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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 3
Lesson 3: Painting in central Italy- Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi
- Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi
- Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi (reframed)
- Masaccio, Virgin and Child Enthroned
- Masaccio, The Holy Trinity
- Masaccio, Holy Trinity
- Masaccio, Holy Trinity (quiz)
- Masaccio, The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel
- Masaccio, The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel
- Masaccio, Tribute Money (quiz)
- Masaccio, Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden
- Fra Angelico, The Annunciation (Prado)
- Fra Angelico, The Annunciation
- Fra Angelico's Annunciation (quiz)
- Uccello, The Battle of San Romano
- Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with two Angels
- Lippi, Madonna and Child with Two Angels
- Lippi, Madonna and Child with two Angels (quiz)
- Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child
- Lippi, Portrait of a Man and Woman at a Casement
- Fra Filippo Lippi, The Adoration
- Benozzo Gozzoli, The Medici Palace Chapel frescoes
- Beyond the Madonna, an early image of enslaved people in Renaissance Florence
- Veneziano, St. Lucy Altarpiece
- Antonio Pollaiuolo, Battle of Ten Nudes
- Perugino, Christ Giving the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter
- Ghirlandaio, Birth of the Virgin
- Cassone with the Conquest of Trebizond
- Botticelli, Primavera
- A celebration of beauty and love: Botticelli's Birth of Venus
- Botticelli, Birth of Venus (quiz)
- Botticelli, Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici
- Portraits and fashion: Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Woman
- Napoleon's booty — Perugino's (gorgeous) Decemviri Altarpiece
- The Early Renaissance in Florence (including painting, sculpture and architecture) (quiz)
- Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ
- Piero della Francesca, Baptism of Christ (quiz)
- Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ
- A Renaissance masterpiece nearly lost in war: Piero della Francesca, The Resurrection
- Piero della Francesca, Resurrection
- Piero della Francesca, Portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino
- Piero della Francesca, Portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino (quiz)
- Signorelli, The Damned Cast into Hell
- Martini, Architectural Veduta
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Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child
Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child, c. 1440, tempera on panel, 79 x 51.1 cm / 31-1/8 x 20-1/8 inches (National Gallery of Art, Washington) Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker . Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- The "Fra" in Fra Filippo Lippi's name makes me think that he was a member of a monastic community, but didn't he have a son who was also an artist? How does that work?(5 votes)
- He was a carmelite, but he left them in 1432 without being released from his vows. In 1458 he had a sexual relationship with a girl, who was supposed to sit for one of his pictures and that resulted in a son.
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Lippi(6 votes)
- Why is there that odd dip in that wall behind her head?(4 votes)
- It is in an alcove, very common in old churches behind statues of the saints.(5 votes)
- why is the painting in DC?(4 votes)
- "On March 17, 1941, Kress and Paul Mellon gave a large gift of art to the people of the United States, thereby establishing the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the gift personally." From Wikipedia.
See the article on Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Henry_Kress
Well worth reading about Kress and the Kress Foundation. I had never heard of either until I went looking for an answer to this question. A visit to the NGA website gave me the collection this work belongs to, and that led me to research Kress. Thank you for the question, and sorry I didn't make it here sooner to reply.(2 votes)
- Is "Fra" the italian renaissance version of "Mister/Mr." or something? Both Fra Angelico and Fra Fillippo Lippo now have this prefix of a name...could be coincidence, but I was just wondering, thanks!(3 votes)
- "Fra" is Italian for "brother" or "friar"; both Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi were monks.(4 votes)
- Does anybody else think that Mary also looks questioning, as though asking if we would hurt her, or her son?(3 votes)
- I noticed that the apse in the background looks exactly like a scallop shell. Also, the way the Madonna's head is angled looks very similar to Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Could Botticelli have based the Birth of Venus on Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Child?(2 votes)
- Yes, Rafael is right that shells are typical antique decor but it's worth adding that shell is simultaneously a medieval symbol of Mary because a pearl was thought to appear in a shell due to the lightning. And that was the best metaphor for the Immaculate Conception. Lightning like the Holy Spirit, the sudden flash of light -- and a gem appears inside a shell without sex between shells. (As far as I know)(3 votes)
- Isn't it a miracle in itself that jesus was a caucasian baby from a caucasian family in the middle east in that period of time?(2 votes)
- Common misinterpretation. Jesus was very likely Middle Eastern, but most persons who had never been to the Middle East would've assumed he was white. He would also have been depicted as white so everyday persons who viewed art in the West could identify with him.(8 votes)
Video transcript
(upbeat piano music) Voiceover: We're in the
National Gallery in Washington looking at a lovely little Filippo Lippi of a "Madonna and Child" from about 1440. I suppose, this just is so lovely to me. The beautiful soft curves of the headdress that she wearing framing her face. Voiceover: There's a kind
of pathos in her face. Madonna's so often shown
beautiful but troubled but her sense of fear
and sadness comes across in such an incredibly
tender and intimate way. And the way her hand holds
him back protectively this is that terrible pointed moment. Voiceover: And looks out at us too, in a sort of way saying, "We all know what's going to happen." "We all know what this means, "but look at the price that I pay for this "as a mother." Voiceover: A little scorn. Voiceover: The other
thing that I see with this is so obviously the early renaissance. The lessons of the 15th century. Mary becoming so much more human in the ways we just described. Christ looking so much more like a baby than he did painted 100 years earlier. Voiceover: The large head, chubby, not looking like a small man. Voiceover: Right Voiceover: But the
artist, here Lippi, being comfortable with the notion
that here we have God, this divine figure, in the body of a child. Now he's looking down and
slightly to his right. Which suggests the original placement of this painting. Voiceover: And instead of that flat gold background that we'd have
had 100 years earlier Lippi's created little
niche for Mary to occupy So we have some sense of space around her. Very classical looking. And then that shadow that
her body casts to the right. Voiceover: Yes. Voiceover: So we have a sense of real natural light coming from the left casting a shadow. A sense of her convincing
three dimensionality here. She's not a flat ethereal figure anymore. Voiceover: It's really interesting. She has that sense of physicality. And this is such an expression
of the 15th century, in the classical architecture. But also you are absolutely right in the way in which the shadow actually follows the complex contours
of that architecture. You're absolutely right. Voiceover: The lesson of Masaccio. But on the other hand
there's a kind of softness and lyrical quality to Lippi that isn't in Masaccio. To those beautiful little curves around her face... Voiceover: Or the
Diaphanes-ness of that vail is just gorgeous... Voiceover: You can see how Lippi is Botticelli's teacher. This lovely gold foreshortened halo. Although now that gold is disappearing and the halo is disappearing. It's just sort of speckled with gold. Voiceover: In fact all the color is almost gem-like with a kind of gentle radiance. Voiceover: I love that
he's on this little ledge, like a window ledge. Voiceover: Sometimes that's been read as a reference to the eventual entombment. But she holds him aloft from the tomb. You know she protects him from it with a kind of pillow. Voiceover: Hard to remember when you're looking at a painting in a museum, that it's probably been damaged or suffered some conservation efforts, that may have not been as good as we might have hoped. Voiceover: Well the painting's
almost 600 years old. And it's gorgeous. Voiceover: It still is. (upbeat piano music)