Morelli (born February 25, 1816 in Verona , † February 28, 1891 in Milan ) was an Italian politician , doctor and art historian .

life and work

Giovanni Morelli initially studied medicine in Switzerland and Germany and worked for a time at the University of Munich as a specialist in comparative anatomy . However, he never worked as a doctor. Rather, he indulged two passions: politics and art. At a young age he was in learned German circles, which enabled him to master the German language perfectly. Although Italian, Morelli published mostly in German under the Russian pseudonym "Ivan Lermolieff" - an ironic anagram of his Italian name. He pretended that his books were German translations from Russian, for which a German named Johannes Schwarze (the free German translation by Giovanni Morelli, since morello means "black horse" in Italian) is responsible. He was an excellent expert on the contemporary German museum landscape and wrote numerous art-historical articles in the Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst .

He became famous for the Morellian method , named after him , which tried to use comparative-empirical means to attribute paintings to individual artists in a critical manner. His main focus was on the subjective characteristics of a painter's handwriting, which can best be identified in the depiction of minor details such as the design of an auricle , the shape of fingernails , fingers, hands or feet. Using his method, he examined the image holdings of famous Roman and German galleries , uncovering a number of incorrect attributions and assigning many works to other artists. In the Dresden gallery alone, 46 paintings had to be renamed due to his investigations. It was also Morelli who attributed the famous Sleeping Venus to Giorgione . This masterpiece was previously listed in the Dresden gallery's catalog as a copy by Sassoferrato based on a lost work by Titian .

From 1873 Giovanni Morelli was a member of the Italian Senate .

effect

Morelli exposed numerous pictures that had hitherto been ascribed to great masters as copies or forgeries . In some cases, he met with little approval from some well-known museum people, such as Wilhelm von Bode . Psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud , on the other hand, were very fond of his methods.

Morelli's writings were written in a language that was very “relaxed” for the time. Nor did the author shy away from humorous, sarcastic swipes at the misjudgments of other art historians. Critics accused Morelli, therefore, of the fact that his writings were insufficiently learned, poorly written and sometimes only hinted at. Morelli replied that “nothing seems stranger to him than that hollow, pompous seriousness and self-satisfied assurance of appearance which, we may believe Socrates , should one day have made even the gods smile.” Also, he “was by no means for a rhetorician or stylists ”, but“ always let it be important to think correctly and clearly than to write beautifully and brilliantly. ... And if, as some friends believe, I was fortunate enough to have discovered and erased several gross errors in Italian art history, I owe this small merit solely to the fact that I did not get through any public I am bound by employment, which made it possible for me to live my studies freely and independently and to express my views ruthlessly. "

Morelli was friends with Bettina von Arnim , Friedrich Rückert , Peter von Cornelius , Bonaventura Genelli , Wilhelm von Kaulbach , Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and the Prussian crown prince couple Victoria and Friedrich Wilhelm . He bequeathed his extensive art collection to the Pinacoteca dell ' Accademia Carrara di Bergamo .

Fonts (selection)

  • Ivan Lermolieff: The works of Italian masters in the galleries of Munich, Dresden and Berlin . Leipzig 1880.
  • Ivan Lermolieff: Art- critical studies on Italian painting . 3 volumes. 1890-93.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Giovanni Morelli  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Giovanni Morelli  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files


personal data
SURNAME Morelli, Giovanni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian politician, doctor and art historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH Verona
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1891
Place of death Milan