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prey or predator, each creature must fend for itself.

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Art…

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ArtSleuth

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A knight in armour…

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Plants and animals in profusion…

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Ancient fortifications…

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A picture by Carpaccio!

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A beautiful medieval image?

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Seen through nineteenth-century eyes?

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Not at all…

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The date is circa 1510,

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the Italian Renaissance is in full swing,

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

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Carpaccio is just over 50 years old:

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other Venetian artists

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are landing all the best commissions

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with their innovative “velvet touch” style.

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

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Titian, who is 20...

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and even the old Bellini who, at over 80,

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brings flesh to life in a pared-down landscape.

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Carpaccio, by comparison, seems too detailed,

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too clear-cut,

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and his landscape overloaded.

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Is he living in a world of his own?

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

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cannon and firearms are revolutionising the whole art of war!

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Are Carpaccio and his knight really prisoners of the past?

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

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Part 1. *Portrait on the look-out*

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

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Like medallions, which …

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… show the person on one side, …

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… and his or her values on the other…

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… it portrays:

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A young man

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…with distinctive features, like this prominent cleft chin,

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and a real-life coat of arms:

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Flowers, irises and white lilies, symbols of purity,

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

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

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According to legend, "*she would rather die*

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*than traverse a foul swamp*”.

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This portrait must therefore be seen as breaking new ground:

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

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

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with an outdoor setting.

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What Bellini had done for a saint 30 years earlier,

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

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A town in the background,

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a spring in the foreground,

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and, instead of Saint Francis,…

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… a heroic knight, seen from a low angle.

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

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but discordant

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- if not positively peculiar!

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Instead of simple perspective lines,

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tense diagonals veer across the canvas:

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Like the ermine threatened by toads,

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the knight is poised to spring at some latent menace.

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His lance…

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… points at a hawk…

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… which is putting other birds to flight

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

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Even the path holds a macabre surprise:

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beyond the sunlit meadow with its gambolling rabbits…

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a vulture is tearing a fawn to pieces!

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

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Sometimes they avoid each other:

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The knight seems trapped between the horseman and the tree,

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which has to make way for his elbow…

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… just as the bush does for his lance

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and any patch of sky which stays empty

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is soon invaded by a bird.

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When forms actually touch, the contact is carefully calculated:

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the dog supports the sword.

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a tree grows from the stag’s antlers.

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

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

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perched on the horseman’s helmet,

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

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with an inn-sign in pecking range, …

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

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Although its perspective is flawless …

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… this is no natural landscape!

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A portrait too big for a man too young.

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An artificial, tension-filled landscape.

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Has Carpaccio bitten off more than he can chew?

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Part 2. *Great expectations*

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

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

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

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still connect them:

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the way both look warily ahead,

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the complementarity of helmet and armour …

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… and even their dogs:

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one white with a dark patch,

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the other dark with a trace of white.

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

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They live together, but without solidarity.

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

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The battle for life.

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Solitary predators.

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The old,

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overgrown fortress

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

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

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

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in the motto and its ideal of courage

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

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… where people meet

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and discuss civilly.

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

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

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The autumnal oak is matched by two green trees.

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The ancient stronghold

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by a resplendent fortress,

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and the horseman’s personal ensign,

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by a horse with a youthful rider.

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There have been many theories

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regarding the young knight’s identity:

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

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

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the v-shaped crenellations,

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

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and the resemblance of the town in the background

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to Ragusa, now Dubrovnik

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might all point to the young King of Hungary,

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

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Venice might have presented this picture to the rival Adriatic Republic

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to seal an alliance.

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

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who also used yellow and black,

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

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

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symbolised by this riderless horse.

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

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Unlike monuments to the dead,

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which celebrate great warriors’ feats…

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Unlike those heroes

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who enjoy God’s miraculous assistance,

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

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

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

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- in battles whose outcome is uncertain,

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like that between the eagle and the heron

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Like Donatello’s Saint George,

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Carpaccio’s knight still seems frail and unfinished,

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equally likely to fail or succeed.

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The picture does not invoke divine assistance,

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

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

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but leaders and strategists.

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

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Part 3. *Beyond beauty and harmony*

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

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- this time, between artists.

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Verrocchio’s proud statue,

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with its powerful presence and anatomical exactitude,

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

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

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who defies both death

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and the blandishments of the devil.

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Not only does the horse seem fully three-dimensionnel

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and anatomically correct,

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

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- the horse’s,

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the mule’s

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and the devil’s.

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

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Dürer places his figure in a harsh and jagged landscape

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

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Fifteen years later, Altdorfer takes this further

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by placing a whole army in a landscape...

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

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

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

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Resolute and unbending, Charles V presses ahead

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in a space both disturbed and mysterious.

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

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like a lay figure before an interchangeable background.

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

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So - are reflections

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and transparency Carpaccio’s real forte?

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

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

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… which presents its subject

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from four different angles at once.

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

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

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

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*so bright that it reflected everything,*

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*showed the left profile.*

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*On the other side,*

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

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Other artists follow the same line:

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

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

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

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but the result is still ambiguous.

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

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exactly as a well polished statue might have done.

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These shadows, which are too fine,

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and these very sketchy ripples in the water,

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

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So what is he really interested in?

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To understand him, we need to look at Pisanello,

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who bequeathed his successors a whole catalogue of motifs

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… which Carpaccio gleefully plunders!

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a stag seen from behind

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a crouching dog

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

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and numerous knights

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… accompanied by young squires.

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

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rabbits face to face

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hunted stags

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recurring human figures

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Paradoxically, the very thing which makes this technique interesting,

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is the sense of artificiality it conveys.

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

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Carpaccio inserts disturbing and macabre details,

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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.

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In the midst of the Renaissance,

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Carpaccio shows us that the aesthetic of harmony,

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beauty,

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and the velvet touch

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is not the whole story.

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We also need chivalrous action

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strange signs

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and fantastic scenery

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to spur our imagination.

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

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

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Written & directed by

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Produced by

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Scientific expert

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Sponsors & public support

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Voiceover

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Editing & visual effects

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Post-production / Sound

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Musical selection

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Music

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Photographic credits

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Special thanks 
English subtitles: Vincent Nash

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A CED production

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Un film du CED