Stephen Torton on Jean-Michel & The Renaissance

The Present Work

In Versus Medici, Basquiat confronts the legacy of the Italian Renaissance: perhaps the single most celebrated period of artistic creativity and production in human history. Powerfully embodied in the present work, Basquiat was fascinated by figures like da Vinci, and Michelangelo, and the influence of those Italian masters – and their best-known works – is a central theme in many of his greatest works from this period.

Stephen Torton, who worked closely with Jean-Michel as his studio assistant of the early 1980s, shared his experience with Basquiat in those early years, and of the young artist’s intense fascination with Italy and the history of Renaissance. Torton reflects, “There really are very distinct periods in his work. Basquiat defined that period that I worked with him, summer of ‘82 to summer of ‘83, as a specific period… and that period, Jean-Michel was into the Renaissance.”

Reverse of the Present Work

Describing the masterworks produced during this period, Torton notes that a key feature was the extraordinary multi-part stretcher seen in the present work. As the artist’s studio assistant, Torton designed and constructed these stretchers with and for Basquiat; speaking on the artist’s process, he describes the way in which they would gather the wood in selective batches, and Basquiat would begin to paint first the narrow strips of wood, then work further into the assembled, multipart painting.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Greatest Hits, 1982
Art © Estate Of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed By Artestar, New York

Notably, other works in this group include Leonardo da Vinci’s Greatest Hits and Rape of Roman Torsos –works which, in their imagery and textual references, further testify to Basquiat’s immersive fascination with the narrative and mythology of the Renaissance.

Top: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Man From Naples, 1982
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Bottom: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Florence, 1983
Art © Estate Of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed By Artestar, New York

Shortly before meeting Basquiat, Torton had traveled to Italy, and recalls Basquiat’s intense fascination with his stories of that place. The second time Torton met Basquiat, he told him a story from those recent travels which Basquiat depicted spontaneously – a story which would become Man from Naples (1982). Inspired by Torton’s descriptions of Italy, and of the stories of masterworks by Renaissance artists and architects that he had experienced there, in Man from Naples, Basquiat layers Italian words and phrases in his signature frenetic hand, with the phrase ‘VINI VIDI VICI’ repeatedly emblazoned across the surface. A similar fascination with the imagery and terminology of the Renaissance is seen in the monumental Florence from 1983, in which the Medici family tree is mapped out against the same blazing scarlet pigment used in the present work.

Portrait of Girolamo Savonarola by Moretto De Brescia, circa 1524

Within this group of works, however, Versus Medici is distinguished by the single, warrior-like figure who dominates the painting – the only such work from this particular period to show such a figure. Asked about the specific inspiration for the present work, Torton points to a single figure of the Renaissance who held particular fascination for Basquiat: Friar Girolamo Savonarola.

Statue of Savonarola In Ferrara, Italy

One of Basquiat’s favorite Renaissance narratives to discuss with Torton was that of the revolutionary Dominican friar Savonarola, who seized control of Florence after the overthrow of the ruling family – the Medici – in 1494. The foremost enemy of the Medici family, Savonarola soon after began to host his regular "bonfire of the vanities,” in which his followers collected and burned various objects that he considered to be sinful – mirrors, fine clothes, playing cards, and other luxury items, as well as paintings, sculptures and books that Savonarola deemed immoral. His reign was short-lived however, with Savonarola ultimately imprisoned, then executed by the Vatican in 1498.

Torton recalls: “I’ve wondered if this painting isn’t a portrait of Savonarola. It was Savonarola who was truly versus the Medici.” Indeed, the striking pose of the present figure is remarkably similar to that of the famed statue of Savonarola that towers over Piazza Savonarola in Florence, as is the searing gaze.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Toussaint L'overture Versus Savonarola (Detail), 1983
Art © Estate Of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed By Artestar, New York

Torton points out that the figure of Savonarola notably features in a slightly later painting by the artist: the monumental Toussaint L'Overture Versus Savonarola from 1983, in which the friar faces off against the figure of Toussaint L’Ouverture, also called the ‘Black Napoleon,’ who led the Haitian Revolution against the French at the end of the 18th Century. “I would tell him the story of Savonarola…it had a nice syntax. It became one of our raps, Savonarola, I’m on a rolla..”

Jean-Michel Basquiat with his Studio Assistant Stephen Torton at the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich, September 1982
Photo by Beth Phillips

Just as Savonarola cast himself against the ruling class, in Versus Medici, Basquiat sets himself the racialized exclusion of artists from the art historical canon. Yet simultaneously, the young artist boldly crowns himself as both successor to and worthy adversary of that canon – and to the very masters of the Italian Renaissance that Savonarola sought to burn. Reflecting on the young artist’s extraordinary ambition, Torton concludes: “The Renaissance was always haunting him. When people were trying to put him in the same boat as graffiti writers, or even his contemporaries... He would always say, ‘No, no, my lineage is Leonardo.’ Jean-Michel thought big. We know that.”