Translations | Susan Klaiber

Since 2014 I have been collaborating with Tod A. Marder on his new edition of the classic book on Bernini’s drawings, Heinrich Brauer and Rudolf Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini, 2 vols. (Berlin: Keller, 1931). The edition will feature my translation of the original 1931 publication as well as extensive content updates by Marder and other Bernini scholars. We have also prepared an in-depth historiographic examination of this landmark in baroque studies The first portion of the project, focusing on Bernini’s architectural drawings, is currently in press

While plans for a second volume on figural drawings remain to be finalized, an initial translated chapter from this material has now appeared in Lucia Tantardini and Rebecca Norris, editors, Grotesque and Caricature: Leonardo to Bernini (Leiden: Brill, 2024). My translation, “Rudolf Wittkower, Bernini’s Caricatures (1931),” complements Marder’s contribution to the volume, “Heavenly Bodies III: Bernini’s Caricatures and Copies.” As Sandra Cheng notes in the book’s opening essay:

Wittkower contends Bernini is the inventor of pure caricature and briefly discusses the artist’s humorous pictorial expressiveness as a reflection of the spirit of an age that delighted in the critique of human nature. An ample part of the essay is devoted to Wittkower’s thoughts on autograph drawings and copies. … [T]he inclusion of this translation serves to contextualize the evolution of studies on early modern caricature from the earlier focus on attributions and broad expositions of the period’s zeitgeist to the scholarship demonstrated in this publication…

From the Publisher’s Description:

Grotesque and Caricature: Leonardo to Bernini examines these two genres across Renaissance and Early Modern Italy. Although their origins stem from Antiquity, it were Leonardo da Vinci’s early teste caricate that injected fresh life into the tradition, greatly inspiring generations of artists. Critical among them were his Milanese followers, such as Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, and also Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo as well as, notably, Annibale Carracci, Guercino, and Bernini among others. Their artistic production—drawings, prints, paintings, and sculpture—reveals deep interest in physical, physiognomic, and psychological observations with a penchant for humour and wit. Written by an international group of established and emerging scholars, this volume explores new insights to these complementary artistic genres.

Preface and Acknowledgements
Lucia Tantardini, Rebecca Norris and Lucia Tantardini

List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Notes on the Text

Monstrous Inventions: Caricature and the Grotesque in Early Modern Art
Sandra Cheng

1 Leonardo da Vinci’s Drawings of Busts of Old Men and Women with Monstruous Faces: Satire as Moral Criticism
Michael W. Kwakkelstein

2 Lomazzo’s Grotesque Heads Revisited
Lucia Tantardini

3 Sebastiano del Piombo’s Caricatural Gesture and the Path to Idealism
Matthias Wivel

4 Burlesque Irreverences: Domenico Campagnola and Ruzante in the Corte Cornaro
Christophe Brouard

5 Carracci’s Ritrattini Carichi and the ‘Origins’ of Caricature
Mary Vaccaro

6 Guercino’s Grotesque Heads and Caricatures
Nicholas Turner

7 Deformation as Revelation: A Monstrous Portrait by Bartolomeo Passerotti
Ilaria Bernocchi

8 Heavenly Bodies III: Bernini’s Caricatures and Copie
Tod Marder

9 Rudolf Wittkower, Bernini’s Caricatures (1931)
Translator Susan Klaiber

10 Jusepe de Ribera and the Grotesque: Between Science and Comedy
Carlo Avilio

Bibliography