Who created this unsigned painting of the Communion of the Apostles, which dates from the late 15th century and was made for the ducal court of Urbino? Where did the artist come from, and how did he travel? Did he have help making the picture, or did he help another? What other works did he produce? Scholars and scientists think they know some of the answers, but consensus is lacking and the hunt for more information continues, as I found out last week during a riveting talk at the Courtauld.
In today’s digital world we have become used to thinking we know everything. Even something as mundane as a photo snapped in a shop and sent to a partner for a purchase decision is underpinned by a wealth of metadata, information about the authoring of that image that exists quite separately from the image itself; encountering a new work of art, then, without knowing who made it, why and how usually now suggests either a deliberate desire for anonymity on the part of the artist or a clever marketing ploy. Five hundred years ago, however, things were rather different.
In the competing – indeed often warring – city states of Italy during the Renaissance, the act of making art was subservient to the religious or honorific message it conveyed and so were its makers, who in any event often had to align their work with that of others in a single, unified campaign. It’s why so much of what has come down to us is devoid of attribution, whilst the vicissitudes of time often divorce a work from its wider context. In the case of the Communion and a handful of other pieces nominally by the same artist, including a series of panels called Famous Men, finding out more has been a near-life’s work for Paula Nuttall, who was giving last week’s talk. The depth of her knowledge, enthusiasm for the subject and undisguised honesty came through clearly albeit clarity is the one thing often lacking in her subject.
The first challenge is his name, mentioned in records of payment associated with the commission (some of which, confusingly, suggest the artist may not have finished the work). Justus van Gent – ‘Justus, from Ghent’ – is the starting point. That an artist from the Netherlands should travel to Italy is not at issue, but as there is no direct equivalent to his given name in the local tongue, Justus became Giusto da Guanto when in Urbino. No-one of that or any similar name is known before the 1470s, which to my mind is both helpful and problematic since it limits further confusion but also further investigation.
It would be odd if the famous critic, artist and writer Giorgio Vasari – active more than half a century after our elusive artist – did not make an appearance in such a story, and enjoyably this polymath who seems to have known everyone may well have spoken to someone who knew Justus. Paula noted this is just about possible if we make some mathematical and gerontological assumptions, and so I found myself imagining an old man nursing a drink in a corner of a busy inn and nodding as Vasari asks after this figure from the past who is already slipping from memory. It’s another avenue for enquiry though unfortunately, the chance discovery 35 years ago of a sketch made two centuries later introduces another complication.
Found amidst some papers, the careful pen and ink drawing – itself also unsigned – seems to be of the Communion, or at least a picture very like it. But it carries annotation by French librarian and writer Gabriel Naudé that includes the phrase Petrus Hispanos Pinxit – loosely, ‘Peter the Spaniard painted this’ – rather than any reference to a Justus or even Giusto. So who might this be? Pedro Berruguete is the principal candidate, an Iberian artist who also worked in the court of Federico III da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. He seems to have been part of Justus’s studio and may have worked on some of the paintings otherwise ascribed to Justus, including a Double Portrait of Federico and Guido da Montefeltro (that is, the father and his son), but whether this was as well as, instead of or after the elusive man from Ghent is up for debate. He does appear to have remained in Urbino after the last recorded mention of Justus in the town, which may support the ‘after’ argument.
The relevance of architecture to the story then caught my attention, not least because of my own trip to Palma, Mantua, Ravenna and other towns in the region last year (a major piece for this site is still in preparation) to study the art of the period. These cities courted the best designers of their age in service of the local ruler and Urbino, which I also visited, was no exception. The ducal palace still dominates this biscuit-coloured town perched on a northern Italian hilltop, and its rich art collection more than demonstrates what Paula described as Federico’s passion for architecture, perspective and the ways painting could represent both. Certainly I found Piero della Francesca’s panel The Flagellation of Christ with its carefully defined spatial arrangements utterly absorbing when I saw it, and think Urbino’s version of The Ideal City, a collective term for three paintings now spread across the world (none of which has a positive attribution either) depicting fictional, idealised urban settings using the rules of perspective a strikingly modern realisation of Renaissance scientific theory.
Some have asserted that architectural motifs in Justus’s paintings have sources in the soft brickwork and white stone of the palace. The comparisons the audience were shown seemed plausible but Paula isn’t convinced, though she noted that the complex was still under construction at the time of the Communion so as the best of the best gathered to collaborate the chances for cultural cross-pollination were high. This milieu also provides some background to another aspect: the way the paintings were made. Close examination with the naked eye, technical analysis and affinities with other works obviously help significantly here. There is evidence for Netherlandish techniques in Italian art of this period and so Justus could have brought these over too to “push the medium” as Paula put it, including his use of viscous, oily paint to enhance the look of clothing and powdered glass to aid drying. Yet others were doing the same even in Urbino, including one Giovanni Santi (you may have heard of his son, Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino – better known as Raphael). Interestingly this practice also went the other way, with Italian “shell gold” turning up in works from the Low Countries.
Authorship aside, the original location of some of Justus’s works is also unclear. Another series of paintings that he and/or Berruguete made, The Liberal Arts, may have been intended for the Montefeltro quarters in nearby Gubbio; this is debated but Paula believes the foreshortening effects seen in these pieces, which are now either lost to war or scattered between various museums, were inspired by the astonishing intarsia lining the ducal palace’s exquisite studiolo.
This marquetry masterpiece conjures extensive gardens, open windows, projecting shelves and treasure-filled cupboards from nothing more than artfully-cut and -selected pieces of wood applied, flat, to the walls. On my visit to this tiny yet dazzling room, for the upper levels of which the Famous Men were made, I was particularly struck by the dazzling knight’s helmet that ‘sits’ on one of the ‘shelves’ – intriguingly, I now find, just such a thing makes an appearance in Justus’s double portrait, even looking in the same direction, with a link too to work by Piero.
Looking forward is sometimes as useful as looking back, so the talk concluded with some thoughts about the apparent evolution of Justus’s style across the mentioned works. Of course that merely threw up more queries, such as whether he simply got better in a very short time or whether A.N. Other replaced him and continued his look. Thrillingly, might there not have been several artists all working at once under a shared name? Absurd, perhaps, but as the great Carl Sagan said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
This is a cracking detective story, with several suspects and more clues yet to be unearthed. Of course every detective story needs a good sleuth and for now that is Paula Nuttall, though for an hour or so last Wednesday evening and perhaps with this post, I felt like her John Watson.
The lecture ‘The Enigma of Justus of Ghent’ by Paula Nuttall was organised by Professor Susie Nash of the Courtauld Institute of Art as part of a series for its Research Forum. It was a joint event between the Northern Renaissance Workshop seminar and the Italian Renaissance Seminar, and generously supported by Sam Fogg.
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