Vittore Carpaccio: Beware of fresh paint!

The image appears in this month's ART Press, among the illustrations in an article devoted to Krzysztof Pomian, who we met between two volumes of his book Museum, a World History. It's not a very big thumbnail, but it's all you can see. Strange. This discreet yet eye-catching painting is called The Vision of Saint Augustine. It is signed Vittore Carpaccio. This is where its uniqueness seems to come from.

We have only just emerged from the Middle Ages, but the Renaissance began with a revolution in pictorial art that suddenly incorporated perspective into its canvases. Canvases that the painters of this dawn can now cover with new dedicated oil paints. The desire to try out all the colours of this new palette comes quickly. There will be plenty of scope and colour. Watch out for fresh paint!

The vision of St Augustine embraces this technological novelty and technical innovation. Carpaccio's painting gives the feeling of having been painted in a state of grace, as if carried along by the gentle, serene pride of creating a new art. New? For such a subject? The state of grace is relevant and respectful.  But is it decent that the jubilation, even if contained and sublimated, is perceived in the end in the work? Sacred art taken as a field of expression could then be considered borderline sacrilegious.

But at the same time, the brush experiments, searches, creates. And it shows. First of all in this daring composition where the main subject is relegated to the right to be blended into the background. The whole thing is done in favour of a background that is put in the limelight to better show the marvels of perspective, no doubt. And this little dog on the left, equal in importance to its master, in front of the wise bric-a-brac surrounding the central but distant statue of Christ, what is it doing in this painting? Doesn't the doggie have a cartoonish side? It seems so. He's as touching and cute as a Pixar plushie. In 1502!

And that's what ultimately moves us, the Carpaccio viewers of the 21st century. The implausible topicality of his pictorial treatise. It seems that the painter, in his joy of innovation, did not stop at initiating the Renaissance. One could almost swear that he invented modern art.

Photo: Vittore Carpaccio - The Vision of Saint Augustine - 1502-1507

RXM