1000 Paintings of Genius. Victoria Charles

with Child and Saints, 1480, Oil on panel, 323 × 240 cm, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

      Ercole de’Roberti inherited the tradition of Tura and Cossa with their precise line and metallic colours against elaborately fanciful ornamentation. But he developed a very personal and expressive style in his works. In this Altarpiece, which is his first documented work, his style is independent although it shows the influence of his Ferrarese antecedents. The Altarpiece reveals a familiarity with Venetian art and the work of Giovanni Bellini and Antonello da Messina in particular.

      137. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Early Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1481. Tempera, oil, varnish and white lead on panel, 246 × 243 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

      The Adoration of the Magi is an unrivalled work exclusively in brown cameos. The drawing matters less than its special organisation. The central characters (the Virgin and the Magi) draw a pyramidal shape. This kind of shape is unifying the composition and will influence Raphael. Taking his inspiration in the traditional representation of the Magi, Leonardo proposes a new iconography: all the characters are depicted in action; each of them is individualised by a particular facial expression or movement. The central position of the Virgin and Child is enhanced by the gyratory movement surrounding them.

      138. Pietro Perugino, 1450–1523, High Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Christ giving the Keys to St. Peter, 1481–1482, Oil on wood, Vatican Museums, Rome

      The fresco is from the cycle of the life of Christ in the Sistine Chapel. The principal group, showing Christ handing the keys to the kneeling St Peter, is surrounded by the other Apostles. The Christ giving the Keys to St. Peter shows the search for a classical rhythm. The artist begins to emancipate from the teaching of Piero della Francesca realising a frieze of characters placed on different grounds.

      Pietro Perugino

      (145 °Citta della Pieve – 1523 Perugia)

      Perugino’s art, like Fra Angelico’s, had its roots in the old Byzantine tradition of painting. The latter had departed further and further from any representation of the human form, until it became merely a symbol of religious ideas. Perugino, working under the influence of his time, restored body and substance to the figures, but still made them, as of old, primarily the symbols of an ideal. It was not until the seventeenth century that artists began to paint landscape for its own sake.

      However, the union of landscape and figures counts very much for Perugino, because one of the secrets of composition is the balancing of what artists call the full and empty spaces. A composition crowded with figures is apt to produce a sensation of stuffiness and fatigue; whereas the combination of a few figures with ample open spaces gives one a sense of exhilaration and repose. It is in the degree to which an artist stimulates our imagination through our physical experiences that he seizes and holds our interest. When Perugino left Perugia to complete his education in Florence he was a fellow-pupil of Leonardo da Vinci in the sculptor’s bottegha. If he gained from the master something of the calm of sculpture, he certainly gained nothing of its force. It is as the painter of sentiment that he excelled; though this beautiful quality is confined mainly to his earlier works. For with popularity he became avaricious, turning out repetitions of his favourite themes until they became more and more affected in sentiment.

      139. Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), 1445–1510, Early Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, The Birth of Venus, c. 1482. Tempera on canvas, 173 × 279 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

      The title announces the influence here of the Roman classics, as it selects the Roman name, rather than the Greek name for the goddess of love – Aphrodite. The geometric centre of the work is the gesture of modesty near the left hand of Venus, the central figure, although the triangular arrangement of the overall work leads our eye to accept her upper torso as central. Her long tresses and flowing garments throughout make the overall geometric arrangement soft and dynamic. The sides of an equilateral triangle are formed by the bodies of the figures on either side of Venus; the base of the triangle extends beyond the sides of the work, making the painting seem larger than it is (Piet Mondrian will exploit that technique in a minimalist way centuries later). The mature goddess has just been born from the sea, blown ashore by Zephyr (The West Wind), and his abducted nymph Chloris. The stylised waves of the sea bring the shell-boat forward and counter-clockwise to The Hour waiting on the shore. The sea has somehow already provided a ribbon for her hair. Her introspective expression is typical of the central figures in the painter’s work (See Portrait of a Man (1417)). The Hour, symbolising Spring and rebirth, begins to clothe the naked, new-born goddess with an elegant, high fashion robe covered in flowers, similar to her own gown on which there are corn flowers. Several spring flowers are sprinkled throughout the scene: orange blossoms in the upper right; evergreen myrtle around The Hour’s neck and waist; a single blue anemone between The Hour’s feet; over two dozen pink roses accompany Zephyr and Chloris. Cattails in the lower left balance the strong verticals of the orange trees. Each of the figures is outlined in thin black lines, characteristic of the artist. Sometimes the artist doesn’t follow his outline, but doesn’t cover it up either; as we see along the right arm of Venus, the outline has become visible over the years.

      140. Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), 1445–1510, Early Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Madonna of the Magnificat, c. 1483. Tempera on wood, Tondo, dia. 118 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

      The paintings of the Virgin by Botticelli dated between 1481 and 1485 may embody the purest essence of the physical ideal, in relation to both the Madonna and the baby Jesus, developed during the Renaissance. At the same time, a deep sense of spirituality pervades the scene, Madonna and Child with Angels, also known as the Madonna of the Magnificat. Mary is represented seated, her child on her lap. The angels hold an elaborate crown above her head, reminding the viewer that she is the Queen of Heaven, while mother and child gaze in rapture at each other. The child has his hand on the page of a book, pointing at the word “Magnificat“, a reference to Mary’s consent to bear him, and her declaration to the archangel of the Annunciation that “my soul magnifies the Lord“ (in Latin, “Magnificat anima mea Dominum“).

      141. Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi), 1445–1510, Early Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Pallas and the Centaure, c. 1482. Tempera on canvas, 205 × 147.5 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

      142. Andrea Mantegna, 1431–1506, Early Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Madonna and Child (Madonna of the Caves), 1485, Oil on panel, 29 × 21.5 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

      143. Francesco Botticini, c. 1446–1498, Early Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Adoration of the Christ Child, c. 1485. Tempera on panel, Tondo, dia. 123 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

      144. Carlo Crivelli, 1430–1495, Early Renaissance, Venetian School, Italian, Annunciation with St Endimius, 1486, Oil on canvas transferred to wood, 207 × 147 cm, National Gallery, London

      145. Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1449–1494, Early Renaissance, Florentine School, Italian, Adoration of the Magi, 1488. Tempera on panel, Tondo, dia. 171 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

      This pyramidal composition with Mary at the top was influenced by Leonardo’s uncompleted Adoration of the Magi (1481, Uffizi)

      146. Piero di Cosimo, 1462–1521, Early Renaissance, Florentine