{"id":943,"date":"2011-06-09T11:21:26","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T15:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso2\/"},"modified":"2013-06-04T16:27:08","modified_gmt":"2013-06-04T20:27:08","slug":"ii-north-the-education-of-achilles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/paintings\/p-22\/ii-north-the-education-of-achilles\/","title":{"rendered":"P.22 II North: Education of Achilles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

P.22 II North: The Education of Achilles<\/p><\/div>\n

The central fresco: c. 1.67 x c. 2.515 m.<\/p>\n

Fig. P.22, II N a<\/a> whole wall
\nFig. P.22, II N b<\/a> wall left
\nFig. P.22, II N c<\/a> wall right<\/p>\n

The dish of fruit at the upper left and the basket of flowers at the upper right are at least partially additions for the tops of them occupy spaces where the beams originally were placed.<\/p>\n

PREPARATORY DRAWING: D.53<\/a> (COPY). \u00a0Paris, Ensba, no. 2842. \u00a0The<\/em> Education of Achilles<\/em>. \u00a0Oval format. \u00a0The drawing is a copy of a lost drawing by Rosso that he made before it was decided to use the rectangular shape for all the large frescoes in the gallery except that of the center of the south wall. \u00a0In the drawing the figure of Achilles is nude in the three scenes at the right. \u00a0The figures in the swimming and spearing scenes are considerably smaller in the drawing than they are in the fresco where they have been enlarged to fill and have greater effect in the enlarged rectangular fresco. \u00a0The swimming scene is also more to the right in the drawing. \u00a0Also in the drawing the posts enclosing the small terrace at the left are not decorated; in the painting they are, and one bears an \u201cF.\u201d \u00a0The man in the doorway at the upper right may not be in the fresco, and the youth standing on the balcony is nude in the drawing although clothed in the painting. \u00a0All the adults under the portico at the left are clothed in the painting while in the drawing some seem not to be.<\/p>\n

Hans Kauffmann, Donatello<\/em>, Berlin, 1935, 216, n. 189, recognized that the architectural background of Rosso\u2019s central fresco is derived from the relief of the Feast of Herod<\/em> in the Mus\u00e9e Wicar in Lille, ascribed to Donatello (see H.W. Janson, The Sculpture of Donatello<\/em>, Princeton, 1963, 129-131, Pls. 54-55; Fig.Feast of Herod<\/a>). \u00a0Although Kauffmann believed that this may indicate that the relief was brought to France in the early Cinquecento, Janson thought it just as likely that Rosso knew the relief in Florence and brought a sketch of it to France (as seems also indicated by Dunkelman, 1976, 100-101). \u00a0Rosso\u2019s study of Donatello\u2019s art in Florence appears indicated by several references to it in his works including one early drawing, the Disputation Between Two Old Men\u00a0<\/em>in the Uffizi (D.2<\/a>). \u00a0The romping stucco putti above Rosso\u2019s Education of Achilles<\/em> in the gallery also seem to suggest his recollection of Donatello\u2019s Cantoria<\/em>, although none of them is specifically like one of Donatello\u2019s angels. \u00a0Furthermore, several of the stucco reliefs in the gallery are quite Donatellesque, especially in their use of that sculptor\u2019s technique of rilievo stiacciato<\/em>. \u00a0We can assume he made drawings in Florence after the works of other artists as he is recorded as having drawn from Masaccio\u2019s frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel (see L.1<\/a>) and from Michelangelo\u2019s Battle<\/em> cartoon (see L.3<\/a>). \u00a0There is also evidence that he knew Michelangelo\u2019s teste divine<\/em> drawings and his David-Apollo<\/em> (see D.24<\/a>). \u00a0But it cannot be assumed that he carried any copies that he had made, including at least one after Donatello, to France. \u00a0Fleeing from Rome at the time of the Sack and then from Arezzo in 1529, where he left behind some of his own drawings, as we know from an inventory of his effects made after his departure (DOC.13<\/a>), it may be wondered if Rosso had still in his possession when he left for Venice and France any of his own early drawings. \u00a0It is, however, clear that Rosso\u2019s use of the architecture of this relief is not based simply on a recollection of it. \u00a0He may, of course, have had a drawing of it that was made in Florence by someone else who then brought it to France.<\/p>\n

All of these arguments presuppose that the relief itself was not in France in the early 1530\u2019s, but its provenance, given by Janson, does not prove that it was not. \u00a0It might well have been there, even if it was with Wicar when he died in Rome in 1834. \u00a0But while this would easily explain Rosso\u2019s access to it, it does not indicate why he should have recognized its background as appropriate for the subject he needed to illustrate. \u00a0None of the figures in the drawing or fresco bear any relation to those in the relief. \u00a0The situation remains puzzling and the only explanation that might be offered is that the relief is not by Donatello as I suggested in Carroll, 1964 (1976), 395, n. 1 (see also D.53<\/a>) and as Pope-Hennessy, 1986, 66, 72, also thought. \u00a0But whereas Pope-Hennessy concluded that it was probably carved in the middle of the fifteenth century after Donatello\u2019s Paduan reliefs (and apparently in Italy), it could just possibly have been made by a Florentine sculptor in France at the same time that Rosso created his composition. \u00a0This would mean that it has no relation to Michelangelo\u2019s Madonna of the Steps<\/em> as Janson indicated it has. \u00a0The Lille relief could just possibly have been made by a Donatellesque Florentine sculptor in France at the same time that Rosso created his composition. \u00a0I had earlier suggested that it was by Giovanni Francesco Rustici. \u00a0The child in the lower right corner of the relief is extremely similar to the Christ Child in Rustici\u2019s tondo <\/em>in the Bargello (Ciardi Dupr\u00e9, 1963, Pl. 43). \u00a0Furthermore, the Donatellesque character of the relief in Lille is comparable to that of Rustici\u2019s Madonna and Child<\/em> from Fontainebleau, and now in the Louvre (Middeldorf, 1935, 76, Pl.1, Fig.B). \u00a0Technically and stylistically, especially the somewhat arbitrary relation of figures and architecture which is so unlike Donatello, the Lille relief resembles Rustici marble Annunciation<\/em> in the Villa Salviati, Florence (Ciardi Dupr\u00e9, 1963, Pl.44) and his marble St. George and the Dragon<\/em> in Budapest (Middeldorf, 1935, 71, Pl.1, Fig. A). \u00a0In Rosso\u2019s composition the architecture clearly accomodates the various scenes of Achilles\u2019s instruction suggesting that the architecture was invented by Rosso and then was borrowed by Rustici, or whoever else carved the relief.<\/p>\n

COPY, DRAWING: Bayonne, Mus\u00e9e Bonnat, no. 142. \u00a0Marine Deities Bathing<\/em> (Fig.P.22Copy, Bayonne<\/a>). \u00a0Pen and brown ink and wash on beige paper, 19.8 x 29. \u00a0PROVENANCE: J. Dugan (Lugt 1440); an unidentified collector\u2019s mark at the lower right. \u00a0LITERATURE: C. Gruyer, Ville de Bayonne, Mus\u00e9e Bonnat. Collection Bonnat Catalogue sommaire<\/em>, Paris, 1908, 77, no. 142. \u00a0Bean, 1960, no. 148, and Fig. \u00a0B\u00e9guin and Pressouyre, 1972, 127.\u00a0 Two of the figures in this drawing are derived from the swimming episode in Rosso\u2019s Education of Achilles<\/em>. \u00a0The flat buttocks of the young swimmer suggest that the ultimate source of the figures is Rosso\u2019s lost drawing (see above) or another version of it rather than the fresco in the gallery. \u00a0The scene in the Bayonne drawing decorates the body of a vase in a drawing in a private collection published by Sylvie B\u00e9guin in\u00a0Renaissance<\/em>, Quebec, 1984, 327-328, no. 196 and Fig., as a copy after Rosso. \u00a0But the bottom of the Bayonne drawing shows two details, a spiral, serpentine form and a ledge of two steps, that do not appear in the vase suggesting the former was not made for such a decoration (see also RP.17<\/a>, n. 1).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The central fresco: c. 1.67 x c. 2.515 m. Fig. P.22, II N a whole wall Fig. P.22, II N b wall left Fig. P.22, II N c wall right The dish of fruit at the upper left and the basket of flowers at the upper right are at least partially additions for the tops […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":908,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-943","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9329,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/943\/revisions\/9329"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}