The man in the bow tie. How Daverio changed art on television.

The first impact with Philippe Daverio and his Passepartout was not, usually, of the happiest: indeed, for many his figure was even repelling. There is no denying that his presence embodied the classic clichés of the art historian fixed in the common imagination, but it is equally undeniable that Daverio also made his mark thanks to his very studied image: and he dressed it to perfection not only to create his character outside the lines, but also because he felt it was his own. So here is his indispensable bow tie, the tailored jackets he had made in Carrara, by the Gazzilloatelier, and always with salvaged fabrics, found in the so-called vintage markets, and then again his round glasses, his hair worn backwards. A portrait that recalled, albeit in more histrionic tones, that of the early 20th century portraits of the great Julius von Schlosser, and Daverio probably knew it well. In more everyday terms, the art historian as the vast majority of passersby at rush hour would describe him in two lines.

His persona may not have been the key to Passepartout’s success, but it was certainly one of its indispensable ingredients, for he was instantly recognizable, beloved by the large ranks of his fanatics and often snootily endured by his many detractors, who did not hesitate to point out certain of his controversial and questionable stances, above all the one on marble quarrying in Carrara, or to remind him of some of his slips, or even to hold against him certain other attitudes that were not exactly conciliatory, as a man of temperament not easy as he was, and that sometimes surfaced even in the numerous television debates in which he took part continuously. The character, in short, was divisive, but in the face of the evidence of his program even the most ardent opponents are ready to recognize the merits of a program that certainly may not be liked, but that just as certainly has broken down several barriers.

The first is that of the modalities of the very presence of art on television, a medium that until not a few years ago was looked upon with haughty condescension by almost the entire class of academically trained art historians (some of whom, especially the more snobbish and often more detached from reality, strongly despised Daverio, especially because the popular popularizer had not followed a traditional course of study: he had studied economics, without graduating, and made his entrance into the art world as a gallery owner). And to think that the fourth program broadcast in Italy on the RAI on the first day of programming, January 3, 1954, was precisely an art documentary, on Giambattista Tiepolo, part of a series, The Adventures of Art, which availed itself of the collaboration of important and authoritative scholars: the episode on Tiepolo, for example, was curated by Antonio Morassi. Hardly ever, however, did we deviate from an institutional and well-tested format, that of filming in places of art with voice over by a professional speaker reading texts prepared by an editorial staff, or by a big name. Art on TV, apart from a few sporadic appearances within magazines dedicated to travel ( Sereno Variabile, Odeon and Bellitalia come to mind), where, however, it was usually the journalist, at most with a guest, who introduced the topic, has never deviated from this line. Not even Vittorio Sgarbi, the “television art critic” par excellence, has ever had an art program of his own: he, too, began as a guest on a binder, in his case Folco Quilici’s Geo, and was the first to bring art into large national-popular containers, but he never had the good fortune to lead a program devoted entirely to art history.

Philippe Daverio

Daverio was thus the first in Italy to create a television program with the presence of the expert commenting on the works, along the lines of what had been happening in other countries for several years already: just think of the successful BBC series Art of the Western World, with a historian, Michael Wood, and an art historian, Simon Schama. It matters little that Daverio was not an art historian, that he had no scholarly publications to his credit, and that even today he should be defined as a popularizer, not a scholar. He had been a gallery owner and publisher, he had culture and mastery of the subjects he addressed, and his undeniable experience in the field qualified him. Indeed: perhaps not being part of the academy contributed to the success of his broadcasts, since the style was as far from academic as it could be. Daverio, meanwhile, charmed his audiences with his colloquial, almost confidential tone, marked by his slow speech, his slight rotacism, and his raspy voice as an incorrigible smoker, penetrating the eardrums of anyone who would listen, his gaze fixed on the camera. What’s more, he was able to construct images with bold juxtapositions often even beyond the permissible, ironic and bizarre that his mind was constantly giving birth to, with an imaginative ingenuity that many are precluded from. For example, of a Rubensian portrait of Maria Serra Pallavicino he managed to say that “she is placed like a strawberry on a cream cake.” Of Caravaggio’s Judith, Daverio noted that the heroine “grossly cuts off the head of Holofernes hoping not to dirty her blouse.” Or again, on Assisi’s Stories of Isaac: “more than knowing the author, I would like to know the motive or the principal.” And one could add hundreds of other similar examples, flights of fancy, assorted eccentricities. Tones of an amateur, rather than a scholar: and for television that is a plus. And nothing new for those already familiar with the topics: but after all, it is not to the connoisseurs that popularization is addressed.

And again, another major novelty: the setting of the episodes on a thematic basis, often facilitated by the exhibitions that Daverio went to visit from time to time with his troupe. Passepartout did not remain fixed in one place, but was able to space out with links that often took its host from one part of Italy to another to tell a unified discourse. And then, the attention to works wrongly considered minor, the ability to consider objects not as divorced from history, society, and territory, but to narrate art through its contexts rather than dwelling on the works: and in Daverio’s narration the work, indeed, was often a kind of accessory that served to reinforce a more general discourse. Perhaps Passepartout ’s main innovation lay precisely in having avoided making the works the absolute protagonists by obscuring the rest: the episodes of his program were above all the narration of excerpts from history, society, and economics. And paradoxically, it was perhaps also the least understood aspect of his program, since even today there are those who wrongly consider Daverio a kind of standard bearer of beauty, a role he probably never thought of playing (on the contrary, he often pointed out, on several occasions, how in his opinion the ugly was the most relevant aesthetic category to explain several revolutions in art history).

Lastly, the supreme Europeanism that leaked from his stories: Daverio considered the history of Italy as part of a much larger history. “I believe in European civilization because it is the civilization from which we have arisen,” he had said in an interview, he who was Italian, Milanese (and therefore a citizen of Italy’s most cosmopolitan city), as well as Alsatian (and therefore French and German), while harboring little enthusiasm for the Europe “of the euro,” and supporting rather the idea of a Europe “of culture,” which he invariably brought to his television programs, and not only when called upon to discuss the subject directly, but also when he spoke of works of art: a Europe founded on a common history (the example he used to give was that of the Greek language present today in all European languages), cultured, “integrated and integrative”, solidary, capable of guaranteeing the same rights to all its peoples.

Passepartout then was anything but revolutionary in terms of ratings, since, even in its most popular times, it struggled to exceed 8 percent of the “share,” and was, moreover, broadcast at times that were anything but popular (1 p.m. on Sundays). And after ten years it was closed with no chance of being reopened, despite the uprising of the show’s fans. And yet, since 2011, the year Passepartout closed, there has been nothing else like it on television: those who want art have to rely on documentaries, most of them foreign-made, broadcast on Rai5, have to turn to Sky Arte’s pay-per-view, or have to be content with Alberto Angela’s pop special effects and his late nights in the most iconic and arcane places. Daverio’s popularization has thus remained confined to the reruns of his program or the many books, which, however, have never given, even to his “fans,” the same satisfaction as Passepartout: beyond the errors (but then again, who can claim to be exempt from them?), sometimes even conspicuous ones, the volumes lack the freshness of the broadcast, lack the informality and frankness of Daverio coming at you with his ruddy big face in those very close-ups that helped deliver his face to popularity, lack the immediacy of the texts that Daverio and his team prepared specifically for the cathode ray tube and that would have been difficult to reproduce in a printed version. It is therefore in Passepartout, and in its ability to have profoundly changed art on television, that one must find the most important legacy left by Philippe Daverio. A legacy that, however, since 2011 to date, few seem willing to take up.

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