Thank you for the music: Little Barrels

An artist's studio is a strange and wonderful place, and I have always been fascinated by every opportunity to visit a studio. They are sometimes tidy, more often not, but always full of the semi-magical paraphernalia of creation.

It was during the time that we were loitering in the marketplace in Fiorenza that I noticed a young man buying a large quantity of eggs. Since most of the purchasers in the marketplace were women, and most of the men that weren't sellers seemed to be eyeing up the quality of the female flesh around them, he seemed like a good candidate to follow back to one of the studios. (If he had been buying merchandise in quantity in addition to the eggs I would have assumed that he was buying for one of the bigger households in the city).

Catching up with him on the way back to his place of work, it is easy to strike up a conversation. This young man has a lot to say (the corollary of course, is that he hardly seems to draw breath to allow a word in edgeways!) and we soon learn that he is one of the assistants of an important painter. The workshop itself is a long, low building, with its own yard space alongside where a couple of carpenters are working on wooden panels, using tools that will barely change in the next five hundred years: pinch dogs to hold planks together while glue sets, and planes

to smooth the surfaces. This is a little unusual. Normally, a studio would buy wooden panels for painting from a carpentry shop, and I wonder whether the Master of the workshop has hired these men for something he wants to oversee closely.

One of the workmen is whistling a tune which I managed to identify later as Quando ritrovo la mia pastorella, a pastoral madrigal. Presumably, he heard the song being sung somewhere, and some kind of mental composite of the four parts lodged in his memory! (I wonder whether the last line, something which approximates to "If you are penniless, get lost!" made it more memorable?)

Inside, the studio is quietly, but very efficiently bustling with activity, and the first thing that strikes me is the height of the ceiling. From outside, the building looked fairly low, like a tall shed. But now that we are inside, it seems more like an aircraft hangar from the twentieth century. And the high roof has several gantries, from one of which hangs a large altarpiece which is being worked on by a couple of men perched on a trestle. Most of the painting already has at least one layer of color applied, in some cases, surprising choices have been made! I would not have expected green flesh tones, but it is not for me to criticise the work of the craftsmen.

The supervisor of the workshop, a lean, energetic fellow who seems as if he cannot stand still, takes us in tow. It seems the Master is busy with other clients at the moment, but he would be happy to give us a tour of the workshop.

While there are several easels in use, there are also apprentices straddling low benches with drawings propped up. The supervisor tells us they are called "donkeys". Charcoal and red chalk seem to be the preferred media of most of the apprentices, but a couple of the boys are painting with diluted ink, copying from drawings by a more experienced hand.

Several times I have overheard conversations involving "pencils" but there are no wooden sticks with graphite cores to be seen. The supervisor explains that a pencil is the small brush, made with fine, tapering hairs, commonly squirrel. He seems amused that I should be curious about such insignificant details.

Toward the furthest end of the workshop, past the enormous altarpiece, is the colour store. Several rows of shelving hold large jars, and on the counter before them, apprentices are measuring and patiently grinding coloured minerals.

Where the painters are working, they have their own assistants mixing oil and apparently, melting beeswax into the powdered colours to make a thick, sticky paste. And now I get to see why the boy we followed was buying up all the eggs he could; over here, a team of painters are working on a painting using the much older, tried and tested medium of egg tempera, rather than the very new oil medium.

The youngest of the team carefully separates yolk from white, then with a dexterity that I have to admire, slits, and drains the yolk sac into a small cup from which the next in line adds the fluid to the powder which is still a very stiff paste, but becoming more gooey as we watch.

Nearer to the front (more respectable) end of the workshop some of the finished paintings are already displayed; examples of the craftsmanship offered here. There is a portrait of a young man in a red hat with a similar slightly aloof air, and the long hair of the fellow we followed coming here. And the same style of cap.

There is also a stunningly beautiful portrait of a woman, in profile. Had I not seen some of the imaginative ways the noblewomen style their hair I might have disbelieved the portrait, but only the visual movement of the strands requires a little suspension of disbelief.

The most impressive of all the paintings on display here is a huge "Pallas and the Centaur", a subject bound to appeal to the new, and growing humanist community in the city.

And almost as our tour of the workshop is completed, the Master himself has concluded his business with the previous client and is ready to attend to us. It seems we are in a position to deal with no less than Alessandro Botticelli himself! I recognize the slightly portly figure from his self-portrait in a work which will become famous many centuries from now.

Translate

Thank you for the music

Followers

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Little Barrels

No comments:

See also (blogs I recommend)

Other refugees from Yahoo! 360

Blog Archive

Search

About Me