Renaissance women: picture perfect

Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo’s Ginevra de’ Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women An exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, showing until Jan 6, 2002. arly Renaissance Christians elaborate costumes and jewels worn by believed a woman’s outward each young lady symbolised the richness appearance and inner soul were of her dowry, her beauteous virtue, and inextricably linked, giving no credence the social status of the families involved. to the adage that beauty is only skin Since marriage cemented a social and deep. It was held that only if a woman economic alliance negotiated by the was virtuous would she be beautiful, male heads of each family, it was and beauty would be conclusive proof imperative that both sides demonstrate that she was virtuous. A virtuous bountiful assets. Men usually delayed woman was pious, modest, obedient, marriage until their mid-thirties, when and above all, chaste. At a time when they had accumulated sufficient assets recurring plagues and high rates of to support a wife and family. To ensure childhood mortality decimated all their virginity, brides could be as young classes, virginity was prized not only as 12 and were usually no older than 16, as exemplifying moral purity, but also and many died young in childbirth. because it was essential for assuring The earliest surviving example of this that the male bloodline would be passed Florentine innovation in portraiture is down without genetic ambiguity. Filippo Lippi’s Woman with a Man at The concern with outward appeara Window (1438–44), which depicts a ance as a manifestation of the morals half-length view of a young woman of and behaviour of a prospective bride stiff upright bearing, clothed in luxurious came to assume such importance in Florence by 1440 that a new art form was born: portrait paintings commissioned to celebrate the beauty and virtue of the lady in question. These images of wealthy merchant-class young women were a radical departure from the religious icons and royal personages then predominant in western art. Painters sought to capture a likeness of a bride that conformed to the idealised vision of female beauty worshipfully described in the popular love poems of Petrarch and Dante. This mythical woman possessed blonde hair, blue eyes, a long neck, pearly white skin, rosy cheeks and lips, and a high forehead. She was posed in profile in the classic style of ancient Roman coins, much admired in Renaissance Florence. Never mind that, in reality, these Italian women probably had features of a darker hue and a blemish or two. The reverse side of these portraits featured notations and mottoes attesting to the lady’s virtuous character and conduct. In works created to commemorate Sandro Botticelli, Young Woman (Simonetta marriage, the sumptuous display of Vespucci?) in Mythological Guise (1480–85)

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THE LANCET • Vol 358 • December 8, 2001

fabrics accented by tiny pearls and large ruby brooches, whose features conform to Petrarch’s poetic model, looking demurely at her husband, her hands carefully folded in front of her. Some portraits were posthumous, painted to honour a beloved young wife who died in childbirth, such as Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni (1488), a memorial portrait by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Leonardo da Vinci’s innovative portrait of Ginevra de’Benci (1474–78) looks outward at a three-quarters angle, rather than in profile, providing a psychological connection between sitter and viewer, although she modestly averts her gaze. On the reverse side is a laurel wreath, symbolising virtue, and a scrolled motto: “Virtvtem Forma Decorat” (beauty adorns virtue). The most seductive combination of earthly likeness and angelic ideal may be Botticelli’s Young Woman (Simonetta Vespucci?) in Mythological Guise (1480–85), whose perfect beauty is highlighted by luminous eyes and an intertwining of pearls in golden tresses. After 1534, when the Medicis became Dukes of Florence, female portraiture included more mature women facing fully and regally forward, often with their children, who represented public symbols of matronly virtue. The rigid strictures of the 15th-century idealised woman were relaxed to allow for brown hair and tawny skin, although these women still wear the plush garments and conspicuous jewellery denoting wealth and position. All these early depictions of virtuous women—though most were barely teenagers—have a grave demeanour and mature dignity, in keeping with the moral purity the portraits are intended to convey. Sensuality rarely intruded on facial expressions. A complex amalgam of real and idealised features, these early Renaissance versions of feminine beauty evoke a poignant sense of how the lives of women were both elevated and constricted by societal concepts of their chief roles as fertile procreator and spiritual muse. Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main

Renaissance women: picture perfect

Wanda Reif e-mail: [email protected]

2003

For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.