art
twelve o’clock, December 7, 2021 – 08:53
Cesare da Sesto paints in his style in Cava de ‘Tirreni. While the master sends his “Spasm” to Palermo
from Vittorio Sgarbi
Arrives in Naples from Sesto San Giovanni, where he had been close to Leonardo, Cesare da Sesto who, in Cava de ‘Tirreni, painted a Madonna and Child around 1518: the work would not be such without the relationship with Raphael. The hand of the Madonna holding the child in her arms is almost the same as that of Raphael’s Madonna del Pesce. Cesare da Sesto, entirely Raphaelesque, moved Raphael to the South. In Sicily Raphael sent one of the most important paintings, from 1517, one of his most complex compositions, Spasimo di Sicilia, now in Madrid. An extremely articulated, crowded work, with the distant landscape and the syncopated rhythm of Christ, who falls, and meanwhile turns towards the Madonna and Veronica who are following the procession. I was the architect of the recovery, in the deposits of the church of Spasimo in Palermo, now without a roof, of the monumental frame of the work, created by Antonello Gagini, which reconstitutes a unity and harmony between architecture and painting that was certainly in the intent of Raffaello. But the work must be well described, both in its emotional tension, in its expressive power, and in its external story, which is very adventurous. Vasari writes: “He made for the monastery of Palermo, called Santa Maria dello Spasmo, of the friars of Monte Oliveto” – Raphael no longer went there, neither to Bologna nor to Piacenza nor to Naples and much less to Sicily, but he sent his works – “a panel of a Christ carrying the cross, which is held as a marvelous thing, knowing in it the mercilessness of the crucifiers who led him to death at Mount Calvary with great anger, where the passionate Christ in torment of approaching death, fallen to the ground by the weight of the wood of the cross and wet with sweat and blood, he turns to the Marys, who weep deeply with pain. Among them is Veronica who stretches out her arms, handing them a cloth, with an affection of very great charity; as well as the work is full of armed men on horseback and on foot, who come out of the gate of Jerusalem with the banners of justice in hand, in various and beautiful attitudes “.
The adventurous arrival
And then Vasari dwells on the adventurous arrival: “This panel, completely finished, but not yet taken to its place, was very close to going badly, with what they say that being put into the sea to take it to Palermo , a horrible storm struck the ship carrying it on a rock, so that it all opened up, and men and merchandise were lost, etc.]or this table only, which was encased as it was “- in its packaging – “it was brought from the sea to Genoa” – something adventurous and extraordinary – “where it was fished out and pulled on land, it was seen to be a divine thing, and for this reason it was placed in custody, having remained unharmed and without any blemish or defect, for what up to the fury of the winds and the waves of the sea they had compared to the beauty of this work; whose fame spreading later, the monks tried to get it back, and as soon as it was returned to them with the Pope’s own favors, satisfying first and foremost those who had saved her ». The friars therefore paid the people who had recovered it. So they put it off again and brought it to Sicily as well, and they placed it in Palermo, in which place it has more fame and reputation than the mount of Vulcan ”.
The Influence on Mannerist Art
What a beautiful story! Well, it’s all true, because an influence on the mannerist art of the South depends on this work. In reality, the best interpreter of Raphael in Sicily is a painter who, like Cesare da Sesto, comes from the North, Polidoro da Caravaggio. Polidoro da Caravaggio is truly the mannerist par excellence, because he only needs to create something that hasn’t been done before through a hand-to-hand painting, like the one you see in a very animated and almost informal idea of the Adoration of the Shepherds. Meanwhile, Cesare da Sesto converses with the greatest painter from Salerno, Andrea da Salerno, who paints his Deposition. Andrea is a Raphael from Salerno who insinuates himself into the path opened by the latter with the altarpiece sent to Naples. Meanwhile Raphael, in 1518, did not fail to give us further Madonnas. In the Madonna del Passeggio the Madonna is standing, the dialogue between the two children is more lively and intimate than ever, the landscape very open, almost seventeenth-century. In short, Raphael still re-elaborates the subject of the Madonna with the child and St. John the Baptist. Also from 1518 is the sublime Madonna of the rose. The Madonna has a rose that spreads its perfume, while the child tries to snatch the Ecce agnus Dei scroll from St. John, and the earthly father, behind, is a little disturbed, in the shade. In 1518 Andrea del Sarto, a painter who flanks Raphael but who somehow does not suffer from his influence, chooses his own path. His masterpiece, the Madonna delle Arpie, shows a Madonna on the pedestal and is a very harmonious painting by a highly refined painter, who seems to achieve his own identity apart from Raphael. It is important to keep in mind how many things happen in Italy, between 1515 and 1520, the year of Raphael’s death.
7 December 2021 | 08:53
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