Drawing Christ's blood: Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna, and the aesthetics of reform

Renaissance Quarterly, Spring, 2006 by Una Roman D'Elia

Disegno was associated--not only in Vittoria Colonna's poetry, but also in Cinquecento writings on art in general--with an elite ability to appreciate intellectual complexity, whereas colore was thought to appeal to a more popular taste. (25) Most writers denigrated colore as something merely popular and therefore crass. However, in the Counter-Reformation, when theorists began to advocate that religious art should be made to communicate more directly (and thus be accessible to simple people), the populism of colore was no longer considered to be a detriment. (26) Michelangelo, acknowledged master of disegno, was accused of making works that could only be understood by connoisseurs, but were potentially offensive, even blasphemous, to the uninitiated. (27)

Colore was needed to express emotion. The blush (or pallor) of the face was an indicator of inner passions. Most dramatically, blood and tears signified torment and anguish. Vittoria Colonna's poems are not the only source to connect colore with blood and the flesh. (28) In a well-known passage in Francisco de Hollanda's (ca. 1517-84) dialogue in praise of Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna purportedly praises Flemish paintings for their piety. (29) De Hollanda has Michelangelo answer by scoffing at paintings that evoke pious tears because of their exact depiction of surface materiality. He sees such works as catering to a popular taste by appealing to women, children, and other weak-minded audiences. Instead of dramatic manifestations of colorito, in the dialogue Michelangelo recommends a more intellectual form of piety, in which the perfection of disegno reflects God's perfection. According to de Hollanda, Michelangelo's aesthetics were antithetical to Vittoria Colonna's. The drawings he made for her, however, are generally assumed to be a perfect reflection of her ideals. If so, they must embody a more complex attitude towards color and the role of sentiment in religious contemplation than de Hollanda implies.

2. EMOTION AND INTELLECT IN ITALIAN REFORM CIRCLES

While Vittoria Colonna and the other thinkers in her circle were all members of a highly educated elite, they praised a simple faith and expressed a deep ambivalence toward an intellectual understanding of religion. (30) In her poems, Vittoria Colonna demonstrates a knowledge of various complex theological systems of thought. For example, in the poem above she refers to Aristotle's distinction (Physics II.3) between the first (material) and second (formal) cause, hardly an idea accessible to everyone. She writes, however, that sacred writings are a less sure way to Salvation, which can best be achieved through contemplation of the Cross and Christ's wounds. Salvation exceeds the intellect and can not be written or spoken, but is a silent faith in the Cross, which the heart can speak through tears. (31) The intellect can err in its interpretations of words, but the eye cannot err in contemplating the Cross. (32) Colonna repeatedly emphasizes the immediacy of this vision by writing "I see" in her poems meditating on the Cross, and in some poems argues for the need to see the Cross and imagine every instant of the Passion in great emotional detail. (33) She abjures the very intellectual sophistication that she demonstrates, often in the same poem. As discussed further below, Michelangelo's drawings exhibit a similar tension--the compositions are seemingly simple, even archaic, but these are presentation drawings, made for an elite circle of connoisseurs and exquisitely finished. (34)