The three cosmic systems: Ptolemaic, Copernican and Tychonic with the inscription ALY ET ALIA VIDENT

At the base of this piece of paper in tiny but very precise writing are the Latin words “ALY ET ALIA VIDENT” meaning “Others see it yet otherwise”, suggesting that the three systems presented here are not exhaustive. Could this be a reference to Johannes Kepler who proposed that the planets orbit the sun in elliptical paths, did not believe Tycho’s system was physically plausible and abandoned Copernicus’s solid crystalline spheres? Behind the diagram of the cosmic systems is an astrological geniture for an as yet unidentified person born in the month of March. Perhaps the artist is suggesting the extremely close link between astronomy and astrology in the seventeenth century –  Tycho Brahe and Kepler both earned income from casting horoscopes.

It is interesting that ALY ET ALIA VIDENT is such a central phrase to the painting, almost like a caption — Others see it yet otherwise — the universe is amenable to different forms of interpretation. This is a strikingly casual stance for the period just a few years prior to Galileo’s Inquisition trial for Copernicanism. References to Galileo’s telescopic discoveries, incidentally, are surprisingly absent from the Linder Gallery, here we seem to be much more in the realm of precision measurement.

ALY ET ALIA VIDENT. What is behind this intriguing phrase? Could it be an oblique reference to Kepler? Or is it just a lack of cosmic committment? Given its prominence in the painting, could it be a suggestion that the painting itself is open to radically different forms of interpretation, or is that just a 21st century way of reading too much into a scrap of painted paper?

Again, this drawing seems to relate to the frontispiece of Kepler’s Rudolphine Tables, the book present on the green table, where we behold the Temple of Urania, muse of astronomy, inhabited by great astronomers of the past. Tycho Brahe points at the ceiling which is marked with his own cosmic system, asking the words “Quid si sic?” — “What if it is like that?”. Kepler himself is not included in the temple but sits in the base, looking at an architect’s model as the “humble” architect of a new edifice of astronomy. Another puzzle: given that the painting is all about measurement, geometry and perspective and their relationship with the arts, why is the perspective of the octagonal green table itself so wonky, apparently tilting forward?

Temple of Urania, Georg Celer's frontispiece for the Rudolphine Tables

Allegorical figures, detail from Linder Gallery

GORMAN: So where does this picture sit in the genre of pictures of galleries?

MARR: Well, it’s interesting in light of the point Ren made about this being a moment when art becomes art, because this genre of gallery interiors is precisely about that. It’s about the moment at which art appreciation becomes a recognized phenomenon, a recognized and accepted thing to do. This particular genre of pictures of collections emerged at exactly the same time that the “liefhebbers van schilderen” — the so called ‘lovers of painting’—were first admitted as a category of member to the Guild of St Luke, the artist’s guild in Antwerp. So it’s a recognition that art isn’t just about making. It’s about appreciating and evaluating and discussing. And that’s really what this genre meant to be about. It’s showing images that cognoscenti could stand in front of discussing differences between style, differences between manner, differences between treatment of themes.

CORDOVER: While I agree completely that this genre of painting—Flemish gallery painting—is precisely as you’ve described it, this work has such striking differences from essentially all the other Flemish gallery paintings that we’ve looked at because it doesn’t have cognoscenti within it and it isn’t principally about a particular collection of either art objects or other kinds of objects—musical instruments or artificialia or naturalia of any sort. It’s about knowledge.

MARR: I think this is essentially a hybrid. Yes, you’re quite right—there are no cognoscenti actually in the picture. I don’t think that that means that this isn’t an image that should be thought about in terms of cognoscenti and appreciation.

WESCHLER: This reminds me of David Hockney, who has recently taken to painting these landscapes which he calls his “figure paintings”. And if you say to him, “But where are the figures?” he replies, “You are the figure.” In the same way, in answer to the question of where are the cognoscenti—you are the cognoscenti.

MARR: And it is also about knowledge—but it’s about lots of different kinds of knowledge. I think there’s no doubt that knowledge of the cosmos and how the world fits together is a key theme. But I think that we shouldn’t forget that this is also about recognition of the styles of different painters. So I think it’s about—going back to arts and sciences and how they’re allmixed up—I think this is an image about different kinds of knowledge.

GORMAN: You could say the picture is a machine to produce cognoscenti

excerpt from A Mysterious Masterpiece: The World of the Linder Gallery (Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi/Alias, 2009)

Disegno from the Linder Gallery

It is by no means clear whether the figure of Disegno in the Linder gallery is intended to be generic or a specific portrait.  Michael John has suggested Kepler as a possible candidate – which is certainly plausible, although I have yet to be convinced of the similarity between known portraits of Kepler and the features of the Linder gallery figure, and (frustratingly) there is no evidence that either Oddi or Linder was especially interested in Kepler and his works. An alternative possibility is that the figure of Disegno is in fact modelled on Mutio Oddi’s first tutor in the visual arts, the famous painter Federico Barocci of Urbino.  Barocci’s features, as depicted in his self-portrait of ca. 1600 are close to those of Disegno in the Linder gallery, if we imagine Barocci 20-30 years older (for the gallery was painted in the late 1620s).  Barocci would have been an ideal model for Disegno – he was internationally renowned as a master of design and  was the brother of the celebrated mathematical instrument maker, Simone Barocci, whose works Oddi distributed in Milan to patrons and friends – including Linder.  In fact, as Ian Verstegen has shown in a recent article, Federico used his brother’s instruments (notably the reduction compass) in making his drawings and paintings.  Thus, Barocci could be thought of as a figure for whom mathematics underpinned drawing, and the arts in general.  Oddi – who was exiled from Urbino – was always eager to promote his homeland (indeed, he circulated Barocci drawings in Milan).  What better way of doing this than by incorporating one of its greatest (but recently deceased) artists into the painting he helped to devise?  Just a thought…

Federico Barocci, Self-portrait (ca. 1600)

Allegorical figures, detail from Linder Gallery

The laurel wreath and sun-pennant worn by the young woman correspond to the attributes of Virtue, according to Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, a reference text much consulted by artists. If she represents the Arts, perhaps exhausted from her labours in creating all of the paintings and sculpture in the room, then who is the man? The impressive array of astronomical instruments, mathematical tools and diagrams in the painting would seem to suggest that he has something to do with science. The books on the table by Kepler and a physical resemblence to Kepler’s known portraits suggest that the man may be intended as a likeness of astronomer Johannes Kepler. But if so why would a young woman representing the Arts be lying in Kepler’s lap?

There is another painting, now unfortunately lost, which shows a similar composition of a woman representing Painting resting in the lap of an old bearded man. In that painting the old man (with a flaming crown) appears to represent “Disegno” — design or drawing, considered in the seventeenth century as a universal skill embodied in any form of measurement or proportion, from perspective drawing to the measurement of the position of the stars.

Anonymous, Gallery Interior with Personifications of Pictura and Disegno

So one reading of the allegorical figures in the Linder Gallery is a play on words: “Painting “rests on” Drawing”, or to flesh it out more fully, “The Arts and Virtue rest on Design”, where design includes the sense of moral purpose (as in the phrase “by accident or by design”). This kind of punning and emblematic word play was extremely popular in Flemish painting of the seventeenth century. But why would the astronomer Johannes Kepler be used to represent Design?

There are a few possibilities here:

First, perhaps the male figure is not in fact intended to be Kepler, but just a generic personification of Disegno. That’s possible, but I would suggest, apart from the resemblance and the other references to Kepler in the painting, that the careful way his face is painted strongly follows the conventions of portraiture.

Second, perhaps the painting (informed by mathematician Muzio Oddi) is deliberately putting forward a highly mathematical vision of Design, arguing for the importance of a deep understanding of geometry, astronomy and astrology to all the arts. In this case, if you wanted a person to embody mathematical skill in the late 1620s, Kepler as the Imperial mathematician who had just published the most important planetary tables for more than a century seems like a pretty good candidate. However, in spite of the very clear references to Kepler in the painting, we have yet to discover any direct links between Muzio Oddi or Peter Linder and Kepler — the search continues.