Heaven on 79th Street
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

“There is always more earth in heaven than there is heaven on earth,” writes Leon Wieseltier in the catalog accompanying the exhibition currently showing at Salander O’Reilly Galleries under the title “Two Redis covered Masterpieces of Italian Renaissance Art.” Taken out of context, some might prefer to sharpen the irony of the statement by removing the word always. But despite the fact that nothing in the accompanying literature explains the circumstance of these rediscoveries – beyond the suggestion that they have recently come to the market from a private collection – even a cursory look at these works suggests that there is a little bit of heaven lodged on 79th Street, at least until the show closes on November 27.
Central to this group of six paintings, ranging from the 14th to the 17th centuries, is a “Deposition from the Cross” (c.1560-64), in oil on canvas, by Jacopo Robusti (1519-94), known to us as the Venetian artist Tintoretto. It depicts Jesus being lowered to the ground in his shroud by two men, the one on the left holding his crossed legs, the other on the right grasping the shroud itself, descending from a ladder propped against an unseen crucifix. The rose tinged face of Mary Magdalen – the only face clearly rendered – hovers above the body, while behind the central figures, a recently fainted Mary, Jesus’s mother, is caught in the arms of two darkened and hooded figures. Mary’s red robe, the red hat on the man holding Jesus’s legs, and the tints on the Magdalen’s cheeks provide the only bright colors in this muted array of grays, blues, whites, and browns.
The wide-ranging and informative catalog, which contains both a short essay by Mr. Wieseltier and a longer one by William Hood, is devoted solely to this work. In his essay, Mr. Wieseltier argues that “this ‘Deposition’ is not exactly a deposition: the descent from the cross is finished and the funeral has not begun. The subject of the painting is, quite purely, lamentation.” The mood and subject are indeed lamentation, but make no mistake, this is a deposition: Jesus is still being lowered from the ladder propped against the cross, and only the first two knuckles of his left hand have touched the ground. The discrepancy is significant because much of this canvas’s power derives from the sense of movement, the implication that the scene represents a kind of snapshot at a particularly momentous moment: You can almost see the clouds rushing by overhead.
Indeed, Mr. Hood goes so far as to liken the painting to an example of 20th-century “action painting,” imagining Tintoretto preparing the work with a series of curved and swooping lines. Those lines are visible in the shape of the anonymous woman on the extreme left, who turns toward the body of Jesus as if in passing, and in the opening parenthesis formed by Mary’s arm and that of the man in the red cap. That sense of movement contrasts acutely with the inertness of the dead Jesus and the swooning Mary, implying that in this instant all has gone wrong in the world.
You can gauge the agitation of Tintoretto’s scene by looking around the room at the other works on view. Consider, for example, a later “Deposition” (c.1585) by another Venetian, Jacopo Bassano (1510-1592). This more baroque treatment of the subject creates its drama through chiaroscuro, grouping the figures around a large, flickering taper, the only light source in the painting. Here in the hushed dark, the disposition of the figures is reversed from that of Tintoretto’s work: The head of Jesus lies on the left of the canvas, where an old, bearded figure holds his shroud near the cross and ladder, while the two Marys appear on the right. A far smaller canvas than Tintoretto’s, it assumes, through its play of light and dark, the static character of a stage set; the drama seems presented rather than enacted.
There are other notable works to be seen, among them the earliest, a 14thcentury crucifixion by the Master of the Pomposa Chapter House, and the latest, a striking self-portrait (c.1616) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The youthful bust-length self-portrait in particular has an uncommon vividness managed, in part, by the contrast between the bright, pink-cheeked face of the artist, with his slightly disheveled hair, and the brown clothes he wears, which meld with the ground.
But the real standouts here, aside from the Tintoretto, are the “Triumph of Fame, Time, and Eternity” (c.1440-45), in tempera on panel, by Domenico di Michelino (1417-91) and the “Birth of Saint John the Baptist” (c.1527) by Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo (1494-1556). The Pontormo is distinguished by its support, a concave wooden panel that transforms this tondo into a delightful oddity. In it, the central figure, a woman, keeps her back to the viewer, holding the baby John out to a nun or nurse who, because of the shape of the panel, is literally farther back in the room. The figures have a grace and fluidity that almost swirl in the tightly structured bowl that is this strange painting.
A panoramic work roughly divided into three parts, the Michelino offers – moving from left to right – a crowd following a fanciful chariot bearing the figure of Fame; the winged and bearded figure of Time, an hourglass on his back as he stoops precariously over crutches while being pulled on a cart by what look like two harts; and a scene of angels or saints in heaven arcing over a distant landscape. The parts relate to each other dimly, yoked together only by allegory.
I could criticize this show, too, as being nothing more than a bunch of paintings yoked together by age and circumstance. Yet how often can one drop into a gallery and find a handful of first-rate pictures one doesn’t see weekly in the museums? Do drop in – it’s a heavenly experience.
Until November 27 (20 E. 79th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, 212-879-6606).