In the 19th and early 20th century, hundreds of paintings were believed to have been the work of Leonardo da Vinci. He didn’t paint them, but “he was so famous that pictures that vaguely looked like Leonardos were called Leonardos,” says Laurence Kanter, curator of European art at Yale University Art Gallery.
In later years, scores were un-Leonardoed, with research proving someone else painted them. Today about 20 paintings in the world are, with meticulous scholarship, attributed to the Renaissance master.
But mysteries remain. Before the 19th century, artists generally didn’t sign paintings. Also, artists started their careers at workshops, where many apprentices, working under a master, created works together, so discerning what artists created what parts of a painting often is difficult.
An exhibit at the New Haven museum curated by Kanter focuses on Leonardo’s youth, when he learned under master Andrea del Verrocchio and was, presumably, influenced by him.
However, to call Verrocchio a master when his student was Da Vinci is one of history’s cruel jokes.
“If you’re trying to imagine what Leonardo learned from his teacher … there is almost nowhere to start,” Kanter says. “Verrocchio … was competent, but not great. There was no one like Leonardo before him.”
The exhibit’s centerpieces are two oils-on-panel, parts of an altarpiece made by Verrocchio’s studio. The main component of the altarpiece is in a difficult-to-access cathedral in Pistoia, Italy. The two pieces exhibited in the Yale gallery were originally positioned below the main component. They depict “The Annunciation” and “A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo.”
Recent research has concluded that “The Annunciation,” which is owned by the Louvre, was painted by Da Vinci and that “Saint Donatus” was painted by Da Vinci and his fellow apprentice Lorenzo di Credi.
Comparing the painters’ work, Kanter is brutal toward di Credi.
“He was prolific but incompetent,” he says. “Here are two artists, one ultra-competent and the other an embarrassment to be seen in his company.”
Kanter first saw “Saint Donatus” about 20 years ago at the Worcester (Mass.) Museum of Art, which owns it.
“This gem was hiding in plain sight there since the 1950s,” Kanter says. It was identified as a di Credi, but Kanter could detect the sublime touch of da Vinci. “The Annunciation” also was attributed to di Credi.
The mislabeling was a common error among Renaissance art scholars of a previous era.
“If it was not good enough or attractive enough to be Leonardo, it must be Lorenzo di Credi,” he says.
But to Kanter – seeing the beautifully rendered figure of Saint Donatus and the clumsily constructed figure of the kneeling tax collector – there was no question.
“This artist had no idea how to get his figure to sit in space,” he says, referring to di Credi’s tax collector. About da Vinci’s saint, he says, “The ground is a real physical presence. The space is an actor in the painting.”
Other factors – the creatively rendered background, the positioning of the bodies, the play of light on faces and hands, the rich folds of the clothing – pointed to da Vinci’s mastery, of which di Credi, clumsily represented on the other half of the painting, was incapable.
Another element of the exhibit tackles how Verrocchio influenced da Vinci. This is difficult to determine, Kanter says. Definitively attributing a painting to Verrocchio has been even more difficult for scholars than attributing to Da Vinci. Also, Verrocchio worked in egg tempera. Da Vinci, after learning that technique from him, abandoned it in favor of oils, which at the time was a revolutionary decision. “He [Verrocchio] didn’t know how to teach in oils,” he says.
The main stumbling block to detecting Verrocchio’s influence, Kanter says, was simply the structure of the workshop. Kanter calls Verrocchio “an Andy Warhol of his time,” whose “factory” created works for the market, with different artists contributing to their completion, depending on the artists’ availability.
“They were craftsmen,” Kanter says. “Art that we fetishize is a modern phenomenon.”
The research continues on da Vinci’s presence, or absence, in Italian artworks of the time, and probably will continue forever, Kanter says.
“Leonardo is in the title [of the exhibit],” he says, “but it’s really about … long, slow, close, careful, patient looking.”
LEONARDO: DISCOVERIES FROM VERROCCHIO’S STUDIO is at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. in New Haven, until Oct. 7. artgallery.yale.edu.
