The Resurrection | |
---|---|
Artist | Piero della Francesca |
Year | c. 1460s |
Type | Fresco |
Dimensions | 225 cm× 200 cm(89 in× 79 in) |
Location | Museo Civico, Sansepolcro |
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.
Piero was commissioned to paint the fresco for the Gothic-style Residenza, the communal meeting hall. [1] This was used solely by Conservatori, the chief magistrates and governors, who, before starting their councils, would pray before the image. "The secular and spiritual meanings of the painting were always intimately intertwined." [2] [3] Placed high on the interior wall facing the entrance, the fresco includes an allusion to the name of the city (meaning "Holy Sepulchre"), derived from the presence of two relics of the Holy Sepulchre carried here by two pilgrims in the 9th century. Della Francesca's 'Christ' is also featured on the town's coat of arms. [4]
Jesus is in the centre of the composition, portrayed in the moment of his resurrection, as suggested by the position of the leg on the parapet of his tomb, which Piero renders as a classical sarcophagus. His stern, impassive figure, depicted in an iconic and abstract fixity (and described by Aldous Huxley as "athletic"), rises over four sleeping soldiers, representing the difference between the human and the divine spheres (or the death, defeated by Christ's light). His figure in the commune's council hall "both protects the judge and purifies the judged" according to Marilyn Aronberg Lavin. [5] The landscape, immersed in the dawn light, has also a symbolic value: the contrast between the flourishing young trees on the right and the bare mature ones on the left alludes to the renovation of men through the Resurrection's light.
Andrew Graham-Dixon notes that apart from the wound, Christ's "body is as perfectly sculpted and as blemish-free as that of an antique statue. But there are touches of intense humanity about him too: the unidealised, almost coarse-featured face; and those three folds of skin that wrinkle at his belly as he raises his left leg. Piero emphasises his twofold nature, as both man and God." [2]
The guard holding the lance is depicted sitting in an anatomically impossible pose, and appears to have no legs. Piero probably left them out so as not to break the balance of the composition. [6]
According to tradition and by comparison with the woodcut illustrating Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Painters , the sleeping soldier in brown armor on Christ's right is a self-portrait of Piero.[ citation needed ] The contact between the soldier's head and the pole of the banner [7] carried by Christ is supposed to represent his contact with the divinity.
The composition is unusual in that it contains two vanishing points. One is in the center of the sarcophagus, because the faces of the guards are seen from below, and the other is in Jesus's face. The top of the sarcophagus forms a boundary between the two points of view, and the steepness of the hills prevents the transition between the two points of view from being too jarring. [8]
Sansepolcro was spared much damage during World War 2 when British artillery officer Anthony ('Tony') Clarke defied orders and held back from using his troop's guns to shell the town. Although Clarke had never seen the fresco, his diary records his shock at the destruction in Monte Cassino and, apparently remembering where he had read of Sansepolcro, ordered his men to hold fire just as methodical shelling had begun. A lover of art, [9] Clarke had read Huxley's 1925 essay describing the Resurrection, which states: "It stands there before us in entire and actual splendour, the greatest picture in the world." [10] It was later ascertained that the Germans were in retreat from the area – the bombardment had not been necessary, though Clarke had not known this when he ordered the shelling stopped. The town, along with its famous painting, survived. When the events of the episode eventually became clear, Clarke was lauded as a local hero and to this day a street in Sansepolcro bears his name. [9]
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.
The Legend of the True Cross or The History of the True Cross is a sequence of frescoes painted by Piero della Francesca in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo. It is his largest work, and generally considered one of his finest, and an early Renaissance masterpiece.
Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro, is a town and comune founded in the 11th century, located in the Italian Province of Arezzo in the eastern part of the region of Tuscany.
Monterchi is a Comune (Municipality) in the Province of Arezzo in the Italian region of Tuscany, located about 80 kilometres (50 mi) southeast of Florence and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Arezzo. It sits in the northern part of Valtiberina, the valley where the Tiber river runs going from Emilia-Romagna towards Rome. The valley runs through Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria, parallel to the Casentino Valley.
The decade of the 1460s in art involved some significant events.
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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 Madonna di Senigallia is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, finished around 1474. It is housed in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, in the Ducal Palace of Urbino.
The Baptism of Christ is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca. Painted in egg tempera on two panels of poplar wood, the dating is controversial – some give it a very early date, perhaps 1439; others much later, around 1460. It is held by the National Gallery, London.
The Polyptych of Perugia is a complex of paintings by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, finished around 1470. It is housed in the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia, Italy.
The Flagellation of Christ, in art sometimes known as Christ at the Column or the Scourging at the Pillar, is an episode from the Passion of Jesus as presented in the Gospels. As such, it is frequently shown in Christian art, in cycles of the Passion or the larger subject of the Life of Christ. Catholic tradition places the Flagellation at the beginning of Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, and the modern alternate Stations of the Cross locate it at the fourth station; it represents a Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary. The column to which Christ is normally shown to be tied, and the rope, scourge, whip or birch are elements in the Arma Christi. The Basilica di Santa Prassede in Rome is one of the churches claiming to possess the original column or parts of it.
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Arezzo Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Arezzo in Tuscany, Italy. It is located on the site of a pre-existing Palaeo-Christian church and, perhaps, of the ancient city's acropolis.
The resurrection of Jesus has long been central to Christian faith and Christian art, whether as a single scene or as part of a cycle of the Life of Christ. In the teachings of the traditional Christian churches, the sacraments derive their saving power from the passion and resurrection of Christ, upon which the salvation of the world entirely depends. The redemptive value of the resurrection has been expressed through Christian art, as well as being expressed in theological writings.
The Flagellation of Christ is a painting by Piero della Francesca in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino, Italy. Called by one writer an "enigmatic little painting," the composition is complex and unusual, and its iconography has been the subject of widely differing theories. Kenneth Clark called The Flagellation "the greatest small painting in the world".
The Cathedral of Sansepolcro is a Catholic church in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, central Italy.
The Museo Civico di Sansepolcro or Museo Comunale is the town or comune art gallery. It is housed in a series of linked palaces, including the medieval former Palazzo della Residenza, the Palazzo dei Conservatori del Popolo and the Palazzo del Capitano o Pretorio, located on Via Niccolò Aggiunti #65, near the center of Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro, in the Province of Arezzo, region of Tuscany, Italy. The museum was founded in 1975.
Giovanni di Piamonte was a 15th-century Italian painter. The date and place of his birth are not known, but his name indicates that he was born in Piamonte near the present-day town of Pontassieve in Tuscany. He trained in the circle of Piero della Francesca and was one of his assistants.
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.
Saint Julian the Hospitaller is a fresco fragment of 1454–1458 by Piero della Francesca, originally in the former church of Sant'Agostino in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, and now in that city's Museo Civico alongside other works by the artist such as the Resurrection and Saint Louis of Toulouse.
a document of 1474 concerning structural repairs to the building mentions the painting