Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 216 - 219

Richard Britell June 7, 2012

216. The fact that this Raphael painting was the one that Buboni credited with being at the origin of his Destructivist theory would not have mattered so much except that it had become for him the signature anecdote of his speaking career.  He loved to relate this story, dwelling on his humility relative to the pious old woman.

217. As the years went by this Raphael painting according to his descriptions became more and more exceptional, until it seemed that Buboni was going to exhaust the Thaursus' substitutions for the word beautiful.  The image of the painting or details from it were invariably used on the covers of his books.

218. So Thomas Aimes worked this fact in passing into his article about Buboni not failing to mention the incorrect attribution of the Leonardo drawing. He also spent several paragraphs inquiring into the ethics of an art historian being paid a commission to validate the authenticity of old master paintings as if such a fee could be construed as a form of bribery.

219. No sooner was this article published but the Times of London picked it up, and on a Saturday of slow news, wrote it up under a caption "Fake", with two images, one of the Raphael painting and the other of Buboni. The article was very complete, and repeated all of the details of the Aimes article, and added some new material of the same sort. 

Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 212 - 215

Richard Britell June 6, 2012

212. By 1975 the Vatican had set up a fellowship at the University to provide funds, a workshop, and time and working materials and in exchange the University made specific copies at the Church's request, and so gradually the most famous pieces were replaced with excellent copies.

213.  The church did not publicize these changes, and no one noticed them,  for one simple reason, the modern tourist has usually never seen the original, and the original was never illuminated by electric lights. When the modern-day tourist, or art historian stands in front of an old master painting and puts a coin into a slot to turn on the blazing electric lights, he is lucky to emerge without serious damage to his retinas, and he will have little recollection of the painting he was attempting to view.

214. At the end of the article about the consequence of the Lazlio Toth attack was a long list of the paintings the Vatican had replaced with reproductions, third on the list was one Raphael, replaced in 1974, which was of great interest to Thomas Aimes for his article on Buboni.

215. This Raphael, "Madonna and Child", the vary same painting that Buboni claimed was the beginning of his "Theory of Historical Distructivism." 

Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 208 - 211

Richard Britell June 5, 2012

208. This mistake of Buboni's may very well have gone unnoticed, and even if it had been commented on in art circles would have done him little damage but there was another article Thomas found in the Vatican Journal that was more embarrassing, although of an anecdotal character.

209. The magazine article which ended Buboni's professional career, and turned him from a respected art historian into a laughingstock concerned the attack on Michelangelo's  Pieta by Laszlo Toth, in 1972.  Here are the highlights of that
article:

210. The art treasures of the Roman Catholic  Church had been freely on view to the public for hundreds of years but after the Lazilo Toth attack on the Pieta the Vatican decided to reconsider it policies.  The church could not afford the enormous increase in insurance costs the attack on the sculpture produced, and so a new policy was put in place.

211. For years at the University of Padua,  the post-graduate art students completed an annual project consisting of making a copy of some great Renaissance masterpiece, and these beautifully executed copies lined the great hall of the school's library.  The Vatican began purchasing these paintings and, one by one replacing the originals with them in the various important churches in Rome.

Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 204 - 207

Richard Britell,  June 4, 2012

204. Aimes had lost his house and his job but he still possessed his authentic Leonardo drawing and his dignity.  The last straw came for him when he had to pack the great Buboni's groceries at the super-market where he had been forced to take a job. Buboni did not recognize him, and he was unsure if he was glad about it or not.

205. That night after work Thomas  did not go right home, he went to the library instead. His intent was to use the library computer and read as much about Buboni as he could in preparation for writing an article about him for an art journal.  Articles were constantly being written about Buboni and his theories, so this was nothing new, but Aimes was filled with evil intentions.

206. Thomas was lucky that day, or fickle fate had decided to undermine Buboni's long run of good luck in the art history field.  For years the great man had supplemented his ample income by appraising works of art. He charged a very small percentage of the assessed value of the work, but this produced huge sums when the item in question turned out to be a work by an old master.

207. Assessed evaluation usually proceeded auctions so that everyone profited all around. For twenty years Buboni's assessments had gone unchallenged and then by accident the Vatican published a letter from Michelangelo to Raphael that proved without a doubt that a drawing in the Vasari collection had not been done by Piero Della Francesca as Buboin had thought, but was an "ineffectual copy by Piero De Cosomo"  of a drawing Fra Angelico's assistants accidentally dropped into a privy while working on the frescoes in San Francesco at Arezzo. 

Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 200 and 203-

Richard Britell June 3, 2012

200. This article was very unfair, and had been written by the students simply from spite, and to create a controversy, but it had a decided effect on Buboni. He felt he had to so something to prove himself to the students so he decided to teach two classes at the university. The first class would be 'Basic Drawing', and the second 'Basic Painting'. 

201. It was his intent to reintroduce all the lost practices and procedures of the old masters in these classes, and to re-establish the lost arts of painting and drawing on a firm foundation. This plan was his second big mistake.

202. One unfortunate side effect of Arnold's plan was that Professor Thomas Aimes now lost his teaching position. Thomas was only part time faculty hired to fill in for a year for someone on sabbatical, but now his classes were taken over by Buboni. This was the same Thomas Aimes whose Leonardo drawing had been disparaged by Buboni.

203. The university welcomed this plan because they were anxious to be rid of Aimes anyway. Thomas Aimes was a great admirer of anything modern and radical and he had recently given the assignment. "Discuss the importance of graffiti on historic monuments in the area.'' This assignment was misunderstood by his students with serious disastrous results.  As so often happens at universities with part time radical professors, he had a dedicated student following among who were the the editors of the school paper.

Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 196 - 199

Richard Britell June 2, 2012

196. Buboni's serious difficulties seem to have begun at a dinner party a few days after New Years, two years ago. He was drunk, and his drunken friends were chiding him in an apparently innocent way about never writing any articles about art after 1870.

197. In reaction to this he declared, slurring his words in his drunkenness, "Articles about art history written after 1880, are not art history at all, it is just advertising copy designed to sell garbage to rich idiots."

198. First of all Buboni did not really believe this, and even if he did he should never have said it.  Even if a cow is sacred, it is best to leave it alone, but also, he especially loved some of the Impressionists, although not all of them.

199. His enemies debated what to do with this remark and decided to leak it to a source that could do him the most damage, so they gave it to the editors of the student newspaper who had no trouble extrapolating his remarks into something inflammatory. Their article was titled, "Buboni says Cezanne's paintings are garbage being sold to rich idiots.

Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 192 - 195

Richard Britell June 1, 2012

192. There was a exhibit at the university; professors were invited to display works from their private collections. This exhibit included many never before seen paintings and drawings, the cherished possessions of their owners. Thomas Ames, a professor of painting and drawing, had to be teased and coaxed to display his small drawing by Leaonardo, which had been in Vasari's collection. The University agreed to take out insurance for this drawing to be included.

193. Buboni, taking a quick look at the drawing declared, "This is not a Leonardo, these strokes are  right handed, it's probably just something by a lesser known artist like Cesare Da Sesto.  *(author's note the drawing above illustrates this misattribution, the strokes are said to be 'right handed' but their 'arc' shows that the paper was upside down!)

194. Buboni however, was  entirely wrong about this. Professor Ames had noticed the right-handed strokes years ago, took the drawing to a specialist who said. "Leonardo was just shading with the paper upside down, this is clear from the very slight backward 'tails' at the end of the stroke which showed that the stroke was a left handed stroke with the paper upside down.

195.  Professor Ames was too proud, and too full of hatred for Buboni to come to the defense of his Leonardo, as if to have to defend such a thing was beneath his dignity, but he should have said something when he had the chance, because soon after the bank foreclosed on his house because his loan was backed up by his Leonardo drawing.