History of Street Painting, Part 2

The History of Street Painting Part 2:

Grounded in Tradition.

From the book Asphalt Renaissance.

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The Italian history of street painting is a visual link between the past and the present. An ephemeral art form, it is rooted in the history of icons, celebrations, homage, and pilgrimage. Nobody knows when the first itinerant artist drew the image of an icon with charcoal and limestone on the hardened clay earth, but testimonials to this tradition reach back for centuries. In Italy, street painters are called madonnari,meaning “painters of the Madonna.” This term applies not only to street painters, but also to any artist who produces simple images of the saints, especially the Virgin Mary (Madonna in Italian). The earliest madonnari were icon painters from Venice and Crete.

Several of the street painters worked from memory, and their images were transformed through repetition, becoming highly individual. In the history of street painting, artists did not consider themselves naïve or folk painters, but madonnari, painters of ephemeral objects of veneration. Icons are ancient expressions of a culture’s belief in miraculous powers. The word icon comes from the Greek word for “image” (eikon). Before the Christian era, the world was full of pagan gods and demigods who were worshipped in the form of statues and paintings.

Christianity inherited Hebrew monotheism, and early Christians were expected to worship their God without an image before them. Throughout its history, Christianity has been ambivalent toward the ritual worship of holy images. The early church agonized over the use of icons, fearing that they would take the place of pagan idols and become objects of worship. However, Christianity was also deeply rooted in Greek Hellenistic culture and philosophy. Although iconoclasm (the objection to the use of images) persisted in the Hebrew and Islamic traditions, and was a subject of controversy within the Catholic Church, the classical heritage in Christian culture eventually triumphed.

Several of the street painters in the history of street painting worked from memory, and their images were transformed through repetition, becoming highly individual. These men did not consider themselves naïve or folk painters, but madonnari, painters of ephemeral objects of veneration. Icons are ancient expressions of a culture’s belief in miraculous powers. The word icon comes from the Greek word for “image” (eikon). Before the Christian era, the world was full of pagan gods and demigods who were worshipped in the form of statues and paintings.

Christianity inherited Hebrew monotheism, and early Christians were expected to worship their God without an image before them. Throughout its history, Christianity has been ambivalent toward the ritual worship of holy images. The early church agonized over the use of icons, fearing that they would take the place of pagan idols and become objects of worship. However, Christianity was also deeply rooted in Greek Hellenistic culture and philosophy. Although iconoclasm (the objection to the use of images) persisted in the Hebrew and Islamic traditions, and was a subject of controversy within the Catholic Church, the classical heritage in Christian culture eventually triumphed.

I can’t imagine the Catholic Church devoid of the countless masterpieces created over the centuries. The first Christian images were created in a spiritual atmosphere, as a sort of prayer. In a very real sense, street painting incorporates this idea. The artist is bent over in the form of a supplicant; his concentration is on the process of creating the work. The street painting is created within the span of several hours and the image comes from within the painter.

During the ninth century, icons were fully embraced by Eastern Orthodox dogma, and their use and diffusion has continued to the present day. An icon painting is required to show the characteristics of a holy person, yet remain discernibly separate from the living figure. Early icons emphasized the disparity between a saint and the saint’s image by rendering the image with unnatural flat, artificial, and stylized proportions and colors. An icon only becomes a living force through devout prayer, which brings forth the Divine Spirit from within. When Wenner arrived in Italy, the sanctuaries were full of the devout, and individuals frequently undertook pilgrimages to a healing icon in order to pray for a cure. A childless couple might approach an icon of the Madonna and Child believed to grant miracles. The attributes of such works arose out of common popular consensus, rather than official church doctrine. The debate over the use of icons still continues in some branches of Christianity, but for the Catholic Church the phenomenon of miracle-working images is well established. The acceptance of religious imagery in the history of street painting has enabled street painters to survive in Italy. Money given on the street (la mancha) is not necessarily in appreciation of the skill of the painter. Donations can also be charitable (l’elemosina), or in recognition of the image itself (l’obolo).

The sacred portraits of the madonnari are reminiscent of the ancient tradition of the voto (Latin for “by reason of a vow”), an object offered up to the gods to lend extra strength to a prayer. The creation of a sacred image on the pavement was not only a way to earn a bit of bread and oil, plus a coin or two; it was also a spiritual exercise in itself. A donation was a means by which the public could share in the offering.

Italian street painting is believed to have evolved from the icon painters who traveled from Venice and Crete between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. These artists painted permanent images of saints in niches over front doors, along pilgrimage routes, in shrines throughout the countryside, and at city entrances. These small devotional images were used as sources of divine protection. Street tabernacles can still be found today throughout Italy. Domenikos Theotokopoulos, the most famous artist who began in this tradition, became known as the painter El Greco (literally “the Greek”). He was born in Crete and was trained as an icon painter. Traveling between Venice and Rome, he trained himself in the mannerist style, eventually becoming one of its greatest protagonists. El Greco, like many other artists at the time, moved to the Serene Republic of Venice. Not all of these artists had the ability or the desire to change their styles, and icon painting flourished alongside the new, classicizing styles of the Renaissance. Some artists partially absorbed the new techniques and forms of the Renaissance and fused the styles. In the elongated and ethereal figures of El Greco, the influence of icon painting is very evident. The Renaissance fleshed out, draped, and embellished these earlier forms, but never really abandoned them. Left behind, these painters made small icons for private prayer and devotion in the home, which they peddled in the public squares.

They also made altar paintings in humbler churches and private chapels. These painters were dubbed madonneri in the Venetian language (which evolved into the word madonnari), because they frequently depicted the Madonna. Many of the icon painters created images for street tabernacles and were nicknamed pittori di santi (painters of saints), a term that still occasionally follows them. By the sixteenth century, nearly every church and Venetian household owned a painting of the Virgin and Child. Even at the end of the twentieth century, traditional madonnari accepted commissions for small devotional pieces. Sometimes they painted images of the Madonna or St. Andrew on fishing boats, or repainted the small tabernacles that had eroded with time. Each artist had a unique temperament: Some tended to copy popular works, while others created highly original images.

Although in the history of street painting the art of the madonnari may be fleeting, its roots are based in permanent icon paintings and ex-votos. In ancient times, a voto was a promise or pledge in anticipation of a celestial favor, while ex-votos were gifts of gratitude presented to the gods for a grace already received. Thousands of ex-votos have been unearthed from wells beneath Greek and Roman temples. These small terra cotta sculptures depict an array of anatomical parts such as arms and eyes, and are believed to have represented the part of the worshipper’s body that had been healed.

The Catholic Church adopted this practice in several different forms; the best known and most widespread is the use of votive candles, which are used as an offering when requesting a particular grace to be granted. Paintings were also popular ex-votos, and icon artists were commissioned to create small pictures of the Madonna, who had bestowed a miracle on the worshippers. Many of the paintings included a complete illustrated scene of the specific miraculous event, with the Madonna looking down on it. By the seventeenth century, ready-made prints and paintings of Madonnas and saints could be bought at fairs for devotional use, but an ex-voto had to be individually commissioned. While the wealthy could engage a trained artist, a common person could only afford some wine, bread, and olive oil, or a very small sum, to pay an untrained folk artist. These artists would often wait outside sanctuaries and churches in order to make small paintings for those in need of ex-votos. While waiting for a commission to come along, they would paint a portrait of a miracle-working Madonna or saint on the sacred ground so that a passerby could make an offering.

Even in the twentieth century, many of the traditional street painters had favorite sanctuaries where they enjoyed working. I remember seeing the Neapolitan street painter Gambardella outside the sanctuary of the Madonna di Pompei. He was painting a copy of the sanctuary’s miraculous icon on a small bit of pavement between the many souvenir stands. Other sanctuaries, such as Loreto’s Holy House with its famous basilica, host street painting events. Some sanctuaries are busy all year long, but most are good street painting venues only on specific holidays when their particular icon or relic is honored with a festival.

To continue the text, read The History of Street Painting 3

 

 

 

History of Street Painting