Wednesday Wine Pairing: Joseph Händler Riesling with Ingres' "Death of Leonardo"

After yet another inexcusable absence, BWW&FP returns thanks to the largesse of an enlightened patron; a modern-day Renaissance man, he is a physician by profession, but excels also in the realms of athletics, humor, and the brewing of ultra-carbonated hard cider. From this close friend I received a month ago a shipment containing four bottles of wine intended to inspire my inebriated intellectual inquests. I can only ask that my generous benefactor will excuse the delay in the inception of what will hopefully blossom into a stimulating tetralogy; tardiness that I attribute to my prudent patience in awaiting a congenial confluence of my inveterate exertions with energetic enthusiasm, an essential but evanescent companion to creativity.

The first of the quartet of wines sampled was Joseph Händler Riesling, a 2011 vintage from the Pfalz region of Germany.

The bouquet of this wine distinguishes itself by a clean, cool sensation, rather than any particular fruit or floral aroma. As the wine graces one’s tongue, it introduces itself with a moderate, almost understated amount of sweetness, which disperses gradually due to a fleeting hint of effervescence; a pleasant surprise, but also an appropriate one that synergizes naturally with the fresh, crisp character of the vintage. Like the bouquet, the flavor of this wine can be characterized more effectively by resorting to tactile, as opposed to gustatory, impressions, or the lack of them: namely, the amiable lightness and the nearly ethereal lack of body that marks this intangible intoxicant.

By happy coincidence, a delightful painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres also synergizes naturally with both the source of our wine and its character. The former parallel will hopefully be evident, and I assure you that the latter one will be explained in due time, as the moderately engaged reader may be confused upon viewing a work that clearly cannot be described as “effervescent.”

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Francis I Receives the Last Breaths of Leonardo da Vinci, 1818; oil on canvas; Paris, Musée du Petit Palais.

In this canvas, Ingres illustrates an apocryphal tale related by Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance biographer and artist, in his Lives. Francis, the king of France from 1515 to 1547, was a vigorous patron of the arts who brought the intellectual and artistic developments of the Italian Renaissance to his country. He collected and commissioned works from the best artists of the day, such as Raphael, and enticed other painters and sculptors to take up residence in France as part of his court. In 1516, Francis convinced Leonardo to spend the remaining years of his life at the Château d’Amboise, where the artist died in 1519, though not in the king’s arms, or even in his presence. While Leonardo produced no finished artworks during his time in France, he was a favorite of Francis and the king is said to have craved Leonardo’s company and conversation. Francis’ deep affection for Leonardo, described by Vasari and displayed plainly by Ingres, marks him as a particularly enlightened patron, one who recognizes and appreciates the gifts possessed by truly great artists, rather than viewing their talents simply as a means to glorify oneself and one’s position.

Just as Ingres’ canvas illustrates a historical analogue to my friend’s progressive-minded patronage, so too does the manner in which it was executed provide parallels to the particulars of the wine under discussion. Specifically, Ingres constructs a world that, while apparently solid and tangible, dissipates into ethereal insubstantiality upon closer examination. On the one hand, Ingres’ incredible command of the medium and meticulous attention to the minutest details produces the illusion of reality. Examples of this can be seen in the convincingly rendered satin and velvet garments that clothe Francis, the crumpled pillows under the expiring artist’s head, the elaborately carved wood furniture, and the stubble on the chin of the stern-looking churchman on the right. Though Ingres considered himself a peintre d’histoire – a history painter; one whose calling it is to render scenes from ancient history, classical literature and myth, and the Bible; the highest, most noble category of painting according to the French Academy, of which Ingres was a member and later the director of its prestigious outpost in Rome – this attention to seemingly trivial detail has led to history paintings such as his Death of Leonardo being categorized as “historical anecdote.” Ingres was one of a number of artists who, beginning around the second decade of the nineteenth century, began to include a wealth of finely articulated components in their paintings in order heighten the viewer’s impression that he was catching a glimpse of history as it was happening. For example, while details such as the elaborate embroidery on the young boy’s purse are not crucial to conveying any information regarding the episode or emphasizing its pathos, its inclusion is itself an attestation of an eye-witness account, for life consists of a plethora of minutia that its subjects do not perceive as meaningful, but which is still an inextricable part of its fabric. This is in contrast to the compositional strategies of Jacques-Louis David, Ingres’ teacher and the hegemonic exemplar of history painting in nineteenth century France. David sought to distill a scene to its essential actions and expressions, while providing just enough material detail to indicate the time period in which the historical scene was set, in the hopes that the historical or literary episode and its message would be conveyed clearly. This is demonstrated most effectively in his well-known work The Oath of the Horatii.

The virtuoso reproduction of textures, light and shadow, and color, as well as an unassumingly calculated attention to anecdotal detail lends Ingres’ visual retelling of the death of Leonardo the stamp of reality; objects and people occupy three dimensions and are weighted down by gravity, or so it appears at first glance. Sustained examination of the painting, however, results in the illusion of substance and tangibility dissolving just as this week’s wine did on our palates. Most notably, the furniture and figures of Ingres’ scene are at once constricted to the two dimensions of the picture plane and simultaneously unmoored by cursory and contradictory gestures toward convincing linear perspective. Linear perspective is a system for creating the illusion of space and distance on a flat surface in which lines, called orthogonals, convene at a vanishing point. This system, developed during the Italian Renaissance, simulates the visual effect seen in nature of train tracks (or other parallel lines) appearing to meet at a single point as they recede, though of course the distance between them does not actually change. In another happy coincidence, Leonardo has provided one of the most clear-cut examples of this artistic system.   

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1495-1498; tempera on gesso, pitch, and mastic; Milan, Santa Maria della Grazie. If extended, the diagonal lines in this painting that make up the coffers of the ceiling, the lintels of the portals on either wall, and the edges of the table all meet at a single point behind the head of Jesus. Leonardo uses linear perspective both to create the illusion of space and depth, and to emphasize the focal point of the painting.

Unlike Leonardo’s Last Supper, Ingres’ painting of the Renaissance master’s demise contains haphazard orthogonals that, while they suggest the conventions of linear perspective, are actually quite chaotic and do not meet at any identifiable vanishing point. This can be seen by extending the diagonals constituted by the edge of the table in the left foreground, the top of the bed’s headboard above it, and the edge of the tall wardrobe in the right background, as well as any of the lines formed by the wood inlay of the floor. While two lines may meet here or there, as non-parallel lines tend to do, at no point do three or more intersect simultaneously.

Additionally, the figure in black, motioning despondently toward the king and the artist, also ruptures any illusion of depth. Placed directly in front of the post at the foot of the bed, he appears to occupy the same plane as Francis, who is seated on the edge of the bed that runs parallel to the plane of the picture itself. However, if Leonardo is lying on the bed, Francis would have to be leaning in slightly, putting himself a bit behind the edge marked by the two posts at the head and foot of the bed, and further from the picture plane. Yet the figure in black, who should logically appear to be closer to the front of the painting than Francis, since he is in front of one of the posts that Francis is behind (or even with, if you see Leonardo’s body spilling over the edge of the bed, which is also plausible), in fact appears to be the same distance from the picture plane as the king, if not further away by virtue of his smaller size. This also makes the two posts at either end of the bed appear to be different distances from the viewer, despite the placement of the long edge of the bed parallel to the picture plane. Consequently, Ingres’ renditions of Francis, Leonardo, and their cohorts dwell within a broken, unstable field in which the superficial suggestion of three-dimensional space is revoked by confusing contradictions that result ultimately in artificial flatness.

The insubstantial flatness that characterizes the space of Ingres’ scene is emphasized further by the figure of Francis; this by virtue of the fact that Ingres’ rendition of the king is a representation of a representation of a representation, which was possibly also the representation of a representation. Allow me to explain: Clearly, Ingres, living and working in the 1800s, did not have the ability to paint from life a figure that died some two and a half centuries earlier. So, for his model he resorted to a portrait in the Louvre by the Venetian Renaissance master, Titian.

Titian, Portrait of Francis I, 1538-1539; oil on canvas; Paris, Musée du Louvre.

Somewhat curiously, Titian painted Francis in profile, a portraiture convention that hearkens to the early Renaissance and prior periods, as opposed to a three-quarter view, which became popular during the Renaissance for providing the impression of increased psychological insight into the subject. (The Mona Lisa is an example of a portrait in three-quarter view. Titian himself employed it innumerable times in his portraits of Venetian nobility.) Titian likely resorted to the more archaic format due to the fact the he was not painting Francis from life either; the Venetian artist and the French monarch never met. Instead, Titian is thought to have derived his work from a medal, such as this one in the Fitzwilliam Museum, designed by Benvenuto Cellini, another Italian artist that was part of the French king’s court.

Benvenuto Cellini, Medal of Francis I, 1537; struck lead; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum.

Cellini’s medal was itself undoubtedly based upon drawings by the artist, which could conceivably have been done from life (but were more likely done from memory; kings generally didn’t subject themselves to extended portrait sittings), making Ingres’ Francis the end of the line in a long game of visual telephone; Francis I purple monkey dishwasher, if you will. For those aware of this chain of repeated derivations – amongst whose select ranks you may now count yourselves, dear readers – Ingres’ Francis becomes, despite his sumptuous vestments and meaty calves, a two-dimensional cut-out, an apparition as fleetingly insubstantial as the tiny bubbles that marked the finish of this week’s wine.

Despite the negative connotations that may be attached to the terms “insubstantial” and “two-dimensional,” objects possessive of those characteristics can provoke pleasure, as noted at the outset in regard to our pleasantly evanescent Riesling. Indeed, drunkenness itself can be described as a two-dimensional state, in which affect is flattened out and simplified from the more complex emotional world of our sober selves. For example, when imbibing intoxicating elixirs, an acquaintance toward whom you may normally feel warmly, but also warily, can quickly become your close friend, worthy of the most intimate personal revelations and affectionate embraces. Or perhaps he becomes the victim of an undeserved sucker punch. My point is that in a drunken state, the numerous facets and middle grounds of our emotional lives are smoothed over – sometimes bulldozed – in favor of extremes that occupy discrete points that can be tracked without recourse to a z axis, figuratively speaking. While this can again be construed negatively, it could also be seen as one of the appeals of inebriation: the complicated is exchanged for the cut and dry, no explanations or qualifications are necessary. I think that such a two-dimensional state of being is something to which many of us gladly escape, at least occasionally.

And if one is going to flee the three-dimensional world for the refuge found in fleeting flatness, why not employ wine and art that are in happy accordance with the nature of the desired destination? However, if complexity is what one craves, I must note that it can indeed be found in the shifting dimensions of Ingres’ canvas. I would never forgive myself for promoting Ingres as a mindless peddler of easy emotions: that he most definitely was not. As one of the most highly skilled painters of his day, he could easily have constructed convincing linear perspective if he liked. Was it perhaps a bit of wry humor by Ingres to include seemingly sloppy orthogonals in a painting depicting a giant of the Italian Renaissance, the period in which linear perspective was invented? Or, to take a wider view, is the fragmented, flattened space of the scene and the image of Francis thrice (or more) removed a heady comment on the limits of our ability to imagine the past? Objects and images remain to us, but the people themselves are gone forever. Is the painter (or writer) of history capable of conjuring more than a cut-out? Does the continuous representation and retelling of historical figures and episodes flatten and obscure them further, sapping the color and vitality from them like one of my ragged t-shirts that has been subjected to a decade of laundering? Questions such as these could easily have crossed the mind of a living, breathing, three-dimensional Ingres, as literary and intellectual as I imagine him to have been. And so I will pursue them too, as long as this bottle is relatively full, saving my fruition in flatness for when the volume of the liquid contained therein is no longer measurable.