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Resplendent in Bronze
Updated Feb. 11, 2014 5:38 p.m. ET
The labors of Hercules from the Hill Collection, including 'Hercules and Antaeus' at center.
Michael Bodycomb
New York
When
J. Tomilson Hill, vice chairman of the Blackstone Group, was growing up
along Fifth Avenue, he would enjoy visiting Henry Clay Frick's
collection of bronzes at the Frick Collection. "They were accessible,"
he recently observed to the Frick's director, Ian Wardropper. "You could
actually walk around the tables in the main rooms and see how the
Turner or the Rembrandt interfaced with the bronzes there."
Renaissance
And Baroque Bronzes From the Hill Collection
The Frick Collection
Through June 15
And Baroque Bronzes From the Hill Collection
The Frick Collection
Through June 15
Those early experiences profoundly
influenced Mr. Hill. For the past two decades, he and his wife, Janine,
have collected Renaissance and Baroque bronzes, as well as Old Master
and postwar paintings. Their bronzes, which include superb works by
masters of the Italian, French, German and Dutch schools, have never
been shown publicly—until now.
Through
June 15, the Frick is exhibiting all 33, including statuettes, larger
sculptures and a bas-relief, together with several works from the Hills'
other collections. The exhibition was organized by the Frick's curator
of Renaissance painting and sculpture, Denise Allen. And she, along with
other scholars, has contributed entries to the sumptuous and rigorously
documented exhibition catalog. Emulating the accessibility of the
Frick's own bronzes, the Hills have allowed theirs to be displayed
without vitrines, enabling viewers to examine each work in great detail.
Reflecting European sculpture's
embrace of mythology, religion, history and allegory, as well as the
sculptors' keen interest in human and animal anatomy, the bronzes
provide a wealth of imagery and points of comparison from the moment you
arrive. Facing one another in the foyer between the lower-level
galleries are two striding figures, each with wonderfully expressive
hands: "Mars" (c.1600-08), by the Florentine Antonio Susini, shows the
burly yet graceful musculature and refined facial expression typical of
the Italian Renaissance ideal. Probably cast in the late 1560s, "Mars
Gradivus," by Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode, with its wild hair, flowing
mustache and heavier musculature, evokes the somewhat less elegant
Northern European male ideal, which we also find in the works of
Albrecht Dürer, Jan Gossaert and others.
Both
figures symbolized princely power, especially in times of war. Both
statuettes were produced in Florence and influenced by the Flemish-born
sculptor known as Giambologna, who became a leading Florentine figure
and is something of an overriding spirit in this exhibition. Susini was
Giambologna's chief assistant, and his "Mars" reproduces Giambologna's
model of c.1565-70. Tetrode is assumed to have composed his Mars in
Florence just when Giambologna was working on his.
"Bronze,"
notes Ms. Allen, "is a reproductive medium," meaning that these works
in metal represent the final stage in a process that begins with an
artist's original model in clay or wax and proceeds in stages to the
casting, sometimes by the same artist, sometimes by another. The Hill
collection includes some of the finest examples of works extant in
multiple castings.
A detail of 'Mars Gradivus' by Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode
Maggie Nimkin Photography
The exhibition reveals how the
medium's reproductive nature fostered a constant exchange of ideas
between sculptors. Susini's "Rape of a Sabine" was cast c.1585, roughly
two years after Giambologna completed his celebrated marble original.
Their richly lacquered patination gleaming, Susini's three intertwined
figures create a vortex of activity based on a spiraling configuration
that Giambologna had invented years earlier to produce sculpture without
a single dominant viewpoint.
Giambologna's
own bronze statuette of "Astronomy," an elegant female allegory cast in
the early 1570s, represents an earlier stage in his invention of the
"serpentine figure." Leaning on a plinth and resting her foot on a
celestial globe, she twists like a flame, her pose balanced and
beautiful from any angle.
We also see
this flamelike twist in the epic wrestling match of "Hercules and
Antaeus," cast by Susini's nephew Gianfrancesco between 1625 and 1650.
It had initially been designed by Giambologna as part of a set of silver
groups, now lost, representing the Twelve Labors of Hercules.
Half
a century later, this twist imparts the energy of a coiled spring to
the human and animal figures in "Hercules and Iolaus Slaying the Hydra"
by Giuseppe Piamontini. Cast c.1700-20, Piamontini's bronze was based on
a lost model of c.1630 by the great Bolognese sculptor Alessandro
Algardi. Apart from the eloquent rendering of the heroes' faces,
Piamontini subtly worked the intricate bronze surfaces to emphasize the
varied textures of heroic flesh, animal skins and especially the Hydra's
powerful claws and multiple serpent heads.
More
lyrical bronzes offer a respite from all this bellicose muscle. "Ceres
and Bacchus" (c.1635-40) by Ferdinando Tacca shows the goddess of
agriculture walking in quiet conversation with the god of wine and
revelry. As they smile demurely at each other, Bacchus offers his
companion a cup of godly vintage. The two figures gently drape their
arms around one another, their affectionate gesture linking the masses
of the two figures so that their metallic weight is securely reinforced
and balanced.
The Hills' sacred works
are displayed in their own room and dominated by Algardi's cast of his
1646 "Cristo Vivo," which we view as the sculptor intended, from below,
as in a church. A masterpiece of graceful Baroque pathos, it shows the
crucified Christ resigned to his suffering, his open mouth and lowered
eyelids suggesting the final moment of supreme exhaustion. Nearby is the
glazed terra-cotta "Crocifisso" (Christ on the Cross, 1950-52) of Lucio
Fontana, and as one's eye darts between it and the Algardi bronze,
Fontana's Christ figure seems to emerge from the ceramic folds of this
polychrome abstraction. The gilt-touched swirl of reds, yellows and
blues of "Crocifisso" echoes similar elements in the superb oil sketch
of the "Assumption of the Virgin" (c. 1620) by Peter Paul Rubens hanging
across the room. These fervent works proffer a quiet but grand finale
to this resplendent show.
Mr. Scherer writes about music and the fine arts for the Journal.
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