Piero di Cosimo’s ecological fire: a key for his giant retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington

 

There is always a morbid pleasure in speculating about the reasons why an artist made a particular decision in his work. As we have recently seen in the case of Hieronymus Bosch and his possible self portrait as an owl, guessing the motivation that stands behind the making of a certain picture can produce fascinating theories that not only say something about an artist, but also give insight of their times.

 

Another clear example of this “speculative investigation” is the vast critical and historical theory that’s been advanced by many about Piero di Cosimo’s painting The Forest Fire, one of the pieces composing the series of paintings called Stories of Primitive Humanity the Florentine master made in the late 15th century for the merchant Francesco del Pugliese, most of which is now on display at a giant retrospective the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC has dedicated to Piero.

 

Considered one of the first landscape paintings of the Renaissance, The Forest Fire depicts the frenzy of animals, both real and fantastic, escaping from the danger of a forest ablaze, while some human beings take advantage of the beasts’ state of confusion to hunt and kill them. When compared to the rest of the Stories of Primitive Humanity with their mythological and classical themes or to religious topics typical at the time, the naturalistic quality of this painting makes it very enigmatic. Except for some imaginary creatures (which might have to do with a precise request of Piero’s patron for this painting to ridicule political opponents), all the elements in the picture are close to reality and painted with a strong attention to details. Using the categories of the influential art historian Erwin Panofsky, we could say that once the iconographic level (the association to an ancient Greek myth or a Bible’s story) is taken away, the iconological or symbolical meaning becomes much harder to pin down. It is fairly agreed that elements from the work of poet Lucretius and his naturalistic Epicurean view are present in all the series of Stories of Primitive Humanity, though no direct explanation can be found for the apparent simplicity of The Forest Fire’s subject.

 

It is perhaps now that what we have called a “speculative investigation” can further the conversation. Some scholars have it that this painting represents a stage of the evolution of humanity where the fire stops being fearful and is fruitfully tamed. Others see the flames as a symbol of passion (perhaps even linked to a precise event from the life of the painter’s patron) and in the context of the entire series with its supposed representation of human progress, they can become allegory of the civilising power of love.

 

What seems most interesting for us however is attempting to see this painting as a moral critique to the condition of the human being as a nature-exploiter, a sort of quasi-political admonishment by the artist for his contemporary or even future viewer. As explained by Vasari in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Piero di Cosimo lived as a bizarre primitive resembling a beast, refusing to clean himself and his studio, surviving only on hard boiled eggs and most important, being scared of fire. For this “outsider”, who some have called the vegetarian loner of the Renaissance, contemporary technology (expressed in the painting by the bow used to kill the animals and the modern looking clothes and dwellings) is a negative deviation the path of humanity took from a peaceful primordial state. Here, the more advanced human being becomes the one creature that cannot but annihilate the rest for its own sake.

 

Perhaps, the polemic and worried tone of an artwork made more than five hundred years ago can still serve today to reflect on our present and future situation, from the angle of an updated and forcefully crucial environmental awareness.

 

 

 

November 25, 2020