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Published: August 3rd 2009
Il Duomo
Cattdrale di Santa Maria del FioreI should really think twice about naming these posts late at night.
During my stay in Firenze I visited the Uffizi Gallery. I figured since Firenze was such an important Renaissance city I should see some Renaissance art while I was there. The gallery certainly delivered it in large quantities. Now I’m certainly no art expert and I should definitely be one of the last people you consult if you want insight into art of any kind; however, there is one banal observation that I would like to make and reflect on: the paintings in the gallery, particularly those in the first dozen rooms, were almost entirely religious in nature. This should come as no surprise to anyone given the era, but what I found interesting was how heavily represented the images were of the Madonna and child, people adoring the baby Jesus, Jesus being crucified and Jesus being resurrected.
So why should there be so much focus on only the very beginning and very end of Jesus’ life? Certainly the events depicted are theologically important ones, but it’s not like there aren’t others that could have been chosen. How about Jesus performing miracles? The only depiction of this
I can remember is one painting of Lazarus being brought back from the dead. The only other thing that comes to mind is a Da Vinci painting of Jesus being baptized. But was no one really interested in depictions of Jesus teaching his disciples or, say, delivering the sermon on the mount? And what about the Last Supper, so famously depicted elsewhere? Curious
Of course I can’t really come to any conclusions based only on what I’ve seen in this one collection, because, of course, it’s a collection that may be biased by the tastes of the collector(s). Perhaps one of the Medici’s really had a thing for images of the baby Jesus being held by his mother. I don't know. Another possibility is that the bias in the collection is based on the fact that a great many different patrons commissioned the works and each of them wanted a crucifixion piece more than anything else. Makes sense to me. The point is that I should have taken the audio tour, because maybe they explained all this.
By the way, Botticelli was my favorite artist represented. Enjoy the pictures of the city.
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mom
non-member comment
religious paintings
as i recall from my trip to Italy. religious art comprised about 75% of the art with portraits making up the balance! After 3 weeks of museums I was very tired of the religious art and do not like it to this day.