Week 8: Content vs Container--Raphael's Sistine Madonna

As I mentioned in a post from the earlier in the semester, art history studies are mainly done through studying digital representations of artworks. Much of my time studying art has been via PowerPoint slides with enlarged pictures of paintings, sculptures, drawings, etc. or by browsing through digital image repositories like ARTstor or FADIS. I figured that this week I could (as always) draw a discussion on images and how they are (mis)represented in online containers. Professor Galey’s discussion of the discrepancy, or rather the absence and replacement, of the Joanna typeface on the Kobo e-book version of The Sentimentalists called to mind an experience I’ve had when looking for a quality image of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. Of course, being a student I go to ARTstor first to find images, but as most of us are, I am also guilty of doing a Google search for convenience. What strikes me about conducting a Google Image search for the Sistine Madonna is the drastic variations of colour and tone of the representations of the altarpiece as populated by the search. Fortunately, there are trusted and authoritative databases and resources to use in finding the “right” version, but I find this to be a great example of content being disrupted by its container. This is crucial to art history education as most of us will not necessarily have the opportunity to fly to Dresden to visit the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Museum to examine this painting up close and personal. What colours did Raphael use? How does he render the relationship between shadow and light (chiaroscuro)? How does this colour create movement within the painting? Is the Virgin Mary’s robe blue? Purple? Indigo? As an aside, we can assume that the Virgin’s robe is blue because traditional iconography dictates that the Virgin wears a blue mantle with rays of the sun emanating from her head (Katz and Orsi 2001, 98).

With this said, in order to conduct an accurate formal analysis of Raphael’s masterpiece without the opportunity to view it in person, the digital container must represent the content, at the very least, as close to reality as possible. Again, in the same words that Galey explains with the “Note on Type,” distorted online representations of artworks can mislead and “misinform readers into thinking that what they see on their…screen represents the design philosophy of [one great Masters of the High Renaissance] (Galey 2012, 228). This is why using trusted digital image libraries is crucial to the interpretation and analysis of many key works of art.

Screen capture of a Google Image search for "Sistine Madonna"

            

So while it is incredible that we can simply type in “the Last Supper” into our Google search bar and retrieve hundreds of hits, including those available for reuse on Wikimedia Commons, it is important to remember that these are exactly that: online representatives of a genuine artifact. In fact, I would argue that this alteration of an artwork’s formal qualities is not limited to digital containers but can also apply to the buildings that house them. The restoration of Sistine Chapel frescoes by Michelangelo in the Vatican, amongst many others, is a prime example. This restoration took approximately twenty years and involved removing centuries of candle smoke, dirt, and natural oils amongst reversing the signs of age and endurance of over 550 years. Many critics argue that these major restoration projects alter the integrity of the works, making them appear drastically different as in the case of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper or the excessively bright restoration of his Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (Lee 2011). I think these examples speak to the complexity of the issue of discrepancy of container vs. content as a whole, an issue that we likely encounter frequently without realizing.

Ultimately, with the increasing availability of editing programs and the facility with which anyone can create their own digital content, it is important to consider how easily this content can be transmitted, manipulated, and distorted in a variety of digital receptacles.

NB: For some reason, the ARTstor image of Raphael's Sistine Madonna does not appear when I add it into my post. To see this high quality image you can search for "Sistine Madonna" using the ARTstor database via the UTL website.

References:

Galey, Alan. 2012. "The Enkindling Reciter: E-Books In The Bibliographical Imagination". Book History 15 (1): 210-247.

Katz, Melissa R, and Robert A Orsi. 2001. Divine Mirrors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lee, Amy. 2011. “Leonardo Da Vinci's ‘The Virgin And Child With Saint Anne’ Restoration At The Louvre Stirs Up Controversy.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/28/virgin-and-child-saint-anne-louvre_n_1172957.html.