I will reveal to you that in Vienna, the best time to go for close encounters with the geniuses of all time is on... Monday. On a day when most museums are closed to the public, the Kunsthistorisches Museum invites you to the rooms. And voilà! Bruegel, Dürer, Titian, Rubens, Velazquez and, in general, masterpieces by the world's greatest masters are available for viewing without crowding, at your fingertips. It was in such comfortable conditions that I watched the presentation „Idols & Rivals” (open until 8 January 2023). Very much à propos of current sporting events.

The World Cup is coming to an end, so the excitement about competitive football is reaching its zenith. I can assure you - this is not the only area where there are constant competitions. In fact, there is no sport where there are no assessments, both by professionals and the general public, often unfamiliar with the subject. People like to measure themselves against others.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE Nowadays, however, the urge to excel in every field has reached unprecedented heights. What is more, everything seems to be available, regardless of innate aptitude. We are driven by the ubiquitous official and social media. In every field, rankings are being written up in which both professionals and casual observers have their say. The media are interested in this kind of valuing, involving the emotions of the audience. It is their voices that influence the position of a given author in the public perception.

Unfortunately! Leaders are generally short-lived in top positions. This is because their successes are often determined by blind chance plus a few strengths unrelated to their rank: beauty, astonishing novelty, a moving personal story or - from another angle - political connections.

The "best of" lists

I confess: I used to make lists of the leading artists of the visual arts scene myself, trying to introduce clearly defined categories and evaluation criteria. At the time (a dozen years ago) I was trying to combine artistic stature with commerciality - breakneck! Worse still, long out of date. However, the frenzy of ranking values is gaining momentum. Every year, various media announce their lists of those ""the best..."", heating up the feelings of the public.

But... do any of you know the latest championship results in the arena of, for example, visual arts?

After all, the qualification may have been conducted from different angles; some to do with the highest prices achieved at auction, others to do with the highest 'ever' popularity, others to do with the highest attendance at the current year's exhibition.

I suggest you check and compare the results from this year and even from a decade ago. I can warn you: nothing will match. Everything has been verified by time. More specifically, the current ideology, the sympathies of the leaders, the environmental preferences and the influence of those with a lot of zeros in their accounts. Too many factors to centre the assessment. But the need to measure oneself, to compete, to be judged by an audience, is as old as art.

The best evidence is precisely the exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna: "Idols & Rivals".

The title speaks for itself - there are those most... better (of the era) and those who wanted to match them. There are also those who raced to gain recognition from influential people pulling the strings of artistic (and other) careers.

The presentation is mainly concerned with the Renaissance and Baroque - but also takes the viewer back to classical antiquity and occasionally runs into the 18th century.

I went and... I felt like I was in the present day. Admittedly, no one "ranked" anyone, but reaching the top meant honours. Sometimes this translated into the most lucrative commissions, other times into titles, ensuring a prosperous existence for the principal concerned and his descendants.

Eleventh: do not judge

All my life I have heard: art is not a sporting competition. Nobody fights for the yellow jersey of the leader, there are no results measured with a stopwatch. It is possible to be in the peloton or even to be trailing somewhere, only to come out on top later (often post-mortem) through a confluence of unpredictable circumstances.

I need not recall the spectacular after-death careers of van Gogh, Modigliani, Toulouse-Lautrek. There have also been stars who have shone after centuries of non-existence - such as Antonello da Messina, Vermeer van Delft or Rembrandt. What, in fact, made them forgotten? What vagaries of fate? And what causes have brought them to be 'rediscovered' after a long time?

Well, what we like is not at all unchangeable. This is a fundamental truth. So why the urge to constantly, on an ongoing basis, confront our skills? Why strive for perfection - after all, its benchmarks change with the times?

And yet!

The authors of the exhibition "Idols & Rivals" show irrefutable evidence that the ambitious and talented have it this way: first they admire, then they imitate, and finally - they try to beat, to surpass those they adore. Or they take up challenges in fields that, from our point of view, are absurd.

Take, for example, the competition announced in 1666 by the Duke and Bishop of Bavaria, Albrecht Sigismund, for a painting on a rather macabre subject. The canvas was to feature a wolf brutally killing a sheep and a fox lurking for some tasty morsel from this easily defeated prey. Two of them squared off - the well-known artist Christopher Paudiss and the much less well-known and now completely forgotten Rösel von Rosenhof. And what: the latter won (although in my opinion both scenes were equally cruel and repulsive). And Paudiss was so concerned about losing that he fell ill and in a few days the artist was gone.

Or another situation, also with a fatal finale: Luca Giordano, a 17th-century master, was admired for the extraordinary speed at which he worked. As a result, his paintings stood out for their expressiveness and bravura - which also agreed with his character. In contrast, Carlo Dolci, almost a generation older, gentle and delicate as his name, finished every detail with reverence. Giordano once looked into his older colleague's studio and threw in a nasty, hurtful comment about the slow pace of his work. Dolci could not bear the criticism, and fell into a despair so great that he died of bitterness.

A curtain with nothing behind it

When was the first ever ranking of painting skills held?

This competition took place two millennia ago - and the author who recorded it was Pliny the Elder (23/4 - 79 AD), a Roman writer and historian. The competitions were played out between two Greek master painters who excelled in the imitation of nature. First, Zeuksis gave a demonstration of his skills: he painted grape vines in such a deluded manner that birds flocked to them. The reaction of his rival Parrahasius was to paint a curtain, behind which the former believed the work was hidden. Meanwhile, the curtain was just that... a fraud. Painted so perfectly that Zeuksis gave up: he only managed to deceive the birds, his rival the man.

This famous (yet never officially confirmed) event is alluded to by paintings that, to the uninformed, may seem without depth. And these are precisely commentaries on the story quoted by Pliny the Elder.

Here is Cornelis Bisschop (1630 - 1674) painting himself at work. In his left hand - palette and brushes, while his right hand pulls back the curtain (the one that is an illusion, a deception for the senses). Meaning: I am aware that my art deceives the eye, but perhaps everything we see is an illusion?

Irony and reflection - what is art? Perhaps only deception at the highest level? This putting the viewer's sense of sight to the test has been alluded to by many authors. The genre known as trompe-l'oeil (confusion of the eyes) was already widespread in antiquity, but was perfected by the masters of later eras.

Is it a bas-relief or a painting of a bas-relief? A drawing on cardboard pinned to a dark ground, or an image of the same rendered on canvas? Is it a curtain separating a painting from the viewer, or is it a naturalistically painted curtain indiscreetly raised in order to peep into a scene taking place somewhere behind it? Such riddles have been asked fondly by artists since the Renaissance. Interestingly, artists of the twentieth century and quite contemporarily continue to deceive our senses and put our consciousness to the test.

When, in 1929, René Magritte presented a realistically rendered pipe and signed it 'This is not a pipe' - he was confessing the truth. It was not the object itself, but an image of it. But the illusionistic image seemed to contradict the signature. For the confusion of the eyes distorts our perception and our knowledge of the world.

In other words - art is an illusion. The artist, on the other hand, the more skilful he is at his craft, the greater the admiration he gains from his audience. As long as they both play the same game, because over time the old rules are discarded.

Innocence coupled with sex

A career as an artist knows no mercy. You want to go up against the best - you risk everything. That's how it used to be, that's how it is now. "Winner takes it all", sang Abba. Exactly.

This is the moral of the myth of the contest between Martias and Apollo. The former was a simple, hairy satyr who, through diligent practice, mastered the playing of the Lord's flute to an exquisite degree; the latter was a god of the arts, who was able to get away with anything and everything, and was also handsome.

Luca Giordano (c. 1695) painted the sad failure of the satyr: Apollo skinned him, which must have hurt. Such is the end that befalls those who believe too much in their abilities and talent. The prettier and more privileged can always count on the favour of the judges and the audience. And if someone votes for the loser (from the beginning), he too can be discredited - like Midas in the old myth, in which the king who voted for Martias grew donkey ears. Stupid Midas, he has no hearing, he does not distinguish between an idol and an amateur.

Do we not give forums to the known and liked today either? Or - to those with better looks? Or do we also score their partner and their looks? We see the signs of success in these, too. If someone has made it to Olympus, he or she must be in good company. And look "divine" himself.

Like the charming Anthonis van Dyck, Rubens' most gifted pupil, who imitated the maestro's style so perfectly even in his youth that art historians have long credited the master with the authorship of the portrait of the former. The most important thing, however, was that van Dyck knew how to pretend to be a nobleman by his appearance and style, and was able to move among English high society. The title of nobility conferred by Charles I, as well as his relationship with a highborn maiden, in a way completed this self-creation.

All the images of a Fleming settled at the British court prove that he felt the spirit of that environment perfectly. Only ... was he happy?

As for his master, this one gained a treasure in his old age. Peter Paul Rubens, also ennobled, wealthy and influential, married a second time (widowed) to Helena Fourment, 37 years younger. He may not have been one of the most beautiful, but he had other assets, above all fame, income and estates. And the skills for which he was considered the "new Titian".

Once again, I experienced that particular impression of admiration for the author and the courage (or perhaps just obedience to her husband?) of the model. The young and plump Helena Fourment, according to her contemporaries - the most beautiful woman of Antwerp at the time - posed for the painting Het pelsken, the Fur Coat (1636/38). Her naked body, wrapped - not too thoroughly - in soft fur, has an extraordinary potential for sexuality, at the same time innocence. Helena's fair, reddish complexion, the folds of her young body, create a provocative contrast to the dark hair of the garment.

However, but, this masterpiece, which Rubens forbade by a testamentary clause to be reproduced in prints, was also a game, a challenge thrown to the greatest - Titian. For it was Tiziano Veccellio who, a century earlier, had painted the 'Girl in Fur'. Although we only see her in the American set (a shot in front of the knees), she is undoubtedly the Venetian's favourite model, rendered in several other images. In this case, the young beauty does not shock, as in Rubens, with the contrast of naked body and sallow fur. This maiden is wearing a gown, a necklace, a bracelet and other preciosities. She exposes only her right breast, and not completely either. Nevertheless, viewing these two works side by side, the competition seems obvious. What is fascinating is the electrifying mix of sensuality and modesty of the posing girls.

However, what was important for both painters was the perfection of the rendering of the beauty, the warmth of the body and how different, though also high, the temperature of the fur covering. And it was warmest in places hidden from the viewer's eyes....

Rivals on the Parnassus

It's all happening at the Kunsthictorisches Museum, in the exhibition 'Idols & Rivals'.

Let us now move to another room, going back almost a century. This is all about competitions in artistic 'betterment' - i.e. the current rankings. I'm trying to move, to compare the former times to the present day.

This clash would certainly be followed by the contemporary media.

Here it is - two geniuses in combat. Michelangelo visits Titian in his Vatican studio in November 1545, the Venetian is working on the 'Danae'. Michelangelo, already recognised in his lifetime not only as a genius, but more than that - as a kind of messenger from heaven, sees Titian's painting and... becomes mute from the impression.

So much emotion! And all this without perfect drawing! Michelangelo, the eulogist of 'disegno' (drawing), resents the Venetian (and other masters from that city) for his lack of skill with lines. Worse still, Titian deliberately provokes him - he painted 'Danae' (a magnificent nude of a young woman showered with a golden rain of coins in which Zeus, lustful and ingenious as ever, was hiding) with a clear reference to Buanarotti's sculpture 'Allegory of the Night', placed on a Medici tombstone in Florence ('Night and Day', Medici Chapel at the Church of San Lorenzo, Florence).

In Vienna, of course, the original was not shown. Instead, there is an alabaster replica of the 'Night' made by Jean de Boulogne, known as Giambologna. The mannered sculpture merely replicates the languid gesture of the 'Night'. Instead, Titian's 1554 canvas, the penultimate (?) of several of his interpretations of the myth, stands out for its greatest expressiveness.

The dreamy Danae presents herself to the audience in a daring nude, without the slightest veil. Although... her bed is separated from the viewer by a dark red velvet curtain (tradition!), which is, however, slid so close to the left edge that it does not cover anything.

Most shocking, however, is the expression on Danae's face. The gentleness and bliss that relaxes her features by no means indicate that some kind of rape is being carried out on her. On the contrary, the maiden seems fully devoted to her divine lover. And she derives pleasure from this somewhat unusual rapprochement. And the jealous and greedy old woman gains nothing anyway....

Feathered competition

The finale of the exhibition is surprising. In a side room, we can watch a filmed documentary by David Attenborough about a bird, known as the spotted warbler in our language, which lives in dry areas of Australia. However, this feathered and unremarkable individual has habits that fascinate both ornithologists and other observers. Arboricorns build structures for their females to impress them with their beauty. And this beauty is not at all for procreation! For the lady arborist gives herself over to the male who has erected the best, in her opinion, marvel! It is only against the background of such a visually attractive construction that the bird (not very beautiful in itself) begins its mating display.

In this case, it's not about ranking points - here you're competing for a partner. Isn't that the ultimate prize?

– Monika Małkowska
-Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the exhibition 'Idols & Rivals' is open until 8 January 2023.