http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/what-to-see/charles-saatchis-great-masterpieces-piero-della-francesca-neglected/
The overwhelming greatness of Piero della Francesca has only become clear during the past 100 years. Unlike Masaccio, who was also working in Italy in the early 15th century, Piero was never considered a pivotal artist.
Masaccio’s paintings had been scrutinised by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael – the titans of the High Renaissance – and clearly had a resonating influence on their thinking. Piero, by comparison, was thought of by his contemporaries as a mathematical theorist specialising in geometry, rather than as a painter of electrifying power.
Now, of course, his achievements have been fully recognised by scholars. Today, there are Piero Trails to view his masterpieces across Italy.
Few facts are available about Piero’s early life. He was born in Sansepolcro in the early 1400s and is known to have worked as an assistant to Domenico Veneziano, painting frescoes in Florence. The early Renaissance style was beginning to develop here and Piero would have studied the sculptural works of the brilliant Donatello, as well as the revolutionary paintings of Masaccio and Fra Angelico. These would form the foundation of Piero’s artistic methodology: his serene, disciplined exploration of perspective, colour and light.
Although he travelled to intellectual centres like Ferrara and Rimini to complete a number of important commissions, he would regularly return to his home in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, and its relative calm. It was here that he produced his greatest masterpieces, and the tiny town is now an important port of call for visitors wanting to see some of the most exquisite art ever created.
Piero painted The Resurrection for Sansepolcro’s town hall in 1463-65. A large fresco, it depicts the risen Jesus stepping from a Roman sarcophagus. It was a startling new way of dealing with the subject, which traditionally pictured Christ emerging from a cave, the boulder covering the opening having rolled out of the way. In Piero’s painting, the Roman soldiers left to guard the tomb have fallen asleep.
The physical volume he was able to achieve, the reality he was able to bring to each figure, the refined spatial definition of the composition, the highly original use of colour and light – his paintings appear almost bleached – are masterful.
Christ has never looked more stalwart, overpowering, and yet deeply moving. He is seen in luminous magnificence; a convincing portrayal of his wondrous return once more to life. The emphasis on geometric order in the triangle formed from the top of Christ’s head, through the soldiers to the bottom corners of the painting, underscore Piero’s belief in mathematical harmony.
He was more gifted than any artist preceding him at capturing authentic-looking faces, their features and their emotions; observers believe they are not just imaginary types but contain a striking individuality that suggests they are based on observations from life. This heightened realism was, of course, a fundamental difference between medieval art and the transcendence of Renaissance painting. It is also something of a miracle that this masterpiece is still in existence.
The British Army was told to raze Sansepolcro during the Second World War, but the commanding artillery officer, Anthony Clarke, was knowledgeable about great art and defied orders. He had read Aldous Huxley’s 1925 essay “The Best Picture”, in which Huxley states that the town was home to the best painting in the world. Grateful Sansepolcro later named a street after their British military saviour, without whom The Resurrection would be a pile of dust.
Giorgio Vasari, the chronicler of the Italian Renaissance, wrote in the 16th century that the face of one of the soldiers in brown uniform seen asleep at Christ’s tomb was, in fact, a self-portrait of Piero. Others dispute this, declaring the very reticence of the artist’s approach make this conclusion unlikely.
For more than 20 years in the second half of the 15th century, Piero received many commissions from both the Duke of Urbino and the Medici family, then the most prominent of Italy’s patrons of the arts. One of the first works he completed, The Flagellation of Christ (c1455), was somewhat controversial, and not merely because Jesus is pictured being whipped in the background, as though a mere bit-part in the proceedings.
In the right foreground, three enigmatic gentlemen stand chatting, ignoring the torture taking place just behind them. Some art historians have suggested they are figures from the Passion of Christ, while others assert this would be highly implausible, because they are unidentifiable as any particular biblical characters.
However, they bear no resemblance to representations of prominent people seen in other pictures of the day. All that is certain is that the painting is resoundingly beautiful as well as arresting, one of the highest pinnacles ever achieved throughout the Renaissance.
In reality, at the time of his death in 1492, Piero was better known for his writing on geometric theory than for his art. Many of his frescoes were painted over to make way for more highly regarded artists. Even by 1520, Pope Julius II ordered the removal of Piero’s frescoes in the Vatican to create room for new work by Raphael. Similar losses of the artist’s unsung work took place in Perugia, Florence, Ferrara, Ancona, Loreto and Pesaro.
This is probably the single greatest loss to the history of art. Arezzo houses the only complete Piero della Francesca cycle to survive, The Legend of the True Cross. It renders a narrative history of the world, taking the viewer from the Garden of Eden, through the birth of Christ and his crucifixion, to the victory of Constantine over the pagans and the rediscovery of the True Cross.
Astonishingly, in the Dream of Constantine scene, Piero depicted the first starry night sky in Western painting, with scientifically accurate positions of the constellations. It may have taken centuries, but Piero’s emphatic genius was eventually grasped, placing him in his rightful place alongside mankind’s most outstanding artistic giants.
The overwhelming greatness of Piero della Francesca has only become clear during the past 100 years. Unlike Masaccio, who was also working in Italy in the early 15th century, Piero was never considered a pivotal artist.
Masaccio’s paintings had been scrutinised by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael – the titans of the High Renaissance – and clearly had a resonating influence on their thinking. Piero, by comparison, was thought of by his contemporaries as a mathematical theorist specialising in geometry, rather than as a painter of electrifying power.
Now, of course, his achievements have been fully recognised by scholars. Today, there are Piero Trails to view his masterpieces across Italy.
Few facts are available about Piero’s early life. He was born in Sansepolcro in the early 1400s and is known to have worked as an assistant to Domenico Veneziano, painting frescoes in Florence. The early Renaissance style was beginning to develop here and Piero would have studied the sculptural works of the brilliant Donatello, as well as the revolutionary paintings of Masaccio and Fra Angelico. These would form the foundation of Piero’s artistic methodology: his serene, disciplined exploration of perspective, colour and light.
Although he travelled to intellectual centres like Ferrara and Rimini to complete a number of important commissions, he would regularly return to his home in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, and its relative calm. It was here that he produced his greatest masterpieces, and the tiny town is now an important port of call for visitors wanting to see some of the most exquisite art ever created.
Piero painted The Resurrection for Sansepolcro’s town hall in 1463-65. A large fresco, it depicts the risen Jesus stepping from a Roman sarcophagus. It was a startling new way of dealing with the subject, which traditionally pictured Christ emerging from a cave, the boulder covering the opening having rolled out of the way. In Piero’s painting, the Roman soldiers left to guard the tomb have fallen asleep.
The physical volume he was able to achieve, the reality he was able to bring to each figure, the refined spatial definition of the composition, the highly original use of colour and light – his paintings appear almost bleached – are masterful.
Christ has never looked more stalwart, overpowering, and yet deeply moving. He is seen in luminous magnificence; a convincing portrayal of his wondrous return once more to life. The emphasis on geometric order in the triangle formed from the top of Christ’s head, through the soldiers to the bottom corners of the painting, underscore Piero’s belief in mathematical harmony.
He was more gifted than any artist preceding him at capturing authentic-looking faces, their features and their emotions; observers believe they are not just imaginary types but contain a striking individuality that suggests they are based on observations from life. This heightened realism was, of course, a fundamental difference between medieval art and the transcendence of Renaissance painting. It is also something of a miracle that this masterpiece is still in existence.
The British Army was told to raze Sansepolcro during the Second World War, but the commanding artillery officer, Anthony Clarke, was knowledgeable about great art and defied orders. He had read Aldous Huxley’s 1925 essay “The Best Picture”, in which Huxley states that the town was home to the best painting in the world. Grateful Sansepolcro later named a street after their British military saviour, without whom The Resurrection would be a pile of dust.
Giorgio Vasari, the chronicler of the Italian Renaissance, wrote in the 16th century that the face of one of the soldiers in brown uniform seen asleep at Christ’s tomb was, in fact, a self-portrait of Piero. Others dispute this, declaring the very reticence of the artist’s approach make this conclusion unlikely.
For more than 20 years in the second half of the 15th century, Piero received many commissions from both the Duke of Urbino and the Medici family, then the most prominent of Italy’s patrons of the arts. One of the first works he completed, The Flagellation of Christ (c1455), was somewhat controversial, and not merely because Jesus is pictured being whipped in the background, as though a mere bit-part in the proceedings.
In the right foreground, three enigmatic gentlemen stand chatting, ignoring the torture taking place just behind them. Some art historians have suggested they are figures from the Passion of Christ, while others assert this would be highly implausible, because they are unidentifiable as any particular biblical characters.
However, they bear no resemblance to representations of prominent people seen in other pictures of the day. All that is certain is that the painting is resoundingly beautiful as well as arresting, one of the highest pinnacles ever achieved throughout the Renaissance.
In reality, at the time of his death in 1492, Piero was better known for his writing on geometric theory than for his art. Many of his frescoes were painted over to make way for more highly regarded artists. Even by 1520, Pope Julius II ordered the removal of Piero’s frescoes in the Vatican to create room for new work by Raphael. Similar losses of the artist’s unsung work took place in Perugia, Florence, Ferrara, Ancona, Loreto and Pesaro.
This is probably the single greatest loss to the history of art. Arezzo houses the only complete Piero della Francesca cycle to survive, The Legend of the True Cross. It renders a narrative history of the world, taking the viewer from the Garden of Eden, through the birth of Christ and his crucifixion, to the victory of Constantine over the pagans and the rediscovery of the True Cross.
Astonishingly, in the Dream of Constantine scene, Piero depicted the first starry night sky in Western painting, with scientifically accurate positions of the constellations. It may have taken centuries, but Piero’s emphatic genius was eventually grasped, placing him in his rightful place alongside mankind’s most outstanding artistic giants.
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