Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action ed. by Julian Brooks (review)

If being poeticized in Robert Browning’s caricature “Andrea” was a literary Victorian consignment to not quite the celestial pinnacle of the more familiar single name High Renaissance stardom of Raphael and Leonardo, Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530) nonetheless achieved Vasari’s stinting but shrewd status of Pittore Senza Errori. Vasari’s niggling biography of del Sarto—so named because he was a tailor’s son—even shows a modicum of irony in a gossipy narration of the artist’s long-suffering devotion to his wife Lucrezia del Fede as if he painted her face on nearly every female he depicted, and even abandoned his French royal patron Francis I for this feckless wife, likely dying alone in Florence because his wife was afraid of plague. Thanks to Vasari, the vicissitudes of Andrea’s life are famous, but less so his artistic processes and meticulous disegno, which this book rectifies. This new exhibition catalogue of Andrea del Sarto does far more than claim a first retrospective monograph in the United States for his impeccable draftsmanship, amply sharing his revolutionary drawing and management of the most successful and productive Florentine workshop.

This edited exhibition catalogue only hints at the major coup Julian Brooks has carefully masterminded in magisterial fashion with his scholar’s vision for del Sarto managing multiple facets, shared with eminent collaborators such as Denise Allen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Xavier Salomon at the Frick Collection New York. First, there is the feat of gathering the widespread collection—an exhibition co-organized by the Getty with the Frick Collection in New York—of impressive material for the unique exhibition from so many international sources including Florence’s Gallerie degli Uffizi and Palazzo Pitti Galleria Palatina collections along with del Sarto materials from the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, Oxford’s Ashmolean, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the National Gallery in Washington, DC, among at least four other sources. In addition Brooks moderated a Getty symposium on “Andrea del Sarto: His Drawings, Paintings and Relationship to Sculpture” as well on September 13, 2015 and helped set up the sponsored Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action traveling exhibition (same as the exhibition book title) first at the Getty and as of this writing in New York at the Frick through January 10, 2016 with a related exhibition of Andrea del Sarto’s “Borgherini Holy Family” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Julian Brooks, Xavier Salomon, and Aimee Ng have curated the exhibition in both venues in collaboration with the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence.

Julian Brooks as major editor-contributor also wrote the book’s Introduction and Acknowledgements as well as book sections on catalogue items “Planning on Paper” (cat. 9–18), “Rendering Reality” (cat. 19–40), “The Madonna of the Steps” (cat. 41–47), “The Sacrifice of Isaac” with an Appendix by Marcia Steele (cat. 50–52) and “The Medici Holy Family” (car. 53–55). Additional essays in the exhibition catalogue are by Yvonne Szafran and Sue Ann Chui, Dominique Cordellier, Marzia Faietti, Xavier Salomon, Sanne Wellen, Alessandro Cecchi, Denise Allen, and the contribution from Marcia Steele. The exhibition catalogue book is divided into several sections: “Invention and Composition,” “Andrea del Sarto, Draftsman Painter,” “Fiorentinità in Andrea del Sarto’s Life and Death,” and “The Convergence of Drawing and Painting,” along with an authoritative bibliography and copious index.

In Brooks’ words about the exhibition and this accompanying book, “it was vital to represent Andrea with his strongest, most relevant, and most representative drawings” in a rationale that informed the catalogue selection, one that “enables visitors to appreciate the whole of his preparatory process, and more importantly to see the spectacular final results.” Intense piety and spirituality permeate del Sarto’s art, as Brooks demonstrates, even inspiring subsequent [End...