Hercules is a fresco fragment by Piero della Francesca, his only known secular work and probably originally part of a cycle of mythological figures. [1] It dates to sometime after 1465 and is now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, which acquired it from Joseph Lindon Smith, who in turn bought it from the Florentine art dealer Elia Volpi. [2]
It was rediscovered during the second half of the 18th century in a room of the artist's family home on via delle Aggiunte in Sansepolcro. Removing it from the wall and transporting it caused some further damage. It passed onto the art market, passing through the hands of Florentine art dealer Elia Volpi before being acquired in 1903 by Isabella Stewart Gardner via Joseph Lindon Smith in 1903.
It depicts Hercules as a nude with a lion-skin, standing in front of a basin, holding a club and with his left hand on his hip and his legs in an asymmetric contraposto pose. Typical in Piero's work, this solemn, static, languid, and realistic pose has an innate sense of balance. The serious and thoughtful face looks out from the frame, whilst the throat is modeled anatomically on classical sculptures and the friezes with palmettes in the background on classical motifs. The clear light almost cancels out the shadows, without diminishing the volume and three-dimensionality of the body. These stylistic elements place the work close to the artist's True Cross frescoes in Arezzo, particularly that work's Death of Adam scene which includes a boy leaning on a club in a similar pose to that of Hercules.
Piero della Francesca was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and perspective. His most famous work is the cycle of frescoes The History of the True Cross in the church of San Francesco in the Tuscan town of Arezzo.
Antonio del Pollaiuolo, also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith, who made important works in all these media, as well as designing works in others, for example vestments, metal embroidery being a medium he worked in at the start of his career.
Piero del Pollaiuolo, whose birth name was Piero Benci, was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. His older brother, by about ten years, was the artist Antonio del Pollaiuolo and the two frequently worked together. Their work shows both classical influences and an interest in human anatomy; according to Vasari, the brothers carried out dissections to improve their knowledge of the subject.
Renaissance art is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature, music, science, and technology. Renaissance art took as its foundation the art of Classical antiquity, perceived as the noblest of ancient traditions, but transformed that tradition by absorbing recent developments in the art of Northern Europe and by applying contemporary scientific knowledge. Along with Renaissance humanist philosophy, it spread throughout Europe, affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities. For art historians, Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early Modern age.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was founded by Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose will called for her art collection to be permanently exhibited "for the education and enjoyment of the public forever."
Linear or point-projection perspective is one of two types of graphical projection perspective in the graphic arts; the other is parallel projection. Linear perspective is an approximate representation, generally on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. Perspective drawing is useful for representing a three-dimensional scene in a two-dimensional medium, like paper.
Bernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book The Drawings of the Florentine Painters was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large hand in some of the writings.
Sir Philip Anstiss Hendy was a British art curator who worked both in Britain and overseas, notably the United States.
The Portrait of Bindo Altoviti is a painting finished around 1515 by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. It is housed in the National Gallery of Art of Washington, D.C., United States.
Cosmê Tura, also known as Il Cosmè or Cosimo Tura, was an Italian early-Renaissance painter and considered one of the founders of the School of Ferrara.
The Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta is a painting attributed to the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca. It portrays the condottiero and lord of Rimini and Fano Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, and is housed in the Musée du Louvre of Paris.
Florentine painting or the Florentine School refers to artists in, from, or influenced by the naturalistic style developed in Florence in the 14th century, largely through the efforts of Giotto di Bondone, and in the 15th century the leading school of Western painting. Some of the best known painters of the earlier Florentine School are Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, the Ghirlandaio family, Masolino, and Masaccio.
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy, although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered the length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas.
This article about the development of themes in Italian Renaissance painting is an extension to the article Italian Renaissance painting, for which it provides additional pictures with commentary. The works encompassed are from Giotto in the early 14th century to Michelangelo's Last Judgement of the 1530s.
The image of La Madonna del Parto is a religious depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary as pregnant which was popularised in Tuscany, Italy during the 14th—century.
The Resurrection is a fresco painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, painted in the 1460s in the Palazzo della Residenza in the town of Sansepolcro, Tuscany, Italy.
Joseph Lindon Smith, was an American painter, best known for his extraordinarily faithful and lively representations of antiquities, especially Egyptian tomb reliefs. He was a founding member of the art colony at Dublin, New Hampshire.
The Last Supper (1445–1450) is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea del Castagno, located in the refectory of the convent of Sant'Apollonia, now the Museo di Cenacolo di Sant'Apollonia, and accessed through a door on Via Ventisette Aprile at the corner with Santa Reparata, in Florence, region of Tuscany. The painting depicts Jesus and the Apostles during the Last Supper, with Judas, unlike all the other apostles, sitting separately on the near side of the table, as is common in depictions of the Last Supper in Christian art.
Ludwig Johann Passini (1832–1903) was an Austrian narrative and genre painter and printmaker.
The Nativity is an oil painting by Italian Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca, dated to 1470–75. The painting depicts a scene from the birth of Jesus, and is one of the latest surviving paintings made by the artist before his death in 1492. Held by the National Gallery in London, it measures 124.4 cm × 122.6 cm. It is a popular image on Christmas cards.
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