Painting: Tapping the Mother Lode

"There is something in the very name of Florence that suggests refinement and pleasurable emotions," wrote Boston-born James Jackson Jarves, America's first real collector of Italian Renaissance art, in 1852. At the time, few Americans agreed with him. When his collection of 143 Pre-Raphaelite paintings was shown in New York in 1860, critics panned them decisively as "weak and fettered," "the crude expression of Genius grappling with superstition." Snorted one Victorian gallerygoer, viewing a Tuscan religious panel with a gold-leaf background: "More of these d—d ridiculous Chinese paintings!"

A century has wrought a remarkable turnabout. When news of Florence's disastrous floods hit the U.S.'s front pages last fall, the whole art world responded. Brown University Professor Bates Lowry was able with little difficulty to organize the distinguished Committee to Rescue Italian Art. CRIA quickly raised approximately $2,000,000 to aid in the restoration of damaged works. Its most recent—and most popular—fund-raising device is "The Italian Heritage," an exhibit on display through Aug. 29 at Manhattan's Wildenstein Gallery, where it has already attracted more than 11,000 visitors.

Reunion of Principessas. The CRIA exhibit (see color opposite) contains 74 outstanding examples of Italian and Italian-influenced painting and sculpture dating from the 13th through the 17th centuries, but it does not pretend to be a comprehensive survey of those years. Instead, says Yale's Charles Seymour Jr., director of the exhibition, it is meant to suggest "the great reservoir of Italian and Italian-oriented art that exists today in our country. It is a national exhibition, with paintings in it from all over the U.S." Some 50 museums and private collectors were approached, and 47 agreed to lend to the show (most also offered to pay insurance costs).

Only notable holdout: Washington's National Gallery, which on its own has raised $75,000 for CRIA but has a set policy against lending any foreign art.

One of the fascinations of the exhibit is the juxtaposition of paintings that gallerygoers would normally have to travel miles to compare. An outstanding example is two wood panels illustrating the birth of the Virgin and her presentation in the temple, which until the 1930s hung in the Barberini Palace in Rome. Then one was acquired by Manhattan's Metropolitan, the other by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Now they are back together again, offering a double portion of the pale palette, polished perspective and high-waisted principessas painted by the anonymous 15th century artist known only as "the Master of the Barberini Panels."

An early, conventional portrait done by Titian around 1525, from Omaha, hangs near his 1565, darkly haunting Ecce Homo, from St. Louis. The contrast between the pair illustrates the degree to which the Venetian evolved his own austere, luminous, intensely personal style that became finer and more influential among succeeding generations.