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.

Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter

Title: Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter

Artist: Lorenzo Veneziano

Medium: Panel

Size: 90 x 60 cm

Date: 1369

Location: Museo Correr, Venice.

In Matthew 16:15-19 when the disciple Simon Peter states that Jesus is the Messiah, and the Son of the living God, Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Lorenzo Veneziano fulfilled countless commissions in Venice and its vicinity that display a style that is a handsome fusion of Byzantine and later pictorial currents. His commissions included an altarpiece which was later dismembered, and its side panels unfortunately destroyed in Berlin in 1945. But the central panel depicting Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter survived and is now considered a masterpiece in its own right. His rich, elegant painting is characterized by brilliantly clear color, the sculpture-like form of his figures, and the expressiveness of their faces. He accentuated the sense of space and added a fresh dimension to the elongated style of Byzantine figures.

Lorenzo Veneziano was an Italian painter active 1356-1372 in Venice. We have little written evidence for the life of Veneziano, who was one of the most important figures in late-fourteenth-century Venice, but many of his surviving works are dated. It is likely that he worked in the workshop of Paolo Veneziano in the early 1350s and he also worked at Verona, Vicenza, and Bologna, where he executed the Lion Triptych (1357-59) for the Sant'Antonio Abate church (now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice).