Detail in Renaissance Paintings: Carpaccio's Venice

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 While finishing yesterday’s post on the occasional nothingnesses of details in Renaissance painting and using one of the painting by Vittore Carpaccio to make my point, I stumbled upon another image by this Renaissance master that was almost all detail, and of great somethingness.  The painting is  Il miracolo della reliquia della Santa Croce (“The Healing of a Madman”, painted in 1494), which is a large, extraordinary and detail-filled canvas of a street scene in Venice. The subject of the painting is Francesco Qerini, the Patriarch of Grado (which was the old name for the Patriarch of Venice, one of the four Sees, with patriarchs reaching back to the 6^th century), who was healing a mad/possessed man of whatever aliments finding safety in him, and evidently accomplishing the task with a tiny piece of the original cross of Jesus, given to Qerini ‘s patriarchy in the 14^th century.

The miracle itself takes up only a very small portion of the painting—you can find it in the upper left, in a spacious loggia, the “madman” (I think) crooking his head to look up at the outstretched crucifix; a quiet, almost secondary acquiescence to all of that other energy in the painting.  Even though not the intentional subject of the painting, it is the wooden  Rialto Bridge  (the version built in 1458) that takes center stage, though I guess one could say that the key area of interest was the city of Venice  itself.  Or the throngs of its citizens enjoying the airy passage through the city.  The focal point does seem to be the bridge, which had the capacity to open for taller ships, and was a focal point of transfer for the community. 

There is some reason for this outside of the artistic sense—the paining was one of nine commissioned by the Confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, which was a major concern in Venice.So it would seem that Venice was meant to be as much a part of the appeal of the painting as was the miracle that called for the attention in the first place.  

This was a very crowded scene, the foreground and background material and subjects as important as the subject itself; it was a greatly democratized work calling as much attention to the city of Venice as the miracle being worked within it—and it still remains a calm and quiet vision  Perhaps it is the steadfast of the objects above the street, like the pot-like chimneys (at least 26 showing) and the clothes-drying poles with their flag-like fare that contribute to the quietness above the bustling city street.  Experts say that this is a superb rendering of the cityscape, with accurate coloring, a beautiful documentary of life in Venice  just at the end of the 16^th century.  In addition to the cityscape we see all manner of small life in the many people in the painting:  passengers in the gondola are carrying pets (at least one dog and a bird), the stores at the foot of the bridge, an open air market (with sellers lined up with small tables), plus all manner of styles in dress.

It is a wonderful example of the opposite of yesterday’s post:  something where all of its comparative “nothings” were the most important part of the unit.