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
Individual Contributions
Christina Chaplin
Dalanda Jalloh
The reading is very telling about the manner in which art, status, patrons, artists, and audiences were connected in Renaissance Italy. From the reading it becomes clear that many factors were considered when a patron pursued an artist to create a piece of art. Patrons had desires of improving status for themselves and their families, as well as enriching the city in which they lived, while promoting worship and a better afterlife for themselves. This desire could not be fulfilled without the proper artist, who was usually an elite artist who only interacted with the elite patrons---money alone could not afford the artist's services. The mechanisms by which this art was constructed and subsequently the way status was portrayed varied greatly. Different art forms were constructed. In addition, different methods of distinction were employed by patrons to set themselves apart from those of lesser status.
1. Private Patrons: Merchants and humanists, aristocrats, rulers, even a few artists.
Corporate Patrons: City governments, religious orders, and brotherhoods or confraternities
Relationship: Private and corporate patrons overlapped at times, especially since individuals sometimes represented the interests of the groups to which they belong.
Significance: The patron (along with the artist) needed to be able to predict how the audience would receive the artwork produced. The patron was the principal in the principal-agent relationship. This principal is responsible for knowing what he or she wants commissioned. An individual patron acted as a representative of a family, brotherhood, or guild. He or she played a significant role as an agent for many audiences including his clan, fellow citizens, and the heavenly one.
2. Stakes: Better afterlife if patrons drew pictures that inspired or aided worship; they could also impress the elites of the cities or regions by creating displays that would please those elite and thus increase their status, and establish an honorable reputation (for example putting coat of arms on the back of vestments which could be seen well by all the people). Also, in his treatise On the Art of Building, the humanist Leon Battista Alberti wrote that "we build great works so as to appear great in the eyes of our descendants; equally we decorate our property as much to distinguish family and country as for any personal display".
Benefits: Exquisite homes, the opportunity to serve God, honor the city, obtain goodwill from local rulers, celebrate/commemorate the family/guild of the artist, and commemorate the artist himself.
Costs/limitations: Availability of desirable artists, materials, and display locations, prestigious locations were always highly sought after yet not readily available. Also, financial outlay and the risk that the artwork produced by the artist is received negatively by audiences. Another constraint are the unspoken rules of decorum-patrons could not place any art from just anywhere they wanted, nor could they attempt to construct any type of art form merely because they had the financial means of doing so. Chapel decorations had to identify and thus celebrate the holy figure to which the altar was dedicated. Chance of bankruptcy from the sheer cost of building these magnificent structures, some chapels only had one altarpiece, chance of unwanted envy or public rage from others,
3. The ability for social mobility provided incentive to the Patrons Payoff. Those with the money could greatly enhance their reputation. The opportunity to do repeat business with an agent; possibility of obtaining goodwill from local rulers;
4. Food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services ornaments, apparel, weapons, accoutrements, palaces and coaches are all types of conspicuous consumption. Some patrons spent large amounts of money on gardens, tapestries, and works in precious materials. In addition, they spent a lot on expensive banquets, processions, and spectacles. All of this conspicuous consumption was done as an attempt to distinguish the elite from the non-elite and those of lesser status in the region. Impressive homes, servants, and horses were also a trademark of the elite.
5.Signaling: An object, which portrays the value of someone or something and is a reliable indicator of quality. Works of art were used to display favorable characteristics of patrons. Usually they conveyed wealth, status, and piety of a specific patron. Some examples consisted of signs found outside of merchant shops in Renaissance Italy, stamping or providing a certificate quality silk cloth from the Silk Guild in Milan, or the presence of a stone canopy or arch at tombs. The key to signaling was differential costs, which ensured that a work of art was not something cheap.
Stretching: Can be described as the exaggeration or misrepresentation of important characteristics to convey an image intended to shower the patron in a favorable light. For example, during the Italian Renaissance, patrons and audiences create embellishments in art. Another example was when artist Francesco Gonzaga used art to show that a major battle against the French was a significant victory, despite many of his contemporaries revealing that the results were mixed at best.
Sign posting: An actor reveals specific, truthful, and important characteristics while simultaneously omitting other information; it can be characterized by selective revelation. For example, non-aristocratic patrons would not reveal the way in which they earned their wealth when the intended audience included nobles, as a means to not lose any credibility.
6. Audiences consisted of nobles, elite, women, non-elite, other artists, God, and future people in later centuries. Those who were there social equals, inferiors, and superiors.
7. To be distinguished from those of lesser status patrons needed to employ both the strategy of displaying magnificence and the use of signaling status. Houses, furniture, exquisite clothing, palaces, weddings, parties, receptions of distinguished guests, banquets, different architecture, etc needed to be extravagant and not easily imitated by others. The magnificence must not just portray the ability to spend and thus vast wealth, it should reveal the nobility in those expenditures. Signaling allowed the patrons to display to the masses that they possessed certain favorable characteristics. Both of these would enable the patrons to be well distinguished.
Charles Saunders
Lipei Yu
H Hunt Bradley III
Daniel Chazen
Kwame Nana-Atoo
Joo Shin
McKenzie Sullivan
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.
Elena Cestero
Kelly Zona
Jacqueline Park
Tadd Phillips
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.