Culture Watch
Art
Lengthy Layover at the Frick
for a Parmigianino
Portrait
By Val Castronovo
When the exhibition celebrating the quincentenary of Parmigianino’s
birth leaves the Frick Collection in
Manhattan in April, it will fortunately not be gone entirely. For one
of its
paintings, the brooding Portrait
of a Man
with a Book (1523-1524) from the York Art Gallery in England, will
stay behind until the end of February, allowing Mannerist enthusiasts
to savor some more
the graceful art and aesthetic of this Italian Renaissance master.
A Beautiful and
Gracious Manner: The Art of Parmigianino (January
27-April 18), organized by the National
Gallery of Canada, showcases the
exquisite drawings, prints and paintings of Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola,
dubbed Parmigianino
after his birthplace Parma. A student of Correggio and emulator of Michelangelo
and Raphael, he died in 1540 when he was only 37, but he left an enormous
legacy in his wake that includes ground-breaking etchings (he was the first Italian
painter to make his own prints), paintings, frescoes and nearly 1,000 drawings,
51 of which are on view at the Frick.
It’s the exhibit’s seven paintings, however, that dazzle and
draw you in. The small-scale oil Circumcision (1523-24)
was a gift to Pope Clement Vll, personally presented to him by the artist
upon his arrival in Rome. This
luminous panel is charged with energy and motion. The Christ Child occupies
center stage and projects an ethereal calm and divine radiance that literally
lights the scene, contrasting, the curators tells us, “with the silvery
luminescence of a cloud-enshrined moon.” Non-celestial figures crowd
him — the canvas is packed — providing a dynamic counterpoint
to the serene infant. We see the distinction between the divine and the
ordinary,
the
heavenly and
the mundane. Light and shadow predominate, and as Andrew Butterfield writes
in The New York Review of Books (April 8, 2004), the shadows “gleam
with the intense black of obsidian.” The sensuous figures are draped
in brilliantly colored garments and have long, elegant fingers, foreshadowing
El Greco’s
oeuvre.
Contrast that bustling religious masterpiece with the show’s darkly
enigmatic holdover, Portrait of a Man with a Book. Here Parmigianino
the portrait painter offers a psychological study in the form of a richly
dressed man looking out
across the pages of a book with an intense gaze. He wears two jeweled rings
on his right hand, and his elongated fingers seem to press up against the
canvas. Again, the artist brilliantly manipulates light and shadow. Said
Dr. Colin
B. Bailey, the Frick’s chief curator, to The New York Times, “This
gives us the chance to have the work of a very great artist who is not
represented in our collection.” And this despite the museum’s
great strength in 16th-century paintings, sculptures and decorative arts.
Heidi Rosenau, press officer for the collection, adds: “The Frick
was aware that the museum in York was not going to be open to the public
at
the time that the painting would have returned to England, due to a refurbishment
project. Therefore, the Frick asked the York Art Gallery if it would extend
the loan. On rare occasions we’ve had an entire show extended by
just a couple of weeks, but this length of extension (about 10 months)
for an individual
object is very rare indeed.”
The plan is for the painting to move to the Anteroom, a main-floor gallery
housing paintings from the permanent collection, from its current spot
at the entrance to the exhibit. There the mesmerizing oil will keep company
with Hans
Memling’s Portrait
of a Man (c. 1470) and El
Greco’s Purification
of the Temple (c.1600). As Dr. Bailey explained to The Times, “The
portrait, with its mysterious quality, fits both in terms of chronology
and art history
between the crystalline naturalism of Memling and the expressive distortions
of El Greco.”
Elaborating further, Bailey marvels that “The introspection
of the unidentified sitter — youthful and self-assured, cultivated
and something of a dandy, perhaps — strikes a particularly modern
note. Clearly
this work
has yet to reveal all of its secrets.”
Viewers should bear in mind that while the show emphasizes Parmigianino’s
genius as a draftsman (oh, that we could only see his most famous painting,
Madonna of the Long Neck, in addition to the three preparatory drawings),
some of the drawings can be hard to see. The lighting in the underground
galleries
is rather dim, and the sketches are quite detailed. On a recent visit,
this reviewer noticed a number of viewers with magnifying glasses, so senior
women
might well come prepared.
Special Lecture and Viewing Opportunities:
There will be a free lecture on Wednesday, April 14, at 6 pm, by Mary Vaccaro of the University of Texas at Arlington, an authority on Parmigianino. Visitors should note as well that the museum is open until 9 pm on Fridays. Free gallery talks are held on the first and third Fridays of each month beginning at 6:30 pm.