Friday, May 31, 2024

Early Renaissance Imagery

Giotto
Virgin and Child
ca. 1310-15
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Simone Martini
St Judas Thaddeus
ca. 1315-20
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Simone Martini
St Simon
ca. 1315-20
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Simone Martini
St Matthew
ca. 1315-20
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Bernardo Daddi
St Paul and Group of Worshippers
1333
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giovanni Baronzio
The Birth, Naming and Circumcision
of St John the Baptist

ca. 1335
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giovanni Baronzio
Baptism of Christ
ca. 1335
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Bartolomeo Bulgarini
St Catherine of Alexandria
ca. 1335-40
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Nardo di Cione
Virgin and Child
ca. 1350
tempera on panel
Milwaukee Art Museum

Paolo di Giovanni Fei
Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1400-1405
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Lorenzo Monaco
Virgin and Child
1413
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni)
St Francis kneeling
before the Crucified Christ

ca. 1437-44
tempera on panel
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Francesco del Cossa
St Florian
ca. 1473-74
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Carlo Crivelli
Virgin and Child
ca. 1480
tempera on panel
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Master of the Starck Triptych
The Raising of the Cross
ca. 1480-90
oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giovanni Bastianini
Virgin and Child
ca. 1855
marble
(forgery of early Renaissance relief)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

     "Far from diminishing, the reasons for friction and irreconcilability multiplied from year to year. The very forces that urged Roman humanists to glorify the providential nature of Catholicism led those who rejected it to be scandalized by the sumptuous manifestations, the commitment to ceremony, and the inclination to paganism that were on daily display. The antagonism ran so deep that it declared itself in two utterly opposing modes of graphic discourse: on the one side, the tradition of monumental Mediterranean painting at the height of its powers; and on the other, the direct, popular, and quickly produced art of Northern printmaking, which for the first time in history became a major force in cultural and religious life. Rome did not make use of the right weapons, the modern media; there could be no hope of victory."

– AndrĂ© Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 1527, translated by Beth Archer, 1983 (expanded from the A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1977, and published by Princeton University Press and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)