Iconography and stylistics of transfers

When the discussion turns to artistic transfers, one immediately thinks of a diffusion of styles or themes, or expressly iconic motifs. This aspect of artistic mobility has been a subject of research for a long time, but new discoveries continue to be made. Indeed, when Béla Zsolt Szakács (art history professor at Péter Pázmány University in Budapest) examined the frescoes over the choir stalls in the church of Keszthely in western Hungary, he found a troubling kinship with the pictorial tradition that was popular at Siena, Italy, from the 15^th century on. Up to that point, the poor state of conservation of these Hungarian works had made the process of interpreting them quite delicate: by means of the hypothesis of an artistic transfer, the author was able to retain the resemblance to certain frescoes found in Siena, even extrapolating some of the missing scenes. Then, the question of the origin of the observed kinship arises. How did these motifs and this style, developed in Italy, manage to get themselves transmitted in to Hungary? The author explains that apart from the presence in Keszthely of Italians (the church was decorated with the monogram of a Tuscan artisan), people who commissioned works had travelled in Italy. The problem of artistic transfers shone a new light on the iconography of this particular Hungarian church.

These discoveries with regard to the diffusion of styles and motifs were not limited to unknown groupings. They also concern productions already at the heart of numerous publications, like the sculptures around the door of the Strasbourg Cathedral. Up to the present time research has focused on the identification of different hands that were responsible for the programme of decoration. Denise Borlée (University of Strasbourg) proposed looking at the sculptures of the central door in a different way. A meticulous analysis shows that the constant rhythm with which the various scenes were connected, and their particularly vivid aspect, is not found in other statuary productions of the same period. In order to find such characteristics one must turn toward different artistic materials, such as ivory. Artisans working in Strasbourg did not hesitate to transfer styles from one material to another.

The study of materials sometimes casts some light upon certain stylistic characteristics of works of art. Tobias Kunz (scientific co-worker at the Skulpturensammlung Bode Museum of Berlin) examined a group of Madonnas from the Mosan region executed in Carrara marble. How did this material get to this region? Was it transported as a rough stone, or was it sculpted first? Was there considerable artistic traffic between these two geographical areas? Based on his research the author puts forward the hypothesis that at least one Meuse valley artisan must have worked in Italy, near certain marble quarries. This presence of a Mosan artisan must have been the occasion for artistic exchanges with local artisans – as is apparently demonstrated by the hybrid characteristics of certain works. This form of hybridization is found in other productions, such as the tomb of Pope John XXII of Avignon. Julian Gardner, the founder of the art history department at the University of Warwick, says that although the funerary model of the tomb is identifiably English, its execution in the context of 14^th century France has also contributed to its style. 

Over and above the style and iconography of his original context, the artisan has also imbued his productions with characteristics of the art of the various regions he has visited. Francesca Manzari, researcher in medieval art history at the University of Rome Sapienza has been studying the production of liturgical books in the papal courts of Avignon and Rome during the Great Schism, and she identified a case that is relatively unique in all History. Following the installation of antipopes at Avignon in the 14^th century, the demand for liturgical books rose sharply. For a time, this attracted outside artists to the city. The analysis of this microcosm shows that outside or exogenous artists are not only the vectors of the styles of their original contexts, but also the contexts they have come in contact with during their careers.