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St. Mary Magdalene - Duccio di Buoninsegna. Reproduction painting
Reproduction painting - Medieval art shop.
Reproduction of the painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna.
St. Mary Magdalene by Duccio di Buoninsegna, Reproduction of art, The Medieval Byzantine Icons.
Together with Florence, Siena was the chief economic, political, and cultural center of Tuscany in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Although only in 1559 did Siena become part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany under the rule of the Medici, its heyday was unquestionably two centuries earlier, between 1287 and 1355, when the independent commune was ruled by nine magistrates (referred to as the nove) drawn from a restricted oligarchy. During this time of peace and prosperity—interrupted by the devastating plague of 1348 that reduced the population by more than half—the city allied itself with the papal party of the Guelphs and had contacts with the Angevin dynasty in France and Naples. These political ties help explain the pronouncedly Gothic character of so much Sienese architecture and the fluent elegance of its paintings.
No other city outside Florence produced a comparably great school of painting, culminating in the figures of Duccio di Buoninsegna (active by 1278, died 1318), Simone Martini (active by 1315, died 1344), and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti (active 1320–44, 1319–47, respectively). Duccio may be considered the father of Sienese painting and is, together with Giotto, one of the founders of Western art. His paintings introduce a lyrical note and a refined sense of color into European painting, and he was an usurpassed story teller, or narrative artist. Although his early work shows a profound debt to Byzantine precedent, after about 1295 or 1300—the date of a Madonna and Child in the Metropolitan (2004.442)—his paintings show an increasing interest in space and an exploration of human emotions. The enormous altarpiece he painted for the cathedral of Siena—the Maestà—is one of the landmarks of European painting. On the front it shows the Madonna and Child enthroned with saints and angels, while on the reverse (facing the choir, where the clergy sat during services) were more than fifty scenes of the life of Christ, incorporating urban views, landscapes, and interior settings of astonishing invention. (The altarpiece was cut apart in the eighteenth century and partly dispersed; one scene is in the Frick Collection, New York.) Just as Giotto's frescoes in the Arena Chapel, Padua, and in the Church of Santa Croce, Florence, forecast Florentine painting for the next two centuries, so Duccio's Maestà became a reference point for all Sienese artists. In it, two strands of European art come together: the otherworldly, sacred art of the Middle Ages, and the human-oriented art of the early Renaissance.
Simone Martini developed the lyrical vein in Duccio's art. An artist of incomparable refinement and descriptive abilities, he became one of the most sought-after painters of the day, dying at the papal court in Avignon, France, and famously praised by the great poet Petrarch. The richly tooled surfaces of his paintings and their elegant naturalism became the basis of courtly art from Paris to Prague—the so-called International Gothic style (41.100.23). Simone's brother-in-law, Lippo Memmi (active by 1317, died 1356), sometimes collaborated with him and was an artist of almost equal caliber (43.98.6). Each had a brother (Donato Martini and Federigo Memmi) who also painted and scholars have not yet agreed on assigning various works of outstanding quality to them. Of these, by far the most important is a fresco cycle in the Collegiata of San Gimignano.
Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti stand somewhat apart from this Duccesque tradition, though Pietro (2002.436) almost certainly worked on the Maestà. Their emphasis on deep and complex spatial settings and three-dimensional figure construction derived from their close study of the work of Giotto (11.126.1). Each excelled as a fresco painter. However, like Duccio and Simone Martini, they had a native feeling for rich color harmonies, and their work shows a precocious interest in genre-like details. The deeply expressive character of their art unquestionably reflects the sculpture of Giovanni Pisano, who was active in Siena from 1284 (his last record of payment there was in 1314). Ambrogio Lorenzetti's paintings are perhaps the first in Europe to employ a single-point perspective. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Sienese painters looked increasingly to Florence for inspiration, but outstanding artists such as Sassetta (43.98.1), Giovanni di Paolo (1975.1.31; 06.1046; 1975.1.37), Neroccio de' Landi (61.43), Matteo di Giovanni, and Beccafumi maintained the great tradition established by their fourteenth-century forebears.
Original: Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, inv. 47
Author: Duccio di Buoninsegna
Measures: 32x24 cm - Table of poplar
Technique: Tempera and gold on a wooden panel
Notes: Copy of the original work. In the earlier years of the 13th century Guido da Siena, despite his great obscurity, is regarded as sharing with Coppo di Marcovaldo the honour of founding the Sienese School. The real founder, however, of the Sienese school was Duccio di Buoninsegna. In his work the grace and humanity and the power of emotional expression of the figures dominated the hieratic style of the Byzantine tradition. His masterpiece - and the only work which can be attributed to him with certainty - is the great altarpiece of the Maestà (1308-1311), painted for Siena cathedral and now in the Opera del Duomo, Siena (parts of it are also in the National Gallery, London, the Frick Collection, New York, and the National Gallery, Washington). The Rucellai Madonna, formerly attributed to Cimabue but now considered Duccio's work, shows Florentine influence. (See a detailed description of Duccio's art in Tour 8b.)
In the 14th century Siena, a Ghibelline stronghold having close ties with Naples, Milan and France (Avignon), became a centre of the refined, intellectual, courtly trend of which the art of Simone Martini (c. 1284-1344) is a typical example. Simone's first work was the Maestà in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena (1315). His equestrian portrait of Guidoriccio da Fogliano 1328 recalls the epic poems of chivalry. Between 1320 and 1330 he painted frescoes in the chapel of St Martin in the lower church of S. Francesco at Assisi; in Naples he painted St Louis of Toulouse Crowning Robert of Anjou (1317); in 1339 he went to Avignon where he died in 1344. His finest work is perhaps the Annunciation in the Uffizi, Florence (1333). His last works, such as the Orsini Polyptych in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, were more dramatic and emotional and had an even more refined linearity. His chief follower was Lippo Memmi (active by 1317; d. c. 1356). (See a detailed description of Simone's art in Tour 8c.)
Pietro Lorenzetti (d. 1348) and more particularly his brother Ambrogio Lorenzetti (d. 1348) brought Giotto's influence to Sienese painting. Many of Pietro's powerful paintings show the influence of Duccio and of Simone Martini, for example: altarpiece in the church of Sta Maria della Pieve, Arezzo (1320); Carmelite Altarpiece (1329, Pinacoteca, Siena); Birth of the Virgin (1342, Opera del Duomo, Siena). While working on the frescoes in the Lower Church at Assisi he came under the influence of Giotto. Ambrogio Lorenzetti's best works are his frescoes of the Effects of Good and Bad Government (1337-1339, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena), which represent the zenith of naturalism in 14th-century Italian painting. (See a detailed description of the Lorenzetti's art in Tour #8d.) The last notable 14th-century Sienese painter was Barna da Siena (active middle of the 14th century).
In the 15th century the school of Siena, which had fallen behind, was faithful to its past: awareness of new trends, but used for non-realistic ends. The two leading painters were Sassetta (1392-1450) and Giovanni di Paolo (1403-1483). Sassetta's first known work is the now dissembled Altar of the Eucharist (1423), his most important work being the St Francis Altarpiece painted for Borgo S. Sepolcro (1437-1444) and now dispersed. The main works of Giovanni di Paolo are the panels of the life of John the Baptist (also dispersed). Matteo di Giovanni (1435-1495) and Francesco di Giorgio (1439-1501), architect, sculptor and painter, were more affected by Florentine influences.
In the 16th century Raphael's followers included Sienese artists, by birth or adoption: the decorator Baldassare Peruzzi and his friend Bazzi, known as Il Sodoma (d. 1549), who was also influenced by Leonardo. The most important Mannerist painter in Siena was Domenico Beccafumi (1485-1551); he had a highly personal style with intensity of emotion and use of shot colour as seen in the Birth of the Virgin, (Siena).
The decline of Sienese painting from the second half of the 14th century is so splendidly described by Bernard Berenson in his essay The Central Italian Painters (first published in 1897) that it is worth to quote it in its entirety.
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