Leonardo da Vinci thought sculpting a messy business. The sculptor, he pointed out, has to bang away with a hammer, getting covered in the process with a nasty mixture of dust and sweat. In contrast the painter can sit at his easel, dressed like a gentleman, and portray the whole wide world and everything in it. (Michelangelo, not surprisingly, disagreed.) Such spats were by-products of the paragone — a sort of Punch-and-Judy debate, much enjoyed in 16th-century Italy, about which of the arts was the most powerful.
Intriguingly, the National Gallery has revived the paragone in one section of its new exhibition, Monochrome. There are no works by Michelangelo or Leonardo included in this, but there are pieces by Jan van Eyck and Titian addressing that very same question: which can do more, painting or sculpture?
Titian’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’ (‘La Schiavona’) (c. 1510-12)
The latter’s ‘Portrait of a Lady’ (c.1510-12) shows a young woman standing behind a parapet. On this her profile is carved in the manner of an ancient cameo. Titian imitates the relief to perfection in oils, but the carving is cold and dry next to his depiction in living colour of her face, skin and soft flesh. You can almost hear the Venetian master quoting the lines of the old song to a defeated rival, ‘Anything you can do, I can do better’.
Jan van Eyck’s ‘The Annunciation Diptych (The Archangel Gabriel; The Virgin Mary)’ (c. 1433–5)
Van Eyck seems to be playing the same game in his ‘Annunciation Diptych’ (c.1433-5). One of the arguments made by defenders of statues was that you could see every side of them, whereas a picture could only show one. Van Eyck got around this by using reflections. He depicts a sculpted group of the Madonna and Archangel Gabriel in grey stone.
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