Before you start
reading the text, compare the two images on p. 687 – Raphael’s original and
Marcantonio Raimondi’s printed version.
· Consider their
differences (such as their medium, size, and the clarity of each image) but
also viewership – how would each be viewed?
Thoughts prior to
reading:
A print medium produced from a copper engraving like
Raimondi’s is endlessly ‘mechanically reproducible’, although would still be
too expensive for many at the time.
In contrast, a fresco
painting is necessarily unitary and built into the architecture it illustrates
and which frames it. It is therefore inevitably part of the ritual involved in
seeing it for a selected elite audience. However its accessibility is also
ensured by the difference in size. The originals width of 8.4 m is more than eight times wider than the print which is
necessarily transportable. Stuck in its architecture, the frame of the original
is the arch to which it is a lunette. It compares to its companion pieces. The
print has no need to reference such architecture in the shaping of the figure –
background landscape composition. The original does to great effect, making
arch and door part of the meaning of the whole. The fresco allows more clarity
and access to individual faces in the group and the differentiation and
allegorical reading of the participants is enabled by colour – the white
clothing of the central allegorical truth and unity female figure. The painting
has no observable putti. Were these necessary to add to fantasy effect in the
print.
Added after reading Pons:
·
To Goethe the painting seemed less clear than a
print. For him and a group looking at the image was part of a means of ‘studying’
it, that purpose being easier given a print’s potential for proximity. Each
format generates its own type of public – from international students to cult congregation.
(687)
·
Apollo is dropped from the print. (688)
· How about the
artist’s signature? (You can look up these images in a database if you want a
better resolution.)
· Only answered after
reading paper. (SB)
This is discussed on
p. 688-9:
Rather, the engraving asserts that
the picture had been made by Raphael. As the inscription on the cartellino
across the depicted window states, RAPHAEL PINXIT IN VATICANO: “Raphael
depicted [this] in the Vatican.” The inscription spells out Raphael’s role in
the making of Parnassus, while Marcantonio’s work on the engraving remains
encoded in his three-letter MAF monogram, discreetly placed under Raphael’s
explicit assertion of [p. 689] authorship.
And on 693: we are
told Julius II’s name only appears on the painting.
Raphael’s authorship
and authority was then made available more from Raimondi’s print.
Discussion from website:
As Pon argues,
‘Marcantonio’s engraving both made Raphael’s painting public and made a public
for the painting’. (Pon, 2005, p. 686).
The importance of the
inscription by Raimondi, declaring the work to be by Raphael, enabled viewers
to connect the invention of the painting to Raphael, even when Sanuto copied
Raimondi’s engraving, for instance. The print thus not only publicised the
painting but generated a ‘community of viewers’ who accepted Raphael’s
authorship of the original image (Pon, 2005p. 691). So much so that Vasari, as
Pon notes, conflated the print and the original image when discussing Parnassus in
his famous Lives (Pon, 2005pp. 692–3). The print thus creates
a public for the painting – allowing a much broader viewership of the original.
On ‘authorship’ and origination / originality and the art-object A844 Ex. 1.7.3
On ‘authorship’ and origination / originality and the art-object A844 Ex. 1.7.3
Exercise
Now go to Lisa Pon’s article, ‘Paint/print/public’ (2005).
Before you start reading the text, compare the two images on p. 687 – Raphael’s original and Marcantonio Raimondi’s printed version.
· Consider their differences (such as their medium, size, and the clarity of each image) but also viewership – how would each be viewed?
Thoughts prior to reading:
A print medium produced from a copper engraving like Raimondi’s is endlessly ‘mechanically reproducible’, although would still be too expensive for many at the time.
In contrast, a fresco painting is necessarily unitary and built into the architecture it illustrates and which frames it. It is therefore inevitably part of the ritual involved in seeing it for a selected elite audience. However its accessibility is also ensured by the difference in size. The originals width of 8.4 m is more than eight times wider than the print which is necessarily transportable. Stuck in its architecture, the frame of the original is the arch to which it is a lunette. It compares to its companion pieces. The print has no need to reference such architecture in the shaping of the figure – background landscape composition. The original does to great effect, making arch and door part of the meaning of the whole. The fresco allows more clarity and access to individual faces in the group and the differentiation and allegorical reading of the participants is enabled by colour – the white clothing of the central allegorical truth and unity female figure. The painting has no observable putti. Were these necessary to add to fantasy effect in the print.
Added after reading Pons:
· To Goethe the painting seemed less clear than a print. For him and a group looking at the image was part of a means of ‘studying’ it, that purpose being easier given a print’s potential for proximity. Each format generates its own type of public – from international students to cult congregation. (687)
· Apollo is dropped from the print. (688)
· How about the artist’s signature? (You can look up these images in a database if you want a better resolution.)
· Only answered after reading paper. (SB)
This is discussed on p. 688-9:
Rather, the engraving asserts that the picture had been made by Raphael. As the inscription on the cartellino across the depicted window states, RAPHAEL PINXIT IN VATICANO: “Raphael depicted [this] in the Vatican.” The inscription spells out Raphael’s role in the making of Parnassus, while Marcantonio’s work on the engraving remains encoded in his three-letter MAF monogram, discreetly placed under Raphael’s explicit assertion of [p. 689] authorship.
And on 693: we are told Julius II’s name only appears on the painting.
Raphael’s authorship and authority was then made available more from Raimondi’s print.
Discussion from website:
As Pon argues, ‘Marcantonio’s engraving both made Raphael’s painting public and made a public for the painting’. (Pon, 2005, p. 686).
The importance of the inscription by Raimondi, declaring the work to be by Raphael, enabled viewers to connect the invention of the painting to Raphael, even when Sanuto copied Raimondi’s engraving, for instance. The print thus not only publicised the painting but generated a ‘community of viewers’ who accepted Raphael’s authorship of the original image (Pon, 2005p. 691). So much so that Vasari, as Pon notes, conflated the print and the original image when discussing Parnassus in his famous Lives (Pon, 2005pp. 692–3). The print thus creates a public for the painting – allowing a much broader viewership of the original.