Date: Fri 28-May-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: LAURAB

Quick Words:

Bard-Baroque-Albertson

Full Text:

Life And The Arts In The Baroque Palaces Of Rome

(with cuts)

By Karla Klein Albertson

NEW YORK CITY -- Furniture or decorative arts are sometimes described as

"slightly Baroque" -- a curlicue here or a scroll there -- but the spring

exhibition at the Bard Center in Manhattan, "Life and The Arts in The Baroque

Palaces of Rome: Ambiente Barocco" is over-the-top, home-of-the-genre Italian

Baroque in its very purest form. Once again, the small gallery at the noted

decorative arts graduate school has mounted a highly-important show in its

field, gathering in one place over 100 magnificent objects and drawings that

would be difficult to see if you lived in Italy for a lifetime.

As its lasting legacy, the Baroque exhibition is accompanied by a beautifully

illustrated catalogue, focussing on Roman palatial life in the Seventeenth

Century or "Seicento," when Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Pietro da Cortona and

Francesco Borromini were busy creating the opulent city that continues to awe

visitors.

Most important for East Coast connoisseurs, the show and catalogue were timed

to anticipate the major exhibition "Art in Rome in The Eighteenth Century,"

opening in March 2000 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which will include

over 300 examples of painting, sculpture, works on paper and decorative arts.

Stefanie Walker, a Bard Center professor who chose the objects and co-edited

the catalogue, explains, "These three major artists were the sources for the

decorative arts. Bernini was an all-around genius and influenced design in

every field, sculpture to painting to architecture to decorative arts.

Carriages, fireworks design -- you name it.

"Pietro da Cortona was the one who combined the arabesques of ancient Roman

architectural ornament into his fresco painting, and this influence also

flowed into decorative arts design."

Among the "sub-contractors" Cortona employed was a German artist from

Innsbruck named Johann Paul Schor. He drew the imaginative plans, on display

in the show, for a fantasy bed, cradle and carriage.

From Seventeenth Century documents, scholars know that the massive bed

supported by sea gods and cherubs was actually made for a new mother in the

noble Colonna family to receive visitors after her son was born. Although the

bed has vanished without a trace, the exhibition offers a massive gilded table

and the beautiful Barberini concert harp as well as numerous other drawings,

such as a "Design for a Sugar Sculpture," which make the viewer speculate on

what sort of society could require these ornate objects.

This type of question is why the exhibition focuses on "Life" and well as "the

Arts," according to Walker.

"On one level, the show allows visitors to appreciate Roman Baroque objects as

works of art worth considering. Sure people can look at the objects

individually, but we have also tried to organize the exhibition in thematic

sections that evoke ensembles," she explained. "I want people to have a sense

what an interior looked like and contained, and the wall labels explain a

little bit about what went on in these palaces."

Then as now, the wealthy attempted to impress their subjects and each other by

surrounding their daily life with elaborate displays. As Walker puts it in the

catalogue introduction, "Though unable to match the popes in the scale of

their undertakings, cardinals and princes engaged in intense competition to

outdo each other in the building and furnishing of churches, chapels and

palaces." Public festivals, jousts, and musical production -- now memorialized

only by paintings or drawings -- were another manifestation of the extravagant

spirit of the times.

Frederick Hammond, a musicologist who teaches at Bard College, first conceived

the idea of a show about Roman Baroque palace life. He naturally began to

collaborate with Stefanie Walker, a specialist in Seventeenth and Eighteenth

Century European decorative arts, after she was hired to teach at the Bard

Center in late 1995.

Other distinguished contributors to the catalogue are Maria Giulia Barberini,

Thomas Dandelet, Edward J. Olszewski, Eduard A. Safarik and Patricia Waddy.

Among the essays covering fascinating topics of the period are Hammond's "The

Creation of a Roman Festival: Barberini Celebrations for Christina of Sweden"

and Olszewski's "Decorating The Palace: Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740)

in the Cancelleria."

Published for the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts by

Yale University Press, Life and the Arts in the Baroque Palaces of Rome:

Ambiente Barocco, edited by Stefanie Walker and Frederick Hammond, is a

companion publication to the exhibition, offering both important essays in the

field and a catalogue of the objects in the show. Softbound catalogues can be

purchased from the Center for $40; call 212/501-3000 for information. The

hardbound edition can be ordered for $70 from Yale University Press,

800/987-7323.

Stefanie Walker is particularly to be congratulated for her success in

securing loans for this exhibition from Italian museums, many of which were

previously unaware of the existence of the Bard Center. The Barberi harp, for

example, had never before left the dusty galleries of Rome's obscure Museo

Nazionale degli Strumenti Musicali, but Walker found an ally in Claudio

Strinati, Soprintendente dei Beni Artistici e Storici di Roma, who "was

extremely supportive and interested in this project and helped with a number

of loans," she said.

The presence in the show of other objects loaned by private collectors or

antiques dealers reminds the viewer that, however pricey, objects like these

are still bought and sold in the antiques marketplace.

After closing at the Bard Center on June 13, the exhibition travels to the

spacious marble halls of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City for a

July 21-October 3 run. The Missouri museum is home to the notable Spencer

Collection of European Decorative Arts, which makes it a natural venue.

Says Walker, "Obviously they'll have more space, but the massing of objects

and images in our smaller area is not so antithetical to a Baroque setting."

In the final analysis, the artistic history of Rome in the Baroque period

demonstrates what happens when keeping up with the Joneses -- or the

Barberinis, in this case -- runs riot.