I am now returned from Italy and thought I might continue the mini-series I began there, that is, of short articles concerning something which it takes my fancy to write about. On this occasion, let's have a look at a 'new' fresco, new to me I mean, although this work was made about 1370.
While in Florence, I happened one day to be walking past the church of Ognissanti whose imposing façade faces, across a piazza, the Arno River. I was actually headed for my favourite bookshop (arte&libri), in Via dei Fossi, but I could not resist the temptation (so to speak) to revisit this important building; important because it houses frescos by Taddeo Gaddi, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, a large painted Crucifix by Giotto, and so on, but as well, in the refectory of the attached convent, a Last Supper, also by Ghirlandaio.
As it transpired, I did not see the Last Supper but got involved with the works in the church itself. And, as I discovered several times on this trip, parts of the building never before accessible to the public were now opened. And the area which interested me the most was an old sacristy which, as I say, I had not seen previously. This sacristy is situated at the end of the left transept of the church and to reach it, one has to go past Giotto's powerful Crucifix, suspended above the opening of a side-chapel.
In the sacristy were three large fresco remnants, two virtually complete, as well as the 'sinopia' - the painted under-drawing - of one of those, a Crucifixion with Holy Figures, c.1350, by Taddeo Gaddi. But the focus for us today is the other almost intact fresco of an Annunciation attributed to an anonymous artist known as the Maestro di Barberino. At first sight, this picture may seem a conventional image of that important event, the announcing Angel on the left and the compliant Virgin Mary on the right.
A curious eye regarding this image may start to wonder, given the period, about how our painter dealt with perspective (not fully developed or described until about 50 years later). In a booklet concerning the church and its artworks, this painting is described somewhat dismissively as not being of any particular note artistically. I agree that from some points of view, it is problematical and, in terms of the two main protagonists, not especially inspiring. However, this painter's interest in space is worth examining as, although perhaps not so powerfully done as certain things by Giotto (d.1337), he has definitely understood the nature of recession.
The 'staging' of the encounter is conventional in that it takes place in what we may assume to be Mary's study, or something similar. What might strike some observers as especially odd is the miniature figure in the lower centre of the image; in fact, this is also conventional, in two ways: first, this figure represents the 'donor' or patron of the fresco, that is, the (human) person who paid for it, and, although he is pictured conspicuously in the centre of this Annunciation, his presence in and of itself is not unusual for the time. Secondly, the fact that he is so diminutive is due to the convention of hierarchy: in Christian art, God and Jesus were represented as the largest figures, followed by the Virgin and St John the Baptist, followed by the angels, then the saints and finally, smallest of all, any donor or donors who happened to be included 1. Needless to say, only fairly wealthy people or corporate patrons could afford to pay for such a work of art (this one incidentally, quite large).
Another conventional element, although by this time, a little anachronistic, is the painted words of the dialogue which occurred between Mary and the Angel: he greets her - his words are in white just above the yellow back-rest of the large chest in the centre of the painting; her answer appears in gold letters coming from her mouth and directed, not at the Angel, but rather along the shaft of light coming in from the top left of the image (along which descends the Holy Ghost in the form of a small dove), originally the site of the face of God.
Large parts of the beautiful Angel, with his arms folded and holding the traditional lily, appear to have been added in 'a secco' work, that is, not painted in 'buon fresco', but added after, when the 'fresco' part was dry; this is suggested by the many areas where the paint has clearly dropped off the surface (note the almost vanished wing on the left), and the underlying 'fresco' has become visible. This is extremely unusual as a major figure such as this would certainly have been painted in 'buon fresco', as seems to be the case for the Angel's head and neck and the green parts of his cloak. Naturally though, damage to a fresco can also be the result of many other things, including simple vandalism and carelessness.
However, it is in the representation of the architectural environment, and therefore the space, that this anonymous artist has attempted to move away from convention. The whole composition, excluding the figures, is based on a series of horizontal strata, beginning at the 'front' edge of the image and, as it were, climbing up the wall, to reach the top of the surface. These horizontal planes represent, in a receding series: the floor and carpet as well as the forward edge of the ceiling of the 'room'; the front face of the yellow trunk or bedroom chest; the back-rest of the chest; the green lozenge design of the rear wall; the ceiling of the 'room'; the pale green wall of some further-distant structure pierced by four windows; and then lastly, the sky (whose blue colour - now red - has been lost due to the technical requirements of using a particular blue in fresco).
Beginning with the carpet, we see that the design, centred on the star pattern, recedes harmoniously - if intuitively - towards some imagined vanishing point; two of the next large areas, the front part of the yellow chest and the green wall with its lozenge shapes, are verticals; the seat or lid of the chest is not a vertical but a receding plane, indicated by fine lines at its right, near the Virgin, and near the centre; note how that latter line recedes from the front of the chest to the back-rest. More evidence of the artist's intention has been revealed - by chance - by the loss of paint on the left side of the yellow chest, in the now-visible space between the Angel's left elbow and left knee, where the receding lines are clearly visible. The two sides of this room meet its ceiling in convincing recession and are already indicating that, at this point, we are looking up; in fact, we do see the ceiling, with its receding boards, as though we had to shift our focus upwards as opposed to looking at the two actors straight on.
This recession - of the ceiling and its join with the left wall - is carried even further into space by the use of a Gothic arch doorway cut into the left of the green rear wall. Through this arch we gain admittance to another, more distant room where we glimpse a large wooden structure, perhaps a bed of the type common in medieval houses of the wealthy; drawn across our side of the bed is a lace curtain establishing yet another 'layer' of space. This device, of a hole in a rear wall giving access into a further distant space is not unique to this picture 2 and, incidentally, was one taken-up and significantly developed by Piero della Francesca, in the next century, in his painting known as the Madonna of Senigallia (1474).
The area above our 'room' is a pale green wall situated, both by virtue of its less-strong colour and the (badly-drawn) receding lines of the adjacent structures leading to it, at some distance much further back in relation to the front edge of the carpet for instance. The curiosity here is that the separating grey columns of that pale green wall are crowned with statues of Christian saints (amongst whom, one or two martyrs), even before Christ himself is born!
While being able to assure you that this fresco is a lot more arresting than it might seem in a small photograph, and admitting its various shortcomings, I feel that the artist's attempt to comprehend and represent three-dimensional space must be acknowledged, and even that there are one or two subtleties there as well. The artist, rather than being a figure painter per se, appears more to delight in patterns, in which this picture abounds, and therefore in details: a close-up view of the centre lines in the seat of the chest show that on its front surface, a thin yellow strip, he has continued those two lines so as to show the function of the woodwork: in other words, that the top of the chest opens on either side!
Our fresco does not seem to be a 'great' work, but, at the end of the day, like many such 'minor' pieces, it still contains small 'jewels' of beauty and intelligence and, after all, what more do we need to help us through our day?
1 A very interesting example of this is in the apse mosaic of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. As said, Christ and Mary are by far the biggest figures in the composition; they are surrounded at their feet by numerous angels, much smaller; in an intermediate size, but still much smaller than the two main protagonists, are six saints, three on either side; on the extreme left of this group of saints we discover one of their newer members, Saint Francis of Assisi (canonized 1228). The mosaic dates from around 1290 and was commissioned by the first Franciscan Pope, Nicholas IV; although St Francis is with the other saints, he is the 'new boy' and is somewhat smaller than his companions, Saints Paul and Peter (who were in any case actual apostles); the Pope however, is by far the smallest figure on this side, despite being a Pope! He has a companion on the right side, Cardinal Giacomo Colonna, one of two brothers Colonna who actually paid for the picture. The mosaic is the work of the painter Jacopo Torriti who signed it in the lower left corner. In our fresco, the Angel is apparently the same height as Mary but, notice, he is kneeling; were he to stand upright, he would then be much larger than the Virgin who, at this point it will be remembered, is still a (mere if particular) human being.
2 As a device to suggest further and deeper space beyond the action in the foreground areas (and so too, beyond the surface of the support: wall, canvas or wood), a 'hole in the wall', so to speak, was not uncommon; apart from its use in interiors as here, it was also used to suggest the inner parts of fortified cities for instance, often seen through one of the city gates. Examples from our anonymous painter's time include Duccio - in his stupendous Maestà (1308-11) - and Pietro Lorenzetti in his Birth of the Virgin (1342), both in Siena; and a bit later in Florence, circa 1420, Lorenzo Monaco's version of the same subject in Santa Trinita.
