In a moment in history where we increasingly find ourselves feeling that art is an opinion, often conflicting, between different experts, merchants, critics, curators who express judgments that lead us to one author rather than another, for then being contradicted by another opinion, perhaps the more deserving one; better if offered by the person who knows the history of art in its smallest details, the one who has spent his life - and continues - in trying to live inside the life of the work and its author. In all this perpetual motion, doubts and uncertainties can emerge that can undermine the art market, which is already so difficult to protect even from a legislative point of view.
In history there have been several people worthy of being remembered and we remember one - Bernard Berenson - the one who did not agree to recognize the "hand" of Giorgione in a painting proposed by the merchant Mellon, as he was convinced that it could only be by " hand" by Titian. Two decidedly important authors but with completely different values.
Berenson was born in Lithuania, in 1865, into a family of rabbis. At the age of ten he moved with his parents to the United States where he had to submit to a good dose of puritanism. Signed up for Harvard learned the Greek language and Sanskrit. The thing that made the most news is that his university classmates helped to financially sign up for him a trip that would take him to Europe.
He wandered throughout Europe in search of works of art, of which he was enchanted, he also spent all the money and his supporter friends began to think that it had not been a good investment to help him.
A rich and charming American woman also intervened to raise the young man, Isabella Stewart Gardner, parlor and decidedly unscrupulous, who donated to the city of Boston a museum with masterpieces worth millions of dollars. Berenson was already a frequent visitor during the Harvard period and shared with her the passion of observing the paintings to learn about them. And that's how she paid Bernard for her, the financial means to spend another year in Europe, he rewarded her by assisting her in choosing new paintings for the museum. While when she was in Italy, to round off, she acted as a guide to tourists in the galleries and churches of Florence, for the price of one lira per person.
From there he then undertook a period of study and research, discovering new works, identifying, cataloging, classifying the drawings of the great Florentine masters of three centuries to make a critical study of them.
The commitment took him over ten years and ended with the publication of two huge volumes, printed in 355 copies which were sold for a figure that allowed him to continue as an art historian.
He began working on that work, in four volumes, the largest guide dedicated to the great schools of Italian painting from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. Volumes which were then brought together in a single work entitled Italian painters of the Renaissance, forever linking his name to the study of Renaissance painting. His books, in addition to copyrights, allowed him to have an increasingly successful path.
Another person contributed to Berenson's fortune, Joseph Duveen, a picture dealer particularly worldly and astute. He knew everything about American collectors, from taste to how much they could spend on a painting. JP Morgan himself and Henry Frick remembered him as a "nice buccaneer" who, in front of the money, made every work disappear from his uniqueness and beauty. Berenson met Duveen in 1906 and continued the partnership for about 25 years, helping the dealer select and authenticate works. The relationship ceased when Berenson, for his integrity, objected to certifying a painting, having doubts himself. For him, art was not an opinion of those who believe they identify one master rather than another, but it is the result of research and knowledge that does not always lead to the desired result.
Recalling the fact, Duven knowing that the banker Andrew Mellon was looking for a Giorgione – and it is well known that there are few works by him having died young – he bought a painting “attributed” to Giorgione for 500 dollars Giorgione, but which for Berenson was a first-rate Titian. Masters both from Veneto. Duven asked Berenson to study it again, but the outcome was the initial one, it was a work by Titian. Duven was offended and broke off the partnership.
BB (Bibi) as he was later called by his friends, when he was called to see a painting, had the habit of putting a shawl over his shoulders, as if caught by a cold wave. His participation was total, he examined the painting with a magnifying glass, but it was his feelings that decided. His judgment depended on a rare faculty of perception.
He lived for many years in a villa built by a noble Florentine family in 1724, surrounded by an Italian garden and where works and over 50 books and a mountain of photographic reproductions were kept.
He used to get up at 6 to have breakfast and then stay in bed until ten, immersed in papers, books and photographs, all spread over the bedspread. He loved taking a walk every afternoon, receiving friends as long as they left early and music when it wasn't too loud. Berenson offered his house, with everything in it, to Harvard University.
"When I walk in my garden, I observe the flowers, the trees, the bushes, and I discover an exquisiteness of outline, a prominent intensity, an infinite variety of color which no artifact I have ever seen can equal.“. Berenson was never afraid to say that nature can surpass art.
Berenson's example has developed a more critical sense towards works of art and greater care in every step that can guarantee the uniqueness of a work of art and fortunately there are people - better with culture from historians of the art and conservation of cultural heritage – who carry on this work of pure passion with skill and humility.
