Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Aspertini's Paper Sketch-Book - Classical Ornament

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Five composite capitals and two entablatures
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Four elaborate capitals, including one with three putti
Detail from rinceau ornament
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Three elaborate capitals
Section of tongue-and-dart moulding
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Three elaborate capitals
Two candelabra
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Two elaborate capitals and an architrave
Standing figure of an innkeeper
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

"And it is no marvel that the work of Amico revealed skill of hand rather than any other quality, for it is said that, like the eccentric and extraordinary person that he was, he went through all Italy drawing and copying every work of painting or relief, whether good or bad, on which account he became something of an adept in invention; and when he found anything likely to be useful to him, he laid his hands upon it eagerly, and then destroyed it, so that no one else might make use of it.  The result of all this was that he acquired the strange, mad manner that we know."

– the Life of Amico Aspertini by Giorgio Vasari (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Nine studies of wall niches and antique altars
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

"A sheet of sketches after five antique funerary altars (too generalized and transformed for identification), two designs for niches, and two volute keystones decorated with figures in armour."

– curator's notes from the British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Studies of architectural cornices
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Studies of architectural cornices
Heads, a Term and a Figure
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Studies of architectural details
Heads of Roman soldier and of Satyr
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Studies of architectural details
Female and male heads
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

"Finally, having reached the age of seventy, what with his art and the eccentricity of his life, he became raving mad, at which Messer Francesco Guicciardini, a noble Florentine, and a most trustworthy writer of the history of his own times, who was then Governor of Bologna, found no small amusement, as did the whole city.  Some people, however, believe that there was some method mixed with this madness of his, because, having sold some property for a small price while he was mad and in very great straits, he asked for it back again when he regained his sanity, and recovered it under certain conditions, since he had sold it, so he said, when he was mad.  I do not swear, indeed, that this is true, for it may have been otherwise; but I do say that I have often heard the story told."  

– the Life of Amico Aspertini by Giorgio Vasari (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Profile of a Base and Architectural ground-plan
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Architectural details
Male nude half-length, probably Hercules
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Landscape with figures and antique ruins
Two cornices in foreground
ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

Amico Aspertini
Sketchbook
Profiles of entablatures and a Column-base
Men gathered around a horse

ca. 1530-40
drawing on paper
British Museum

"He used to paint with both hands at the same time, holding in one the brush with the bright colour, and in the other that with the dark.  But the best joke of all was that he had his leather belt hung all round with little pots full of tempered colours, so that he looked like the Devil of S. Macario with all those flasks of his; and when he worked with his spectacles on his nose, he would have made the very stones laugh, and particularly when he began to chatter, for then he babbled enough for twenty, saying the strangest things in the world, and his whole demeanour was a comedy.  Certain it is that he never used to speak well of any person, however able or good, and however well dowered he saw him to be by Nature or Fortune.  And, as has been said, he so loved to chatter and tell stories, that one evening, at the hour of the Ave Maria, when a painter of Bologna, after buying cabbages in the Piazza, came upon Amico, the latter kept him under the Loggia del Podestà with his talk and his amusing stories, without the poor man being able to break away from him, almost till daylight, when Amico said: 'Now go boil your cabbages, for the time is getting on.'"

– the Life of Amico Aspertini by Giorgio Vasari (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)