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| Brancacci Chapel |
On my last morning in Florence I went back to the Oltrano to
breakfast with a friend in the Piazza Santa Spirito. When one of my erudite
British friends suggested I couldn’t leave Florence without visiting the
Cappella Brancacci in the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmina, literally around
the corner from breakfast, I had no reason not to pop in en route to the train
station. I have to say, the deal was clenched when I read that Brancacci, the
wealthy patron after whom the chapel takes its name, was vehemently and vocally
anti-Medici. Anyone who stood up to the wealthiest family in Renaissance
Florence, had to be a man of measured decisions, and therefore, have the
judgment to choose a quality decorator for his chapel.
The jewel of the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmina is indeed
Masaccio’s fresco cycle on the life, imprisonment and death of St Peter, the
saint of the church. Yet again, I was astounded at the vibrancy and immediacy
of the Renaissance in action. At first glance, as always, what makes the cycle
amazing, what makes the cycle that of a master, are the colours, the fall of
the light as it is created through colour, the fabrics of the robes, and
because it is the Renaissance, the incredible presence of the figures.
Surrounded by frescoes in other chapels, frescoes in which dark robed figures
whose expressions are not always fully defined, can be static and unreflective,
Masaccio’s figures are so alive and so recognizeable, that we feel their
heightened emotions, we follow their conversations, we are pulled into the drama
of their stories. This was my immediate impression.
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| Detail from Peter Baptising the Neophytes |
There are at least two further characteristics that make
Masaccio’s cycle for this chapel magical, both of which take time to reveal
themselves. First, the facial expressions and hand gestures of the figures in
the story. The detailed faces and gestures are so vivid, so lifelike, and
simultaneously, so varied, that each figure is given his own individual
personality via these traits. This is a cycle that has incredible energy and movement,
and yet, unlike those painted over one hundred years later (I am thinking of
Michelangelo), most of Masaccio’s figures are actually static. What makes them
move is the strength of their facial expressions and the force of their hand
gestures. Thus when someone points, we voluntarily follow the gesture as if the hand
creates a sightline. And when the turn and direction of the figures’ different
gazes leads us around the walls, we never stop, but rather, enjoy being caught
up in the dynamism of otherwise static figures. Through the power of these
three aspects, we begin to hear the conversations, the arguments between
characters, we hear the silence as the crowd listens to St Peter preaching, we
hear Jesus giving Peter his instructions to find the coin in the fish’s mouth
in The Tribute Money. This is as
vivid as 15th century fresco painting gets.
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| This putti is on the altar with the fresco behind her |
Like the Fra Angelico frescoes, the most astounding aspect
of Masaccio’s work is the perfect visual unity – but in the Brancacci Chapel the
unity only comes together at the point of observation. The viewer, standing in
the dead centre of the chapel, represents the point at which all the lines of both
layers of multiple narratives within each frame converge. Thus the settings in
the upper registers slope down, and the figures are perspectively rendered, as
though sliding down the hill to us. Similarly, moving around the chapel, the
figures all cast shadows appropriate to their position in relationship to the
altar. The shadows appear as if the light is placed behind the altar, shining through
the chapel and illuminating the whole of St Peter’s life. The skewing of the
perspective to create such illusory unity, despite the fact that the paint was applied to a wall at
such proximity, is what makes such fescoes mindboggling.
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| Onlookers in Raising the Son of Theophilus |
Spending time in churches, convents, chapels and cloisters
in Florence, over the past few days, I saw the Renaissance artistic endeavour in
a whole new light. If ever I held doubts that paintings need to be seen in the
spaces for which they were executed, those doubts are now officially dispelled.
Because the light coming in the windows — which was also often the roof of
smaller spaces — completely changes the paintings. I am thinking of Andrea del
Sartos cycles in the SS Annunziata, for
which the artist painted in anticipation of the fall of sunlight through the
roof at a certain time of the day. The density and hue of the colours
anticipate the transformations that occur as the day moves on.
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| Peter in Prison |
Also, as I visited church after church, it was driven home
to me that painting was the material and created the spaces where power and
influence were expressed in the quattrocento and cinquecento Florence. These
painters, in the case of the Cappella Brancacci, Masaccio, Lippi and Masolini
who finished off some of the frescoes after Masaccio died, are like the house
painters of the time. They were hired to fulfill the commission and make the
donor or patron, here Brancacci look good. They aren’t painters like artists
are today – individuals painting to express themselves and their world vision.
Rather, they were pawns in the world of banking, of money and social standing. This
is obvious to anyone who has ever read a book on the Renaissance, but the
function and role of art as a status symbol, and the artist providing a service
really comes alive on these church walls. These walls are the battleground of
generations of politically and financially powerful men. And these men needed
the walls that we look at today, in order to show the world how powerful they
actually were.
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| The Temptation of Adam and Eve, this was painted by Masolini, who became Masaccio's follower while painting the Chapel |
What makes the likes of Masaccio, and later, the obvious
Michelangelo, Raphael, Lippi and so on, masters, is that not only did they fill
the commissions, but their genius was expressed. In their interpretation of the
same stories they changed the iconography, the story, at times, even the
characters. These transformations had to be extremely subtle so as not to distract from the importance of the patron at a time when radical creativity was not always appreciated. And then, only if they were successful, their genius was sealed as everyone who came in their wake, followed their
invention, until the next genius appeared on the streets of Florence.
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