Zprávy památkové péče 2020, 80(3-4):262-270 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2020.3.03

Renaissance and Mannerist stucco in Bohemia and Moravia: possibilities and methods of research, current state of knowledge

Ondřej Jakubec¹, Pavel Waisser²

¹ Seminář dějin umění, FF Masarykova univerzita v Brně

² Katedra dějin umění, FF Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci

Renaissance stucco offers rich possibilities for analysis, ranging from material research, through research into the relationship of this medium to other decorative processes within the complex visual language of Renaissance architecture, to iconographic and iconological studies examining the intricate contents of stucco decoration programs. The traditional art history models of research have also been revised and enriched in recent decades. Not by negating the methodologically narrow interpretations of the artistic culture of the Renaissance, however, but by expanding the range of research perspectives. The "material turn" is turning attention to the material/haptic-optical quality of works of art, their "presentation", and the way they are experienced through being looked at and touched. The field of visual/material culture ceases to be understood as a set of autonomous artistic or craft objects and rather as a framework or object of social relations; therefore, the "social lives of objects" are more monitored. Another manifestation of this new interest in Renaissance art may be the fascination with its visual complexity; in this, all art forms played a role, including the often marginalized "arts and crafts" or "minor arts" expressions, which, however, played a key role in the design of larger units in their interplay. This category includes, for example, stone sculptures, sgraffito, and of course stucco. At the same time, Renaissance stucco represents a specific decorative modification of architecture, especially interior design, which early modern art originally transformed from ancient practice. The decorativeness of this medium, however, does not imply any coincidence, nor a superstructure modification of the finished unit. On the contrary, stucco and other media are decorative in the true sense of the word; they fulfill the necessary suitability of the decoration for the given space and purpose (Latin decus - suitable, its derivation decoratio). Inspiration from the art of antiquity is a well-known and key attribute of Renaissance visual culture in Italy. Moreover, the renewed technique of stucco decoration, based on its connection to architecture and its decorative supplementation, also followed the reception of Vitruvius (book 7, chapter 4), but also other texts (especially Pliny the Elder, who in his 36th book Naturalis historia discusses plastic stucco termed "opus albarium/opus album"). Knowledge of and reflection on preserved and discovered ancient monuments were also important. Leon Battista Alberti brought one of the first early modern theoretical reflections based on the ancient literary tradition. In his De aedificatoria libri decem (1452), for example, he recommended decorating intonaco plasters with plastic ornaments. The definitive adoption of techniques and forms of stucco all'antica around 1520 related to Giovanni da Udine cooperating with Raffaello Santi. After the looting of Rome in 1527 (or coincidentally shortly before it), many important Roman artists went to northern Italian cities and art centers, from where the stimuli spread further to Europe north of the Alps (leading artistic figures (e.g. Giulio Romano, Perino del Vaga, Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Priamaticcio, Jacopo Sansovino, and others.) The later stylish stage of the Renaissance and Mannerism next Italian cities are also well represented by other transalpine art centers, mainly the residential towns of the Habsburgs and Wittelsbachs - in central Europe, these include in particular Munich, Landshut, Prague, and Vienna. Among others, students from the Florentine workshop of the Flemish sculptor Giambologna worked here. Central Europe represented a framework for a remarkable artistic and cultural exchange where, even in the exclusive medium of stucco, formal and iconographic patterns were shared, as were technological procedures. The sphere where exceptional artistic forces and procedures were concentrated was naturally the "imperial circle", from which very exceptional decorative complexes emerged (artistically, technologically, and iconographically). In the European context, significant stucco decorations have also been preserved in the Czech environment; noteworthy examples especially include the exclusive stucco of the summer house Hvězda and the Imperial Hall of the chateau in Bučovice. These properties also represent the two aforementioned "stylistic-temporal" planes of stucco decorations. Stuccoes within the preserved heritage fund of the Czech Republic of similar importance during the Mannerism period include those created at the South Bohemian residences of the Rožmberks and lords of Hradec (Kratochvíle, Rožmberk, Jindřichův Hradec, Telč). In the early synthetic studies of the Czech Renaissance, however, the heritage properties of this medium are mentioned only marginally. A unique exception, as well as the oldest, is Vlastimil Richard Klenka's Czech article "Stucco and its technique and development, especially in the Czech lands", published in 1903 in the magazine Dílo. Mainly in the 1960-80s, studies by Miloš Suchomel, Milada Lejsková-Matyášová, and Jarmila Krčálová were published that devoted attention to some of the aforementioned important heritage properties in more detail. Newer studies as well, dealing monographically with properties bearing Renaissance stucco decoration, usually deal only with the iconographic and cultural-historical aspects. Such developments have not yet reached the interdisciplinary research of methods; more extensive monographs, with the exception of manuals for stucco practice, did not exist. The collective Czech monographs "Hvězda". Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol and his summer house in the European context" (2014) and "Renaissance stucco works of the castle in Telč" (2020) are considered milestones. Both publications are followed by interdisciplinary research as part of the NAKI II project "Renaissance and Mannerist Stucco in Bohemia and Moravia" (2018-2022; DG18P02OVV005), the conclusions of which, among other things, confront foreign colleagues to incorporate new findings of Czech research into European professional discourse.

Keywords: stucco, decoration of architecture, Renaissance, current research, 16th century, Czech Republic, Europe

Published: September 1, 2020  Show citation