In this compelling composition Cristoforo Scacco uses traditional iconography to highlight God the Father’s creativity and sovereignty.
Tag Archives: Renaissance
In this rare painting by the artist, Colijn de Coter creates an exquisite, powerful image to highlight the wonder of the gospel.
Visit HERE for the next video to consider what is Just, referencing Christ’s life.
This is the only signed picture by this early Italian master. It also includes 55 faces!
Following Titian’s death in 1576, Tintoretto became the leading artist in Venice.
Narratives from the Early Life of Christ
Wool tapestry
Franco-Flemish, c. 1480
In Western church tradition, celebrating the twelve days of Christmas begins December 25 and culminates on January 6 with the Feast of Epiphany on Twelfth Night. According to The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine (Archbishop of Genoa in 1275), this day commemorates four special events in the life of Christ: the adoration of the Magi, and later the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist, the miracle at Cana of the water turned into wine, and the miracle of feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fish.
Scripture is unclear about the dates of these four events; however, chapter two of Matthew’s Gospel recounts that the wise men from the East came not thirteen days after Christ’s birth, but some two years. The Magi followed the star to Roman-occupied Jerusalem, where they visited King Herod hoping to learn of the promised Messiah’s birth. Unaware and troubled by the news, Herod assembled the chief priests and scribes to discover Christ’s birthplace, which was cited by the prophet Micah as Bethlehem in the land of Judah. Herod directed the noble travelers and requested they return to let him know where the young king was so that he too could worship.
The Magi found and worshipped the Christ child and offered Him three generous gifts, but they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod and departed a different way. Joseph too was advised by an angel to flee to Egypt to protect Jesus from Herod’s murderous jealousy—his massacre of innocent male children two years and younger.
Possibly handcrafted by a guild weaver in Tournai, France in 1480, M&G’s tapestry is roughly 4.5 feet high by 11 feet long. It tells a visual narrative of three scenes following the Magi’s remarkable visit: Herod ordering the murder of the children, the massacre of the innocents, and the family’s flight to Egypt.
Tapestries have a long history dating back to Egyptian and Roman times. However, from the Middle Ages up to the French Revolution, weaving flourished in France and Flanders as an outgrowth of interest from both the church and wealthy nobility. Tapestries were once functional, beautiful, and personal—full of purpose and reflecting the beliefs, skill, economics, and status of the times.
In the 15th century, tapestries often focused on heroes, particularly the Nine Heroes of pagan history (Hector, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar), Jewish history (Joshua, David and Judas Maccabeus), and Christian history (King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey de Bouillon). However, in this age of chivalry there was a parallel focus on nine heroines including the “greatest lady of them all,” Christ’s mother Mary. M&G’s Narratives from the Early Life of Christ is one of a series of six tapestries depicting the life of the virgin. In 1499 Leon Conseil, who was Chancellor of the Cathedral of Bayeux, cannon of Arry, and secretary of the bishops of Bayeux (Louis de Canossa and vicar general of Cardinal de Prie) gave the tapestry series and a pension for their care to the Cathedral of Bayeux—a church dedicated to Mary and one of France’s greatest and most notable cathedrals.
Phyllis Ackerman in Tapestry, the Mirror of Civilization explains the import and placement of such a gift, “The feudal devotion to a patron was equally practiced by the towns, for each had its patron saint to whom the Cathedral or finest church was usually dedicated, and just as a knight would trace his descent to his hero, so a city often attributed, if not its foundation, at least important moments in its early history to its saint. The lives of these saints were rendered into tapestry to decorate the church, usually on long, horizontal bands to hang around the choir.”
According to the 1901 Normandy Annals, M&G’s tapestry survived the French Revolution and still remained with the Cathedral (hanging in the library) until the city of Bayeux determined to deaccess it. It then passed through multiple collectors including John Pierpont Morgan, Georges Hoentschel, Clarence H. Mackay, and French & Co. before joining M&G’s collection in 1960.
Erin R. Jones, Executive Director
Published 2022
If Raphael’s paintings reflect the philosophic concepts and artistic tastes that shaped the time, Leonardo’s life and work highlight technical innovations that would take western art to a whole new level.
Prie Dieux
Walnut
16th century, Italian
When one thinks of prayer, furniture is not usually the first thing to come to mind. In Matthew 6:5-6, Christ encouraged making requests in prayer privately, rather than praying to be noticed publicly. However, a common piece of furniture constructed for the purpose of prayer was manufactured during the Renaissance and is still being made today. It is known as a prie-dieu, derived from French for “praying to God.” This special furnishing serves the same purpose as a prayer desk and a prayer chair.
M&G currently has two prie-dieux in its collection. These may have been used in a church, cathedral, or even a home. As a common piece of liturgical furniture in the Roman Catholic Church, they are still in use for worship, weddings, and funerals. When President Kennedy was lying in state, prie-dieux were in the same room.
Both of M&G’s Prie Dieux are from Italy, dating to the early Renaissance in the late 15th to mid-16th centuries. Ornately carved walnut adds to the richness of their finish. One has a hinged kneeler with a raised panel door in the middle and a small drawer at the top. The other’s “lectern top” sits on “two powerful scroll consoles edged with gouge carving in a scale effect; the base terminates in small posts with pine-cone finials.” However, “the most striking feature is the festoon suspended from the top” with “fruit-and-leaf forms enclosing a winged angel head.”
Additionally, two paintings in M&G’s collection include prie-dieux. Both pictures highlight the importance of the Annunciation. The archangel Gabriel came to Mary to inform her that she had found grace in the sight of God. She would be privileged to bear the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus Christ. Christ Himself would become the only means of access to God the Father—through prayer. As explained in I Timothy 2:5-6, this direct access was accomplished through His passion and resurrection, which is symbolized by an open door on the prie-dieu. Fellowship with God in heaven is available to all people.
St. Gabriel the Archangel and The Virgin Annunciate by Venetian Reniassance painter, Francesco Montemezzano, were formerly one complete canvas (with one other M&G painting of God the Father depicted with a group of angels). These works were separated into three sections, which are all in M&G’s collection. The artist depicts Mary kneeling at her prie-dieu as she converses with Gabriel, who is seen on the opposite canvas.
The Altar Wings with Scenes from the Birth of Christ was created by an unknown Netherlandish artist. These wood panel paintings were completed during the same century as the Montemezzano canvases—roughly mid to late 1500s. Once the hinged doors of a larger altarpiece, these special panels hid the interior artistic scenes, which would be opened for special services or events. The interior paintings were in vivid color; however, the exterior doors like these were usually painted in gray tones, known as grisaille. This technique suggested a sculptural effect. Gabriel the archangel is positioned on the left panel facing Mary on the right. Mary is depicted with a lily (symbolic of her purity and Christ’s future resurrection) and a prie-dieu (on the far-right edge).
Prie-dieux are found in museum collections around the world—both as furniture and within the pictorial settings of Old Master paintings. London’s Victoria and Albert Museum has a prie-dieu closely resembling one of M&G’s. The National Gallery’s Venetian Annunciation depicts Mary sitting at a prie-dieu.
Prayer is more often discussed than practiced. Fortunately, the opportunity exists for not only God’s children to approach their Heavenly Father, but anyone seeking His help—with or without a prie-dieu.
John Good, Security Manager
Published 2021
Further Resources:
Aronson, Joseph, Furniture in the Bob Jones University Collection
Hiebert, D. Edmond, Working With God Through Prayer
At the dawn of the 16th century Mannerism was gaining in popularity. Even noted Renaissance painters like Raphael began to mirror the style, but it was the Sienese painter Giovanni Antonio Bazzi who would push the mannerist vision even further.
The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon
Oil on Canvas
Jacopo Robusti, called Il Tintoretto
Venetian, 1519-1594
Allegory of Wisdom
Oil on Canvas
Marietta Robusti, called La Tintoretta
Venetian, c. 1554- c.1590
Jacopo Robusti, better known by his nickname, Il Tintoretto, was one of the most sought after and prolific painters in sixteenth-century Venice. He never lacked for commissions throughout his life and produced some of the city’s most famous canvases. The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon from the Museum & Gallery collection is one of his early works.
Jacopo’s success was in part due to his bustling family workshop which included two of his sons and Marietta his daughter, painter of M&G’s Allegory of Wisdom. In an article on Marietta, Louise Arizzoli points out that “Our reading of Renaissance masters as individual geniuses that started with Vasari’s Lives, sheds a negative light on those collaborators who remained in the shadow of the leading artist. These family workshops have however to be understood as teamwork, in which every member had specific responsibilities in order to ensure the quality of the commissions. Therefore, it is particularly difficult for us now to recognize individualities, as it was not the aim of the workshop to enhance individual style but to produce a certain style—that of Tintoretto” [Italics added]. This is one reason that apart from a small number of religious paintings and the Self-Portrait above (now in the Uffizi) few works are definitively assigned to Marietta. In addition, her talents were a close match to her father’s. This is especially evident in the figural details and similarities of brushwork and coloration in the two M&G works showcased.
These mysteries of attribution are not only on-going but truly fascinating. For example, many scholars believe that several of Marietta’s works may simply have been incorporated into her father’s oeuvre. For example, Old Man and a Boy (Kunsthistorisches Museum) was considered one of Jacopo’s best portraits, but in 1920 Duncan Bull, a curator at the Rijksmuseum, reassigned the attribution to Marietta on the basis of the ‘M’ signature discovered on the work. (The ‘M’ is in the lower right of canvas beside the chair arm.) However, there are still scholars reluctant to accept this re-attribution.
Two other important biographers detailing Tintoretto’s (and by extension Marietta’s) career are Raffaele Borghini (1537-1588) and Carlo Ridolfi (1594-1658). Both writers note that Marietta was not only exceptionally talented but also her father’s favorite. In his Le Maraviglie dell’Arte Ridolfi writes:
Marietta Tintoretto, then, lived in Venice, the daughter of the famous Tintoretto and the dearest delight of his soul. He trained her in design and color, whence later she painted such works that men were amazed by her lively talent. Being small of stature she dressed like a boy. Her father took her with him wherever he went and everyone thought she was a lad. She made a portrait of Jacopo Strada, the antiquarian of Emperor Maximilian, who presented it to his majesty as a rare work, whence the emperor, charmed by her valor, made enquiries about her of her father. Philip II, the King of Spain, and Archduke Ferdinand also asked him about her. However, Tintoretto was satisfied to see her married to Mario [Marco] Augusta, a jeweler, so that she might always be nearby, rather than be deprived of her, even though she might be favored by princes, as he loved her tenderly […] When she died her father wept bitterly, taking it as the loss of a part of his own inner being.
Marietta died four years before her father around 1590. The exact cause of her death is uncertain, but many believe she died in childbirth. Regardless, Ridolfi’s account of the close personal and professional relationship between the two would blur “into the myth of a young and talented woman painter who died too soon, leaving her father heart-broken.” We do know that Jacopo’s output began to fall off after his daughter’s death—whether because of grief or because of the loss of collaborative talent cannot be known. In any case, she would eventually become a muse for 19th century painters. Léon Cogniet’s Tintoretto Painting his Dead Daughter is perhaps the most famous among these Romantic paintings.
Donnalynn Hess, Director of Education
Published in 2021
Paris Bordone studied for a time under Titian, the greatest Venetian artist of the 16th century. Although forced to leave this great master’s studio, Bordone went on to excel in portraiture, large-scale architectural settings, and cabinet paintings.
