Collectors and Collecting Renaissance Era Patrons, Artists and Spaces

Carafa Chapel, Filippino Lippi, Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome
 
 
DAY 2:  Today is Wednesday, January 4th, and we are examining the first iterations of the art market during the Italian Renaissance

through the connections between artists, collectors patrons and the "commissioning game." Read the introduction and chapters

1-3 of Jonathan K. Nelson and Richard J. Zechhauser's pioneering study The Patron's Payoff: Conspicuous Commissions in Italian

Renaissance Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008) and view the powerpoint presentation of these chapters. Once this

has been completed, write a response to the reading, considering the following questions: 1) Who were the patrons – specify private

and corporate patrons – and what was their relationship to one another and their significance in the commissioning game? 2) What

were the stakes (costs and benefits) of the commissioning game? 3) What provided incentives for the Patron's Payoff? 3) Name and

describe at least three avenues for expenditures and conspicuous consumption (i.e. art: portraits, frescoes, tomb/chapel decoration).

5) Detail and give examples of signaling, stretching and sign-posting. 6) Who were the audiences? 7) Discuss the attributes of "being

distinguished" with reference to magnificence and signaling.

Patron's Payoff

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Powerpoint Presentation

Individual Contributions

Response

Corporate patrons in Renaissance Italy were city governments, religious orders and brotherhoods; while private patrons ranged from wealthy merchants and humanists to aristocrats, rulers and nobles and even several artists themselves. The act of commissioning an artwork had enormous ramifications within the world of the Italian Renaissance. Corporate and private categories often overlapped since individuals represented the interests of the groups to which they personally belonged. Each Patron played a significant role in the commissioning game, as it was important for Patrons to demonstrate their wealth and stature through commissioning artworks. The range amongst wealthy Patrons also created a divide in the success of their achievements. Wealthier patrons commissioned more important works than those of lesser means.

The selection by a Patron of an artist, the materials he would use, the size, the location and ultimately the subject itself all helped to indicate the benefits that a commission was expected to bring; as well as the audience it was intended for. It was important for both Patron and Artist that their audience would react very positively to a newly created work. An audience also created an unpredictable stake in the commissioning game. The strategic benefits of a commission depended strongly on the assumed reaction of audience members.

Artists were as concerned about their reputations as their Patrons were concerned about the quality of the works they were commissioning. Beyond an artist's loss of reputation, a rejected painting or sculpture would ultimately have little or no value. The possibility of rejection always remained at stake in any commission. Though the benefits of a high-quality work included future commissions for the artist as well as everlasting renown for the finished work for both Artist and Patron, the cost of the work remained with the Artist, should the Patron have decided it was unfavourable.

The main factors that provided incentive for the Patron's Payoff were his intense desire for prestige, the availability of significant disposable income as well as a strategic desire for upward social mobility.  It was as crucial for a patron to gain personal promotion through commissioned artworks as it was for him to enhance his reputation through wise commissions. As quoted in Richard Goldthwaite's study Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy the author concludes that affluent patrons in Italy wanted to maintain their noble status and show off their spending habits that arose from a "universal desire of the rich to utilize wealth to set themselves off from ordinary people." The desire for fame and to enhance one's lifestyle would have been at the root of most commissions.

Three important avenues for expenditure and such conspicuous spending and consumption included: paintings (on walls, panels and canvasses), architecture (churches, city palaces, tombs and gardens) as well as objets d'art including sculptures, bronzes, tapestries and even clothing. Any and all of these creations could be used to convey the consumer's status and communicate information about Patrons in perpetuity. The intended audience for these works could associate details about specific patrons or their families through details, subject matter and execution in the works. Many family names of such Patrons are still recognizable in present day.

Since "gentleman of leisure" and "noble families" always consumed well beyond the minimum required by the status quo of the time, more and even greater artworks became physical evidence of their great honor and wealth. Failure to generate such magnificent works was actually regarded as a mark of inferiority among the elite. Hence places of public worship, gilded by paintings or frescoes, important architecture in prominent cities created expressly by and for the nobility, as well as the extravagance of certain artworks all enhanced a Patron's relevance to the society he lived in.

Signaling, Stretching and Sign-Posting were all models for examining commissions. Patrons used these mechanisms to communicate information about themselves and the importance of their commissions.

Examples of "signaling" are the private chapels patrons built in the late medieval period, especially in Renaissance Florence. Though Patrons rarely visited or prayed in these private chapels, they spent enormous amounts of money to purchase and decorate them. These efforts offered Patrons extraordinary opportunities to communicate information about themselves and to elevate their status in the world of the Italian Renaissance. Such chapels were only available to wealthy and noble patrons and were difficult or even impossible for the less affluent to commission. Such projects effectively separated potential Patrons into two groups. The more complete the divide from the less affluent, the greater the value of the commission as a signal of nobility and status.

Through "signposting" a patron was able to indicate specific truths and important characteristics about themselves while simultaneously omitting other significant information. What distinguished "signposting" from "signaling" is the selective disclosure of information. The strategy of not indicating the source of one's wealth proved popular with many non-aristocratic Patrons especially when the intended audience included nobles. For example, Francesco Gonzaga employed stretching by using art to portray a major battle against the French as a significant victory, even though many of his contemporaries considered the actual results mixed at best. The paintings, medals and celebrations he commissioned, most notably Mantegna's Madonna of Victory, never assert that Gonzaga's troops overpowered the army of King Charles VIII. However, the images give a clear impression that the Italians won. These signposts had the influence to enhance a ruler's or even a merchant's reputation. A variety of surrounding elements, such as celebrations and coinage were also conceived to complement an important picture.

"Stretching" is the exaggeration or misrepresentation of important characteristics to convey an impression intended to bathe the Patron in the most favorable light. Most prominent Patrons and even their audiences during the Italian Renaissance expected to see embellishments in art. However standards of the time did dictate limits to the degree of permitted idealization. Throughout the ages, Artists have shown their acumen in stretching claims about Patrons. An Artist and Patron worked together to determine where and how far to embellish the intended information within a specific work.

As a result, audiences were perceived as belonging to three categories at the time: Contemporary, Future and Heavenly. Patrons knew how crucial it was to satisfy all aspects of the intended audience. For all Patrons of religious works during the Italian Renaissance, the primary audience they believed actually existed in Heaven. Patrons wanted God and the Saints to see their devotion and hoped that their commissions would help them reduce their time in Purgatory.

Patrons frequently displayed personal emblems in religious works as elements intended for their secondary audience: the contemporary viewers on earth. The general Contemporary Audience was generally neither affluent nor noble. They were the common man (and more usually the average woman – as women formed the greatest affected audience) who gazed in awe at these important members of the Establishment and their ability to communicate with God.  Patrons also wished to communicate with their fellow-elites, of course, particularly those in their own city or region who could immediately identify the Patron's status by personal symbols that accompanied the commissioned artworks.

In addition to their contemporary audiences in heaven and on earth, many Patrons were concerned with future viewers and posterity. Consideration of this additional audience was a major benefit that distinguished works of art and architecture from other forms of conspicuous consumption. Banquets, clothing, and funerals were transient, however painting, sculpture, and building would endure for generations. Being aware of the future audiences created durable legacies.

As members of the elite, Patrons had to distinguish themselves from those of lower status as well as act in a manner considered appropriate for their class. As a result of this separation, art patronage benefitted and flourished. Distinction was a major strategy for players in the commissioning game. The elite found ways in both art and society, to indicate and to elevate their status by distinguishing themselves from the less affluent and lower classes through patronage.

The ability to differentiate between culturally laden symbols increased the cultural or "symbolic capital" of the noble and affluent. It served to separate the "distinguished" from the "vulgar." In his treatise on Magnificence, written in 1552, Sienese nobleman Alexandro Piccolomini explained that "only someone who makes great things while spending could be properly called 'magnificent." He focused on public displays such as the "building of temples, and theaters" and the presentation of "public festivals and comedies." Piccolomini observed that magnificence "could show itself on private occasions, which happen seldom, such as weddings, parties, banquets, receptions of distinguished guests, expenditures on town and country residences, domestic ornaments and furnishings, and other similar things where one can see sumptuousness and grandness".

The theories of magnificence and signaling both attempt to explain why patrons made certain expenditures.  How such expenditures were ultimately perceived by their intended audience was what a patron thrived on. To create Magnificence players had to exercise both skill and subtlety in working with the artist and his assumptions about the audience.  

 
Consider & comment:

Please use this space to respond to your classmates' work and to engage in lively discussions on the day's topic. Keep your comments concise and conversational by responding to others, rebutting or supporting their ideas. Use the comment box below for these observations.