A rare, captivating U.S. exhibition of Paolo Veneziano painting centers on personal altarpieces, which were a brisk business in plague-ridden Venice.
Around 1340 or 1345, when he was painting the two multipanel private altarpieces now at the center of a captivating new exhibition at the, Paolo Veneziano — Paul the Venetian — could not have known that in just a few short years the great port city on the lagoon would be swamped by the Black Death.
He was the standout in a multigenerational family of artists that included his father, his brother and three of his sons. Judging from the two luxe altarpieces in “Paolo Veneziano: Art & Devotion in 14Many art historians regard the late-medieval artist as the first great painter in a city that would go on to produce some of the greatest in European art history. Exhibitions of his work don’t come up often in the United States, which makes this one must-see.
Sometimes it’s polished to a smooth sheen; sometimes it features linear incisions and punched dots. Always it gathers light and then disperses it, in sunlight creating illusions of subtle movement and by candlelight ethereal, more dramatic ghostliness. Gold is of course the color of the finch in the lovely panel of “The Virgin and Child.” Birds are ancient symbols for the soul, and for Christianity the goldfinch had come to signal resurrection. This one is perched on the finger of regal mom, while her rambunctious boy steps forward to reach for it.
Even the drapery hung behind the pair is painted as if it is tacked to points on the picture’s elaborately carved frame. You could reach out and touch a picture frame, but not a painted drapery. Curators Laura Llewellyn and John Witty surmise that this gorgeous panel was once at the center of a large altarpiece. Dismantling altars and selling off individual panels piecemeal was a common desecration later undertaken by rapacious art dealers. One of the two fascinating personal altars in the center of their show has been temporarily reassembled, thanks to multiple loans, for the first time.The two are remarkably similar.
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