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."

– André 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.)

Tempera Painting in the Early Renaissance (Italy)

Giotto
St Francis preaching to the Birds
ca. 1297-99
tempera on panel
Musée du Louvre

Giotto
Death of the Virgin
ca. 1310
tempera on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Giotto
St Stephen
ca. 1320-25
tempera on panel
Museo Horne, Florence

Vitale da Bologna
St George slaying the Dragon
ca. 1330-35
tempera on panel
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Anonymous Sienese Artist
Book Cover for Civic Accounts
showing Chancellor, Clerk, and Purveyor
1343
tempera on panel
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Andrea di Nerio
Birth of St John the Baptist
ca. 1350-80
tempera on panel
Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon

Giovanni da Milano
Appearance of the Virgin to St Bernard
ca. 1355-60
tempera on panel
Palazzo Pretorio, Prato

Giovanni del Biondo
Christ in the Tomb
ca. 1370-90
tempera on panel 
(predella fragment) 
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

"The first step in the making of a tempera painting was the construction of the panels.  Once joined and framed by the carpenter, the panels, of finely morticed and sanded poplar, linden, or willow wood, were taken to the painter's shop.  They were then spread with gesso, a mixture of finely ground plaster and animal glue.  Sometimes the gesso was covered with a surface of linen soaked in gesso and still more gesso was applied to the linen.  When dry, the final gesso surface could be given a finish as smooth as ivory.  Then came the procedure of drawing, whose exact role in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries is still debated among scholars.  Relatively few Italian drawings dating before the 1430s are preserved, and quite a number of these are apparently leaves from artists' pattern books that represent copies of works of art, models for standard compositions, and drawings of animals, birds, figures, and heads.  . . .  In panel paintings of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and early fifteenth centuries, the backgrounds behind the figures and the haloes around the heads of saints were almost invariably gold leaf, applied in sheets over a red sizing or glue called bole.  Lines incised around the contours of the figures and haloes guided the gilder.  In many paintings the edges of the sheets can still be made out, and as the gold leaf tends to wear off with rubbing, damaged backgrounds often display areas of the underlying red.  Gold was used because of its precious and beautiful character and because its luminosity suggested the light of Heaven.  . . .  When the gilding of the background was complete, the painter could proceed with underpainting, usually in terra verde (green earth) for the flesh, but even the drapery was often outlined in this color.  When the underpainting was completed, the artist would build up the actual painting in layer after thin layer of tempera – ground colors mixed with egg yolk as a vehicle.  Yolk of egg dries rapidly and becomes extremely hard, and as a result, the painter could not easily change a form or correct mistakes.  The strokes, applied with a sharply pointed brush of gray squirrel hairs, had to be accurate, neat, and final."   

 – Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art, originally published in 1969, revised by David G. Wilkins and reissued by Abrams in 1993

Antonio Veneziano
St James the Greater
ca. 1385-88
tempera on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Gregorio di Cecco
The Crucifixion
ca. 1410-20
tempera on panel
Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon

Gregorio di Cecco
The Crucifixion (detail)
ca. 1410-20
tempera on panel
Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon

Masaccio
Virgin and Child
ca. 1424-25
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 

Fra Angelico
The Annunciation
ca. 1425-28
tempera on panel
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Fra Angelico
The Last Judgment
ca. 1431
tempera on panel
Museo Nazionale di San Marco, Florence

Fra Angelico
Coronation of the Virgin
ca. 1434-35
tempera on panel
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Fresco Painting in the Early Renaissance (Italy)

Maso di Banco
St Sylvester closes the mouth of the Dragon
and revives its Victims (detail)
before 1348
fresco
Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence

Maso di Banco
St Sylvester closes the mouth of the Dragon
and revives its Victims (detail)
before 1348
fresco
Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence

Maso di Banco
St Sylvester closes the mouth of the Dragon
and revives its Victims (detail)
before 1348
fresco
Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence

Maso di Banco
St Sylvester resurrects a Bull (detail)
before 1348
fresco
Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence

Maso di Banco and workshop
The Lamentation
before 1348
fresco
Chiesa di San Francesco di Pistoia

Maso di Banco and workshop
The Lamentation (detail)
before 1348
fresco
Chiesa di San Francesco di Pistoia

Bicci di Lorenzo
The Annunciation, with Donor
ca. 1420
fresco
Cenacolo di Fuligno, Florence

Bicci di Lorenzo
Christ in the Tomb, with Symbols of the Passion
ca. 1420
fresco
Cenacolo di Fuligno, Florence

"In creating a fresco, the thirteenth- or fourteenth-century painter seems to have painted directly on the wall without preparatory drawings on paper beyond the kind needed for painting on panel.  But if the subject was unusual, requiring new compositional inventions or perhaps prior approval of the patron, more detailed drawings may well have been made.  The early painter drew on the wall rapidly, standing on a scaffolding before a wall whose masonry had been covered with a rough coat of plaster call arriccio.  On this surface the painter could make, often with the aid of rules or chalk lines tied to nails the principal divisions of the area to be painted.  Then, with or without the aid preliminary sketches, the painter drew the composition rapidly, first with a brush dipped into pale, watery earth color that would leave only faint marks."

"Over these first ocher indications, the painter could draw the rough outline of the figures lightly with a stick of charcoal, further establishing the poses and principal masses of drapery.  The third stage was a drawing in red earth called sinopia, after the name of the Greek city Sinope, in Asia Minor, from which the finest red-earth color was thought to come.  Mixed with water, the red earth made an excellent material in which to establish musculature, features, and ornament, sometimes with the broad strokes of a coarse-bristle brush, sometimes with shorter, finer strokes.  In the process of detaching threatened frescoes from the walls, many of these sinopie have been brought to light.  In their freshness and freedom, sinopie are sometimes more attractive to modern eyes than the more finished frescoes that covered them.  . . .  As the work continued, the artist or an assistant covered a section of sinopia each morning (or the previous evening) with an area of fresh, smooth plaster called intonaco, covering the sinopia and leaving the painter with nothing but memory (or some good working drawings) as a guide to paint that area.  Each new patch of intonaco is called a giornata.  On any given day, a fresco in progress would consist of a certain proportion of finished work, a certain proportion of sinopia, and one blank, challenging giornata of fresh intonaco that had to be painted before the end of that day.  The joints between each giornata are often visible and palpable because the painter cleaned off with a knife whatever intonaco remained unpainted when the light failed so as to have a clean edge to start on the next day. To keep the edge from crumbling, it was beveled.  When the new giornata was laid on, it inevitably left a soft and rounded edge adjoining the bevel.  One can therefore often determine not only the limits of each giornata, but also the order in which they were done.  . . ."

"In the course of painting, the colors in their water vehicle would sink into the fresh intonaco.  At this point a chemical reaction takes place: the carbon dioxide of the air combines with the calcium hydrate in the plaster, producing calcium carbonate as the plaster hardens.  When dry, fresco colors no longer look the same as when they were first laid down on the wet plaster, and the quality and luminosity of color depend on the exact stage of the drying process of the plaster when the painter applied the color.  The painter also had to consider the humidity of the interior, and it goes without saying that frescoes could not be painted in cold weather in unheated interiors.  Not all colors were water soluble, and some had to be painted a secco, that is, on the dry plaster from which they were, sooner or later, in danger of peeling off."

"Painters worked from the top down to keep from dropping paint on completed sections, and the floor-boards of the scaffolding had to be lowered as they moved on to paint successively lower levels.  The result is a tendency to compose in horizontal strips.  The background landscape and architecture, sometimes including the haloes, were almost invariably painted before the heads of the foreground figures.  Sometimes the painter started in the center and worked out, sometimes from the sides toward the center.  At best it was piecemeal work.  . . .  The limits of the scaffolding prevented the painter from stepping back to get a view of the whole.  . . .  As in any form of painting during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, technical skill and experience were required at every stage.  Only at the point of the sketches and sinopia and during the painting of faces and details was inspiration of much importance."  

– Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art, originally published in 1969, revised by David G. Wilkins and reissued by Abrams in 1993

Bicci di Lorenzo
The Crucifixion
ca. 1420
fresco
Cenacolo di Fuligno, Florence

Masolino
Pietà
1424
detached fresco
Museo della Collegiata di Sant' Andrea, Empoli

Masolino
Pietà (detail)
1424
detached fresco
Museo della Collegiata di Sant' Andrea, Empoli

Masolino
Pietà (detail)
1424
detached fresco
Museo della Collegiata di Sant' Andrea, Empoli

Masolino
Pietà (detail)
1424
detached fresco
Museo della Collegiata di Sant' Andrea, Empoli

Giuliano Pesello (Giuliano d'Arrigo)
Night Sky with Constellations of the Zodiac
1442
dome fresco
Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence

Giuliano Pesello (Giuliano d'Arrigo)
Night Sky with Constellations of the Zodiac (detail)
1442
dome fresco
Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence

Early Renaissance Sculpture from Italy

Giovanni Pisano
Pulpit Support with figure of Hercules
ca. 1302-1311
marble
Duomo di Pisa

"Returning then to Pisa, [Giovanni Pisano made] the great pulpit of the Duomo, which is on the right hand going towards the high altar, attached to the choir, and having made a beginning with this and with many figures in the round, three braccia high, that were to serve for it, little by little he brought them to that form that is seen today, placing the pulpit partly on the said figures and partly on some columns sustained by lions.  . . .  It is a pity, truly, that so great cost, so great diligence, and so great labour should not have been accompanied by good design, and should be wanting in perfection and in excellence of invention, grace, and manner, such as any work of our own times would show, even if made with much less cost and labour.  None the less, it must have caused no small marvel to the men of those times, used to seeing only the rudest work."

– this and other quoted passages below from Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects by Giorgio Vasari (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)

Giovanni Pisano
Capital of Central Column supporting Pulpit
ca. 1298-1301
marble
Pieve di Sant' Andrea, Pistoia

"And because the people of Pistoia held in veneration the name of Niccola, father of Giovanni [Pisano], by reason of that which he had wrought in that city with his talent, they caused Giovanni himself to make a pulpit of marble for the Church of S. Andrea, like to the one which he had made in the Duomo of Siena; and this he did in order to compete with one which had been made a little before in the Church of S. Giovanni Evangelista by a German, who was therefore much praised.  Giovanni, then, delivered his finished in four years . . . thinking (as was the truth, according to the knowledge of that age) that he had done a great and beautiful work."

Jacopo di Mazzeo
St Paul with Two Angels
1302
marble overdoor façade
Chiesa di San Paolo, Pistoia

Jacopo di Piero Guidi
Prophet
ca. 1385-95
marble
Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, Florence

attributed to Nanni di Banco
Ornamental Band with figure of Hercules
ca. 1404-1409
marble relief
Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, Florence

Nanni di Banco
Prophet
ca. 1404-1409
marble
Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, Florence

"Nanni d'Antonio di Banco was not only rich enough by patrimony, but also by no means humble in origin, yet, delighting in sculpture, he was not only not ashamed to learn and practise it, but took no small pride therein, and made so much advance that his fame will ever endure; and it will be all the more celebrated in proportion as men know that he applied himself to this noble art not through necessity, but through a true love of the art itself.  This man, who was one of the disciples of Donato [Donatello], although I have placed him before his master because he died long before him, was a somewhat sluggish person, but modest, humble, and kindly in his dealings."

Jacopo della Quercia
Prophet
ca. 1417
marble relief
Battistero di San Giovanni, Duomo di Siena

Jacopo della Quercia
Prophet
ca. 1417
marble relief
Battistero di San Giovanni, Duomo di Siena

"The sculptor Jacopo, son of Maestro Piero di Filippo of La Quercia, a place in the district of Siena, was the first – after Andrea Pisano, Orcagna, and the others mentioned above – who, labouring in sculpture with greater zeal and diligence, began to show that it was possible to make an approach to nature, and the first who encouraged the others to hope to be able in a certain measure to equal her.  . . .  Jacopo made in Siena two panels of limewood, carving the figures in them, with their beards and hair, with so great patience that it was a marvel to see.  And after these panels, which were placed in the Duomo, he made some prophets in marble, of no great size, which are in the façade of the said Duomo; and he would have continued to labour at the works of this building, if plague, famine, and the discords of the citizens of Siena had not brought that city to an evil pass; for, after having many times risen in tumult, they drove out Orlando Malevolti, by whose favour Jacopo had enjoyed creditable employment in his native city."

Donatello
Madonna Pazzi
ca. 1425-30
marble relief (rilievo schiacciato)
Bode Museum, Berlin

"He [Donatello] was most liberal, gracious, and courteous, and more careful for his friends than for  himself; nor did he give thought to money, but kept his in a basket suspended by a cord from the ceiling, wherefore all his workmen and friends could take what they needed without saying a word to him.  He passed his old age most joyously, and, having become decrepit, he had to be succoured by Cosimo [de' Medici] and by other of his friends, being no longer able to work."

Michelozzo di Bartolomeo
Personification of Virtue
(from the Tomb of Bartolomeo Aragazzi)
1435
marble
Duomo di Montepulciano

Michelozzo di Bartolomeo
The Deceased welcomed in Paradise
(from the Tomb of Bartolomeo Aragazzi)
1435
marble relief
Duomo di Montepulciano

"If every man who lives in this world were to realize that he may have to live when he is no longer able to work, there would not be so many reduced to begging in their old age for that which they consumed without any restraint in their youth, when their large and abundant gains, blinding their true judgment, made them spend  more than was necessary and much more than was expedient.  For, seeing how coldly a man is looked upon who has fallen from wealth to poverty, every man should strive – honestly, however, and maintaining the proper mean – to avoid having to beg in his old age.  And whosoever will act like Michelozzo – who did not imitate his master Donato [Donatello] in this respect, although he did in his virtues – will live honourably all the course of his life, and will not be forced in his last years to go about miserably hunting for the wherewithal to live."

Agostino di Duccio
Allegorical Scene
ca. 1449-57
marble relief
Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini

Agostino di Duccio
Allegorical Scene (detail)
ca. 1449-57
marble relief
Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini

Agostino di Duccio
Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta
ca. 1449-57
marble relief
Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini

workshop of Antonio Rossellino
Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici
ca. 1460
marble relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

"It has ever been a truly laudable and virtuous thing to be modest and to be adorned with that gentleness and those rare qualities that are easily recognized in the honourable actions of the sculptor Antonio Rossellino, who put so much grace into his art that he was esteemed by all who knew him as something much more than man, and adored almost as a saint, for those supreme virtues that were united to his talent.  . . .  He showed such sweetness and delicacy in his works, with a finish and a refinement so perfect, that his manner may be rightly called the true one and truly modern."