Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Paintings and Drawings made before 1500

Paolo Uccello
Funerary monument for Sir John Hawkwood
1436
detached fresco mounted on canvas
Duomo, Florence

"Uccello's work is important not only because it applied strict geometry to the making of a painted surrogate for sculpture. It also explicitly revived a classical sculptural type associated with empire and domination, the equestrian monument best typified by the sculpture of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, then at the Lateran Palace in Rome and widely regarded as a portrait of Constantine, the first Christian emperor. The classical character of Uccello's fresco is underscored by the inscription in elegant humanist Latin, praising the commander for his military skill and for his great caution. The mural was just one of the influential adaptations of ancient forms to modern artistic and political ends to occur in the 1430s."

 from A New History of Italian Renaissance Art by Stephen J. Campbell and Michael W. Cole (Thames & Hudson, 2012)

Pisanello
Head of a horse
1437-38
drawing
Louvre

Paolo Uccello
St George and the Dragon
1456
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

Andrea Mantegna
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
ca. 1495
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
 
Filippino Lippi
St Peter Freed from Prison (detail)
 1481-82
fresco
Cappella Brancacci,  Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence

Filippino Lippi
Head of an elderly man
ca. 1495
drawing
Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig

Sandro Botticelli
Portrait of a young woman
ca. 1475
tempera on panel
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Sandro Botticelli
Adoration of Magi (detail)
ca. 1475
tempera on panel
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Luca Signorelli
Testament & Death of Moses (detail)
1481-82
fresco
Sistine Chapel, Vatican

Cosmè Tura
St John the Evangelist on Patmos
ca. 1470-75
tempera on panel
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Cosmè Tura
St Anthony of Padua reading
ca. 1475
oil on panel
Louvre

Leonardo da Vinci
Drapery study
ca. 1470-1484
drawing
Louvre

Andrea Solario
Portrait of a young man
after 1490
oil on panel
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Michael Wolgemut
Portrait of Levinus Memminger
ca. 1485
oil on panel
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Francesco del Cossa
Portrait of a man with a ring
ca. 1472-77
oil on panel
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid