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NOTES
(Fig. 48), is called "niederrheinischum 1350" although both obviously are by the same painter and
most likely were part of one ensemble.22What interests us most is the similaritybetween the punch design
in the border of these two (Fig. 47) and of that in
the Carrand Diptych (Fig. 44) and the Sachs Annunciation (Figs. 45, 46), which are assigned to the
school of Paris. The decorative scheme is the same in
all instances, the hexa-stars in the Sachs Annunciation
are similar in shape to those in the Berlin panel; so are
also the Gothic arches of distinctly sharp, wiry contours. The Gothic arch, the hexa-star and the fourlobed rosette in the Berlin and Frankfort pictures can,
of course, be traced to Italian prototypes.
We may ask ourselvesif this similaritywarrants any
conclusion as to the relation of the French and German pictures.The physiognomiesin the German panels
are consistent throughout in their foxlike expressions
but their structure recalls the faces in the French
panels. The head of the Virgin in Berlin is a simplified
and vulgarized version of the Virgin's head in the
Annunciation. The dependence can be only one way:
the German pictures represent a coarse and heavyhanded imitation of the refined, courtly style of the
little French panels. They follow rather than precede
the Parisian pictures, and both these groups may be
tentatively dated in the 1370's. Consequently it seems
to be a plausiblepropositionto see them as originating
somewhere in the area borderingon the French sphere,
in a center in which a close connection with the French
style could exist. Such were, for example, Luxembourg,
Lorraine and Alsace, where the penetration of the
French style in architectureand sculpturein the fourteenth century can readily be recognized.
So far I have discussed the use of complex punch
decoration in painted panels. Similar or identical
punches were occasionally used on the gilded parts of
wooden statuary and in the illumination of manuscripts.23The gold leaf had to be padded, of course,
to make punching on parchment possible. In manuscripts, the earliest instance known to me is in the
Psalter of Queen Ingeborg (ca.
I200).24
The eight-
265
OF NEW
YORK AT ALBANY
BOIME
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x. Seurat, Les Poseuses, i886- 888. Merion, Pennsylvania, The Barnes Foundation
(? I964 by The Barnes Foundation)
2.
ca.
I460
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266
THE
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erable stylistic affinitiesis often coupled with the implication that these affinities are temperamental and
"spiritual" in nature. Longhis and Clark,' two of
Piero's major biographers,as well as a host of others,5
allude to this relationship.
Indeed, even the most cursory examination will
reveal some of Seurat and Piero's similarities. Both
were devoted students of mathematics and science,
and Piero's interest in the geometric aspects of early
Renaissance architecture parallels Seurat's fascination
with the new industrialtechnology.6 Both had orderly,
exact minds, intent on systematizing the practices of
their contemporaries. Their works were composed
with such mathematical precision as to lead some to
believe that they were in possessionof a formula.7And
although neither left behind a school, they both exercised an influence on subsequentgenerations.8Moreover, they both show a preference for mass-spectacle
situations,paradesand festivals, and unusual characters
in colorful costumes.9
Perhaps the most salient feature shared by these
painters is the stylization of figural attitudes and the
calculated expression imposed on their figures. Both
artists exploit coordinate views, showing the figure
in full-face, in profile, or from the rear. This can be
explained by their obvious desire to reduce figural
activity and induce a static effect. When this treatment
of the figure is applied on a large scale it expresses a
classic monumentality. Thus there can be little doubt
that Piero and Seuratstand in a definite temperamental
relationship to each other.
But now we must inquire whether these similarities
are coincidental or whether they reveal a deliberate
attempt on the part of Seurat to model his work after
Piero. First we will try to clarify the relationshipby
I29.
8. This aspect of Piero is rarely discussed. But he profoundly affected many Umbrian painters, including his pupil, Luca
Signorelli, Melozzo da Forli, Lorenzo da Viterbo and probably Raphael. See J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, A New
History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth
II, pp. 552-555. Also
Century, 3 vols., London, I864-1866,
Jean Alazard, Piero della Francesca, Paris, 1948, pp. 48-49.
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NOTES
267
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268
THE
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Chenavard, he was aware of the rigidity of the Acad- wrote that it would include Raphael's frescoes in the
emy, but like many others he could not adjust to the Stanze, the Prophets and Sibyls of Michelangelo, the
revolutionary work of the Impressionists. Although Swan of Leonardo, the frescoes by Masaccio, GhirlanBlanc already had opposed the Barbizon school and daio, Mantegna and Andrea del Sarto.s0 And in the
criticized it for its trivial subject matter, it presented concluding paragraphof this report he wrote that in
no serious threat to his concept of "elevated" art. But striking the eyes of the people the copies would "initithe rise of the Impressionistsdramatized the scope of ate them to the magnificent discoveries of modern
the Barbizon influence, and underscored the need for science, by reviving the cult of the highest national
an urgent counter-program to arrest what he con- tradition."
We may never know how this passage affected the
sidered a shallow movement. In 1872 Blanc had tried
to block a new Salon des Refuses,24 and that year Minister but to any student of the period its implicaPuvis de Chavannes had resigned from the Salon jury tions are profoundly significant. For Blanc, a utopian
because of Blanc's intolerance for the Impressionists.25 socialistin the traditionof Saint-Simon, modern science
Rejecting both the moribund works of the Academy promised on the one hand to liberate the working
and the incomprehensibleinnovations of the Impres- class from the yoke of animal labor, and on the other
sionists,Blanc tried to deliver the "National Art" from to cultivate in the emancipated proletariat a taste for
this impasse by reinstating the Renaissance tradition, the industrial and fine arts.81 Hence the passage is
particularlythe Primitives. In pursuit of his program, rendered meaningful by the association of modern
he tried to indoctrinate the public and the rising gen- science and technology with an aesthetic metamoreration of artists by advancing a spectacularplan for phosis; according to Blanc, however, the model for
the organization of a museum that would house full- progress was to be the Renaissance tradition. This
scale copies of the great Renaissanceworks.26On Oc- paradox did not torture Blanc, for he could recall that
tober 26, I87I, Blanc submitted his official report to the great scientific and artistic achievements of the
the Minister of Beaux-Arts and introduced his idea Quattrocento were also inspired by classical materials.
for a Musee des Copies.27 He urgently admonished Thus the great social transformationsof the fifteenth
the Minister to provide him with funds adequate to and nineteenth centuries are marked by a humanistic
commission copies of masterpiecesnot owned by the revival.82 Crucial to this concept was Blanc's belief,
Louvre.28The purposewas to encourage French artists which he shared with Chenavard, that painting had
and to "strike the eyes of the people in a . . . lasting
a number of commissions. In a period following the FrancoPrussian War, French prestige was indeed at its lowest ebb.
But Blanc was also concerned with the success of the Barbizon
painters in America and probably with the patronage of Durand-Ruel in London of the young Impressionists. It was this
kind of patronage that encouraged the landscape painters.
Also Lionello Venturi, Les
See Rewald, op.cit., pp. 211-2I2.
archives de l'impressionnisme, 2 vols., Paris and New York,
I939, I, pp. I7-19, II, pp. I75-I80.
30. Arch. Nat. Many of these copies had been previously
executed. The two brothers, Raymond and Paul Balze, had
copied Raphael's frescoes in I835, and Paul Baudry had copied
Michelangelo's Prophets and Sibyls. The fact that these copies
were used in the Museum of Copies points to contradictions
in the proposal by Blanc. To include objects of a previous period was to deny the museum's value as an immediate stimulus
to artistic activity.
3 . In this Blanc shared the views of his brother, the famous
socialist, Louis Blanc. See Fiaux, op.cit., pp. 24-25, 35, 50.
Also Philippe de Chennevieres, "Charles Blanc," in Souvenirs
d'un Directeur des Beaux-Arts, Paris, I883, pp. 87-88. The
notion had been expressed in the catalogues for the Expositions
Universelles of 1855 and 1867. See also E. du Sommerard,
Notice sur M. Charles Blanc, Paris, 1883, pp. 26-27.
32. See Blanc, Le Cabinet de M. Thiers, Paris, I871, pp.
75-76.
33. Blanc, "Exposition Universelle," in Les Artistes de mon
In his discussion of the
temps, Paris, I876, pp. 414-415.
awards for painting, Blanc was disheartened by the fact that
Rousseau won a Medal of Honor: ". . . to suppose that even
landscape could compete with a more elevated painting, that
is to say, in which the human figure plays the principal role."
For Chenavard's view see Theophile Silvestre, Histoire des
artistes vivants, francais, et etrangers, Paris, 1856, p. 7; in
Joseph C. Sloane, Paul Marc Joseph Chenavard, Chapel Hill,
fashion."29 Discussing his plans for "a magnificent neglected the image of man and began to substitute
gallery without parallel" to house these projects, he the insignificant imagery of landscape.38To Blanc, a
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NOTES
dehumanized art denied the human gain of technological innovation.84Hence, convinced there was a wide
gap between scientific progress and that of the arts,
he attempted to halt what he considered a decline in
the arts and to direct attention to the classic creations
of the past. He thus invoked the work of the Renaissance to emphasize the virtues of a humanistic and
individualisticpoint of view; to restore the image of
man in a period when landscapewas being increasingly
used as subject matter.
Two of Blanc's major commissionsfor the Museum
of Copies were full-scale facsimiles of the Arezzo
frescoes, the Battle of Heraclius and the Discovery and
Proof of the Cross."5 Blanc had praised Piero in his
monumental Histoire des peintres de toutes les ecoles,36
as well as his Histoire de la Renaissance artistique en
269
them Piero della Francesca.39Writing of the unforgettable frescoes of Arezzo, Blanc calls Piero "a singular genius who strangely combined the qualities of an
artist with the geometrical exactitude of a scientist."40
Blanc sadly laments the deterioratingcondition of the
Arezzo works, but states that "they have escapedcomplete loss thanks to the beautiful copies that have been
made by the French government."4l And in a footnote he adds: "These precious frescoes were copied
by Monsieur Loyeux when we had the honor of directing the Administrationof the Beaux-Arts, and on
our proposal they are now in the tcole des BeauxArts. . . ,,42
Charles Loyeux43 was an obscure artist recommended to Blanc by Gerome on the basis of his skill
as a copyist.44 Indeed, the accuracy of Loyeux's copies
Italie.37 In the preface to the latter work, Blanc's literary assistantwrote that the aim of the book was to
present a good guide to the Primitives.88This was
necessary because the visitor to Italy who is always
going to admire Michelangelo, is generally less experienced with works by the "immortalprecursors,"among
I19,
882.
Ibid.,
p. io2n.
43. Charles Loyeux (1823-1898). See Thieme-Becker references. He is primarily remembered for his portraits which
he exhibited often in the annual Salons. Trained in the studio
of Delaroche, he became friendly with Gerome, Yvon, and
Jobbe-Duval, who studied there at the same time. It was
through their influence that Loyeux received the commission
to copy the frescoes by Piero. See Arch. Nat. F21 235.
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25, 1882,
p. 3).
59. Mintz had been the assistant to Ernest Vinet when the
latter died in 1878. He then assumed Vinet's position as librarian and curator of the collections. See L'annee artistique
1878, Paris, 1879, p. 48.
60. Gustave Coquiot, Seurat, Paris, 1924, p. 174.
61. Ibid., pp. 174-I75.
62. Miintz, La chronique, op.cit.
63. Ibid., p. 424.
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NOTES
greatest painters of the fifteenth century, a blend of
scientific rigor and spontaneity:he is at the same time
an impressionist and mathematician . ."64
271
UNIVERSITY]
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