architecttrice

My most feminist hobby of all is looking for (and sometimes happily finding) and learning about female artists of history. I taught a survey of women artists for several years at a women's college, and even when I can't teach that level of topical focus now, I insist on highlighting the work of women in other courses.  Although I have taught this material in one way or class or another for a long time, I took an online course offered through the UN agencies for all of us chilling at home during lockdown last Spring. I expected to already know much of what was taught in that course, but was happy to learn more about select artists and eras. 

Several months ago I posted an entry about our trip to Milan to see an exhibition addressing an impressive number of Italian female artists. So much more is known about them than when I first began brushing up on the subject before teaching my classes, years ago. This is only proof that like science, history is an evolving discipline. More information comes to light, and it is embraced, incorporated, and sometimes put in place of whatever was previously established as a truth.

Yesterday, we went to Palazzo Corsini, a museum featuring mostly 15th and 16th century Italian art, for the second time...because they are hosting a new exhibition of works by and related to Plautilla Bricci (1616-1705), Italy's first female architect (and also an artist, which deserves a bit of explanation).

'Portrait of a Woman (as the Allegory of Architecture),' presumed to portray Plautilla Bricci (plow-TEE-lah BREE-chee...be sure to roll that r like a proper Roman!) 

I had just learned in March and April about where in Rome I could find some lesser works of several women artists I already knew about, but Bricci was more or less unknown to me. Only very recently is she getting more airtime. One of the more exciting facts from that online course? Bricci created both the large painting AND designed the chapel to house it in the church directly behind our apartment (which is far more known for its Caravaggios, naturally). This exhibition at Palazzo Corsini featured that painting and also plumbed the depths of a few other institutions - as well as a private owner's collection - for the few remaining Bricci works in paint and on paper that exist. 

Cleverly, Palazzo Corsini's arrangement of this exhibition is peppered throughout its 8 rooms of collection works, typically hung in a salon style (meaning, from ceiling to midway down the wall, in rows and/or columns). An innovative solution for an otherwise small feature show that might have simultaneously seemed too small and yet still a consumer of precious little space in this relatively small museum, this arrangement enabled the visitor to always be able to enjoy the collection works. This provided important context, since the collection is largely contemporaneous with the career works of Bricci. Additionally, this unique installation enhanced the context of supplemental, borrowed works meant to expand upon concepts introduced through the exhibition. For instance, these three works - like all others curated for the show, identifiable as such by their bright blue labels - all portray allegorical portraits of women artists as the art of painting and/or architect/astronomer (scholars remain undecided on that third image). Artemisia Gentileschi fans will recognize the center painting, which is arguably attributed to her. 

A case in point for how the Corsini's permanent collection benefitted from this special exhibition peppered throughout the rooms: here are four pastel portraits by another Italian female artist of the 18th century: Rosalba Carriera. These two images feature personifications of the elements of air and water. Having seen an emphasis placed upon allegorical imagery in the Bricci exhibition, these personifications relate as well as compare. 

Bricci was, like so many female artists of the era, the daughter of a painter. She therefore was able to receive training in techniques and media and observe both her father's and his colleagues' careers as she matured in the arts and crafts-rich neighborhood surrounding Piazza del Popolo. 

It seems that the reason Plautilla Bricci was able to excel in not just painting but also architecture was her chance introduction to an abbot who functioned as an especially arts-savvy agent for the cardinal and prime minster of France, Elpidio Benedetti. He saw Bricci as a young artist worth promoting, but in a way that would seem a bit curious to us today. Put simply, he mostly employed her for her drawing and painting skills to help illuminate many of his ideas. At the time, so the exhibition text explains, it was not uncommon to claim credit for both the idea AND its execution, even if the latter portion was not necessarily your hand. He was trained and skilled - in embroidery (a common skill for male artists as well as female), painting and etching - and a very small sampling of his work was on view at Palazzo Corsini. However, he must have seen a greater talent in Bricci, and therefore promoted her for commissions when he wasn't directly collaborating with her to realize drawn plans for ideas that in some cases came to fruition and in other cases, remained only plans that he fervently and ceaselessly promoted. 

While it would be easy to leap to the conclusion that Bricci's few existing works are so small in number because the abbot was busy using her for her skills and claiming credit for it, the problem with this premise (which is justifiable against the collective history of women artists) is that very few of Benedetti's works remain, as well. 

Madonna of the Rosary, with Saints Domenic and Libero, 1683-7

I rather like the inclusion of this dog holding a lit candle.

It is also worth noting that Bricci - introduced to us in the first piece of wall-text of the exhibition as 'not a nun,' and 'not a wife' - occupied a tiny gray zone in the Venn diagram of 17th century Italian society, its art world, and womanhood. Despite the existence of more women artists in the Baroque era (far exceeding the number from the preceding Renaissance), they were still looked upon as unusual. Women were expected to instead be married and mothers or, if not that pair of roles, nuns, and Bricci avoided being both. The exhibition text mentions that during the time she crafted a painting for a convent, she undertook an oath of chastity, thereby cementing her choice to remain unmarried and yet also not committed to a cloistered life. It was this, plus the constant endorsement of the abbot, that kept her working and living independently.

Rarer still in this era was a woman who would design structures and buildings. Compared to the hyper-specialization of artists and designers of today, it was not uncommon for an artist to have several skill sets in the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Gian Lorenzo Bernini was a sculptor, first and foremost, who accepted commissions for architectural work quite frequently. Michelangelo also considered himself to be a sculptor in his heart of hearts, but honored the requests of popes who wanted ceiling frescos, basilica dome designs and plans for elaborate tombs. And while I differentiated those two giants from the artists and designers of today, who among us as contemporary creatives haven't made brave attempts at working outside of their wheelhouse because a) the request came from someone we just couldn't disappoint, or b) the money was needed at that very time or c) we thought to ourselves 'I don't know why I CAN'T do that, so why not try?'

How Bricci was familiarized with the principles of architecture is not firmly known, but her brother was both a painter and an architect, and there is speculation that she may have been trained within a circle of artists who benefitted from the patronage of Cassiano del Pozzo, who supported the artistic training of women. 

Assisted by her brother (to what extent exactly is not certain), Bricci the erstwhile painter designed a major palazzo that would still stand today were it not for the 1849 French siege of Rome. Bricci also painted wall murals inside the villa, but those images are now gone.

Below are the drawings for Villa Benedetti, otherwise known as Villa Valscello, because it resembled a kind of ship posited on the crest of a hill. 

All original architectural plans by Bricci. Her lovely, spidery handwriting labels various components. 

A little loupe magnification of the central elevation of the palazzo facade. 

The appearance of the palazzo after French canon fire destroyed much of it (with a dead soldier in the foreground for historical context, I suppose).

Numerous other works by Bricci - commissioned frescoes, other paintings, etc - no longer exist. 

On my way home today, I stopped by San Luigi dei Francesi, the French national church of Rome, to visit Bricci's chapel. Although the city is crawling with people for the holidays (mostly Italians, but some European and American tourists too) and they were flocking inside to see the Caravaggios that sit approximately 10 meters from my bedroom, Bricci's chapel - just two chapels away from those famous Caravaggios - designed for Louis IX (1214-1270) was completely free of spectators. 

Bricci designed and oversaw the construction of the chapel (1672-1680) itself, created reliefs and other architectural features to celebrate the martyr King Louis thanks in large part to the promotion of the abbot, who had demonstrated his fidelity to France by staging a funereal display for Louis XIV's mother, Queen Anne of Austria, at the same church just a few years before. 

Bricci's centerpiece painting portrays Louis carrying a martyr's palm, bearing a sceptor and clad in the well-known fleur-di-lis cape. Despite collaborating with the abbot on contriving this emblem of the absolute monarchy with a deeply faithful connection to the Church of Rome, Bricci's signature on the bottom of the painting contains the letters 'INV,' indicating her claim as the inventor of the concept as well as the executor of the image.

In so doing, she adopts the bravura of the masters. 

 

The chapel itself is full of typical Baroque resplendence, with gilding, polychrome marbles, curvilinearity of forms, gravity-defying figures and a delightful cupola with white stucco reliefs that lead the eye upward and help reflect the natural light emanating from above. 

Perhaps Bernini would have been proud to see how she incorporated some of his innovations - with the use of natural light, the figures inside the little dome, and the highly dramatic synthesis of upwardly moving forms. 

Perhaps Plautilla Bricci - pittrice (painter), architecttrice (female architect), and invenit (inventor) - did not particularly care whether he was proud. 

I would like to think so.