Fifty years that changed art forever
The key players of 14th century Italy who turned religious imagery into contemporary art
Simone Martini, Christ Discovered in the Temple, 1342, Tempera on panel, 49.5 x 35.1 cm (with engaged frame), National Museums Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery (2787), Presented by the Liverpool Royal Institution 1948, © National Museums Liverpool, X10739
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350 is an exhibition that brings together masterpieces that have been separated for centuries – creations of the first European celebrity artists to make painting art.
To appreciate this show, forget all you know about art. Forget that paintings can tell a story, can show us emotional and dramatic scenes, can imitate life.
Do that and you’ll begin to imagine how the paintings in this exhibition astonished their contemporaries.
The works here were dramatically new for the period. The artists who painted them explored human emotions, experimented with visual perspective, paid attention to the variety of compositions and backgrounds. They were depicting religious scenes –this was the norm in the deeply Christian Europe where the church served as the main art patron – but now they were placed into lush landscapes, dramatic seascapes, contemporary cityscapes and modern interiors.
Siena was a commercial hub in the early 14th century, with trade links to both England and Iran, Europe and the Silk Road. The artists that lived there had access to arts and crafts coming from East and West.
They were also among the first of their profession who we might view as personalities – even celebrities of their time. They signed their work, which was not the done thing. There are records of their life and careers.
Duccio, The Virgin and Child, about 1290-1300, Tempera on poplar, 27.9 x 21 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Rogers Fund, Walter and Leonore Annenberg and The Annenberg Foundation Gift, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, Annette de la Renta Gift, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, Louis V. Bell, and Dodge Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, several members of The Chairman's Council Gifts, Elaine L. Rosenberg and Stephenson Family Foundation Gifts, 2003 Benefit Fund, and other gifts and funds from various donors, 2004 (2004.442), © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The undoubted star of the show is Duccio di Buoninsegna. The exhibition begins with some of his smaller devotional works and has his Maestà – part of a monumental altarpiece of the Siena Cathedral – at its heart.
Right from the moment you enter the show, you’re encouraged to look closer – a small work depicting Virgin and Child may seem like nothing special. But on closer observation you will notice the small, tender gestures of the figures, the resolutely human connection between a mother and a playful child. This was a new way to see and show religious imagery.
Duccio, Triptych with the Crucifixion, Saint Nicholas, Saint Clement and the Redeemer with Angels 1311-18, Tempera and gold on wood, 61 x 39.4 cm (central panel, with engaged frame); 45.1 x 19.4 cm (left wing, with engaged frame); 45.1 x 20.2 cm (right wing, with engaged frame), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Grant Walker and Charles Potter Kling Funds (45.880), © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, X10742
Just a little further along in a triptych depicting the Crucifixion, we see the distraught mother lamenting the loss of her son. Her body is shown losing strength, her head tilting backwards – a far cry from the stoic Madonna of the Byzantine icons.
This is an exhibition of reunifications. In the words of the Director of the National Gallery, Sir Gabriele Finaldi: ‘It is a miracle to see [these works] here.’ Some of the paintings were separated for centuries and will unlikely be unified again in our lifetime.
X10725, Duccio Maestà - Panels, 1308-11, Christ and the Woman of Samaria, Tempera and gold on panel, 43.5 x 46 cm, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (133 (1971.7)), © Copyright Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
The greatest of all is the Predella of Duccio’s Maestà. The original altarpiece took three years to complete. It was dismantled and cut up 250 years ago and it has taken the last ten years to bring the eight surviving panels back together for the first time since their dispersal. They came from Siena, New York, Washington, Madrid, Texas, and London.
Each panel depicts a story from Christ’s life and is individually precious and unique. However, Duccio created them as an ensemble – he was a sophisticated narrative painter – and together they are truly mesmerising.
The Predella is the base of the altarpiece – so the panels were located at the bottom of the unimaginably glorious Maestà. They tell a story of Christ as a teacher and miracle worker – close to people on Earth – a subject suitable for the part of the altarpiece that was closest to the congregation.
Simone Martini, Saint Luke, about 1326-30, Tempera on panel, 67.5 x 48.3 cm (with engaged frame), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (82.PB.72), Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program., X10740
Maestà was probably created by a group of artists lead by Duccio. One of these was Simone Martini. He is the second most celebrated artist in this show – like Duccio, he was a cult figure for his contemporaries and later generations alike. Once Duccio died, Martini stepped into the role of Siena’s leading painter.
Five panels he created for the Palazzo Pubblico in 1326 are reunited here on one wall. Unlike Maestà though, they don’t seem to have been created to always be seen together. It looks like they were portable – meant to be moved around the government building, depending on the need or occasion. This was a novel idea, and an innovative category of object adapted to changing times and tastes.
The panels depicting the saints – in addition to capturing minute details of their physical appearance – also contain ‘Easter eggs’. Saint Luke, one of the four Evangelists and a patron saint of artists (amongst others), is shown as a man on the cusp of his middle age, with some odd grey hairs appearing. His usual symbol – the bull – is hiding in the bottom left corner, just behind the ink well.
Simone Martini, The Crucifixion, about 1326-34, Tempera on poplar, 29.6 x 20.5 cm (with engaged frame), Collection KMSKA - Flemish Community (public domain) (259), © Collection KMSKA - Flemish Community / photo Hugo Maertens, X10667
Martini seems to have enjoyed drawing out the humanity in otherwise deeply religious scenes. In another spectacular reunification coup, the National Gallery brought together Martini’s Orsini Polyptych. It is a folding, free-standing, double-sided, miniature altarpiece; a small but mighty piece of art, likely designed to show off the artist’s skills just as he was about to move from Siena to Avignon. The scenes of the Passion of Christ are full of wailing supporters, including the Virgin who lost her consciousness.
Martini’s last work is an exploration of a subject rarely seen in religious imagery: young Christ is shown being told off by his parents, just like a regular teen. It does of course have a deeper religious significance: Christ is defiant and standing up to his parents, because from then on he was answerable only to his heavenly Father.
But in Martini’s painting, the scene – mum’s questioning gesture, dad’s furrowed brows and the young teen’s folded arms – seems to have been taken right out of my family kitchen on a Friday night.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Madonna del Latte, about 1325, Tempera on panel, 96 x 49.1 cm, Arcidiocesi di Siena - Colle di Val d’Elsa - Montalcino, Museo Diocesano, Siena, © Foto Studio Lensini Siena, X11005
This is an exhibition where you really need to look closely. You need to see the humanity of the saintly figures and the artists who painted them.
Yes, Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s breastfeeding Madonna is a little too put together for a new mum. His brother, Pietro Lorenzetti’s Saint Anne is somewhat more realistically reclined after giving birth to Mary – her checked bedspread struck me as something one might buy in John Lewis.
Pietro Lorenzetti, Birth of the Virgin, 1335-42, Tempera on panel, 182 x 187 cm, Museo dell'Opera della Metropolitana, Siena, © Foto Studio Lensini Siena
This show is part of the National Gallery’s year-long celebration of its bicentenary. In highlighting the earliest period within its collections and bringing to London masterpieces that have not been seen together in centuries, it makes us rediscover the often-overlooked period that changed the way art is made and seen forever. If you want to see the origins of European painting tradition at the turning point for art, this is a show that delivers.