著者

若桑 みどり

出版者

東京芸術大学

雑誌

東京芸術大学音楽学部年誌 (ISSN:02872048)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.3, pp.A1-A25, 1976

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Since Vasari published his first book of history of art entitled "The most eminent painters, sculptors and architects." offering us a kind of list of remarkable masters it has been usual with us to discuss history of art in connection with some individual names, names of important artists and of big schools formed in their orbits. Whereas history of art is, as we know, filled with so many works of art which bear no name of their makers. Historians label them as "Opere di Bottega" or products of the workshop and give them, as the general rule, no higher rank than the peripheral one off the main currents of history of artistic creation. My proposal is that they should be rehabilitated as essential and basic "opere " of human creation which make a distinct contrast with the works by great masters, the so-called masterpieces. It is exactly what made me try to define the spirit of "Bottega". First of all, let me say, the spirit of bottega consisted in collaboration and collaboration was the source of the immanent nature of the works produced there. Second, this collaboration did not mean division of labour to facilitate mass-production but aimed principally at producing works of art, each round and perfect in itself. Third, bottega had its life in inheritance through generations not only of such materials as the workshop itself, its customers, tools and instruments but of the intellectual and technical tradition which formed the true secrets of bottega and in this lay the essence of bottega's educational function. Fourth, since bottega moved from place to place, its undertakings closely associated with the local customers' demand, both locality and itinerant character became the representative characteristics of bottega. The last but no less significant character of the works of bottega may be found in their anonymity: neither collaboration or inheritance from the predecessors, sometimes a couple centuries before, required the label of an individual name. Furthermore it was natural that the perishable quality of the works of bottega, which were no more than daily commodities, should have denied their makers immortality as did the so-called masterpieces enjoy thanks to their monumentality. Having little traces of individual makers, no striking originality, the works of bottega assert themselves rather in their homogeneity. In this article the author's primary concern is about the sameness of works of art, not about their differences. We can hardly refer to individual names, when we talk about history of art, excepting art of these four centuries from the fifteenth down. And in future either we will not be able to grasp the total significance of artistic activities without considering the entire lot of anonymous products.