Testa: The Tortured Artist

Pietro Testa (1612-1650): Prints and Drawings

Fogg and Sackler Museums

Through March 19,1989

For the first time ever in America, the works of the often misunderstood Pietro Testa are available for viewing in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum; an additional satellite exhibit is on display in the Fogg Museum, both through March 19. Though Testa is perhaps the least familiar of 17th century Italian graphic artists, he has also been called "the only original and truly Italian etcher" of his time.

Entitled Pietro Testa (1612-1650): Prints and Drawings, the Sackler exhibit is the most ambitious display of the artist's works during this century. Organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Johns Hopkins Art History professor Elizabeth Cropper, the pieces in the exhibition demonstrate not only the life and art of Testa, but also the intermingling of the two.

The exhibit presents a retrospective of Testa's works, showing his progression from a talented young draftsman to a gradually dissatisfied older artist who reflected the turmoil of his life in his later works. Mythology, classicism and Christian mythology are the dominant themes of the pieces on display, and the museum has arranged the exhibit chronologically. During his 37 years, Testa was continually plagued by his own unwillingness to produce popular, commerically successful works. Testa relied on the commissions and support of those who chanced across his artistic endeavors and happened to be of like mind. As a result, he spent his early artistic years in poverty.

This adamant adherence to his own artistic vision paralleled his egotism, which, even at a young age, was noted by his fellow schoolmates. Though his unquestionable talent was admired by Rembrandt as well as the great French painter Nicolas Poussin, Testa's proud and aloof nature often made him the stereotypical outsider artist. As Professor Cropper points out in the exhibit catalog, Testa's vacillating career and his eventual suicide fostered the "myth of a wild uncontrolled romantic spirit." This myth, too, hurt the popularity of his art.

It is this tragic and short-lived career which is visible, metaphorically, in much of Testa's work. His unique vision relies heavily on classical and mythological events thoughout his career, but when one considers the events of Testa's life, the autobiography behind the predominant themes becomes apparent.

In works such as Summer, Winter and particularly The Triumph of Painting on Parnassus, Testa depicts the virtue and worthiness of both artistry and of the outsider artist, like himself, who will not live the life of worldly pleasures. And his preoccupation with the macabre in earlier works, depicting the death of children and the plague, shows Testa's concern with the encroaching effects of realism as both an artistic style and as a burden to his own unhappy life.

Testa's loss of the commission for the apse of San Martin ai Monti because of his slow progress, was perhaps the final blow to the artist's emotions. And though one of his most important and demonstrative works, The Suicide of Cato, followed the withdrawal of this commission, some critics have interpreted this ingenious etching as a dramatic portrayal of anticipated reactions to his subsequent suicide. Perhaps this work was a kind of catharsis for the primarily unhappy and unfulfilled life of this tragic genius.

The Sackler exhibit contains 130 pieces brought together from numerous prestigious collections around the world; among these are the National Gallery in London and the Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Royal Library, Windsor Castle). The exhibition and accompanying catalogue by Cropper were made possible through the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Charitable Trust and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

An impressive feature of the Sackler exhibit is its academic appeal. It is only being exhibited in two locations, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it was previously, and the Harvard Museums. And, while it is an impressive collection of the artist's works, its focus is not commercial attraction. In a time when etching seems to be enjoying a revival in the Boston area, with other etching exhibits at the Museum of Fine Arts and the satellite exhibit at the Fogg, the Sackler Testa production is noteworthy for the artist's superior technical achievements and for his incorporation of the events of his tragic life into his works.