Comic Art in the Renaissance

Review Comic Art in the Renaissance BARBARA DOnGE Paul Barolsky. Infinite Jest. Wit and Humor in Italian Renaissance Art Columbia: University of Missouri Press 1978. 224, illus. $34.00 In comparison with the impressive scholarship on the theological, philosophical, and political interpretation of Renaissance art, wit and humour have attracted remarkably limited attention. Despite a number of recent studies, the playful element is still considered a subject of secondary interest. Paul Barolsky's richly illustrated and handsomely produced Infinite Jest is intended to balance the scales by exploring the witty and humorous in Renaissance art and their relationship to contemporary comic literature. The bulk of the book consists of a survey of the comic and humorous aspects of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century art in an approximate chronological and geographical order. After a rapid look at 'QuattrocentD Mirth,' Barolsky turns to his main interest, the Cinquecento, and examines the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, and a large number of Mannerist, Venetian, and northern Italian artists. He covers a wealth of examples which range from ingenious pieces of wit to coarser kinds of satire and parody. His interests range from the humorous treatment of classical and mythological themes to the appearance of numerous playful putti (including a particularly extensive list of putt; p;sciatOrt). Works which have been the subject of moral, philosophical, and astrological analysis - such as Botticelli's Mars and Venus - are found to have playful and erotic elements as well. Barolsky dwells on the different kinds of humour prevalent in the sixteenth century, in both art and literature. He fmds comic and witty elements in Michelangelo's poems, letters, paintings, and sculpture, and elements of parody and irony in his architecture. In contrast, works by Raphael, Sodoma, and Peruzzi reveal a more delicate and charming note of playfulness. Barolsky discusses at length the 'abundant humor' of the Mannerists, citing a fascination with vulgar humour as a salient feature of Mannerist sensibility. Examples of capricious wit, satire, irony, and a taste for the bizarre are noted in the works ofRosso Fiorentino, Jacopo Pontormo, Giulio Romano, and others. To complete his survey, Barolsky looks into the 'Venetian Boudoir' where Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 51, NUMBER I , FALL 1981 0042-0247/8111000-0125-0126$00.0010 0 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS 126 BARBARA DODGE interject humorous notes into their more erotic works, and into northern Italian art, where he finds a pervasive mock-heroic tradition. What is the end result of this great catalogue? Certainly, a greater realization that wit and humour, in various manifestations, played a substantial role in Renaissance art. Barolsky's noting of details and innuendoes in many cases do provide acounterbalance to the studies ofmore seriousaspects. Yet there are some serious difficulties in the author's interpretations of works of art, in the kinds of conclusions he makes given the evidence he provides, and in his analogies between works of art and between works of art and literature. Humour entails subjective reactions, and too often Barolsky's responses to works of art are difficult to accept. A 'gaze ... of conquest' on Venus's face in Botticelli's Mars and Venus, 'facetious expressions' on the angels' faces in Rosso Fiorentino's fresco of the Assumption of the Virgin in SS Annunziata, and, in Crivelli's St George, a 'ferocious dragon, who roars at the indifferent saint' (and who is actually quite dead, judging from the saint's broken lance) are all examples of an exaggerated reading of the works. Despite the highly speculative nature of much of the text, as evidenced by numerous phrases - 'might be seen,' 'can perhaps be compared,' 'may also allude: 'may not be too much to suppose' - the author draws sweeping conclusions. While there certainly is humourin Michelangelo's poems and letters, the few and secondary elements of humour in his paintings, sculpture, and architecture do not make a case for his having an 'extraordinary wit and comic bent.' Another speculative aspect of the book is found in the analogies between art and literature which Barolsky admits in his introduction are suggestive rather than definitive. But suggestive of what and meaningful in what context? Many of the references to other...