Art and Magnificence - A Perfect Way to Start the New Year... Andrea del Sarto in New York.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's small exhibit comparing two late works by the artist coincides with the main show of 45 drawings and three paintings in Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action  at the Frick Collection. Although the three paintings are displayed in the Oval Room at the Frick, the drawings that are the real gems of the exhibit are displayed in the two galleries downstairs. I have always found viewing an artist's drawings as very intimate, akin to being privy to the inner sanctum of an artist's mind. The Frick show does not disappoint, del Sarto's creative process and the Renaissance workshop really become existent with the drawings on display. The artist's attention to every little detail from hands, and limbs to the fall of the drapery was worked and reworked from live models who seem to be studio assistants or relatives. There are several Heads of Young Women that are thought to be the artist's wife, Lucrezia, which are so delicately modeled that one can almost feel his admiration and love.

Although the exquisite beauty of del Sarto's paintings are without dispute, it is the tender honesty of these drawings that I found so moving. While the paintings feel like they have been created by a magical touch, these show the hardworking hand of the artist, discovering the reality of his subjects only to transform it into what he sees in his mind's eye. Also included in the exhibit are composition studies that show how the artist relentlessly worked out the positioning of the figures. I almost wish someone would make a GIF of the candid look at sketches trying different positions one on top of another. For those of us already curious about art history, these exhibits are a treasure but I wish such an exhibit could reach a younger, wider audience who usually find this type of art outside of their area of interest. Including a modern tech tool to interpret what we willingly go to see and admire might be able to reach a different type of viewer.


The three paintings displayed in the Oval Room of the Frick, The Medici Holy Family, Portrait of a Young Man and St John the Baptist, all had the otherworldly quality that I often associate with Renaissance art. They were perfection itself executed in smooth harmony, inviting the viewer to worship at the altar of human achievement. As spellbinding as these oils are, the preparatory drawings displayed side by side created the sense of being more tangible. Hoping to inform and entice, I tweeted my experience on my third trip to see the Frick exhibit. It is impossible to convey the experience of standing before any of these works by mere words or photographs, so you really should see them in person if you have the chance. For those who cannot make it before the exhibit closes, the Frick collection has all the works online on their website.



The exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum not only compares the 'Mechanics of Creativity" behind del Sarto's two late works, The Borgherini Holy Family and Charity, but also includes items to give a broader sense of the time and political atmosphere they were created in. The Met makes a connection between The Borgherini Holy Family created for Giovanni Borgherini, a supporter of the brief Republican government, 1527-30, against the Medici family and Charity that Sarto painted for the French king Francis I, whose assistance the Florentines sought. Sarto's Borgherini Holy Family is interpreted as:

The artist conveyed his patron's ideals through the central motif of the Christ Child accepting the globe, or orb, surmounted by a cross from Saint John the Baptist, the patron saint of the city. This gesture symbolically represents their true leadership of the city and implicitly rejects any other. 

The Borgherini Holy Family, 1528-29 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)