Madonna and Child with Ignudi (aka The Medici Tondo)
Artist: Luca Signorelli
1490
Painting
This boldly-colored work presents the Virgin Mary, wearing a red dress and blue robe, and sitting on the ground in a pastoral outdoor setting (with classical architectural features in the background) with the Christ Child at her side. He is nude, standing on one foot, with his right leg raised, being supported by his mother, holding her left hand with both of his, and her right hand gently supporting his side. In the mid-ground, Signorelli included a grazing horse, and four young men, naked except for loincloths. The round presentation (tondo) is a trompe-l'oeil painting of carved stone, with, at the upper left and right corners, the figures of two prophets in the process of writing, and between them, Saint John the Baptist.
This work is oil and tempera on wood panel. It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Madonna and Child with Saints
Artist: Fra Filippo Lippi
1437
Painting
This picture is part of the altarpiece commissioned by (the childless) Gherardo di Bartolomeo Barbadori who, having died in 1429, bequeathed his fortune to the Church of Santo Spirito for an altarpiece to be painted in dedication to Saint Fridianus. Lippi accepted the commission around 1437. The interior scene is packed with the figures of angels, two saints, and the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus.
The two saints are oriented by Lippi in different ways: Augustine, while venerating on his knees, is half-turned towards the viewer; Fridianus, the sixth-century Irish pilgrim and hermit, is turned towards the Madonna and Child. This alerts us to Augustine's role in the early church as promulgator of the Christian faith. Fridianus is, by contrast, exclusively concentrated on devotion, reflecting his life of solitary asceticism. The Virgin is a powerful figure in a painting which is divided architecturally in the form of a triptych. In the central arch, Mary stands above all other figures, as if about to give her blessing to the kneeling saints. It was unusual at the time to portray Mary standing and, in what would have been a Virgin Enthroned picture, Lippi paints a commanding femininity striding away from the obscured throne in the niche in the background.
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