Birth of the Virgin (Pietro Lorenzetti)
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| Birth of the Virgin |
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| Pietro Lorenzetti , 1335 - 1342 |
| Tempera on wood |
| 182 × 187 cm |
| Museo dell'Opera del Duomo , Siena |
The Birth of the Virgin is a tempera painting on wood (187 × 182 cm) by Pietro Lorenzetti , dated from 1335 to 1342 and preserved in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Siena . It is the artist's last documented work.
history
The panel, painted in the artist's late phase, was part of a cycle of panels on the Stories of Mary for the altars of the Duomo of Siena , commissioned between the thirties and forties of the 14th century and the altar of San Savino decorated. This cycle also includes the Annunciation by Simone Martini and the presentation of Jesus in the temple by Ambrogio Lorenzetti , Pietro's brother.
The altarpiece was commissioned in 1335, but only delivered in 1342 after it was signed.
At this time, Pietro seems to be influenced by the style of the younger Ambrogio, who dissolves the monumentality of Giotto's school and pays more attention to reality and light.
Description and style
The work is a triptych , but the story is staged in an extraordinarily original way for this period, as if it were a single uninterrupted scene taking place in a room covered by vaults with two pillars that are nothing but the edges of the delimitation of the three panels. The scene is divided into three illusionistically connected rooms, two of which belong to the main room and one to the left, where Joachim , the father of Mary, anxiously waits with an old man and a child. Here, the presence of an open arch and lunette allows us to look outside where there is an inner courtyard with colonnades in a beautiful Gothic palace.
The space is set up in perspective, with a precise system of orthogonal deep levels that use more angles and connect in a daring way. The right side in particular tends to open up in depth rather than to shrink, which corresponds to a "fan" effect, which allows more space for the side figures. Instead, the left part is characterized by a greater depth than the space in the middle. On the back wall there is an arch, behind which the arches and lattice windows of a courtyard plastered with delicate pink can be seen in a truly virtuoso manner.
However, the living area is not reduced to a cold architectural structure, on the contrary, the figures move relaxed and the details of the furniture and furnishings are very well thought out, from the floor tiles to the stars painted on the ribbed vault , from the embroidered towels to the decorations painted on the objects. Saint Anne lies in front of a white tent on a typical medieval box bed with white sheets and a plaid blanket, while two women help her and two others wash the girl in the foreground. A lady in red, cut in half by the artificial column, speaks to the reclining woman and holds a finely woven fan made of white and black straw in her hand .
The figures, isolated and well defined in volume thanks to the nuances of the lights on the colored cloths surrounding them, have the solemnity of Giotto's works, but the meticulous attention to detail and the daily atmosphere are more reminiscent of transalpine miniatures . According to Enzo Carli , Saint Anne recalls the Madonna della Natività by Arnolfo di Cambio from a lunette on the old facade of Santa Maria del Fiore : there is, however, undeniable a certain sculptural presence of the saint, which is reflected above all in their legs, through which the Dress is stretched elastic and creates folds in which the shadows sink in. Giotto is reminiscent of the natural figure of a servant in the foreground who pours water from a jug and is turned three quarters.
literature
- Pierluigi De Vecchi, Elda Cerchiari: I tempi dell'arte . tape 2 . Bompiani, Milan 1999 (Italian).
- Galleria degli Uffizi . In: I Grandi Musei del Mondo . Rome 2003 (Italian).
- Chiara Frugoni: Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti . In: Dal Gotico al Rinascimento . Scala, Florence 2003, p. 79 .
