L'Art en Question 8 : le Jeune Chevalier de Carpaccio

"Comment un chevalier en armure peut-il intéresser un artiste de la Renaissance ? Carpaccio et son chevalier sont-ils restés prisonniers du siècle précédent ?
Plus d'infos sur la série et le projet sur http://www.canal-educatif.fr"

Art…

ArtSleuth

A knight in armour…

Plants and animals in profusion…

Ancient fortifications…

A picture by Carpaccio!

A beautiful medieval image?

Seen through nineteenth-century eyes?

Not at all…

The date is circa 1510,

the Italian Renaissance is in full swing,

and this picture seems to have been old-fashioned
before the paint was dry.

Carpaccio is just over 50 years old:

other Venetian artists

are landing all the best commissions

with their innovative “velvet touch” style.

Giorgione, recently dead at the age of 33, ...

Titian, who is 20...

and even the old Bellini who, at over 80,

brings flesh to life in a pared-down landscape.

Carpaccio, by comparison, seems too detailed,

too clear-cut,

and his landscape overloaded.

Is he living in a world of his own?

Even as he strives to capture the reflections in a fine suit of armour,

cannon and firearms are revolutionising the whole art of war!

Are Carpaccio and his knight really prisoners of the past?

Episode 6 : Carpaccio – The Young Knight
*Prisoners of the Past?*

Part 1. *Portrait on the look-out*

This picture is primarily concerned with a man’s identity.

Like medallions, which …

… show the person on one side, …

… and his or her values on the other…

… it portrays:

A young man

…with distinctive features, like this prominent cleft chin,

and a real-life coat of arms:

Flowers, irises and white lilies, symbols of purity,

with a personal motto: “*rather death than dishonour*”

And an emblem, the ermine, which stands for incorruptibility.

According to legend, "*she would rather die*

*than traverse a foul swamp*”.

This portrait must therefore be seen as breaking new ground:

after the earliest full-length portraits in the Flemish style…

Carpaccio is one of the first Italian artist to produce
an almost life-size portrait

with an outdoor setting.

What Bellini had done for a saint 30 years earlier,

Carpaccio now seems to be doing for a young man in armour.

A town in the background,

a spring in the foreground,

and, instead of Saint Francis,…

… a heroic knight, seen from a low angle.

The setting, however, is no longer reassuring and familiar,

but discordant

- if not positively peculiar!

Instead of simple perspective lines,

tense diagonals veer across the canvas:

Like the ermine threatened by toads,

the knight is poised to spring at some latent menace.

His lance…

… points at a hawk…

… which is putting other birds to flight

... and watching an eagle fighting with a heron.

Even the path holds a macabre surprise:

beyond the sunlit meadow with its gambolling rabbits…

a vulture is tearing a fawn to pieces!

In this natural scene, even the forms are in conflict:

Sometimes they avoid each other:

The knight seems trapped between the horseman and the tree,

which has to make way for his elbow…

… just as the bush does for his lance

and any patch of sky which stays empty

is soon invaded by a bird.

When forms actually touch, the contact is carefully calculated:

the dog supports the sword.

a tree grows from the stag’s antlers.

on the horizon, a boat rides the water directly below a mountain.

and this peacock, above all, pulls off the impossible:

perched on the horseman’s helmet,

it seems to be walking the fence in the background like a tightrope,

with an inn-sign in pecking range, …

while its tail coincides exactly with the point where an arch and buttress intersect.

Although its perspective is flawless …

… this is no natural landscape!

A portrait too big for a man too young.

An artificial, tension-filled landscape.

Has Carpaccio bitten off more than he can chew?

Part 2. *Great expectations*

In fact, this contrast between heroic figures and weird setting has a meaning:

First of all, it celebrates man as the only real “political animal”.

These two men may be far apart, but various black and yellow motifs

still connect them:

the way both look warily ahead,

the complementarity of helmet and armour …

… and even their dogs:

one white with a dark patch,

the other dark with a trace of white.

The animal kingdom, on the other hand, is not really cohesive:

They live together, but without solidarity.

When they live in groups, the slightest danger scatters them.

The battle for life.

Solitary predators.

The old,

overgrown fortress

is the only place where the birds build “family nests”.

But even the parents’ attachment to their young is temporary.

The brotherbood of these two men is based on a shared conception of the good, expressed:

in the motto and its ideal of courage

and in this town as real-life political entity, …

… where people meet

and discuss civilly.

But their personal virtue is not the portrait’s only subject.

It also reflects the rise of a new generation, and the dawn of a new epoch:

The autumnal oak is matched by two green trees.

The ancient stronghold

by a resplendent fortress,

and the horseman’s personal ensign,

by a horse with a youthful rider.

There have been many theories

regarding the young knight’s identity:

The pommel of his sword and its eight-shaped hilt in Hungarian style …

his garment, which resembles that worn by the Swiss Guard,

the v-shaped crenellations,

a form favoured by allies of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation

and the resemblance of the town in the background

to Ragusa, now Dubrovnik

might all point to the young King of Hungary,

painted as Orlando or Roland, who stands for civil liberties.

Venice might have presented this picture to the rival Adriatic Republic

to seal an alliance.

Others have suggested that the picture may represent Federico Gonzaga of Mantua,

who also used yellow and black,

whose heir had the same distinctive chin on this childhood portrait,

and whose father, then dying of syphilis, might have been

symbolised by this riderless horse.

Although the exact date and first location of the picture are unknown, one thing is certain:

Unlike monuments to the dead,

which celebrate great warriors’ feats…

Unlike those heroes

who enjoy God’s miraculous assistance,

the picture celebrates, first and foremost, the potential of young men

who must face the perilous instability which reigns in Northern Italy,

now repeatedly fought over by the forces of France and the Empire

- in battles whose outcome is uncertain,

like that between the eagle and the heron

Like Donatello’s Saint George,

Carpaccio’s knight still seems frail and unfinished,

equally likely to fail or succeed.

The picture does not invoke divine assistance,

and contains no specifically Christian references, apart from a church.

He stands for a generation required to be - not heroes,

but leaders and strategists.

But is the picture’s style on a par with the new epoch?

Part 3. *Beyond beauty and harmony*

In Carpaccio’s day, knights were involved in another fratricidal conflict

- this time, between artists.

Verrocchio’s proud statue,

with its powerful presence and anatomical exactitude,

had thrown down the gauntlet - and graphic artists rushed to defend their laurels.

Dürer showed his hand in this general image of a Christian knight,

who defies both death

and the blandishments of the devil.

Not only does the horse seem fully three-dimensionnel

and anatomically correct,

or the dog seem totally life-like, as it bounds through a forest of hoofs

- the horse’s,

the mule’s

and the devil’s.

Above all, while a statue has no impact on its real-life setting,

Dürer places his figure in a harsh and jagged landscape

which expresses in itself the idea that the knight is being tested.

Fifteen years later, Altdorfer takes this further

by placing a whole army in a landscape...

whose dark and stormy sky echoes the ebb and flow of battle.

And, in mid-century, Titian does with colour what Dürer did with detail,

and gives us an expressive landscape - but without any symbols.

Resolute and unbending, Charles V presses ahead

in a space both disturbed and mysterious.

Beside these examples, the young knight seems far less self-assured,

like a lay figure before an interchangeable background.

Even the horse, with its perfect curves, reminds us of a silhouette or toy.

So - are reflections

and transparency Carpaccio’s real forte?

In Venice, Giorgione wins fame by pulling off another master-stroke:

he produces a portrait of a knight, now lost, …

… which presents its subject

from four different angles at once.

“*He painted a naked man from the back;*

*at his feet, a clear stream reflected the body from the front.*

*On one side, the light breastplate of polished steel, which he had taken off,*

*so bright that it reflected everything,*

*showed the left profile.*

*On the other side,*

*the other profile could be seen in a mirror*”.

Other artists follow the same line:

in this picture by Titian, an older man’s armour reflects the hidden profile of a goddess …

... and Savoldo, in his self-portrait, skilfully multiplies mirrors and reflections.

Carpaccio’s reflection lacks this heavy, self-advertising emphasis,

but the result is still ambiguous.

The armour reflects only the subject’s arm and pommel,

exactly as a well polished statue might have done.

These shadows, which are too fine,

and these very sketchy ripples in the water,

suggest that his contemporaries’ technical virtuosity leaves Carpaccio relatively cold.

So what is he really interested in?

To understand him, we need to look at Pisanello,

who bequeathed his successors a whole catalogue of motifs

… which Carpaccio gleefully plunders!

a stag seen from behind

a crouching dog

carrion-eaters waiting to fall on a carcass left by a predator

and numerous knights

… accompanied by young squires.

And this copy/paste technique turns up in picture after picture:

rabbits face to face

hunted stags

recurring human figures

Paradoxically, the very thing which makes this technique interesting,

is the sense of artificiality it conveys.

In a landscape which might otherwise have the idyllic character [of a Bellini],

Carpaccio inserts disturbing and macabre details,

juxtaposing people or animals that seem to have no real connection, or even to see one another - rather like Pisanello in his Vision of Saint Eustace.

In the midst of the Renaissance,

Carpaccio shows us that the aesthetic of harmony,

beauty,

and the velvet touch

is not the whole story.

We also need chivalrous action

strange signs

and fantastic scenery

to spur our imagination.

Next episode: Holbein’s *portrait of Georg Gisze*
Another hero: *the Merchant?*

Find more about the series on: www.canal-educatif.fr

Written & directed by

Produced by

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Sponsors & public support

Voiceover

Editing & visual effects

Post-production / Sound

Musical selection

Music

Photographic credits

Special thanks
English subtitles: Vincent Nash

A CED production

Un film du CED

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