Monday, May 29, 2017

Tempera Painting on Wooden Panels in Renaissance Italy

Giotto
Entombment of Mary
1310
tempera on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Giotto
Maestà (Ognissanti Madonna)
ca. 1306-10
tempera on panel
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Agnolo Gaddi
Four Saints in niches
(Mary Magdalene, St Benedict, St Bernard, St Catherine)

ca. 1380-90
tempera on panel
Indianapolis Museum of Art

"But if it is the duty of the historian to seek for evidence in which moral judgment is tempered by human sympathy, he will find no authority comparable in value to the work so often quoted of Pierio Valeriano, On the Infelicity of the Scholar.  It was written under the gloomy impressions left by the sack of Rome, which seems to the writer, not only the direct cause of untold misery to the men of learning, but, as it were, the fulfillment of an evil destiny which had long pursued them.  Pierio is here led by a simple and, on the whole, just feeling.  He does not introduce a special power, which plagued the men of genius on account of their genius, but he states facts, in which an unlucky chance often wears the aspect of fatality.  Not wishing to write a tragedy or to refer events to the conflict of higher powers, he is content to lay before us the scenes of everyday life.  We are introduced to men, who in times of trouble lose, first their incomes, and then their places; to others who, in trying to get two appointments, miss both; to unsociable misers, who carry about their money sewn into their clothes, and die mad when they are robbed of it; to others, who accept well-paid offices, and then sicken with a melancholy longing for their lost freedom.  We read how some died young of plague or fever, and how the writings which had cost them so much toil were burnt with their bed and clothes; how others lived in terror of the murderous threats of their colleagues; how one was slain by a covetous servant, and another caught by a highwayman on a journey, and left to pine in a dungeon, because unable to pay his ransom.  Many died of unspoken grief for the insults they received and the prizes of which they were defrauded.  We are told of the death of a Venetian, because his son, a youthful prodigy, was dead; and the mother and brothers followed, as if the lost child drew them all after him.  Many, especially Florentines, ended their lives by suicide; others through the secret justice of a tyrant.  Who, after all, is happy? – and by what means?"

 from The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt (English translation by S.G.C. Middlemore, published by Phaidon Press, 1937)

Luca Signorelli
Madonna of Mercy with St Sebastian and St Bernardino da Siena
ca. 1490
tempera on panel
Fondazione Musei Senesi, Siena

Carlo Crivelli
St Francis collecting the Blood of Christ
ca. 1490-1500
tempera on panel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Cima da Conegliano
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
with St John the Baptist, St Lucy and Angels

ca. 1496-98
tempera and oil on panel
Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon

Andrea Mantegna
Christ as suffering Redeemer
ca. 1495-1500
tempera on panel
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Paolo da San Leocadio
Lamentation
1507
tempera and oil on panel
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Ercole de’ Roberti
Pietà
ca. 1482-86
tempera and oil on panel
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Ercole de' Roberti
St Jerome in the Wilderness
ca. 1470
tempera on panel
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ercole de’ Roberti
Portia and Brutus
ca. 1486-90
tempera on panel
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Sandro Botticelli
Madonna of the Book
1480
tempera on panel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Sandro Botticelli
Madonna adoring Child with five Angels
ca. 1485-90
tempera and oil on panel
Baltimore Museum of Art

Michelangelo
Holy Family (Doni Tondo)
1506-08
tempera on panel
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence