Correggio's Frescoes in Parma Cathedral.

Carolyn Smyth. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. 141 illus. + 4 plates + 158 pp. n.p. ISBN: 0-691-03747-7.

In the sixteenth century Giorgio Vasari hailed Antonio Allegri da Correggio as the first Lombard artist to work in the modern style, adding that his art would have reached absolute perfection if only he had left Lombardy for Rome. Whether or not Correggio actually traveled to Rome, he appears to have worked exclusively in North Italian towns, especially Parma, rather than the major artistic centers, A "provincial" artist by definition, Correggio's creative legacy has hardly proven marginal. So widely imitated in the following century was his use of illusionistic effects and color that he is now typically if anachronistically considered a precursor to the Baroque. Both David Ekserdjian and Carolyn Smyth attempt instead to situate Correggio's achievement in proper historical context, and their respective books, albeit different in scope and critical approach, complement each other and advance our understanding of this important artist.

Ekserdjian's elegant study comprehensively discusses Correggio's biography and oeuvre with particular attention to design process and patronage. Organized chronologically into four main parts, the monograph begins with a brief survey of the pictorial tradition in Parina prior to Correggio's creation of a new local style. Part 1 addresses the question of his training with Mantegna and establishes a convincing sequence for the early paintings, many of which remain undocumented. Strikingly Mantegnesque in style is a recently discovered canvas depicting David before the Ark of the Convenant (Turin, private collection), probably the organ-shutters commissioned for San Benedetto Po in 1514. The chapter on the Camera di San Paolo argues in favor of Correggio's trip to Rome and speculates quite plausibly that Abbess Giovanna da Piacenza may have facilitated the journey, yet might have more fully explored the patron's role in the decoration of the Camera and the possible historical and iconographic implications. In the case of another female patron, Ekserdjian refutes an old tradition that identifies Briseide Colla as a widow and notes that the chapel for which she commissioned the Madonna of Saint Jerome belonged to her husband, a significant correction that nonetheless raises still further questions about uxorial patronage. Part 2 concerns the Parmese church of San Giovanni Evangelista, including the family chapel of Placido Del Bono, the Benedictine adviser thought by Ekserdjian to have been responsible for the overall decorative scheme of the church. Correggio's preparatory drawings are suggestively used to determine both iconographic changes and a tentative chronology for the frescoes. Part 3 deals with the panel and canvas paintings executed in the 1520s and 1530s. Part IV examines the fresco cycle in Parma Cathedral with a fine discussion of related graphic studies, including a newly discovered double-sided sheet (Fondazione il Correggio); for the iconography, however, the reader should also consult Smyth's book. A final chapter regards the various mythological paintings, the allegorical pendants made for Isabella d'Este conspicuously different in tone from the sensual Loves of Jove intended for her son. The conclusion notes Correggio's vast influence and critical fortune, and an appendix transcribes three hitherto unpublished documents. Throughout this book, the author carefully and imaginatively uses visual (e.g., drawings, X-radiographs, old copies) and documentary evidence to elucidate lost as well as familiar pictures. Wherever possible, he understands the works in response to their intended site, and his in situ reading of altarpieces includes a consideration of extant original frames and the artist's share in their design. The many beautiful color-plate illustrations are matched by Ekserdjian's articulate verbal description, ever sensitive to the artist's use of color and light, and the volume is altogether a valuable contribution worthy of its subject.

Smyth's book focuses more specifically on Correggio's fresco decoration in Parma Cathedral with respect to iconography and audience. The introduction registers three criticisms traditionally leveled at the cycle: decorum, simplicity of content, and supposed illegibility. Smyth maintains that the habit of viewing the frescoes from the middle of the transept crossing limits interpretive response, and proposes instead a number of oblique views or calculated disclosures meant to be read from various points in the church. Accordingly, the book is comprised of a sequence of nine chapters or viewpoints, beginning with the view from the door and ending with that from the eastern apse, whereby Smyth progressively explains the separate yet related lay congregational and clerical audiences. This approach is persuasive in visual terms, though the effort to find documentary support for such an active concept of space in otherwise standard contractual formulae (e.g., "andando al Sacramento," 97-98) seems forced. Correggio's depiction of the Assumption of the Virgin is understood as a complex statement of Christian belief with detailed reference to Marian theological writings and dogma. Smyth wisely emphasizes the Song of Songs as a major interpretive key, "perhaps the foremost textual background for the intense emotionalism of Correggio's image" (70). She therefore identifies (as had Anton Raphael Mengs in the eighteenth century) the foreshortened figure at the center of the luminous cupola to be not an angel but the young and vigorous Christ. Intended to be visible only to the clergy, this figure leaps like a gazelle to meet his bride and mother, as she ascends amidst a joyous riot of music-making angels. Daring in illusionism and inventive in content, these frescoes - perhaps more than any other work by Correggio - would later earn him the dubious art historical distinction of "proto-Baroque." Fortunately, however, Smyth and Ekserdjian encourage us to comprehend Correggio's great talent in his own time and on his own terms.

University of Texas, Arlington and Villa I Tatti, Florence