Daniel Yeh
Final Exhibition Paper: “Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement” by Fra Filippo Lippi
Prof. Sebastian Grant
08/06/2019
Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement – Fra Filippo Lippi (1440 ca)
A fascinating piece of art, Fra Filippo Lippi’s; “Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement” is considered one of the defining works of Italian portraiture and the earliest surviving double portrait. The portrait was painted around 1440, the exact period when portraiture emerged in Italy as its own independent type of painting. During its period, it was also considered an innovative painting for the Italian Renaissance. According to the history.com Editors, many works of Renaissance art depicted religious images, including subjects such as the Virgin Mary, or Madonna, and were encountered by contemporary audiences of the period in the context of religious rituals. Moreover, many of these works also portrayed domestic themes such as marriage, birth, and the everyday life of the family back during the Italian Renaissance.
This Renaissance painting contains two characters, and it could be identified as the Florentine-born Angiola di Bernardo Sapitiand her husband, Lorenzo di Rinieri Scolari. This double portrait, though, reveals as much about the society that made it as the individual subjects, which is the man (Lorenze) and the woman (Angiola). Lorenzo appears to be looking through a window into a room-like space with her wife Angiola in it, stands in a rigid profile with a dress on. The focal point of this painting is Angola’s pale but luminous skin; however, she seems like the dominant figure of the painting. Yet, the piece itself is not really about her.
The exhibition of the piece “A Woman with a Man at a Casement” was located in European Paintings (1250-1800), Gallery #644 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. During its time period or the period that the piece was created between 1290 and 1300, most of the Italian paintings transformed from icons to images that attempted to give the figures and stories of the sacred history of the human dimension. According to the exhibition, The whole collection encompasses all the works by most of the significant figures who laid the foundation for European painting for the next five hundred years. Besides, the central figure within the European Paintings was the Florentine painter, “Giotto di Bondone.” He was considered the most influential artist of the late Middle Ages. Unlike other artists of his day, he painted realistic figures whose faces and gestures show strong human emotions and focused on the grave and compactly constructed figures as well.
The painting “Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement” was very curvilinear due to its composition. As an audience, they could tell that the woman is depicted a bit like a pearl herself in such an elegant room; she is entitled to the womanly ideals of beauty and virtue. Although the couple’s gazes do not meet, their gazes are on different horizontal levels and do not appear to match. If the viewers look closely to the painting, Angola’s averted eyes are looking straight ahead towards her husband Lorenze’s forehead. It is a sign of a woman’s modesty and obeisance towards man by the way she is standing. Lorenzo is standing comfortably with his hands resting with an active and distinctive gesture, while Angola’s hands have been described as fitting to her air of “demure self-possession.” The double portrait at first might seem like a lover gazing upon his beloved at a window, but due to neither figure appears to look directly at each other, the piece’s interpretation is problematic.
Although, there is the possibility that the portrait was commissioned to celebrate the birth of a child due to the purpose of the whole collection that encompasses the human dimension and the revival of classical antiquity. During the Italian Renaissance, many of the Renaissance Art and Paintings usually seek for the ideal of humanism, the naturalistic and realism of its faces through portraits. The Renaissance portraiture mainly focuses on the “social role, physical attributes, and the character of the sitter” And each of these is impacted by the whole “gender politics” of the time period in which they are created. Upon marriage, a woman has to be part of her husband’s household. Through this painting, it quickly identifies the fact that Angola had two possible courses throughout her life: one is to become a nun or a wife. She was probably expected to be obedient to the love of her husband right after their wedding. Although Angola might need to obey her husband’s words and rules and seen as wanton, she has a luxurious dress and the jewels that were conventional symbols of purity as well as typical wedding gifts from Lorenze. This attention to materials surfaces appealed to many of the important items that were on Angola’s dress, intended to show off wealth and possessions. It is almost as if Fra Filippo is addressing and documenting the Scolari family obsession and possessions on jewels, property, and virtuous wife.
The functions of female portraiture during the Renaissance period, it is reported that Paola Tinagli states that women were painted “upon their betrothal or in honor of marriage.” Through this painting, it is obvious to point out gender nonconformity issues during the Renaissance period. Besides, It is very common for a couple to produce offerings. However, in Italian Renaissance society, women were dependent on “their role as wife and mother.” They often died regularly by giving birth to their children while men are marrying multiple times to different wives during their lives. Moreover, the woman’s hands rest upon her abdomen gives the appearance that she might be expecting a child through her stomach swollen belly. The information that was reviewed through this piece of art informs the study that women often died during or shortly after childbirth. Also, the reason for this supposition is because of the man (her husband) pictured as being the “outsider” and looking towards the woman as if they are somehow separated or as though the man is fear or refuse to take the responsibility of being a father.
Behind all the critical points and the overall relevance to Fra Filippo Lippi’s work “Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement” conveys the fact that men generally considered women were to be “weak, foolish, sensual, and untrustworthy.” As well the existence of women during the Renaissance period means that women were forced to conform to the expectations of both family and other members of the Italian society. The whole purpose of the exhibition is to show the viewers how this particular piece of painting is considered the “innovative painting” for the Italian Renaissance due to its function of emerged Italy’s independent type of art. The painting’s location that was placed in The Met contains the central figure within the European Paintings was the Florentine painter “Giotto Di Bondone.” And the reason behind it is due to his unique artistic point of view on his painting style with realistic figures whose faces and gestures show strong human emotions. Just like the painting “Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement,” that reflected a new cultural landscape that was urban rather than rural, conveys to be commemorating the marriage of the couple by its composition and the Italian revolutionary artist Giotto’s innovations of the Italy Renaissance painting style on those holy figures in a way that was revolutionary for that particular time period.
Bibliography
Cole, Bruce, “Giotto Di Dondone” The New Book of Knowledge,
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3754401
Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Humanism And The Visual Arts.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/humanism/Humanism-and-the-visual-arts
History.com Editors, “Renaissance Art” October 15, 2010
https://www.history.com/topics/renaissance/renaissance-art
Masters, D.Rachel, “The Portraiture of Women During the Italian Renaissance” 2013.
https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/118/
Prajda, Katalin “The Coat of Arms in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement.” Metropolitan Museum Journal Vol. 48, No. 1. pg. 73-80.
Russell, J.Sale, Metropolitan Museum Journal, “Protecting Fertility in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement.” Brown 2001, pg. 64-83.
The University of Chicago Press Journals, “The Coat of Arms in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, 2013.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/675314
West, Shearer, “Portraiture” 2004, p145
