MANFREDI, Bartolomeo

Manfredi’s picture has been interpreted as an allegory of the Four Seasons, linked to the iconography of the Five Senses and explained as the four ages of man exemplified by various phases of love. There can be little doubt that its primary theme is the Four Seasons. The four figures, crowded behind a stone slab laden with fruit, are clearly identifiable as Spring (a young woman crowned with roses and playing a lute), Autumn (the young man adorned with a Bacchic crown of grapes), Summer (a bare-breasted woman who turns and stares directly at the viewer) and Winter (a shivering old man in a fur hat who is wrapped in a blanket). Nevertheless, their arrangement does not suggest the normal progression of the year and their interaction suggests a second level of meaning.

The rich array of fruit carefully placed before the figures is composed entirely of autumnal produce: grapes, pears, apples, figs, a pomegranate and a squash. This is clearly the domain of Autumn, who kisses the lute-playing Spring but at the same time embraces Summer, who wears a sprig of his wheat in her hair. Summer holds a small round transparent mirror as a symbol of the Origin of Love. Autumn’s kiss and embrace signify that music is born of love, while Winter’s exclusion is a sad reminder that in old age one is less inclined towards amorous sentiments.

Manfredi’s facial features and tightly compressed composition find close parallels in Caravaggio’s Musicians. The brightly illuminated fruit, so carefully displayed on cold, grey stone, and Summer’s frank confrontation of the viewer over her bare shoulder seem to recall Caravaggio’s Sick Bacchus explicitly. Although two other versions of Manfredi’s Four Seasons are known, he painted no other allegoric subjects.

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Vivaldi: Four Seasons, violin concertos op. 8 Nos. 1-4

Until 1924 the painting was considered to be a work of Caravaggio, then Bartolomeo Manfredi was accepted by all the subsequent critics. The dating of the painting, however, is made difficult by the uncertainty about the chronology of Manfredi’s career in general. It could be placed in the first decade of the century.

The early date of the Bacchus, an allegorical subject that recalls Caravaggio’s earliest works, places us at the beginning of the artist’s development of a so-called “Manfredian Method”. The body of work to which this term refers is derived from the great Caravaggesque prototypes, and focuses on drinkers, game-players, gypsies, and tavern scenes. The style enjoyed a notable popularity in the second and third decades of the seventeenth century. This genre was particularly wide-spread, probably on account of its suitability to the transmission of allegorical and moral messages. The figure of Bacchus, derived from the models of ancient statuary and sarcophagi is probably also inspired by a lost prototype by Caravaggio, cited by Baglione.

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Franz Schubert: Drinking song from the 16th century D 847, quartet

This painting is an early work by Bartolomeo Manfredi, in which he emulates Caravaggio in the supression of secondary details in order to achieve an effect of timelessness. The murder by the envious brother could be taking place in ancient history or in the Roman countryside. despite its simplicity, this Cain and Abel by Manfredi soon attracted the attention of distinguished collectors outside of Italy. By 1651 the painting had entered the famous collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels, where it was prominently displayed in the midst of Renaissance paintings by Titian and others, as seen in David Teniers the Younger’s painting of the picture gallery.

Bartolomeo Manfredi was a key link between Caravaggio and artists in generations to follow. Rather than being a simple, slavish follower of Caravaggio, however, Manfredi himself was an innovator of a new style. His dramatically lit compositions were to have a deep influence on French and Netherlandish artists visiting Rome, such as Dirck van Baburen, Valentin de Boulogne, Nicolas Tournier, and Nicolas R�gnier, all of whom would disseminate his style in their native lands.

The style of the present painting, so suggestive and confident in its use of chiaroscuro, does in fact have roots in the works of Caravaggio. The expressive profile of the face of the Christ is cast in a deep shadow; it can be compared to other dramatically lit figures of Christ or St John the Baptist by Manfredi.

Manfredi’s picture has none of the theatrical charm and bright, clear light of Caravaggio’s work, it seems rather a melancholy meditation on human folly and cunning. Furtive figures, wrapped in shadow, stand in a sinister Roman ‘vicolo’. The dark-skinned gypsy casts a harsh spell, while her accomplice steals the youth’s coins, wrapped in a handkerchief. But the gypsy, too, is fooled, for behind her a rogue robs her of a chicken, doubtless stolen, from her gown; she promises the gifts of fortune, but loses her small possessions. The painting has something of the reality of the Roman streets, where gypsies were classed with vagabonds and beggars.

The attribution is debated. In the 19th century it was attributed to Valentin, recently it is suggested to be the work of Nicholas Tournier. The original size of the painting was larger, the lower part was cut in the 19th century.

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Francesco da Milano: Tre fantasie for lute

In the 1620s in Roman circles, a definite change came about in the subject matter of musical paintings. The representation of figures playing musical instruments in ‘cultivated’ domestic interiors (the direct descendants of Caravaggio’s Lute Player and Musicians) disappeared. Within the space of a very few years they were replaced by large numbers of representations of concerts in public places and ‘popular’ locations. One of the earlier examples of this new trend is Bartolomeo Manfredi’s Tavern Scene with a Lute Player. One characteristic of the painting, besides the presence of the lute player in a non-musical context (he simply accompanies a scene in which people are eating and drinking), is the absence of a musical score, an attribute of ‘cultivated’ musical painting.

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Franz Schubert: An die Laute (To the Lute) D 905

Bartolomeo Manfredi was one of Caravaggio’s most important followers in Rome after his death.

Manfredi created a series of theatrically lit compositions in which bawdy figures crowd around a table gambling, drinking and making music. In his Denial of St Peter the tavern scene is transformed into a religious narrative in which the soldiers’ game of dice is given more prominence than Peter’s betrayal. The religious event is thus cast within the context of secular life.