Controversies have swirled across the Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, ever because the portray was bought for $450.3m in 2017 to the Saudi royal household. Arguments have revolved across the image’s price ticket, restoration, attribution and even its present location, however now there’s a new debate.
The Christ determine on the earth’s costliest portray “is sporting ladies’s garments”, in accordance with a brand new research by Philipp Zitzlsperger, a professor of Medieval and Trendy artwork historical past on the College of Innsbruck, Austria, whose specialities embody the symbolic which means of clothes in Renaissance artwork.
In “The Which means of Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi”, an article within the newest version of Artibus et Historiae, a semi-annual journal printed by the Institute for Artwork Historic Analysis, Zitzlsperger analyses the clothes intimately. He argues that the “low-cut, rectangular neckline” of Christ’s tunic is unprecedented each for a Renaissance depiction of Christ and for a male sitter “of an elevated social standing”. He says that in all different work of Christ of the interval, Christ’s tunic has a a lot increased collar near the neck, and {that a} low-cut and embroidered neckline are typical for feminine portraits of the interval corresponding to Leonardo’s La Belle Ferronnière (round 1493-94) within the Musée du Louvre and Raphael’s Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino (1502) within the Galleria degli Uffizi.
Blue on blue
The an identical blue color of Christ’s tunic and himation (a form of cloak) additionally factors to a feminine prototype, the Austrian artwork historian claims. He says that in virtually all different up to date depictions of Christ of the Fifteenth and sixteenth century through which the Saviour has a tunic and cloak, the tunic is painted crimson and the cloak blue, and that the blue-on-blue mixture is a typical wardrobe alternative for pictures of the Virgin Mary “from the twelfth century onward”.
Zitzlsperger’s “working speculation” is “that the monochrome blue of the Leonardo Salvator’s himation and tunic signifies the union of Christ and the Virgin within the particular person of the Salvator Mundi… the cross-gender parts lengthen even to the colors of the vestments”. He even claims to watch a “slight elevation [of the tunic] suggesting the beginnings of a breast revealed by the low neckline”.
Zitzlsperger locations Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi inside the context of the “aesthetics of gender fluidity” in Renaissance Italy, citing Mario Equicola’s Libro di natura de amore (1525). In that ebook, the Italian Renaissance humanist declared: “The visage of a girl is praised if it has the options of a person; the face of a person if it has female options.”
“Somewhat too sensationalist”
Different Leonardo students have questioned Zitzlsperger’s conclusions. Frank Zöllner, a professor of artwork historical past at Leipzig College and the writer of a number of articles on Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi, says the paper is “an necessary contribution” however “a little bit too sensationalist”.
Zöllner provides: “To color a gown that’s just like ladies’s gown doesn’t make Christ feminine. Moreover, there are Byzantine pictures of Christ Pancrator through which Christ is dressed solely in blue—for instance, within the Hagia Sophia mosaics in Istanbul—and Giotto painted a ‘blue Christ’ in his Stefaneschi altarpiece. Both means, gown is a key concern for our understanding of the portray.”
“It merely seems to be higher”
Matthew Landrus, a supernumerary fellow at Wolfson Faculty on the College of Oxford, factors out there’s an occasional single-colour red-on-red alternative for Christ’s attire in 14th- and Fifteenth-century Flemish portray. “One motive for the selection of a blue tunic and himation may very well be that it merely seems to be higher rising from a black background,” he says. “It’s stylistically a wise alternative. Is there a deeper which means for this alternative of color? I’ve not seen sufficient proof for that declare.”
Martin Kemp, an emeritus professor of artwork historical past on the College of Oxford and a number one Leonardo scholar, says: “If it have been to be true that the ex-Cook dinner model [Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi] is exclusive within the color of Christ’s clothes, this could assist Leonardo’s authorship.”
Zitzlsperger defends his concept. “The Salvator’s apparel doesn’t make Christ feminine, but it surely doesn’t make him male both. That’s why I talk about androgynous depictions of Christ. The rule (two colors) is confirmed by the exceptions (one color). From my expertise as a scientist, I do know that critics are very blissful to falsify the rule by emphasising the exceptions.”
