romanino and the "shadows of death"

ROMANINO AND THE "SHADOWS OF DEATH"Author(s): Norman E. LandSource: Source: Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Fall 1996), pp. 25-28Published by: Ars Brevis Foundation, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23204949 .

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ROMANINO AND THE "SHADOWS OF DEATH"

Norman E. Land

The paintings of many Renaissance artists reveal an interest in light and the represen tation of light, and, as is well known, this interest was a major factor in the general pursuit of an ever-more-naturalistic style. Many of the same artists also used light as

symbol, most often of a divine presence such as angels, visions, and even God Him

self.1 Less noticed is the artist's awareness of the natural phenomenon often accompa

nying light—shadow.2 Leonardo da Vinci, the master of sfumato, made a number of scientific observations on the properties of

shadow, including this one: "The imprint of the shadow of any body of uniform thick

ness will never be similar to the body from which it is born."3 Moreover, just as light could have symbolic meaning, so could shadow.

For example, Leonardo, in addition to

being a keen observer of shadows, used them to suggest meaning. One well-known instance of such use is in his Last Supper in

Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. There, all

of Christ's disciples are gathered around the table, and all, save one, is illuminated

by the light filling the room. Only Judas is

in shadow, both literally and figuratively, for he has betrayed Christ. His sin already darkens him.

In Andrea Mantegna's small but majestic

Crucifixion (Louvre, Paris), once in the

predella of his San Zeno altarpiece, shadow

is also used to suggest evil, specifically the

rejection of Christ. In this panel, the thief to His right-hand side is the one who accepted

Him as the Son of God and to whom He

said, "To day shalt thou be with me in

paradise" (Luke 23:43). This thief faces the

light flooding Golgotha from the viewer's

right. On Christ's left-hand side is the bad thief who mocked Him, challenging Him to save Himself. Although this thief s body is

partially illuminated, most of it is cast in

shadow, reminding the viewer that he will not achieve the kingdom of God.

Shadow can be used to suggest signifi cance other than evil. For example, in Masaccio's Saint Peter Healing with His Shadow in the Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, the saint's shadow has the power to heal. According to Acts 5:15, when the saint was in Jerusalem, the believers "brought forth the sick into the

streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them." In Masaccio's fresco, as the saint walks down a street in the city, his shadow "over shadows" a crippled man huddling on the

ground, curing him. Significantly, the man's ill-formed torso and withered legs lie in shadow, but "his hopeful face fills with

light and his luminous hand begins to rise in

the air."4 As the saint's shadow cures the Lazarus-like cripple, the man, filled with

light, emerges from the darkness of his af fliction. The shadow falling on the lame man thus serves as a natural phenomenon with the power to heal and as an analogue of his suffering.

Shadow seems to have yet other signifi



26

cance in a Salvator Mundi (or Christ

Blessing) from the Samuel H. Kress Study Collection in the Museum of Art and Ar

chaeology, University of Missouri—Co lumbia (Fig. I).5 This panel is attributed to Romanino (Girolamo di Romano), who is

perhaps best known for his series of fres coes (1519-1520) in the Duomo at Cre mona illustrating four scenes from the Pas sion of Christ. His style is a synthesis of elements from the art of Lombardy and

Venice, including the works of Giovanni

Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian.6 As the shadow under Christ s nose sug

gests, the light in Romanino's panel radi ates from the upper left-hand corner. This is a natural-looking light that illuminates the

figure, the background, the parapet, and the orb much as sunlight might. We cannot be

certain, however, that this is sunlight be cause the place in which Christ stands can not be specifically identified. The light, then, might emanate from a divine source— for example, from Heaven or from God.

Three projections of light (the gold leaf is

badly rubbed and not visible in the illustra

tion) shining from the top and sides of Christ's head function as a kind of halo and

suggest an aura. They represent a modern ized version of the traditional three clusters of gold rays that frequently compose con ventional cruciform halos worn by both the infant and adult Christ in countless earlier

paintings. These bits of light remind us of

the traditional association of Christ and

light. In the opening of the Gospel Accord

ing to John (1:3-9), for example, the author

speaks of "the light [that] shineth in dark

ness" and refers to Christ as "the true

Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

At first glance, Romamno s panel seems

iconographically conventional. The com

position is related to such earlier works as a Salvator Mundi by Antonello da Messina in the National Gallery of Art, London, in which a half-length Christ stands behind a parapet and blesses the viewer. Unlike Antonello's figure, however, Romanino's bearded Christ holds a crystal orb, divided into quadrants by two gold bands and sur mounted by a small gold cross, symbolizing the Christian universe and His triumphant and benevolent rule over it. There is, how

ever, a tiny detail, easily overlooked, that

deepens the meaning of the painting and enriches our experience of it. The cross on the orb casts a shadow on the gold-trimmed bright red tunic of Christ, which almost vi brates against the green ground surrounding the figure. If this shadow were consistent with the source and direction of the light in the rest of the painting, it would not be as

large as it is. In other words, the angle of the light in the upper left-hand corner would decrease the size of the shadow. We must

assume, then, that the artist intentionally sacrificed consistent naturalism in order to

give the shadow the prominence it has. This detail—the shadow of the cross—is

a reminder to the receptive viewer of the means by which Christ's triumph was achieved. That is to say, Romanino poeti cally associates death and shadow, for the shadow is in the shape of the instrument of Christ's death. Given this association, a de vout viewer might have recalled the words of David (Psalm 22 Vulgate), who was an ancestor of Christ: "et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala." The worshiper would remember that His

body was crucified and, by extension, that He died, was buried, and rose from the dead. Just as we all must, the Light of the World "walked among the shadows of death." Thus, the triumphant golden cross



Fig. 1 Attributed to Romanino (Girolamo di Romano), Salvator Mundi. Oil on wood

panel. Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri—Columbia, gift of the

Samuel H. Kress Foundation



28

on the orb and its cross-shaped shadow are

poetically linked to the actual wooden cross of the Crucifixion, and Romanino's time

less image of radiant triumph and blessing is connected to a dark, excruciating moment in history.

NOTES

1. For the use of light as symbol, see Millard

Meiss's still valuable "Light as Form and Symbol in

Some Fifteenth-Century Paintings," Art Bulletin 27

(1945):43—68. 2. Two recent publications concerning shadows

are E. H. Gombrich, Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art (London: 1995), and

Michael Baxandall, Shadows and Enlightenment

(New Haven and London: 1995). 3. The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci, ed.

Jean Paul Richter, 2 vols. (London: 1970), I, p. 194:

"La stampa dell'ombra di qualunque corpo di uni

forme grossezza mai sará simile al corpo donde ella

nesce." See pp. 194-195 for similar observations on

shadow. See also Baxandall, "Three Notes on

Leonardo and Early Renaissance Shadow," in Bax

andall, pp. 146-155.

4. Quoting Andrew Ladis, The Brancacci Chapel, Florence (New York: 1993), p. 58.

5. For more about this painting, see Fern Rusk

Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Col

lection: Italian Schools XV-XVI Century (London:

1968), p. 86. 6. For a discussion of Romanino's style, see Syd

ney J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy: 1500 to 1600, 3d ed. (New York: 1993), pp. 360-367.



romanino and the "shadows of death"

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