MEDITATIONS FOR MIDWINTER: PART 3

Title: Resurrection

Artist: Piero della Francesa

Medium: Mural in fresco and tempera

Size: 225 x 200 cm

Date: 1463-65

Location: Piero della Francesca Museum, Sansepolcro

This composition is divided into two separate perspective zones within a framework formed at the sides by the two marble columns. The lower area, where the artist has placed the sleeping guards, has a very low vanishing point. Above the figures of the sleeping sentries, Piero has placed the resurrected Christ, portrayed with a more central vantage point. Christ’s solid peasant features are a perfect representative of Piero's human ideal: concrete, restrained and hieratic as well. The splendid landscape also belongs to the repertory of popular sacred images: Piero has symbolically depicted it as partially immersed in the barrenness of winter. The further the viewer looks to the left, the more the landscape appears bare and hostile, whereas the right half is already brought back to life - resurrected - by springtime.

Piero della Francesa (ca. 1415 - 1492) was a Italian painter, who, to his contemporaries was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art, which had been virtually forgotten for centuries after his death, but regarded since his rediscovery in the early 20th century as one of the supreme artists of the quattrocento. His painting is characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and perspective. According to tradition, and by comparison with the woodcut illustrating Vasari's Lives of the Painters, in this mural the sleeping soldier in brown armor on Christ's right is a self-portrait of Piero.

Third Sunday of Advent

Title: Adoration of the Shepherds

Artist: Agnolo Bronzino

Medium: Oil on wood

Size: 65 x 47 cm

Date: 1540

Location: Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest

Luke 2:16-20: And they came, having hasted, and found both Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger, and having seen, they made known abroad concerning the saying spoken to them concerning the child. And all who heard, did wonder concerning the things spoken by the shepherds unto them; and Mary was preserving all these things, pondering in her heart; and the shepherds turned back, glorifying and praising God, for all those things they heard and saw, as it was spoken unto them.

This small, jewel-like devotional painting, commissioned by Filippo di Averardo Salviati (1513-1572), was most likely destined for a private chapel in the Salviati villa. This painting displays extreme refinement of execution and luxury of materials characteristic of Florentine Mannerism, with 'disegno' (drawing), sculptural modelling of forms, and enamel-like finish apparent in every detail. The entire upper half of the composition is a deep landscape of lakes and hills, above which stretches a vast blue sky that Bronzino painted in expensive lapis lazuli. To the right, an angel announcing the birth of Christ to a single shepherd hovers in the sky, and in the foreground five putti fly in celebration directly over the Nativity scene.

Agnolo di Cosimo (1503 – 1572), more commonly known as Il Bronzino, or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, Bronzino, in all probability refers to his auburn hair, or possibly derived from his having a dark complexion. He was court painter to Duke Cosimo I de Medici for most of his career, and his work influenced the course of European court portraiture for a century. Cold, cultured, and unemotionally analytical, his portraits convey a sense of almost insolent assurance. Perhaps it was these qualities which worked against him as a religious painter as his paintings have been accused of lacking real feeling leading to empty, elegant posturing.

Second Sunday of Advent

Title: Annunciation to the Shepherds

Artist: Taddeo Gaddi

Medium: Fresco

Size: tbd.

Date: c. 1330

Location: Cappella Baroncelli, Santa Croce, Florence

Luke 2:8-12: And there were in the same country shepherds watching, and keeping the night watches over their flock. And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the brightness of God shone round about them; and they feared with a great fear. And the angel said to them: “Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people: For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.”

The angel announces that the new born child is the Saviour, that He has come to save us from our sins, that the salvation Christ brings is offered “to all the people”. In the words of St. Paul’s in his letter to the Colossians (3:11): “Where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. But Christ is all, and in all.”

This fresco is located on the south wall among frescoes devoted to the Life of the Virgin in the Baroncelli Chapel. This nocturnal scene presented in a unique way: the golden yellow glow of the cloud that surrounds the hovering angel bathes the shepherds and their resting place in a bright light that even reaches the trees that crown the mountain peak, while the remainder of the pictorial space is filled with semidarkness. Although the light source is a supernatural one, it produces a natural effect.

Taddeo Gaddi (c. 1300 - c. 1366), a Florentine painter, was a pupil of Giotto's and one of his most inventive followers. He worked alongside the master for twenty-four years, and in 1347 he headed a list of the best living painters compiled for the purpose of choosing a master to paint a new high altarpiece for Pistoia Cathedral. Today, he is best known for the works painted for Santa Croce, Florence: notably the frescoes devoted to the Life of the Virgin in the Baroncelli Chapel (finished 1338).

A Month of Miracles - Epilogue

Title: The Trinity
Artist: Lorenzo Lotto
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 170 x 115 cm
Date: 1523
Location: Sant'Alessandro della Croce, Bergamo

John 10:24-30 - The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”  Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;  and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

A Month of Miracles Part 9 - Christ and the Woman with the Issue of Blood

Title: Christ and the Woman with the Issue of Blood
Artist: Paolo Veronese
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: tbd.
Date: c. 1565-70
Location: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Luke 8:42-56 […] As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

This woman has been hemorrhaging for years, which means she has been in a perpetual state of uncleanliness according to Jewish law, shut out from religious life, a social outcast. In despair over her loneliness and condition, she hopes that an underground approach, a surreptitious touching of Jesus, will change her fate. This is why she came up behind him. Jesus turns to the crowd and asks, "Who touched me?" Amazed at the question, Peter points out that many are crowded around Jesus. It is as if a current celebrity or political leader turned to a herd of reporters upon exiting a building and asked, "Who just took my picture?" For the woman there is no sense in trying to hide from Jesus now. She comes forward to give her public testimony of how she has been healed. Despite the embarrassment of her past condition and the timidity of her approach to Jesus, she declares what Jesus has done for her. In response Jesus issues a simple commendation: "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." He makes her faith an example, timid as it was. The one with faith does not need to fear approaching Jesus and his authority. He is accessible and available.

Paolo Veronese (1528 –April 1588) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice. He adopted the name Paolo Cagliari or Paolo Caliari, and became known as "Veronese" from his birthplace in Verona. Veronese is known as a supreme colorist, and for his illusionistic decorations in both fresco and oil. His most famous works are elaborate narrative cycles, executed in a dramatic and colorful Mannerist style, full of majestic architectural settings and glittering pageantry. His large paintings of biblical feasts executed for the refectories of monasteries in Venice and Verona are especially notable

A Month of Miracles Part 5 - Christ and the Centurion

Title: Christ and the Centurion
Artist: Paolo Veronese
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 38 x 69.5 cm
Date: 16th century
Location: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Matthew 8:5-13 - When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

The Gentile mission was at most peripheral to Jesus' earthly ministry: he did not actively seek out Gentiles for ministry. Therefore, the emphatic Greek "I" in 8:7 would place the emphasis in Jesus' question as: "Shall I come and heal him?" Most Palestinian Jews, after all, considered entering Gentile homes questionable: an outsider who would entreat his favor must first acknowledge the privilege of Israel, whom other peoples had oppressed or disregarded. Such initial rejection was a not uncommon ploy for demanding greater commitment, and rather than protesting, the centurion acknowledges his questionable merit before Jesus, adopting the appropriate role of a suppliant totally dependent on a patron's benefaction.

Paolo Veronese (1528 – April 1588) was an Italian painter and draughtsman who, along with Titian and Tintoretto, was one of the greatest painters of the late Renaissance in Venice. He adopted the name Paolo Cagliari or Paolo Caliari, and became known as "Veronese" from his birthplace in Verona. He is known as a supreme colorist and for his illusionistic decorations in both fresco and oil. His large paintings of biblical feasts executed for the refectories of monasteries in Venice and Verona are especially celebrated

Corpus Christi

Title: A Blessed Abbes Receiving the Host from the Hands of Christ
Artist: Giovanni Battista Gaulli
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 75 x 43 cm
Date: 1690s
Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Luke 22:19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

The Feast of Corpus Christi, or the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (as it is often called today), goes back to the 13th century, but it celebrates something far older: the institution of the Sacrament of Holy Communion at the Last Supper. On September 8, 1264, Pope Urban IV issued the papal bull "Transiturus," which established the Feast of Corpus Christi as a universal feast of the Church, to be celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday.

Giovanni Battista Gaulli (May 1639 –April 1709), also known as Baciccio, Il Baciccio or Baciccia (all Genoese nicknames for Giovanni Battista), was a painter of the Italian High Baroque. As the High Baroque movement evolved into the more playful Rococo, and the popularity of this style dwindled, Baciccio too moved in this direction. Thus, in contrast to the grandeur of his composition of the illusionistic vault fresco in the church of the Gesù in Rome, we see him gradually adopting less intense colors, and more delicate compositions after 1685 - all hallmarks of the Rococo. Baciccio is best known for his grand, Gianlorenzo Bernini-influenced  vault fresco in the church of the Gesù.

Easter Sunday - Mary Magdalene at the Tomb

Title: Mary Magdalene at the Tomb
Artist: Antiveduto Gramatica
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 120 x 157 cm
Date: 1620-22
Location: The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

John 20:11-13 - Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” she said, “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.”

Such heavenly messengers appear at many of the significant points in salvation history. Their presence witnesses that the powers of heaven have been at work here. Often in Scripture the person who encounters an angel is struck with terror. But if Mary felt such a reaction, John does not mention it. Indeed, there is no indication that she even recognizes them as angels, presumably due to the depth of her grief. The angels speak to her with great compassion. In the face of this grief the angels do not bombard her with good news but rather ask the question that can lead to the healing word.

Antiveduto Gramatica (c. 1571 – April 1626), was a was a proto-Baroque Italian painter, active near Rome. He was born in either Siena or Rome, and according to Giovanni Baglione the artist was given the name Antiveduto ("foreseen") because his father had a premonition that he would be soon be born during a journey between his native Siena and Rome. It was in Rome that Antiveduto was baptised, raised and based his career.

Sixth Sunday of Lent - Entombment

Title: Entombment
Artist: Fra Angelico
Medium: Tempera on wood
Size: 38 x 46 cm
Date: 1438-40
Location: Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

John 19:41-42 - At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

This panel was part of the altarpiece of the main altar in the monastery church of San Marco, Florence, and was originally in the middle of its predella. Christ's body is supported by Nicodemus, and his hands are held and kissed by the stooping Virgin and St John. Christ has a weightless air about him, so that the three other figures appear to have to do little to support him. The winding cloth lies stretched out in a receding rectangle creating the foreground space, its folds and color echoing the white rock. Behind lies the dark rectangular void of the tomb. The sparsity and simplicity of the composition, the firmly closed-off space and the extensive use of white in this panel, are all also found in Angelico's frescoes at San Marco. The figures here, arranged parallel with each other, with the central perspective of the shroud leading to the tomb, shows a very different idea of spatial organization from that in Rogier van der Weyden's panel of the same subject.

Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – February 1455), was a Florentine painter as well as a Dominican friar, having entered a Dominican convent in Fiesole in 1418. He rose from obscure beginnings as a journeyman illuminator to the renown of an artist whose last major commissions were monumental fresco cycles in St Peter’s and the Vatican Palace, Rome. Within his lifetime or shortly thereafter he was also called Il Beato (the Blessed), in reference to his skills in painting religious subjects. In 1982 Pope John Paul II conferred beatification, in recognition of the holiness of his life, thereby making this title official.

Third Sunday of Lent - Christ Before Pilate

Title: Christ before Pilate
Artist: Jacopo Tintoretto
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 515 x 380 cm
Date: 1566-67
Location: Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice.

Matthew 27:12-26 - When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor. Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him. While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.” But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor. “Barabbas,” they answered. “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked. “Crucify him!” They all answered. “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!” All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!” Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

This part of Matthew's account has less to do with Jesus than with Pilate: it is not Jesus but the character of Pilate that is on trial. Though Pilate knows the unjust motivation of the charges and receives a divine warning, political expediency takes precedence over justice. Are we also guilty of the same crime whenever we side with views because they are popular in our society or political party even though we know that someone is suffering unjustly? The hearing is swift not only because Pilate is more concerned with his political position than with justice, but also because Jesus refuses to defend himself. By Roman law, a defendant who refused to make a defense was assumed guilty.

Tintoretto (September 1518 – May 1594) also known as Jacopo Robusti or Jacopo Comin, was an Italian painter and a notable exponent of the Venetian Renaissance school. Tintoretto decorated the walls of the Sala dell'Albergo by paintings showing important moments from the Passion of Christ and he finished them in the early months of 1567.The most admired has always been Christ before Pilate. In a very fine and measured luministic web the figure of Christ, wrapped in a white mantle, stands out like a shining blade against the crowd and the architectural scenery. He is centered by a bright ray of light and stands tall in front of Pilate who is portrayed in red robes and as if sunk in shadows. Taking up the idea of Carpaccio in his St Ursula cycle, Tintoretto portraits the old secretary at the foot of Pilate's throne. He leans against a stool covered with dark green cloth and with great diligent enthusiasm notes down every moment, every word spoken by the judge amid the murmurings of the pitiless crowd which obstinately clamors for the death of Christ.

Second Sunday of Lent - Christ Taken Prisoner

Title: Christ Taken Prisoner
Artist: Giuseppe Cesari
Medium: Oil on walnut panel
Size: 89 x 62 cm
Date: c. 1597
Location: Staatliche Museen, Kassel.

Mark 14:43-52 - Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. The men seized Jesus and arrested him. Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” Then everyone deserted him and fled. A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.

As the armed mob takes Jesus captive, in a futile gesture, one of the disciples draws a sword and severs the ear of the high priest's servant. In Matthew's account this becomes an opportunity for Jesus to teach. He warns the disciple not to return violence for violence, for those who live by the sword die by the sword. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had urged his disciples not to turn to violence; a child of God must love even the enemy. If it were a simple matter of displays of power, God could overwhelm Jesus' attackers with legions of angels. But God's reign revealed in the scriptures would not be imposed by violence. Jesus' fidelity would take him into the valley of death but, ultimately, the scriptures would be fulfilled and love would defeat violence and death.

Giuseppe Cesari (1568 – July 1640) was an Italian Mannerist painter, also named Il Giuseppino. Christ Taken Prisoner is one of Cesari's most important works, its popularity attested by the existence of a somewhat smaller version in the Galleria Borghese and of numerous copies. Cesari bathes the scene in a pale moonlight that gives the colors an almost metallic coolness. His rendering of the form of the moon, and of the stars shining with varying degrees of brightness, testifies to a growing interest in the realistic representation of the night sky. The picture must have been painted in Rome in 1596/97, when Cesari was working on one of his most important commissions, the fresco cycle for the Palazzo dei Conservatori.

Nativity

Title: Nativity
Artist: Gentile da Fabriano
Medium: Tempera on panel
Size: 72 x 42.6 cm
Date: c. 1420-1422
Location: John Paul Getty Museum, Malibu.

“In these books of the prophets we found Jesus our Christ foretold as coming, born of a virgin, growing up to man's estate, and healing every disease and every sickness, and raising the dead, and being hated, and unrecognized, and crucified, and dying, and rising again, and ascending into heaven, and being, and being called, the Son of God.” Justin Martyr, First Apology Chapter XXX, c. 150 AD.

The Assumption of the Virgin

Title: The Assumption of the Virgin
Artist: Ambrogio Bergognone
Medium: Oil and gold on wood
Size: 242.3 x 108 cm
Date: c. 1510
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The Assumption of Mary is a belief held by many Christians that the Virgin Mary, at the end of her life, was physically taken up into heaven. The earliest known narrative is the so-called Liber Requiei Mariae (The Book of Mary's Repose), a narrative which survives intact only in an Ethiopic translation. Probably composed by the 4th century, this early Christian apocryphal narrative may be as early as the 3rd century. The Roman Catholic Church teaches as dogma that Mary, "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." Pope John Paul II quoted John 14:3 as a scriptural basis for understanding the dogma. In this verse, Jesus tells his disciples at the Last Supper, “When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am." According to Catholic theology, Mary is the pledge of the fulfillment of Christ's promise.

This picture, which dates from the early sixteenth century, was likely Bergognone's first treatment of this subject, and was the center panel of a large polyptych. Its delicacy is typical of his work, and there is the influence of Leonardo's facial types. The metal stars on the Virgin's mantle and the gold spandrels are later additions while the gilding on the lettering on the haloes is almost entirely gone.

Ambrogio Borgognone, variously known as Ambrogio da Fossano, Ambrogio di Stefano da Fossano, Ambrogio Stefani da Fossano or as il Bergognone (c. 1470s – 1523/1524), was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Milanese school. While he was nearly contemporary with Leonardo da Vinci, he painted in a style more akin to the pre-Renaissance, Lombard art of Vincenzo Foppa and Bernardino Zenale. The dates of his birth and death are unknown. His fame is principally associated with his work at the Certosa di Pavia complex, composed of the church and convent of the Carthusians.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 14 – ST CECILIA

Title: Santa Cecilia
Artist: Bernardo Daddi
Medium: Tempera on wood panel
Size: 89.5 x 49.5 cm
Date: c. 1348
Location: Museo Diocesano, Collezione Crespi, Milan.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 14 – ST CECILIA

St Cecilia, so often glorified in the fine arts and in poetry, is one of the most venerated martyrs of Christian antiquity. Legend has it that Cecilia, a virgin of a senatorial family and a Christian from her infancy, was given in marriage by her parents to a noble pagan youth Valerianus. When, after the celebration of the marriage, the couple had retired to the wedding-chamber, Cecilia told Valerianus that she was betrothed to an angel who jealously guarded her body; therefore Valerianus must take care not to violate her virginity. Valerianus wished to see the angel, whereupon Cecilia sent him to the third milestone on the Via Appia where he should meet Bishop (Pope) Urbanus. Valerianus obeyed, was baptized by the pope, and returned a Christian to Cecilia. An angel then appeared to the two and crowned them with roses and lilies. When Tiburtius, the brother of Valerianus, came to them, he too was won over to Christianity. As zealous children of the Faith both brothers distributed rich alms and buried the bodies of the confessors who had died for Christ. The prefect, Turcius Almachius, condemned them to death; an officer of the prefect, Maximus, appointed to execute this sentence, was himself converted and suffered martyrdom with the two brothers.

This portrait of St Cecilia is typical of Daddi’s style, imbued with emotional tenderness and grace, in contrast to his contemporaries more massive and somber mode of expression. Daddi had close stylistic affinities to painters of the “miniaturist tendency”, and his intimate, lyrical style was best suited to works on a small scale. The saint’s naturalistic looking expression, the detail in the crown of roses and lilies, and the intricacy of her halo are all indicative of a mature work by this Florentine master.

Bernardo Daddi (c. 1280 – 1348) was a Florentine painter, the outstanding painter in Florence in the period after the death of Giotto (who was possibly his teacher). Daddi ran a busy workshop specializing in small devotional panels and portable altarpieces. His signed and dated works include a polyptych of The Crucifixion with Eight Saints (Courtauld Institute, London, 1348) and the works attributed to him include frescos of the Martyrdoms of SS. Lawrence and Stephen in Santa Croce. His style is a sweetened version of Giotto's, tempering the latter's gravity with Sienese grace and lightness. He favored smiling Madonnas, teasing children, and an abundance of flowers and trailing draperies. His lyrical manner was extremely popular and his influence endured into the second half of the century. Like many other artists of his time, Daddi died during the black death of 1348.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 13 – ST MARK

Title: St Mark
Artist: Angnolo Bronzion
Medium: Oil on wood
Size: tbd
Date: c. 1525
Location: Cappella Capponi, Santa Felicità, Florence.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 13 – ST MARK

Saint Mark the Evangelist is the traditional name of the author of the Gospel of Mark. Tradition identifies him with the John Mark mentioned as a companion of Saint Paul in the Acts of the Apostles. John Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas, who was Mark’s cousin, on Paul's first missionary journey. After a sharp dispute, Barnabas separated from Paul, taking Mark with him to Cyprus. In AD 43, about 10 years after the ascension of Christ, Saint Mark traveled to Alexandria and founded the Church of Alexandria, which today is claimed by the Coptic Orthodox Church. Aspects of the Coptic liturgy can be traced back to Saint Mark himself. He became the first bishop of Alexandria and he is honored as the founder of Christianity in Africa. Some are said to have resented his efforts to turn them away from the worship of their traditional Egyptian gods, and in AD 68 they placed a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets until he was dead.

Four tondos with the Evangelists still adorn the pendentives that once supported the old cupola of the Cappella Capponi in the church of Santa Felicità in Florence. Except for the painting of St John, the precise authorship of the other three portraits has posed considerable problems for scholars. As Vasari only attributes two of the tondi to Bronzino, without specifying which, scholars are still divided over which and how many of them were painted by Bronzino. Probably Bronzino's is St Mark with its palette of yellow and red tones contrasting with the green of the mantle wrapped around the figure, which looks as if it is peering through a window, an idea drawn from the Gospel. The figures of the Evangelists, with their distinctly Michelangiolesque flavor, have a vigor deriving from the way their heads are twisted and pushed forward. They are wrapped in ample robes, whose bold colors stand out against the dark backgrounds. This play of strong contrasts, which exalts the delicate outlines of the colored surfaces, is in keeping with the refined style of the entire decoration of the chapel.

Agnolo di Cosimo (November 1503 – November 1572), usually known as Il Bronzino, or Agnolo Bronzino, was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, Bronzino, in all probability refers to his auburn hair, or possibly derived from his having a dark complexion. The son of a butcher, according to his contemporary Vasari, Bronzino was a pupil first of Raffaellino del Garbo, and then of Pontormo, to whom he was apprenticed at 14. Pontormo exercised a dominant influence on Bronzino's developing style, and the two were to remain collaborators for most of the former's life. Towards the end of his life, Bronzino took a prominent part in the activities of the Florentine Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, of which he was a founding member in 1563.The painter Alessandro Allori was his favourite pupil, and Bronzino was living in the Allori family house at the time of his death in Florence in 1572 (Alessandro was also the father of Cristofano Allori). Bronzino spent the majority of his career in Florence.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 8 – ST JAMES THE GREATER

Title: Apostle James the Greater
Artist: Antonio Veneziano
Medium: Tempera on poplar panel
Size: 51 x 33 cm
Date: c. 1384
Location: Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 8 – ST JAMES THE GREATER

The Apostle St James the Greater was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and the brother of John the Evangelist. Originally they were fishermen, and fished with their father in the Lake of Genesareth. In the Gospels the two brothers are often called after their father "the sons of Zebedee", and received from Christ the honorable title of Boanerges, "sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17). James the son of Zebedee is styled "the Greater" to distinguish him from the Apostle James "the Less", the son of Alphaeus. The fact that the name of James almost occurs always before that of his brother seems to imply that James was the elder of the two. According to Acts 12:1-2, on the occasion of the Passover of A.D. 44, Herod Agrippa perpetrated cruelties upon the Church, whose rapid growth incensed the Jews: "He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword."

When Venetian artists began to break away from the grip of Byzantium, Antonio Veneziano was among the first to lead the way. He was popular in Siena, Florence, and Pisa, all gave him important commissions. This panel, part of a polyptych and representing St James the Great, shows the artist at his best. The tension of the strongly defined sculptural volume of the figure plays against the flat, linear surface is characteristic of Veneziano’s panels. The saint’s face, too, has flair associated with the artist. The long straight nose with the hint of a bulb at the tip; the sharply defined eye sockets and the hard outline of the eyes; the strongly modeled face; the heavy chin; the lips pressed together dimpled at the corners. All signs of an artist transcending restrictive traditions.

Antonio Veneziano (Antonio the Venetian, c. 1310 – 1384) was an Italian painter who was reported to have been a student of Taddeo Gaddi. He was born apparently in Venice, although it is also supposed that he was born in Florence and acquired the name Veneziano due to a long residence there where he executed several works in the Ducal palace. He was active in Siena, Florence and Pisa, documented between 1369 and 1419, having produced a series of paintings, including frescoes in two chapels, for Siena Cathedral (all untraced). His style was less dry and formal than the generality of many of his contemporaries, and he is said to have carried fresco-painting to a higher degree of perfection than it had attained previous to the period at which he lived.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 6 – ST CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA

Title: St Catherine of Alexandria
Artist: Raphael
Medium: Oil on wood
Size: 71.1 x 54.6 cm
Date: 1508
Location: National Gallery, London.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 6 – ST CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine, is said to have been a noted scholar in the early 4th century. The Orthodox Church venerates her as a "great martyr", and in the Catholic Church she is traditionally revered as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Catherine was born in Alexandria and raised a pagan, but converted to Christianity in her late teens. It is said that she visited the Roman Emperor Maximinus Daia, and attempted to convince him of the moral error in persecuting Christians. She succeeded in converting his wife, the Empress, and many pagan philosophers whom the Emperor sent to dispute with her (all of whom were subsequently martyred). Upon the failure of the Emperor to win Catherine over, he ordered her to be put in prison; and when the people who visited her converted, she was condemned to death on the breaking wheel, an instrument of torture. According to legend, the wheel itself broke when she touched it, so she was beheaded.

Painted just before Raphael's move to Rome, St Catherine of Alexandria is portrayed in a marvelous, twisted pose. Her left arm is leaning on a wheel - an allusion to the breaking wheel of her martyrdom - and her right hand is pressed to her breast while she gazes up at a sky flooded with light. The composition is as rich in harmonious movement as the coloration is full and varied. The delicate modeling of the saint, the slight torsion of her body as she leans on the wheel (whose spikes have been reduced to rounded knobs in order to tone down the element of cruelty) fully express the balanced character of Raphael's art.

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (April 1483 – April 1520), better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was highly admired by his contemporaries, and in 1508 he was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II, and he was to remain in the city serving successive popes for a dozen years until his death. Raphael died on the 6th of April 1520 (on his 37th birthday) and was buried the next day in the Pantheon. His funeral was very well attended attracting large crowds. Vasari says that Raphael's early death 'plunged into grief the entire papal court', and for centuries he was considered as the greatest painter who expressed the basic doctrines of the Christian Church through figures that have a physical beauty worthy of the antique.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 5 – ST FRANCIS

Title: Saint Francis (Der heilige Franziskus)
Artist: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Medium: Woodcut print
Size: 71 x 55.1 cm
Date: 1919
Location: Various; Publisher Verlag Karl Lang, Darmstadt. Printer Fritz Voigt, Berlin. Edition: 50.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 5 – ST FRANCIS

Saint Francis of Assisi (born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone; c. 1181 – October 1226) was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. Francis was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, and he lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man. When about twenty, Francis went out with the townsmen to fight in one of the petty skirmishes so frequent at that time between the rival cities. While going off to war in 1204, he had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life. On a pilgrimage to Rome, Francis begged with the beggars at St. Peter's. The experience moved him to live in poverty, and when Francis returned home, he began preaching on the streets, and soon amassed a following; his order was endorsed by the Pope in 1210. In 1224, while he was praying on the mountain of Verna during a forty-day fast in preparation for Michaelmas, Francis is said to have had a vision, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, a result of which he received the stigmata. Brother Leo, who had been with Francis at the time, left a clear and simple account of the event, the first definite account of the phenomenon of stigmata: "Suddenly he saw a vision of a seraph, a six-winged angel on a cross. This angel gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ."

In this portrait of St Francis, Schmidt-Rottluff puts to good use the much harder and more angular style his woodcuts adopted from 1912 through 1920. The agony of the stigmata and the wizened suffering on St Francis’ face are graphically portrayed, his suffering not just spiritual, but physical, like Christ before him. And although the portrait almost becomes a caricature with its use of exprerssionism, it still seems to capture the description of Francis given by one of his first disciples, Thomas of Celano: “...frail in form, Francis had a long yet cheerful face and soft but strong voice, small brilliant black eyes, dark brown hair, and a sparse beard. His person was in no way imposing, yet there was about the saint a delicacy, grace, and distinction which made him most attractive.”

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (December 1884 –August 1976) was a German painter and printmaker. One of the main exponents of Expressionism, he was a founder of Die Brücke and one of its leading members. The gradual dissolution of Die Brücke, as its members moved one by one to Berlin in 1911, led to the group’s demise a few years later. From 1915 to the end of World War I, Schmidt-Rottluff served as a soldier on the eastern front, and these experiences were reflected indirectly in his art. He increasingly turned to introspective themes, as in 9 Holzschnitte (1918), a series of woodcuts based on the life of Christ published by Kurt Wolff Verlag in Munich. At the end of the war he became a member of the Arbeitsrat für kunst in Berlin, which saw itself as an anti-academic movement of German artists at a time of revolution.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS : PART 4 - ST LAWRENCE

Title: The Martyrdom of St Lawrence
Artist: Palma Giovane
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 283 x 490 cm
Date: 1581-82
Location: San Giacomo dall'Orio, Venice.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 4 – ST LAWRENCE

Lawrence of Rome (c. 225 – 258) (Latin: Laurentius, meaning "laurelled") was one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome who were martyred during the persecution of Valerian in 258. At the beginning of the month of August, 258, the emperor issued an edict, commanding that all bishops, priests, and deacons should immediately be put to death. On 6 August Pope Sixtus II was apprehended in one of the catacombs, and executed forthwith. After the death of Sixtus, the prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence turn over the riches of the Church. Legend has it that Lawrence asked for three days to gather together the wealth, and then swiftly distributed as much Church property to the poor as possible. On the third day, when ordered to give up the treasures of the Church, he presented the poor, the crippled, the blind and the suffering, and said that these were the true treasures of the Church. He was subsequently martyred. Since the fourth century St. Lawrence has been one of the most honored martyrs of the Roman Church.

This depiction of The Martyrdom of St Lawrence is a rather unusual horizontal design, which has been criticized as being unsuccessful with predictable intermingling of Venetian and Roman mannerism. But the depth of field has been masterfully captured in distinct planes, creating a very naturalistic sense of depth, as does the light from the flames beneath the Saint’s gridiron. Tradition also holds that Lawrence joked about their cooking him enough to eat while he was burning on the gridiron (hence his patronage of cooks and chefs), stating something along the lines of "turn me over ... I'm done on this side."

Jacopo di Antonio Negretti (c.1548 - October 1628), best known as Jacopo Palma il Giovane or simply Palma Giovane ("Young Palma") was a Venetian painter, and great-nephew of Palma Vecchio. He is said to have been a pupil of Titian, but this tradition has been doubted (it is probably based on the fact that he completed the Pietà which Titian left incomplete at his death). In the late 1560s and early 1570s he worked in central Italy, mainly Rome, but thereafter he spent the rest of his life in Venice. Adding naturalism to his Mannerist style by the 1580s, he varied the ingeniously synthesized amalgam according to subject matter and patrons' own eclectic and conservative tastes, with "virtuoso skill and a facile intelligence." After the death of Tintoretto in 1594, he became the leading painter in the Venice.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 3 – ST MATTHEW

Title: St Matthew and the Angel
Artist: Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 93 x 125 cm
Date: c. 1534
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

TWENTY SAINTS IN TWENTY DAYS: PART 3 – ST MATTHEW

St. Matthew, the son of Alpheus (Mark 2:14) was a Galilean, and a tax-gatherer at Capharnaum. He collected custom duties for Herod Antipas, and, although a Jew, was despised by the Pharisees, who hated all publicans. When summoned by Jesus, Matthew followed Him and tendered Him a feast in his house, where tax-gatherers and sinners sat at table with Christ and His disciples. This drew a protest from the Pharisees whom Jesus rebuked in these consoling words: "I came not to call the just, but sinners". No further allusion is made to Matthew in the Gospels, except in the list of the Apostles. As a disciple and Apostle he therefore would have followed Christ, accompanying Him up to the time of His Passion and, and was one of the witnesses of His Resurrection and Ascension. Of Matthew's subsequent career we have only inaccurate or legendary data. St. Irenæus tells us that Matthew preached the Gospel among the Hebrews, St. Clement of Alexandria claiming that he did this for fifteen years before going into Gentile nations.

In the St Matthew and the Angel, an angel appears in the darkness to inspire the seated evangelist. Strangely distorting light and shadows play across their drapery and faces, the result of illumination from a small oil lamp placed like a footlight on the table below and in front of them. In the dark recesses at the right two men attend to a seated figure. Flames and sparks from the fireplace throw the three figures into relief, catching St Matthew's hands and face with their light, but consigning the rest of his body to near total darkness. At the far left four small figures wander along a moonlit street. Matthew's peasant's hands, rumpled clothes, contorted neck, and slightly scruffy beard all contribute to the immediacy of the scene, so convincingly real as to be unsettling.

Girolamo Savoldo, also called Girolamo da Brescia (c. 1480 – after 1548) was an Italian High Renaissance painter. Active mainly in Venice, his output was small and his career is said to have been unsuccessful, but he is now remembered as a highly attractive minor master whose work stands somewhat apart from the main Venetian tradition. He carefully studied the effects of light and reflections in a way that was most unusual for the time, and had links to the current of realism and acute psychological portrayal. The exact date of Savoldo's death is not known: in 1548 he was cited as still living in Venice, though vecchione ("Very old").