The Use of Sculptural Models by Painters in Fifteenth-Century Italy

Pathosformeis, Decorum and the “Art of Gestures” in Caravaggio'sdeath of the Virgin

“…11 However, contrary to what has been said, the scene is depicted in accordance with the theological doctrine and, as we shall presently show, it depended on a determinate antique prototype and was designed to conform to the classicist precepts of gestural decorum} 1 The study of bodily postures and mimicry was a Renaissance countermeasure to the medieval practice of copying artistic exempla, n but painters liked to pose their life models in the attitudes of antique statues. 14 Engravings of classical sculpture were occasionally also utilized as expedient prototypes for the postures of individual figures and for groups. Together with descriptive and purely functional attitudes directly evoking various human activities, the repertory included conventionalized patterns of gestural expression, which in narrative representations function like the non-verbal oratorial mannerisms recommended by Quintilian.…”