A PAINTING BY PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA - AN ANNUNCIATION NOT TO BE MISSED

Well Easter is almost upon us again and March 25th, as well as being Good Friday, also happens to be the Feast of the Annunciation - the day the Angel Gabriel visited Mary and gave her the news she would bear a son through the intervention of the holy spirit. During my visits to art galleries in Britain and abroad over the years I've come across many Annunciation paintings, many of them commissioned to originally adorn the walls of monasteries and churches in the late medieval and Renaissance periods. Carlo Crivelli's huge and impressive painting in London's National Gallery comes to mind and when I visit I always search it out. It's attention to detail and mastery of mathematical perspective is always a marvel to me and I love the way it deals with a second subject connected to the life of St Emidius. It's rich in symbolism too.

Carlo Crivelli - The Annunciation - National Gallery London 

Fra Angelico's tranquil and simple Annunciation scene in a painting displayed in the quiet monastery corridors of San Marco, Florence, is another favourite and I can recall its detail now sitting at my desk.

Fra Angelico - Annunication - Monastery of San Marco, Florence

The one I want to tell you about today though is special to me and part of its subject just happens to be one of my favourite fridge magnets; its shown below. I saw the painting and bought the magnet almost three years ago just after we'd bought our apartment in Umbria and made our first visit to the historic city of Perugia just 50km away from Citta della Pieve. Until that time I'd always associated the city with the terrible, violent murder of English student Meredith Kircher and the trial of her house mates Amanda Fox and Rafaello Sollecito - not exactly a subject I like to recall often and its a legacy Perugia doesn't deserve. But then we went to the city and it was a revelation, Not only does it have a spectacular hill top "centro historico" with splendid views over the surrounding countryside, it also has a wonderful cathedral and special civic buildings too. During that first trip we visited the National Gallery of Umbria in the Palazzo dei Priori just off the main piazza and it was a sublime experience. The art collection is a fine one and includes works of the Umbrian School of painting as well as pictures related to commissions undertaken for city churches and other buildings during the Renaissance. It's a must see stop off if you visit the city.

My Annunication Fridge Magent from the National
Gallery of Umbrian Art - Perugia

This is the fridge magnet I mentioned above and it shows a detail from the larger painting in the Perugia Art Gallery. A kneeling Angel Gabriel in one of the most wonderful pale blue robes kneels before the Virgin Mary who we can't see. Behind him is a beautiful receding columned arcade.

The Annunciation scene is part of a polyptych painted by the renowned Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca. It was commissioned and produced as an altarpiece for the convent in Perugia known as Sant Antonio delle Monache - the Convent of St Anthony - and it remained there until 1810. Following Napoleon's invasion of Italy and his purging of religous institutions it was transferred to a picture gallery in the city.

The overall composition of the polyptych, as its seen now, was described by Vasari in the 16th century. In the centre the Madonna and Child is flanked by St Anthony of Padua and St John the Evangelist on the left and by St Elisabeth and St Francis on the right. Underneath there are, unusually, two predellas (strips of paintings), the upper one featuring St Clare and St Agatha and in the bottom one three miracle scenes including St Anthony bringing a boy back to life and another showing St Elisabeth saving a boy from a well. A further one shows the stigmata of St Francis.

THE ST ANTHONY POLYPTYCH - PERUGIA ART GALLERY
BEFORE 1468

The Annunciation scene is at the top of the polyptych and has a stepped outline. It looks different to the rest of the art work and its shape and the fact that its stylistically at variance with the rest would suggest it was added later - its shape determined by the space available in the place wihere the altarpiece was displayed in the convent. Restoration work carried out on the painting in the 1990's supported the theory that it's a later addition to the main work.

THE ANNUNCIATION SECTION OF THE ST ANTHONY POLYPTYCH
by PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA

The Angel Gabriel and the Virgin are placed in the foreground of the painting close to the picture plane. Between them is the illusory colonnade which gives the painting great depth - the depth also suggested by the red and white pavement. Its a beautifully painted picture and it creates in the viewer a feeling of serenity and peace.

Piero della Francesca (1415-1492) is one of my favourite Renaissance painters and I first came across his work at the National Gallery in London where his - Baptism of Christ in the Sainsbury Wing always draws large crowds.

Self-Portrait of Piero della Francesco as it appears
in his painting "The Resurrection"

He was born in a village called Sansepolcro in the Tiber valley, the son of a tanner, somewhere around 1415, but relatively little is known about his life. He seems to have led a quiet, provincial existence, though he probably studied under Veneziano in Perugia, in the late 1430's. He's not recorded though as belonging to any particular workshop. Most of his painting career appears to have been spent in his home town of Sansepolcro and in the Tuscan town of Arezzo- but he also did some freelance work in Rome, Ferrara and Urbino. Perugia was on the main route from Sanseplcro to Rome and an important centre of culture in the 15th century. As an accomplished artist it would have been appropriate for him to pick up a commission here. The St Anthony polyptych is a mature work in terms of his career.

As well as becoming an artist, however, Piero was a master geometrician producing a learned treatise on the rules of perspective. It's this combination of skills and insights which create his unique, alluring style. His paintings are underpinned by precisely worked out geometrical compositions which focus on horizontal and vertical lines, circles and triangles all arranged in a balanced and harmonious whole. The use of a clearly defined vanishing point in the centre of this composition (its right in the centre of blank arch at the end of the arcade) with all the orthogonal lines leading to it creates an impression of great depth behind the angel and the virgin. Careful use of light and dark colouring (the blue of the angel's robe I find just gorgeous) help create the peacful, tranquil atmosphere which exudes from the picture. Only the white dove surrounded by a golden shower representing the holy spirit is suggestive of movment in this momentous scene as it flutters towards the body of the virgin Mary.

I look at my little fridge magnet every day - but it's been a pleasure to have had the opportunity to consider the entire work again at this significant time of year in the Christian calendar. I hope you will enjoy it too. 

PLEASE CONSIDER SIGNING UP TO BECOME A REGULAR READER - THERE ARE GETTING ON FOR A HUNDRED POSTS HERE WRITTEN OVER SEVERAL YEARS - CHEERS. IAN

SAYING HELLO TO DAVID - MICHELANGELO'S MOST FAMOUS SCULPTURE

I'm sitting here in my Lincolnshire study thinking about a talk I'm preparing for a trip to the States at the end of the month, but I've suddently become distracted by a tiny 3 inches by 3 inches fridge magnet calendar I bought in Florence last year. I have it fastened to the side of the filing cabinet which adjoins my desk. The image for the month of March is of the famous Michelangelo statue of David and its an iconic and alluring work I've been meaning to blog about for ages.

Only a few weeks ago, when Jon and I were in Florence, we'd renewed out acquaintance with it and said "hello" to David as we saw him on his pedestal outside the main entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio.

THE "DAVID" STATUE OUTSIDE THE PALAZZO DELLA SIGNORIA, FLORENCE

I first came across David in another context years ago at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London long before I'd become seriously interested in the history of art. Strolling along one of the ground floor corridors, not really knowing much about what I was looking at, I came across an entrance to a huge galleried room and from my viewpoint all I could see was what looked like a massive 14 foot tall marble statue of a handsome and nude young man. Curious to discover more (who could resist such a challenge?) I ventured in to explore this amazing and colossal work of art.

VICTORIAN PLASTER CAST OF MICHELANGELO'S "DAVID"
IN THE CAST COURTS AT THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM IN LONDON

There's something about sculpture which draws me to it like no other art form and I think it must be its three dimensionality - enabling as it does viewings from multiple angles. Today, be it a Henry Moore a Tingueley or a Michelangelo - I'm always enthralled and as I think back to that day at the V and A - I realize the viewing of David was a singular step in my growing attraction for Renaissance art.Years later I would find myself taking student groups to see it and we would sit on fold-up stools surrounding the sculpture and have the most engaging and wonderful discussions about what was in front of us and how it was to be interpreted and what people were experiencing as they looked at it. I can remember some of these sessions as if they took place yesterday and I've just thought of the fact that during one of them a young Prince William joined our viewing briefly whilst on a tour of the gallery with his art tutor from Eton College. I can hear you saying, however, "but David's in Florence" and indeed he is. The sculpture at the V and A is one of hundreds of accurately copied plaster casts of world famous works of art that were commissioned and collected by the museum in the second half of the 19th century and displayed in these Cast Courts to help students study and educate themselves about sculpture.  When you think about it this was a progressive and forward looking initiative for those unable to visit the sites where the originals were. Today these cast courts are gems of the museum and worthy of a visit at any time of year. The room where the David can be found has been recently restored to its original decorative scheme and the David statue has also been cleaned as can be seen in the illustration below.

CLEANING THE "DAVID" PLASTER CAST AT THE V & A

In the Spring of 1501 the 26 year old Michelangelo Buonarotti was working away from his native Florence in Rome when he received a message from friends to return to his home city to try for an important sculpture commission. A huge block of fine Carrara marble, which had been standing in the yard of the Office of Works of the cathedral for 40 years, was to be offered to an artist for an important sculpture commission to produce a statue that would stand high up on one of the Duomo's buttresses. The piece of marble was one Michelangelo had had his eye on for a while and it presented many challenges. The block had been quarried at Carrara near Pisa in about 1460 and taken to Florence and abandoned. One of the biggest challenges for an artist in 1501 was to sculpt a block which had first been used by another sculptor. The artist Antonio Rossellino, assistant to Donatello, had attempted the first blocking out stages of a figure of Hercules in the 1460's, made mistakes and then lacked the skills to put them right. The young Michelangelo was attracted to solving this problem as well as being drawn by the opportunity to produce a giant statue that would be seen by everyone in Florence, locals and visitors alike. In his home city the chance of improving his own and his family's good name was irresistable.

Michelangelo took the comission and agreed to complete the statue in two years and for the sum of 6 gold florins a month. The subject was to be a traditional Old Testamont one - the story of David, slayer of the Philestine giant Goliath. Within a month he'd completed the modellos for the piece and was ready to start work on the block. A secretive artist he ordered the block to be completely covered with a wooden screen and he would soon be working hard with hammer and chisel commenting "my task is to remove everything that is not David" - an insightful way of expressing how the sculpture was to be created. This technique of removing material from wood or stone by a carving process to reveal the sculpture is an awesome task. Once material has been removed it can't be replaced. To produce something like the David is mind boggling in its complexity of creativity and execution - particularly when the block was flawed to begin with. In reality - it would take almost twice as long to produce, despite the artist toiling ceaselessly day after day on the project. He was soon to discover that the great marble block was flawed in another way - in what was to be the area of David's legs, the marble was streaked with veins making the potential for breakage huge. What a daunting task!

The statue was virtually finished by the sumer of 1504 and what emerged from behind the screens was a 14 foot tall nude male Greek god like figure of David, the maximum height he could get out of the block. It had no drapery, an exaggerated head and huge hands. The artist was compensating for the fact people would view it high up on the parapet of the Duomo. First persion to see it was the Florentine Gonfalonier - Pier Soderini - who according to Vasari writing about the incident in 1568 - is noted as saying to the artist that David's nose was too thick. At least he wasn't commenting on another part of the statue's anatomy! Michelangelo is said to have climbed the scaffolding surrounding the statue, grabbing his chisel on the way and also collecting a handful of dust from one of the scaffold planks. When he reached the head level he struck the chisel on a piece of marble and allowed dust to fall through the scaffolding to the floor - in fact he hadn't touched the statue at all.
When he climbed down to the ground Soderini is noted to have said to Michelangelo."You have given it life!"

So impressed were the commissioners with the statue that the decision was soon taken not to place it high on the duomo and a committee was formed to consider other suitable sites. After much debate and disagreement, the decision was taken to place it on a pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio - the civic headquarters of Florence in the Piazza della Signoria. The statue was to be moved to its new place starting on the 14th May 1504 but even before the delicate operation began an incident occurred which shocked Michelangelo and the commissioners. Youths threw stones at the statue in the evening when it was  dark. Were they objecting to the statue's nudity or to its potential political symbolism? Nobody seems to have known. It took 4 days and 40 men to move the statue to the civic square. Finally, after great difficulty, it was hoisted on to its new pedestal on the 8th June and officially unveiled to the public on the 8th September 1504.

Such a huge and monumental classical statue had not been seen in Europe since antiquity. Many considered Michelangelo had achieved the impossible, producing such a magnficent and grandiose unique sculpture which would become the very symbol of the city itself. When I've taken students to see the David reproduction statue in London I've always tried to draw out of them what they see as being most important about what Michelangelo achieved when he created this beautiful object.

The artist, always more of a sculptor than a painter, had made the statue in the image of a beautiful Greek God and interpreted David as an "ideal" man embodying all the attributes of the finest specimens of the type. Yet at the same time David is represented as an individual and a man of the moment. Other earlier statues of David, the one undertaken by Donatello for example, show him victorious over his opponent, his foot on Goliath's head. Here the deed has not yet been committed and David is only moments away from firing his shot off against his opponent. Michelangelo's intimate knowledge of anatomy, gained by meticulous study and dissection of human bodies, show not only his ability to represent the male body accurately, but also to show the behaviour of muscles in tension as David gets ready to use his sling. Notice the tension in the huge hand hanging next to his leg. Similarly, if one looks at the head of David - the psychological angst is also evident; his expression is full of apprehension.

The subject of "David" was highly significant in relation to commission. In the Old Testament David had fought for the freedom of his people - an underling against a great giant of an opponent, but he came out victor. The message is clear - Florence is not to underestimated or messed with by its potential enemies or the consequences could be dire. David was the symbol of Florence's freedom and strength.

DAVID IN FLORENCE'S ACCADEMIA GALLERY

Michelangelo returned to Rome to work in 1505 and David remained on his pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio all the way through to 30th July 1873. Following the Unification of Italy the decision was taken, for conservation reasons, to remove the original to Galleria dell Accademia and he arrived there on August 8th of that year. He was placed in a dedicated space in the Tribune Gallery and has remained there ever since, undergoing a major cleaning and restoration in 2004. A reproduction of the original was produced and placed on the original pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio and a rather pathetic bronze facsimile was also erected in the Piazza Michelangelo high above the city. David remains one of the most popular tourist attractions in Florence and every year thousands flock to see him in the Galleria. Some days the queues wind all the way round the block.

Oh - and two final things. When a visit to the Cast Courts at the South Kensington Museum was proposed for Queen Victoria the powers that be decreed that she might be offended by David's nudity. A specially designed plaster fig leaf was produced to cover the statue's modesty and there is still a hook for this at the rear of the statue above his bottom. It is shown below. The other point is amusing. So iconic has the David become in modern society that it has been used for all sorts of paraphernalia. I've seen table lamps sculpted from plastic of the David's head with different coloured light bulbs inside, fridge magnets of David with assortments of 'cool' clothes to dress him in and adverts like the one below for designer underpants. Is this a travesty? - I don't know the answer to that question - you can make your own minde up about that one!!

Ciao & KBO
Ian