A moving target is hard to hit
Eddie Constantine
You can run, but you can't hide
Clint Eastwood
Frank Zöllner
"OGNI PITTORE DIPINGE SE`"
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND "AUTOMIMESIS"
"Ogni pittore dipinge sè", "Every painter paints himself", is a Tuscan proverb which can be found for the first time in Italian literature between 1477 and 1479. Similar notions are known from antiquity, particularly from the discussion of personal style in rhetoric. The proverb does not seem to have existed in the Middle Ages where, however, the similar notion can be found that every "agens" performs its acts in its own image. This notion is also reflected in line of a sonnet attributed to Filippo Brunelleschi which goes: "natura pazza scaglia pazzi efetti".
In the fifteenth century "Every painter paints himself" or "automimesis", as it has been labeled recently, addresses two basic problems which I shall discuss in the following paper; firstly, the changing attitude towards the value of personal expression in artistic creation, and secondly the question of whether "automimesis" has to do with the use of types and stereotypes in fifteenth century painting.
In art historical writing the proverb "Every painter paints himself" refers to an artist who creates himself involuntarily in his work. At least from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards this proverb has been understood as a concept of artistic creation with implications that are almost entirely positive. Giorgio Vasari, in the life of Michelangelo, and Filippo Baldinucci, in the life of Carravaggio, emphasize that artists have their own way and that even eccentric features of an artist's character which can be found in his works of art should be accepted. However, in the fifteenth century and particularly in the writings of Leonardo da Vinci "Every painter paints himself" had a different and not at all positive meaning. The notion of "automimesis" was understood by Leonardo as a major defect of contemporary painting and in fifteenth-century literature the Tuscan proverb meant some inevitable compulsion in the human character. As an example I could quote from a collection of Florentine droll stories, once attributed to Angelo Poliziano and written between 1477 and 1479:
"Cosimo said, that one would rather forget a hundred compliments than one insult and that the offender never forgives and that every painter paints himself."
In this instance the Tuscan proverb elucidates the general human inclination always to remember the bad and to forget the good. Moreover, bad habits are rooted so deeply that the offender, by his evil and unchangeable nature, is unable to forgive. The one who cannot avoid offending is unable to forgive. This inevitable human weakness is again demonstrated by the proverb that every painter paints himself.
In Italian literature of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries most references to "automimesis" illustrate the psychological commonplace that there are unchangeable and inevitable compulsions in man. A connection to any particular painting or to any individual painter of those days seems not to have been intended and in only one instance a particular painter, Leonardo da Vinci, is accused of "automimesis" (see below). Thus generally, the proverb "Every painter paints himself" was not at all personalized and therefore one could infer that in the fifteenth century "automimesis" was a literary topos which had a different association to the psychology of individual paintings than it had in later centuries. That is, "automimesis" in those days had fewer or different psychological implications for the judgement on art than it has today.
Art historians today, in discussing "automimesis", argue that in the fifteenth century a large number of painters involuntarily depicted themselves in their works. In particular Fra Filippo Lippi and Sandro Botticelli are cited as repeating their own physiognomy in almost all faces on their canvas because they simply could not avoid painting themselves. Our concept of physiological likeness may be different from corresponding concepts of the Renaissance beholder but the visual evidence seems to confirm that in fact both Filippo Lippi and Sandro Botticelli painted themselves. Filippo in some of his paintings liked to produce square heads and his self-portraits which - with some probability - have been identified in his paintings are of a similar shape. Thus for instance in the "Coronation of the Virgin" (Florence, Uffizi, fig. 1) square heads are common to some figures as well as to a bald individual looking at the beholder from the lower left corner of the painting.
Another example is Botticelli who in the "Adoration of the Magi" (Florence, Uffizi, fig. 2) - if we agree with the current reading of this painting - depicted almost half a dozen faces very much like the youthful figure to the right which is believed to be a self-portrait. Thus both Botticelli and Fra Filippo seem to have involuntarily reproduced their own likeness in other persons or figures they depicted.
Taking into account our incomplete knowledge about artist's visual self-portraiture in Quattrocento painting, one could have some doubts as to whether Fra Filippo and Botticelli really did paint themselves physically. At this point I suggest that we at least ask if "automimesis" involves yet more complex problems of fifteenth-century painting as well. For instance, to accuse Fra Filippo of constantly depicting himself is not entirely justified because there is a portrait bust on his tomb in Spoleto that does not exactly confirm his having had a stout head (fig. 3). Only the rather large ears are easily recognizable both in Fra Filippo's supposed self-portraits and in the Spoleto monument. However, the bust was done in 1492, 13 years after Fra Filippo's death when square heads might have become unfashionable, and the bust may just be the idealized type of a portrait. Similarly, it has been argued that Botticelli in the Uffizi "Adoration" idealized both his own self-portrait and other faces depicted in this picture, which lead the twentieth-century beholder to believe that the fifteenth-century artist had painted himself. Thus the twentieth-century beholder confused idealized portraiture with a modern notion of individual likeness.
Relying only on the visual evidence it is almost impossible to decide whether Fra Filippo indeed had a square head and involuntarily painted himself or whether he frequently used the type of a square head as a convention, or if his aesthetic ideal was a square head. At this point one should accept that a combination of these explanations is possible and that an idealized understanding of physiognomical likeness existed for fifteenth-century painters. Therefore the facial features repeatedly occurring in the works of Fra Filippo and Botticelli need not have been accurate or lifelike representations of their master's individual physiognomy. Rather, Fra Filippo's square heads and Botticelli's stereotype faces should remind us of the simple fact that painters used and still use favorite types. These types, of course, could have been automimetical reproductions of their master's features but also could have been handy workshop patterns or aesthetic ideals used for various other reasons.
Generally, the use of ideals, patterns and types in painting had to do with the requirements of a commission and, to a varying extent, with a painter's particular skills and with his individual choice. The point I would like to make is that exactly this choice links the use of patterns with "automimesis", or in other words: every painter paints himself also insofar as his own psychology forces his choice of a particular type. For example, Fra Filippo may have chosen a square type because his head was square or because, as Vasari would have put it, he had a square mind. However, Filippo's personal choice of square types may also be the result of his training as an young artist when he had learnt to use this type.
Other examples may clarify this point. It has been said that Leonardo had favorite male types, either the boy with female features - which we will see later - or the old man with a slightly hooked nose (fig. 4). Following the current theories about "automimesis" it could be argued that one of those types may have resembled Leonardo's physiognomy. Yet for instance this version of the older type, also known from antique coins and used by his teacher Verrocchio, was more likely a manifestation of Leonardo's artistic training than a reflection of his mind.
Leonardo's use of types is confirmed by other examples,
for instance by the chubby faced child common to the earlier version of the "Virgin of the Rocks" (Paris, Louvre; fig. 5)) and to the Burlington House Cartoon (London, National Gallery; fig. 6). Similarly, Leonardo used a particular female type for the "Virgin of the Rocks" for "S. Anne" (Paris, Louvre; fig. 7) and a drawing of the "Leda" (fig. 8).
A painter's choice that can be defined by the Tuscan proverb "Every painter paints himself" is a phenomenon we would call personal style. However, it is not my purpose to discuss here the notion of personal style nor to show the roots of Giovanni Morelli's method. Instead I would like to analyze a sermon by Gerolamo Savonarola (1497) where the connection between "automimesis" and the use of types in fifteenth-century art is confirmed:
"And one says that every painter paints himself. He does not indeed paint himself as man because he produces images of lions, horses, men and women which are not identical with himself, but he paints himself as painter, that is according to his concept (concetto). And although there are different fantasies and figures of the painters who are painting, they are nevertheless all [done] according to his concept."
Savonarola emphasizes that a painter does not paint himself physically but produces figures and fantasies according to his own personal "concetto". In this context the words "figure" and "fantasie" characterize the varied things in a painting whereas "concetto" refers to an unvariable phenomenon, to some innate quality of a painter's choice that never, or at least hardly ever, changes. The innate quality described by the word "concetto" must have been a compulsion because "concetto" indicates a feature in painting that an artist cannot avoid producing. At this point we should remember that in Renaissance poetry the proverb "Every painter paints himself" characterized something by all means inevitable and unchangeable in the human character. Thus the fifteenth-century beholder like Savonarola links two different levels of his experience: the inevitable features of the human character expressed in the proverb "Every painter paints himself" and the widespread, seemingly inevitable habit of contemporary painters to use types, patterns and ideals.
This connection between "automimesis" and the habit of fifteenth-century painters to repeat particular types has been discussed also, and most prominently, by Leonardo da Vinci. Moreover, in Leonardo's writings the psychological background of the Tuscan proverb that every painter paints himself becomes more urgent. Indeed, Leonardo stigmatizes "automimesis" as the worst fault of contemporary artists and he seems to have had an almost irrational fear of its evil impact on contemporary painting.
Leonardo's opinion about "automimesis" may be summarized as follows: "It is a common defect of Italian painters that one recognizes the expression and figure of the artist throughout the many figures painted by him". "This happens because it is our judgement which guides the hand in the creation of the outlines of figures until they prove satisfactory". Judgement, according to Leonardo's understanding of it, is a part of our soul which rules both the formation and the movements of our body. Because of its link to the soul, judgement "is so powerful that it moves the painter's arm and makes him copy himself, since it seems to that soul that this is the true way to construct a man, and whoever does not do so, commits an error". Furthermore, the painter's arm can be moved almost directly by the soul because the soul transmits its impulses by means of various bearers of transmission, such as the Common Sense, tendons, muscles, nerves and joints of the bones: "The joint of the bones obeys the nerve, and the nerve the muscle, and the muscle the tendon and the tendon the Common Sense. And the Common Sense is the seat of the soul [...]."
The physiological explanation of "automimesis" is easier to comprehend if one considers Leonardo's understanding of the intimate relationship between body and soul. According to him, the soul governs the body and determines its physical shape because the soul existed before the body.
Since the inevitable impact of the governing soul on every kind of physical action, painting included, was the underlying cause of "automimesis", Leonardo had to adjust this very impact of the governing soul. He saw the possibility of doing so because the soul resides within two other mental faculties, judgement and the Common Sense which are both open to adjustments for the following reason: Only in the beginning of a man's life judgement is under the spell of the pre-existing soul. It resides in the Common Sense where all the senses meet and where it therefore receives sensations from the outer world. These sensations are transmitted through the senses and they establish experience. Experience is "the common mother of all the sciences and arts" and has as its daughters sound rules. Furthermore, sound rules based on experience grant a "free and sound understanding" and this sound understanding grants a good judgement. Thus in the beginning, judgement is entirely determined by the soul but it can be trained and manipulated by rules deduced from experience. Therefore "automimesis", dependent on both the soul and on judgement, can be avoided by acquiring experience, that is, by the study of nature. In other words: the study of nature adjusts the personal shortcomings of the soul's judgement and the artist avoids "automimesis" by having a profound scientifical training.
The issue of sound judgement and sound experience, achieved by the study of nature, holds the most important place in Leonardo's art theory. He argues, that nothing can be worse than a work of art's being superior to judgement. Judgement is the absolutely indispensable guideline for the artist and therefore judgement has to be superior to the work of art itself. Consequently, the artist withdraws his personality from the process of artistic creation in order to achieve a judgement independent from personal feelings. He should thus be able to obtain objective criteria for his art.
Leonardo's extremely hostile rejection of "automimesis" and its physiological determination of artistic creation suggests that for him there was more at stake than just the scientific foundation of the fine arts. His almost neurotic attitude towards "automimesis" may tempt us to assume that Leonardo for personal as well as psychological reasons tried to avoid self-expression. And indeed, his psychological profile supports such an interpretation since in his own writings, Leonardo praises solitude and self-control. This, of course, is a point closer to twentieth- than to sixteenth-century psychology and therefore its validity is debatable. However, in order to further comprehend the more general point that Leonardo - for whatever reason - tried to avoid "automimesis" or self-expression, I would like to discuss some of his paintings in more detail.
The "Adoration of the Magi" (Florence, Uffizi, fig. 9), begun in 1481 and left unfinished in 1482, has always been regarded as a revolutionary treatment of this subject. Nevertheless, it is in conflict with Leonardo's precepts for narrative painting developed about 10 years later. In his art theory, as we have seen, Leonardo criticizes the repetition of types but in the "Adoration of the Magi", the use of two different types can clearly be distinguished. One is the old man with a beard, strong eyebrows, a sharp nose, high cheek-bones and deeply embedded eyes. This elderly type forms a group of four around Mary, two of them being Magi, the one behind the Virgin probably Joseph. The other type, occurring more prominently in the middle of the picture around the tree, is a male youth with a face of female features.
More then ten years later, in the "Last Supper" (Milan, Santa Maria delle Grazie; fig. 10), Leonardo seems to have made a stronger effort to avoid stereotypes and to achieve the variety of types propagated in his art theory. Leonardo's effort, confirmed by reports of his slow and diligent working procedure, becomes evident in the picture itself. The extraordinary movements of hands and arms, or as Kenneth Clark puts it, the "abundance and variety of gesture", is almost excessive or at least irritating because it tells of the enormous amount of slow, unspontaneous labour involved in their creation. This almost frozen variety of gesture makes clear that variety was achieved only by a painstaking effort.
The variety of faces has been marred by the bad state of the frescoe's conservation and it is therefore difficult for us to make a sound judgement. However, a few preparatory drawings associated with the "Last Supper" have come down to us. There is, for example, a study from around 1495, probably a first idea for St. Peter (fig. 11), that reminds us of the elderly type from the "Adoration of the Magi". Similarly, a preparatory drawing for St. Philip (fig. 12) shows a boy of almost female features who equally resembles the young types of the "Adoration". Considering these few examples, one is tempted to argue that there may be less variety in the expression of faces than we are taught to perceive.
For the twentieth-century beholder, the "Last Supper" constitutes a supreme example of variety in narrative painting and it is therefore hardly conceivable that Leonardo in this instance repeated his favorite types. However, variety need not exclude stereotypes and stereotypes need not exclude variety. It all depends on our understanding of variety and individual likeness. But the one thing we can perceive in the "Last Supper" is Leonardo's extraordinary striving for variety even if we cannot be certain of how much of this variety he finally achieved.
Between January 1497 and March 1499, when Leonardo stopped working on the "Last Supper", at least one person expressed serious doubts as to whether Leonardo achieved any variety at all. This person, Gaspare Visconti, a poet at the Milanese Court, wrote a sonnet that has Leonardo da Vinci as its target. Accusing the artist of "automimesis", Visconti wrote:
"Formerly there was a painter
who could draw nothing but a cypress tree,
According to what Horace tells us
where he teaches us to understand poetry.
There is one nowadays who has so fixed
in his conception the image of himself
that when he wishes to paint someone else
he often paints not the subject but himself.
And not only his face, which is beautifully fair
according to himself, but in his supreme art
he forms with his brush his manners and his customs.
[...]."
Visconti's relationships to artists like Bramante suggest that he had some understanding of the fine arts, however, his polemical accusation should not be taken only at face value. Its mockery, particularly if linked both with a contemporary proverb and antique rhetoric, most probably represented a rather exaggerated point of literary criticism. Nevertheless, Visconti's polemic against Leonardo is very much at the heart of the issues discussed above. If we agree upon the main point that "automimesis" refers to something inevitable in painting, including both an artists's reproduction of his own likeness and his use of types, then Visconti's negative account of Leonardo's artistic achievements makes more sense. Moreover, Visconti's reference to Horace's "Ars poetica" gives another important clue to the kind of criticism intended. Horace argues that it may be quite easy to draw a cypress tree, however, he goes on to ask, how much more difficult it would be to paint "a sailor swimming from his wrecked vessel in despair".
With this reference to Horace, Visconti's mockery is aimed at the problem of a painter painting situations that are not easily accessible, like a wrecked vessel on the open sea, or unfamiliar emotions, such as the panic of a drowning sailor. In fact, in the "Last Supper" Leonardo was required to paint emotions that were not easily accessible and therefore Visconti's mockery almost certainly targeted Leonardo's "Last Supper" in Milan. If Visconti's criticism was indeed pointed at this painting, than the polemic translates into something like this: "Leonardo, you tried hard to achieve variation and to avoid expressing yourself, but in vain. It is still you I perceive in your painting, your way to paint will always be recognized."
We cannot tell if Visconti was right or not because the "Last Supper" is a ruin. However, one major point of his mockery could be accepted if we consider that Leonardo tried to achieve more variety and that he tried to avoid "automimesis" in a painting like the "Last Supper". This point is the following: Visconti may well have had first hand evidence of Leonardo's strong efforts to avoid expressing himself and to achieve as much variety as possible, and he may well have had at least some reason to criticize Leonardo for not fully having accomplished his goal.
A last example, a version of Leonardo's "Battle of Anghiari" attributed to Peter Paul Rubens (Paris, Louvre; fig. 13), may help illustrate this point. The central motif is the so-called "Fight for the Standard": this standard is held by the horseman on the left, defended by the one in the middle and under attack by the helmeted warrior to the right. The subject of the fight is clearly battle for the standard, but one could also ask if this battle also tells us something about Leonardo's use of types and about "automimesis". The fierce expression of the slightly oversized faces of the fighters shares a greater affinity to the work of Leonardo than to the work of Rubens, and indeed, these faces are remarkably close to Leonardo's old warrior with the hooked nose which he so often favored. I wonder whether this type, lurking from Rubens's version of the "Battle for the Standard", does not illustrate Leonardo's own battle against his use of types and against expressing himself. Just as with the gestures of the "Last Supper", there is almost excessive variety and movement but in the facial expressions we recognize the old types of 30 years earlier (fig. 4). The variety and movement of the figures, achieved by the scientific study of nature, fights against Leonardo's favorite type of an old man. Perhaps we can trust Rubens's understanding of Leonardo and maybe Visconti was correct: despite all this variety and movement, Leonardo did not altogether avoid "automimesis", Leonardo did not avoid expressing himself. But, and I may finish with this question, is there a more impressive way to express oneself than the desperate attempt not to do so?
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ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Filippo Lippi, Coronation of the Virgin, Florence, Uffizi, 200 x 287 cm.
2. Sandro Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi, Florence, Uffizi, 111 x 134 cm.
3. Anonymous artist, Bust of Filippo Lippi, Spoleto, Duomo.
4. Leonardo, Old Warrior, London, British Museum, 28,5 x 20,7 cm.
5. Leonardo, Virgin of the Rocks, Paris, Louvre, 199 x 122 cm.
6. Leonardo, Burlington House Cartoon, London, National Gallery, 141,5 x 104.
7. Leonardo, S. Anne, Paris, Louvre, 168 x 130 cm.
8. Leonardo, Drawing for "Leda", Windsor Castle, 12516, 20 x 16,2 cm.
9. Leonardo, Adoration of the Magi, Florence, Uffizi, 246 x 243 cm.
10. Leonardo, Last Supper, Milan, S. Maria della Grazie, 460 x 880 cm.
11. Leonardo, Drawing for St. Peter, Vienna, Albertina, 14,5 x 11,3 cm.
12. Leonardo, Drawing for St. Philip, Windsor Castle, 12551, 19 x 15 cm.
13. Anonymous Artist after Leonardo, "Fight for the Standard", retouched by P. P. Rubens (?), Paris, Louvre, 45,2 x 63,7 cm.
NOTES