Krystyna
Lenkowska
...since every love, as long as it is true, should
efface the previous one, overwhelm the whole lover, tyrannize and claim
exclusiveness ..."
BARBARIAN
IN THE GARDEN
Zbigniew Herbert’s public declaration of his love for Piero della Francesca, a Quattrocento painter, made me an irresistle desire to see their (i.e. Piero’s and Zbigniew’s) embodiments of beauty with my own eyes.
My Italian paths! My Italian paths were sinuous and winding (as human fate strewn with temptations, as Orpheus’ wanderings in Hades and Tracia), through the miracles of the cathedrals, the shades and lights by Signorelli and Duccio, and the extravagances of one of the popes. Four times, I turned my head to the call of "supernatural" phenomena.
Wine, Orvieto and the Last Judgement!
Neither the Il Duomo in
Herbert was right to say that: "...the cathedral stands still (as long as this static verb is appropriate for something which tears space apart...?) ... and the feeling of being unable to come to terms with its architecture prevails..."
Perhaps only yesterday the WTC towers in
The cathedral is already closed, so a "barbarian" chronology of events comes true for us unexpectedly. First, a glass of wine, then the Last Judgement. In one of the few restaurants with names going back to the Etruscan past, we order the Orvieto and a rabbit fricassee. It may be the same place where Herbert was served this vintage by a girl smiling with her eyes, in the Etruscan way. Thus, we are reverently drinking the strong, well-chilled straw-colored liquid. Freezing our viscera and heart, we are waiting for our heads to catch fire, according to Zbigniew Herbert’s brilliantly precise instruction. On my part, I will add a description of the bouquet: the Orvieto wine – just like my traveler’s book – is redolent of the southern wind and the faded fresco paints, applied by the hands of masters, which over the last 600 years have merged into one noble fragrance of nature. Well, Mr. Herbert, it is indeed harder to describe the wine than the cathedral...
On the following day, inside the Il Duomo, in the chapel of Madonna di San Brizio, the Last Judgement evoked in me exactly the same mood as the sense of awe suspended in midair whenever I utter the two sanctified words: LAST JUDGMENT – silently, as such words are never said aloud, unless to emphasize the pathos.
Friar Angelico did not leave much behind. He quit his work very quickly, apparently scared away by the omen he was said to be afraid of, after the death of a disciple of his, who had fallen down from the chapel vaulting and died. Perhaps he was painting Christ the Judge then? The work was taken over, only after a period of 50 years, by Lucas Signorelli, one of the disciples of Piero della Francesco. And here comes the love interest.
Signorelli’s pictorial compositions, both monumental and colorful, like the ones painted on the arches of the vaulting, as well as the small, dark-brown depictions of the Purgatory from the Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri, constitute a unique study of motion. The plot, as if on a musical filmset: intense expression, drama, the emphasis of choir scenes and the resounding airs of individual faces, bodies and souls – these are the words which gushed through my mind in a voiceless scream.
I was pondering how much was left in that artistic continuity of Herbert’s admiration for the heritage of master Francesco. Was it the inspiring vigor and the darkness rent with the light from beyond? Signorelli the disciple was still a great artist (Herbert believes that even greater than Michelangelo, who created the Sistine Chapel frescoes). Nevertheless, I somehow felt that such fascination felt by an exquisite poet would be too simple a solution, and a too obvious one. Just as the desire felt at first sight for a beautiful, long-legged, mature but still young woman wearing a fox collar and a wolf fur cape, with the inviting, weary eyes of Marlena Dietrich, who is simultaneously followed by a throng of male Berliners. It was just because almost half of the tourists from the town’s square who squeezed into the San Brizio chapel were craning their necks and staring – with irresistible admiration for that undisputed masterpiece and their own roles in that (sometimes scary) spectacle of beauty – at their own bare bodies, hearts and skeletons, as if they were posing nude.
It must be added, after Herbert, that Signorelli’s expertise in osteology (i.e. the knowledge of the skeleton) was flawed, but instead, with his smiling skeletons, he was a witty eschatologist.
Siena, Duccio, The Great
Maesta and Sandals like Cockroaches!
Duccio di Buonisegna, a Duecento painter,
was very lucky in certain respects. He happened to live at a time when masterpieces
by great masters were held in deep veneration. His great Maesta was accompanied by processions of senior citizens, officials
and townspeople on its way through the streets of
The human details painted with Duccio’s brush and Herbert’s word made the most vivid impression on me. In the scene of the Washing of the Feet, Christ and the Apostles, as if they were actors, act with their bodies, gestures, using terse means of expression, and drawing such emotions as respect, love and humility with a subtle, not overstated line. Even the "bodies" of the three black sandals have their dramatic roles to play. They are more dynamic than other objects in the picture (or "in the shot", if one thinks of them in terms of a scene in a film): "...They contrast dramatically with the pink background of the floor, and the verb ‘to lie’ does not reflect the gist of their nature. They seem to be the most lively element in the scene, whereas their diagonal positioning, with their thongs spread sideways, is expressive of a rat-like flight..." or cockroach-like cunning.
In thousands of paintings all over the world, a similar "natura morta" depicting other inanimate objects is referred to, perhaps too hastily, as still nature.
During my voyage of discovery of Herbert’s love for Piero della Francesca, Duccio was an obligatory stage in my search. The intuitive, spontaneous tastefulness of the poet was certainly molded not only by his sensitivity, but also by his erudition. As an expert on the history of art and modern painting, Herbert perceives Duccio, the last great master of antiquity, not only as a master and precursor of composition and dramatic tension but, above all, as a painter who touches you with his subtle expression. And this very subtlety of expression was my guide to understanding the passion of this sophisticated lover of art for Piero della Francesca’s art—the passion of which I was about to become convinced.
A Digression without a
Moral!
I broke my word and entered the cathedral
in
Ironically, there are extant frescoes about the pope’s life in the Piccolimini Library, painted by Pinturicchio, which – after my feast for the spirit at Duccio’s – bring to mind the art of embellishing vaultings, not necessarily sacral ones. However, the very story of Pius II’s life compensates me for the elusive feeling of disappointment which accompanies me on leaving the cathedral.
Pienza, situated not far away from
To me, the life story of Eneas adds up to the logic of Italian Renaissance: stormy youth, Homer, Virgil, women, wine, one’s own experience-based studies of human ways, misanthropy, ardent advocation of the crusades, the dementi, spiritual revival and, in the end, a projection of one’s own experience onto the cathedral walls in Siena.
And now I am trying hard to hear and repeat the dignity in the chant of the word "Pienza" and the commonness (or perhaps common wantonness?) in the music of the name "Corsignano". As if it were my own master class in Italian classical music. And my master is this town’s echo, which – when called by its name – reverberates among the town’s polyphonic stones.
If
It is worth adding that the "discoverers" of Francesco included, inter alia, Stendhal and Malraux, a writer and a poet. Thus, he offered inspiration not only to eminent historians of art, but also renowned epic writers and lyricists (Francesco’s paintings prove him to have been a skillful narrator himself). Nearly 500 years later, Piero della Francesca, the narrator, with his masterful form, became an object of profound passion and admiration for Zbigniew Herbert (who has definitely and repeatedly proved himself to be a painter and sculptor of feelings).
Time and economy made me set my Grande Finale of the love story between
a painter and a poet in only one of the provincial places. My choice was
Another consideration was the fact that it
was the birthplace of Petrarch, an exile, who has found his homeland in philosophy and in
Bearing in mind the light-flooded
"glorias" of Italian cathedrals in
This double marvel is The Legend of the Cross itself, and its artistic embodiment in the form of a cycle of fourteen frescoes by the hand (head and heart) of Piero della Francesca.
Their subject is the story of the Cross of
Christ, called the True Cross (Vera Croce),
from the moment of the creation of the world until the year 615, when the
previously stolen cross was reinstituted back to
What strikes the viewer as different is the seemingly impassive depiction of the characters in the fresco. These people do not look you straight in the eyes, none of them. They do not stun with their emotions, their acting is very economical with gestures and facial expressions. Eve, Mother of Mankind (Death of Adam) despairs of dying Adam "tactfully", soundlessly. The Queen of Sheba (Recognition of the Tree of the Cross), a symbol of the Church of the Orient, during her mystical revelation, falls to her knees before the Christian tree of the Cross. Invariably attentive and conscious of her dignity, she does not intensify the drama of the miracle. With subtlety, it is her retinue maids that do that in her place, opening their mouths wide in speechless astonishment. Restraint, ever present restraint, understatement and subtlety of expression. The battle scene in Constantine’s Victory, one of the greatest masterpieces by Piero della Francesca, is a tumult disciplined by a harmony of planes: men, horses, banners, armors. Even the systematic torture of Judas in The Torture of the Hebrew is controlled by the artist. One does not feel any terror on the convict’s face, nor on the faces of the torturers. However, the geometrical (prophetically cubist!) precision of the machinery of the torment introduces a sort of suspended feeling of fear. In another scene (as it would be hard to talk about a certain order, in the case of resorting to mutually juxtaposed depictions of the events in the legend) on the subject of war (Defeating Chosroes), the battle ritual seems to be performed according to a prepared plan and discipline. Even the sky favors the clarity of the picture, its geometrical harmony undisturbed with a view of the killed and the wounded. Made dynamic only through the reality of the scenes and the passion for detail, the tranquility emanating from the scene is more expressive and moving than many a shout, frenzy or outrage in other pictures I have seen so far. Piero della Francesca enables everyone to witness the legend of the Cross in his or her own way, he does not impose any psychology of the events, nor overwhelms our imagination. Leaving empty space, he simultaneously offers guidelines on how we can read his forms, solids, and the perspective of air and light.
Another fascinating subject is the women of Piero della Francesca. Basically, they are all alike, both physically and psychologically. The Queen of Sheba has got straight hair, which emphasizes the beauty of her head and long neck. Her hazel eyes are fixed on a distant point, as if cast into the future.
Mary in The Annunciation is beautiful like a sculpture, with her endearing calmness and placidity of gestures. Queen Helen, mother of emperor Constantinus, surrounded by her maids (Digging out the Cross), her haircut plain and her expectation filled with humility, shifts our attention from the woman’s beauty to the Cross and the events related to it.
Looking at Francesco’s women in St.
Francis’ church in
I have reached a conclusion that one of the aspects of Piero della Francesca’s genius consists in the fact that he fired both simpletons and scholars with the love for his art. The learned ones, in different epochs, include such names as Cavalcaselli, Crowe, Berenson, Longhy. It was Piero himself who harnessed his talent and mastery with knowledge of, inter alia: architecture, painting, geometry, perspective, proportions, abacus, optics, antiquity, as well as methods of imitating the laws of nature and light.
The phenomenon of his painting is based, among others, on the principles he developed for himself by himself and which govern the composition of his works. They are "the principle of a harmonized background and that of tranquility". My impression is that these are the qualities which captivated his admirer, a great Polish poet and writer, Zbigniew Herbert. The result was an example of a wonderful, uncompromising fascination with art. So many years after the death of the artist of the brush, a great artist of the pen, calling himself a barbarian from a distant European country, devoted much of his competent attention and his sophisticated feelings to paying tribute to the great master of old.
The energy of this love for the Italian
Renaissance will radiate upon all who come in touch with this art and – even
before that–it may offer a kind of anticipatory insight into it. It certainly
was the case when I, another barbarian, went to
I wonder... Would Piero della Francesca reciprocate Herbert’s love if he had lived until our time? How would he evaluate the poet’s studies of objects, the human being and perspective? What would they discuss in the language of art?
To me, they are both alike, to some extent, in the way they create metaphysical emotions. That is why my memories of both of them occupy the same shelf labeled "Subtle Monumentality".
... take
out of the shadow of an
object
which is not there
out of the polar vastness
out of raw dreams of the
internal eye
a chair ...
let it be
quieter than angels
haughtier than kings
truer than a whale
let it have the face of the
things final...[1]
Krystyna Lenkowska