Paragons (art theory)

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Guercino : Allegory of Painting and Sculpture , 1637

In the history of art, the “competition of the arts”, primarily in the Renaissance and early Baroque periods , is referred to as the Paragone ( it . : comparison, contrast ; shortened from paragone delle arti ) . It was about the primacy within the visual arts and the relationship of the visual arts to other fine arts such as poetry .

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history

Based on several ancient anecdotes, handed down in the Historia naturalis by Pliny the Elder , a debate arose - not without impulses from Petrarch - in the second half of the 15th century in Italy about the question of which art genre from an aesthetic point of view and based on the artistic one Can claim the primacy. Humanists, poets, musicians and leading representatives of the visual arts took part. One of the focal points of the discussions was the question of the ranking of painting and sculpture. The name of the dispute, Paragone delle Arti, for which the verb form paragonare also exists, which is now transferred into the standard Italian language , is derived from the name of the artist's black touchstone - the Paragone - which was common at the time .

Among the artists who took part in the Paragone discourse in the form of treatises were Leon Battista Alberti , Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci , all of whom attributed primacy to painting because it was intellectually superior to the sculpture that was influenced by Fatica . At most, they attested a status comparable to that of painting to relief art as the form of expression of sculpture that was closest to painting. Other artist authors represented the priority of the chosen genre with exemplary works of art. What all artists had in common, however, was that they rhetorically ennobled the "mechanical" (visual) arts as artes liberales and sought to define their position and their capabilities through competition. The Paragone thus became a central vehicle for self-assurance and self-definition for artists.

The discussion reached a culmination point in 1547 with the lectures by Benedetto Varchi on this topic and the survey he initiated among well-known painters and sculptors, including Michelangelo and Giorgio Vasari . Varchi published both his own remarks and the replies from the artists in Florence in 1549. A second high phase took place after the death of Michelangelo (who had advocated a higher rank of sculpture) in 1564. Sculptors like Benvenuto Cellini wanted to give expression to the primacy of sculpture when designing his tomb in Santa Croce , where personifications of the arts were depicted, but at that time the Accademia del Disegno was dominated by people who - like Vasari in particular - painting favored.

Simon Vouet : Allegory of the Arts , around 1730

After these two high phases, the Paragone lived on into the 20th century, with painting or sculpture being given priority, depending on the author and epoch. For example, the turn to ancient art in the 18th century led to a strong appreciation of sculpture. In the late of Paragons tradition belonging treatises, such as the Laocoon of Lessing , the predominant in the 16th century rivalry frequently appeared in the background; It was now more about a characterization of the individual art genres with their possibilities of expression and effect without a pronounced evaluation.

Paragons in Spain

The Spanish Paragone was fought out and served much later than the Italian one, "unlike in Italy, where the discussion about the recognition of painting as free art had already begun around 1400 with Cennino Cennini and was continued programmatically by Alberti and Leonardo " - with all The basic material demands of the artists were met up to around 1500 - mainly to assert concrete economic and social interests of the Spanish artists vis-à-vis society and its elites. The initiative for this came almost entirely from the painters, to whose accusations the sculptors reacted only hesitantly. On the part of the painter, writings by Francisco Pacheco del Río , Vicente Carducho and Jusepe Martínez (1600–1682) appeared. The sculptors appeared mainly with the memorial of the sculptors of Zaragoza . The reluctance of the sculptors can be explained by their privileged position at court and church over painters. Work activities, wages and responsibilities between sculptors and painters on church and palace building sites were precisely regulated, mostly to the detriment of the painters. The polychrome sculptures typical of the Spanish Siglo de Oro , which had to be painted after production to make them appear as lifelike as possible, ensured the sculptors this advantage. The painters who were not considered artists but craftsmen and who joined guild associations with other less respected professions, such as B. the innkeepers, had to add, felt they were being cheated and ignored. In contrast to Italy, Spain did not have an art academy and most painters were forced to run a commercial trade on the side, many also traded in the art of other painters. The Spanish Paragone was therefore fought out by the painters, on the one hand, legally in court ( deposiciones ) and with petitions ( memoriales ) to the king and the Council of State, on the other hand, by means of treatise and life literature. Paintings that directly thematized the Paragone, as in Italy, were rarely made. In 1597, 1625 and 1677, painters successfully sued the obligation to provide and equip soldiers for the army. In 1606 El Greco - who left private records on the Paragone - sued against a tax claim. In 1621 painters threatened to file a lawsuit at the Real Audiencia against the sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés , because he had deceived the painters during construction work. From 1625 to 1633 Vicente Carducho and other painters in Madrid brought a successful lawsuit against alcabala claims (tax claims) on the sale of self-painted works. In 1647 and 1666 painters were sentenced to court for refusing to take on duties and financial burdens in religious brotherhoods ( confradías ).

Demands of the painters in the Paragone:

  • Recognition of painting as “arte liberal y noble” (German for example: free and noble art) with its own guild status
  • Exemption from the alcabala sales tax of 14% on handicrafts and the tax on sacred images
  • Better position than the tax-privileged "profesores [practitioners] de los artes liberales"
  • Exemption from military and ecclesiastical duties and compensation (financing of soldiers)
  • Establishing academies for better training and improvement of the disegno
  • Commissioning of local painters instead of foreign, mainly Italian, artists
  • Award of nobility titles (increased legal security), honors and prizes to painters
  • In joint projects, sculptors should not be allowed to judge the work of the painters and their payment

Francisco Pacheco

In the field of art theory, Francisco Pacheco first drew attention to himself in 1622 with the short treatise A los profesores [practitioners] del Arte de la Pintura and later with the longer El Arte de la Pintura su antiguedad y grandezas ( Seville 1649). As Diego Velázquez 's father-in-law , his commitment was mainly concerned with the ennobling of his former apprentice. In many cases, Pacheco's statements are poorly founded polemics, but precisely because of this they were productive. His writing from 1649 is the most extensive Spanish painting treatise of the 17th century.

1622 - The statements contained therein are:

  • Painting possesses a higher nobleza .
  • Painting is older than sculpture.
  • God was the first painter: "world painter" or "human painter" ( deus pictor ).
  • Painting is one of the "artes liberales".
  • Painting is superior because it was practiced by nobles, philosophers, kings and emperors.
  • Painting requires fatica d'ingenio , sculpture only fatica del corpo.
  • Painting is the more useful art for the Church.
  • Painting imitates nature using lines and colors.
  • Painting depicts "passiones y afectos del animo" better than sculpture.
  • The sculptors depend on the painters to make polychrome sculptures.
  • The perfection of painting is able to deceive the viewer (to generate religious feelings).
  • Painting has universalità.
  • The painters receive more royal favors than the sculptors.

1649 - The new statements therein are:

  • There are fewer sculptors than painters because painting is “more attractive to do”.
  • The value of the material to be processed (e.g. marble ) is not decisive for the rank of art.
  • Even a fresco painter , like the sculptor, must not make any mistakes at work.
  • The painters drew before the sculptors.
  • Painting already belonged to the «artes liberales» in antiquity.
  • Painting has "simultaneity".
  • The “all-round view” of painting is more artistic than that of sculpture.
  • Painting has a higher degree of difficulty ( difficoltà ) due to light, shadow and perspective foreshortening.

Vicente Carducho

As the second most important Spanish art theorist of his time, Vicente Carducho, who was born in Florence , founded the Spanish life literature, modeled on Giorgio Vasari . Diálogos de la Pintura, su defensa, origen, essencia, definición, modos y diferencias (English for example: Dialogues of painting, its defense, origin, nature, definition, manifestations and distinctions) appeared in Madrid in 1633. In it he also explained the advantages of painting over sculpture.

1633 - The arguments introduced by Carducho and not included in Pacheco are:

  • Painting is an acto de entendimiento.
  • Painting transforms materials of little value into those of great value.
  • The durability of the sculpture ( durata, eternità ) is not an artistic achievement.
  • It is much more artistic to imitate the three-dimensionality in the painted surface than to reproduce what is already three-dimensional with the three-dimensional sculpture.
  • The fact that sculptors are not allowed to make mistakes has nothing to do with art.
  • More "figures" can be represented in painting than in sculpture.
  • Sculptures are expensive because the material is expensive.
  • Painting makes a better imitation of nature.
  • Painting has perfection , because with color it shows character and feelings.

Jusepe Martínez

As the third author of the Paragone in Spain, Jusepe Martínez from Saragossa was only able to gain local influence; his work Discursos practicables del nobilísimo arte de la Pintura (German: Practical Discourses of the Most Noble Art of Painting), from around 1673, was not published until 1853 . Martínez also takes the standpoint of the superiority of painting. In contrast to his colleagues, he also honors the work of the sculptors in a separate chapter of his book.

Answer from the sculptors in the Paragone

In 1677 the Memorial of the Zaragoza Sculptors appears . The sculptors, who had been passive for a long time, had to realize that they were now at a disadvantage compared to the painters. In 1677 the painters were recognized by royal decree as “arte liberal y noble”. Associated with this was the basic authorization to acquire titles of nobility and court offices (de facto still very difficult, as the example of Diego Velázquez shows). The sculptors also wanted to benefit from this extension of their rights, especially since the nobility had extensive privileges.

  • Both arts have the same object and goal, namely the imitation of nature.
  • Both arts are equivalent, they are "free and noble arts".
  • The advantage of sculpture is the truth , as opposed to the lie of painting.
  • The sculpture achieves perfection more easily because it does not need color.
  • Sculptors are also painters, while painters are not sculptors.
  • Painters need the example of the sculpture to show the foreshortening.
  • The sculptors also do some intellectual work in preparing the works.
  • God was the first sculptor.
  • Saints, rulers and philosophers were active as sculptors.
  • Sculpture is also of great use for the state, rulers and the church.

literature

Historical tracts

  • Leonardo da Vinci : Trattato della Pittura . Vicenza 2000.
  • Benedetto Varchi : Paragons. Dispute of rank of the arts . Italian and German. Translated and commented by Oskar Bätschmann and Tristan Weddigen. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-534-21637-6 .
  • Jusepe Martínez: Discursos practicables del nobilísimo arte de la pintura [around 1673], (English Practicable Discourses of the Most Noble Art of Painting). Ed. by María Elena Manrique Ara. Preface by Bonaventura Bassegoda. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra 2006.

Research literature

  • Eric Achermann : On the importance of the 'Paragone delle arti' for the development of the arts. In: Herbert Jaumann (Ed.): Discourses of the learned culture in the early modern times. A manual . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2011, pp. 179–209.
  • Sabine Blumenröder: Andrea Mantegna. The grisaille; Painting, history and ancient art in the Paragone des Quattrocento . Gebrüder Mann, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-7861-2558-7 (revised dissertation University of Hamburg 1999).
  • Beth Cohen : Paragons. Sculpture versus painting, Kaineus and the Kleophrades Painter. In: Ancient Greek art and iconography. Madison, Wisc. 1983, pp. 171-192.
  • Sabine Hentschel: The competition for liveliness. Pygmalion and the Paragons in the 19th century. Jena 2010.
  • Ingo Herklotz: Paragone and maraviglia at the tomb of Urban VIII by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. In: Gerd Blum (ed.): Pendant Plus. Image Combinatorial Practices . Reimer, Berlin 2012, pp. 263-280. ISBN 978-3-496-01449-2
  • Stefan Hess : The bourgeois Paragon. In: ders .: Between Winckelmann and Winkelried. The Basel sculptor Ferdinand Schlöth (1818–1891). Berlin 2010. pp. 47–54 ISBN 978-3-86805-954-0 (revised dissertation Basel 2007).
  • Christiane J. Hessler: To the Paragon. Painting, sculpture, and poetry in the quattrocento culture of dispute over rank . De Gruyter, Berlin, 2014, ISBN 978-3-05-006100-9 .
  • Ekkehard Mai, Kurt Wettengl (Hrsg.): Competition of the arts. Painting and sculpture from Dürer to Daumier. Edition Minerva, Wolfratshausen 2002, ISBN 3-932353-58-7 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Haus der Kunst , Munich, February 1 to May 5, 2002).
  • Martin Miersch: Marc-Antoine Charpentier's short opera "Les arts florissants". To the competition of the arts in a baroque opera. In: Sabine Heiser, Christiane Holm (Ed.): Gedächtnisparagone. Intermedial constellations . ( Forms of Memory . Volume 42.) V & R Unipress, Göttingen 2010, pp. 169–190. ISBN 978-3-89971-554-5
  • Rudolf Preimesberger : Paragons and paragone. Van Eyck, Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Bernini . Los Angeles: Getty Museum 2011. ISBN 978-0-89236964-5
  • Renate Prochno: Competition and their faces in art. Competition, creativity and its effects . Berlin: de Gruyter 2006. ISBN 978-3-05004230-5
  • Andreas Schnitzler: The competition of the arts. The relevance of the Paragone question in the 20th century . Berlin: Reimer 2007. ISBN 978-3-49601366-2
  • Annette Simonis: The comparison and competition of the arts. The “Paragone” as a place of a comparative aesthetic. In: Achim Hölter (Ed.): Comparative Arts. Universal aesthetics in the focus of comparative literary studies . Synchron Edition, Heidelberg 2011, pp. 73–86. ISBN 978-3-939381-41-9 .
  • Christine Tauber: Paragons. In: Stefan Jordan, Jürgen Müller (Ed.): Lexicon of Art History. A hundred basic terms. Reclam, Stuttgart 2012. ISBN 978-3-15010844-4
  • Joseph Jurt: Les Arts rivaux. Literature et arts visuels d'Homère à Huysmans. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2018, ISBN 978-2-406-07981-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Beth Cohen : Paragone. Sculpture versus painting, Kaineus and the Kleophrades Painter. In: Ancient Greek art and iconography. Madison, Wisc. 1983, pp. 171-192.
  2. ^ Compiled by Christiane J. Hessler: Zum Paragone. Painting, sculpture, and poetry in the quattrocento culture of dispute over rank . De Gruyter Verlag, Berlin 2014, p. 734ff. and p. 108ff. on the example of the blind in art judgment.
  3. ↑ In the Middle Ages, controversial poems were about the primacy of the Artes liberales or Artes mechanicae.
  4. ↑ Joachim Poeschke : Virtus and status of the sculptor in the Renaissance. In: Joachim Poeschke, Thomas Weigel, Britta Kusch-Arnhold (ed.): The virtus of the artist in the Italian Renaissance. Symbolic communication and social value systems. Münster / Westphalia 2006, pp. 73–82.
  5. ^ Benedetto Varchi : Paragons. Dispute of rank of the arts . Italian and German. Translated and commented by Oskar Bätschmann and Tristan Weddigen. WBG, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-534-21637-6 .
  6. ↑ Sabine Hentschel: The competition for liveliness. Pygmalion and the Paragons in the 19th century. Jena 2010; Andreas Schnitzler: The competition of the arts. The relevance of the Paragone question in the 20th century. Berlin 2007.
  7. ↑ Stefan Hess : The bourgeois Paragone. In: Stefan Hess: Between Winckelmann and Winkelried. The Basel sculptor Ferdinand Schlöth (1818–1891). Berlin 2010, pp. 47–54.
  8. ↑ a b c d Susann Waldmann: The artist and his portrait in Spain of the 17th century - A contribution to Spanish portrait painting . In: Barbara Borngässer et al. (Ed.): Iberoamericana . Vervuert Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 978-3-89354-511-7 , p. 19th f., 21 .
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc Karin Hellwig: The Spanish art literature in the 17th century . In: Barbara Borngässer et al. (Ed.): Iberoamericana (monograph) . Vervuert Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 978-3-89354-513-1 , p. 35, 45 f., 47 f., 49, 50, 52, 116, 147, 149, 165 ff., 170-176, 179 f., 191-195,199 .
  10. ↑ Kurt Zeitler, Karin Hellwig: El Greco comments on the competition of the arts . State Graphic Collection Munich, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-422-06640-3 .
  11. ↑ Francisco Pacheco: El Arte de la Pintura . Ed .: Bonaventura Bassegoda i Hugas. Ediciones Cátedra, Madrid 1990.
  12. ↑ a b c Dawson W. Carr (with X. Bray, JH Elliott, L. Keith, J. Portús): Velázquez . London 2006, p. 245 ff .
  13. ↑ a b Victor Stoichiță : The mystical eye - vision and painting in Spain in the Golden Age . Ed .: Gottfried Boehm, Karlheinz Stierle, translated by Andreas Kopp. Munich 1997, p. 107 f., 170 ff .
  14. ↑ a b c Francisco Calvo Serraller: Teoría de la pintura del Siglo de Oro . In: Grandes Temas . 2nd Edition. Ediciones Cátedra, Madrid 1991, p. 261, 266 .