Sofonisba's Lesson: A Renaissance Artist and her Work by Michael W. Cole

Abstract

Reviewed by: Sofonisba's Lesson: A Renaissance Artist and her Work by Michael W. Cole Adelina Modesti Cole, Michael W., Sofonisba's Lesson: A Renaissance Artist and her Work, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2020; hardback; pp. 312; 25 b/w and 256 colour illustrations; R.R.P. US $60.00; ISBN 9780691198323. Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1535–1625) was the first Italian Renaissance woman artist to achieve international recognition. Considered by her contemporaries as a marvellously gifted painter after nature, Sofonisba's portraits, her specialization, were believed to come 'alive' (Vasari, 'Vita di Benvenuto Garofalo e di Girolamo da Carpi, pittori ferraresi, e d'altri Lombardi', in his Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori, 2 vols, Florence, Giunti, 1568, ii, 561–62). Michael Cole's Sofonisba's Lesson brilliantly brings this female artist to life, exploring her art within the context of the networks and relationships that formed her world. Sofonisba's paintings, Cole argues, are 'an expression of such relationships' (p. 11)—with her family, above all her father who educated her and promoted her accomplishments; with her teachers, including Michelangelo, who advised her; with members of the Habsburg royal household at Madrid, where she was a court lady for over fifteen years (1559–73); with her students and patrons, including her younger sisters and the queen of Spain; and finally, with her two husbands. Cole describes these connections as 'pedagogical' (p. 11)—relationships based on some form of education. This is reflected in the book's chapter headings—'In the Presence of Her Father'; 'The Most Affectionate Disciple'; 'The Image of Learnedness'; 'The Image of Teaching; Spain'; and 'Painting and the Education of Daughters'. Thus, the central theme of the Cole's book is learning and teaching, arguing that Sofonisba was the first woman artist to both teach other [End Page 200] women and have a number of young male artists seek her out for painting advice throughout her life, such as Anton Van Dyck in 1624 (p. 150). The Flemish artist claimed that he learnt more from this elderly female painter than from the works of other major artists (p. 150). Sofonisba also developed new artistic genres—the independent self-portrait; the family portrait; and the conversation piece as exemplified by the first group portrait to feature only women, The Chess Game (1555). It depicts her three younger sisters involved in an intellectual pastime, as the family's maidservant looks on. Sofonisba's art, as Cole deftly demonstrates, represents women in the act of some learned activity, be it reading or learning to read, at the spinet or easel, or writing. Sofonisba, however, was not a professional painter—she didn't receive commissions as such and was not remunerated for her artwork, which circulated in a court culture of diplomatic gift exchange. The artist hailed from a family of minor nobility from Cremona in northern Italy, and her father Amilcare took the unprecedented step of sending Sofonisba and her younger sister Lucia to learn painting from the Cremonese artist Bernardino Campi, and later Bernardino Gatti. Amilcare's motives may have been pecuniary (the Anguissola family had fallen on hard times), but Cole argues that he was an enlightened father responding to the growing cultural milieu that saw noblewomen's education include intellectual pursuits such as music, writing, and painting, even chess, as expounded in the conduct literature of the period. As such, Sofonisba's artistic training was part of a broader humanist education that was beginning to be advocated for girls during the Renaissance. As learned and talented women, Amilcare's five daughters were more likely to find appropriate connections in the upper echelons of society or at court. Indeed, the accomplished Sofonisba became a favourite of Isabel of Valois at the Spanish court, where she was employed as a lady-in-waiting to the young queen (with a pension), also teaching her and members of the royal household to draw and paint. She was to become governess to Isabel's two daughters after the queen's death in 1568. Given her social position, Cole defines Sofonisba's artistic practice as that of an amateur, a new Renaissance type whereby learned (male) aristocrats took an...