L'image du corps dans la peinture toscane (v. 1300–v. 1450) (review)

Véronique Dalmasso approaches the broad subject announced in the title of this book through a close analysis of images of the Baptism, Crucifixion, and Resurrection painted by Tuscan artists between 1300 and 1450. The dual nature of Christ as both God and man is fundamental to Catholic dogma: but since early Christian times the image of Christ in art has been fraught with difficulties for artists, patrons, and theologians. While the Byzantine East evolved a theology and liturgy in which the place of imagery was clearly, if narrowly, defined, in the Latin West, apart from the formulations of Gregory the Great in his epistles to Serenus and Secundinus, images were broadly diffused and understood. In particular, by the late thirteenth century, with the emergence of the cult of relics and the new spirituality of the mendicant orders, images took on forms and functions that transcended the didactic and devotional functions implicit in Gregory's dicta. L'image du corps dans la peinture toscane charts changes in the depiction of Christ's body in the light of these developments in late medieval Tuscan culture.

In the first section of the book, images of the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan are shown to evolve from Byzantine-inspired formulas in which his nudity, and the presence of the dove of the Holy Spirit, reveals Christ's double nature. By examining the poses of Christ and the Baptist, the landscape setting, presence or absence of the perizonium (the drape in which Christ is clothed), Dalmasso demonstrates the gradual response of Baptism imagery to Franciscan ideas emphasizing the humanity of Christ. Images of the Baptism move from the margins to the center of devotional images, as in Niccolo di Pietro Gerini's polyptych of 1387 in the National Gallery, London (fig. 25). She also compares Christ's body with the bodies of the neophytes whose baptism follows: while the neophytes are penitents, Christ, who is without sin, submits to this rite of purification as an act of humility. The mendicant virtues of penitence and humility are thereby emphasized by having Christ and the penitents share the same space, as in Masolino's mural in Castiglione d'Olona of 1435 or Piero della Francesca's altarpiece from San Sepolcro, now in London. Texts from the Gospels and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventura, as well as late medieval devotional literature by authors such as Domenico Cavalca and Jacopo Passvanti, help explain the great variety of the examples she discusses.

If all this is classic Panofskian iconographic research, Dalmasso leavens her analysis with consideration of ritual (of the change from immersion to infusion, or from baptismal fonts to large basins or vats, for example) and private devotional practices, concerns that have been increasingly present in research on the later Middle Ages. The nudity of Christ, most stimulatingly examined by Leo Steinberg and Caroline Walker Bynum, is also shown in Baptism scenes to be relatively asexual, the genitalia frequently elided or covered by the perizonium, a situation Dalmasso explains by the association of the theme of penitence with the Baptism. The depiction of the neophytes disrobing, a site for the exploration of human movement in fifteenth century examples, also underscores the meaning of the Baptism as a rebirth in Christ.

The second part examines images of the Crucifixion ("le corps souffrant") and the Resurrection ("le corps glorieux") with attention to similar themes. The body of the crucified Christ is contrasted to those of the good and bad thieves; the theme of the imago pietas, again in relation to writings by Panofsky, Belting, and others, takes on a particular form in Italy related to the tenor of affective piety associated with the Franciscans. The Resurrection, by contrast, depicts a Christ confirmed in his divinity while still bearing the marks of...