This is one that I’m recommending to everyone as it’s simply glorious, the type of show the National Gallery is so good at presenting.
Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350, brings together works by artists (including Duccio, Simone Martini and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti) from 14th Century Siena, Italy. It shows their importance within the Western art canon and includes international factors that influenced them.
Simone Martini‘s portraits of saints and the Virgin Mary have fine rendering of expression and detail.
Many alterpieces were dismantled over time with their sections sold separately, but Pietro Lorenzetti’s Pieve Polyptych gives us some idea of how these multi-tiered works would have looked.
At this time art was created for public worship and private contemplation; the intimacy of the smaller paintings are particularly lovely as they can almost be held in one’s hand.
The techniques of stamping and scratching gold were distinctly Siennese; you can see the influence on other works such as the Wilton Diptych, painted later in England.
Minutely detailed fabrics were recreated by paint laid over gold leaf then scratched off. The patterns came from imported textiles, evidence of extensive international trade.
Look at the trees. Did some of these techniques influence Mughal paintings several hundred years later? That’s an area worth exploring.
The show has many beautiful works, another of which is this small folding four-panelled piece, again by Simone Martini. All four panels have been reunited for the first time in many years.
