Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 9 Number 2, August 2008
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Damisch, Hubert, trans. John Goodman, A Childhood Memory by Piero della Francesca, Stanford, 2007,113pp,10:0-8047-3442-9
$55 hardback, $19.95 paperback.
Reviewed by
Ohio University
Despite its laudatory reviews and the high esteem held by Damisch, this text reminds me of the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty where a hedge of roses has grown up around the palace inside where the Princess sleeps. The Prince is forced to hack his way through the Rose hedge with his sword to reach her. And I feel as if I have hacked my way through a hedge of multiflora roses with a machete to reach the beauty within.
It may be that convoluted style is an imprimatur of French scholarly writing but I find it an impediment to edification. It may have been that the essence of this text was lost in translation but I find obfuscating pedantic theory off-putting. Thrashing my way through the seventy pages of this sort of thing makes me lachrymose. I did it only because of my commitment to write this review and because, more importantly for me, the subject of this book is my most favorite work of art on the planet. Piero’s Madonna del Parto is a painting I know well, have studied deeply, have visited more than once in both of its habitations and of which I am always seeking new knowledge.
While a scholar of Renaissance Art History and iconography but not psychoanalytic theory I had never read one of Hubert Damisch’s books before. I confronted the enormous thorny hedge.
Subsumed under ponderous text consisting of single paragraph pages composed of dual sentences, is the author’s explanation that he poses this book as a parallel to Freud’s famous analysis, Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood. Damisch tells us his intent is to pay homage to Freud’s essay on Leonardo by adhering to the construct of it in this essay on Piero.
To be sure little was known about Leonardo’s early life and even less is known about that of Piero. And while this didn’t stop Freud from psychoanalyzing Leonardo, it makes the premise of the comparison rather tenuous. While the historical and art historical context presented by Damisch is at once fascinating, thorough and in depth, it presupposes that the reader has a solid background in Italian Renaissance art and iconography, psychoanalytic theory, as well of course Freud’s essay. Familiarity with Damisch’s other works and his style would be useful too. To not have this familiarity is apt to lead to frustration with this text.
The essential introduction of Damisch’s intent comprises the first chapter of the book. This is a stylistically convoluted discussion. The following chapter, of comparatively stylistic simplicity and of much more readability and interest, explains the general historical background of Piero’s Madonna del Parto.
This fresco, which while resided for centuries in the small cemetery chapel of Santa Maria in Silva, has now been moved to a small museum in the town of Monterchi. Here the fresco is displayed under glass in a room adjacent to a pictorial explanation and documentation of the process of moving it from its original site to the current position. The removal of the fresco from in situ has cost iconographic significance and is an issue of much discord.
As the text progresses if offers substantial and fascinating treatment of the renown fresco so the reader is advised to continue through the cumbersome prose and theory to arrive at the fruit of this consideration.
The second chapter delves into the origins of the painter, dismissing The Vasari fable which attributes Piero’s surname as having been given him because his mother raised him alone, his father having died before his birth. This is corrected by the now known factual information that his father was indeed alive at his birth, out lived his wife by five years, that Piero had several siblings, and that his mother’s name was not Francesca but Romana.
The author continues to present a fine exploration of the iconography of Mary as the tabernacle followed by a discussion of the importance of the veil in art both iconographically as well as technically, and as a device used to enhance accomplishment of perspective claimed by Alberti as having been his own invention. I found this discussion of considerable interest until the author would stretch to the theoretical outreaches.
I reread many passages several times wanting desperately to understand what the antecedent to the final “it” pertained to. I don’t know if confusion like this is due to faulty translations or to lack of clarity in the original text. But I found this text to be bewildering. I cite the final sentence as an example: “To speak one last time as he himself does at the end of his Leonardo essay, every one of us human beings, of whatever stripe, who tries to see a bit more clearly how works of art operate embodies one of the countless perspectives that are detours whereby the one and the other of these reasons clears a path through experience.”
One person’s profound eloquence is another’s discordance.
There is much one can take to task with this book. Although replete with engaging endnotes the text does not have a bibliography, or index. The list of the many works noted is limited to ten. This inhibits its use as a scholarly source. It does end with a five page list of works under the title “Cultural Memory in the Present “ but I would have much preferred to have found a thorough bibliography or list of works cited or even a cursory index. Yet the essential thoroughness of research of the book and depth lead one to glean the otherwise abundant information.
In summation, the text although thorny, does give new insight into the consideration of the fresco. While reading it is not for the timid, it is laudatory scholarship about Piero and his Madonna del Parto. The esteem you give Hubert Damisch’s A Childhood Memory by Piero della Francesca will depend considerably upon your own theoretical slant. Bring a well sharpened blade.