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SPEAKER 1: You know, the Florentines get all the credit.
And it's important to remember that there
was another major city in the 1300s that was also in Tuscany.
It was another independent republic,
and this is the Republic of Siena,
with the capital city of Siena.
And there was an enormously important and influential
painter there whose name was Duccio,
and so let's look at one of his most important paintings,
the Rucellai Madonna.
SPEAKER 2: We're looking at a painting of the Madonna
holding the Christ Child surrounded
by three angels on either side, and 12 feet high,
so a very large painting of the Madonna.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, it's a huge painting.
In fact, the Virgin Mary herself is twice the height,
if not larger, than a human being.
It's an altarpiece that's meant to be
seen at a great distance within a huge church.
SPEAKER 2: And there's so many decorative patterns here,
on the throne.
In the spaces in between the posts that make up the throne,
we see reds and blues.
And then we've got more patterning in the drapery
behind the throne.
SPEAKER 1: The characteristics that you're referencing
are seen by our historians to be the definition
of Sienese art of this time, highly decorative, highly
patterned, and with a subtlety of color that we don't
often seen in the Florentine.
SPEAKER 2: First of all, Mary's whole body
is in this lovely ultramarine blue,
which was a very expensive paint.
But the angels, you see purples, and greens,
and pinks, and blues.
SPEAKER 1: And they're subtle and prismatic in a way
that we don't so much see in the flatter
colors of the Florentine style.
SPEAKER 2: It's hard to see that Mary's sitting in her throne.
The throne itself is so flat.
SPEAKER 1: It's almost a background
against which she's seen.
There's so much detail and so much decorative
patterning, in the throne especially and in the cloth
that drapes the throne, that its structure gets lost,
because pattern, of course, does emphasize the two dimensional.
You know, when I look at Sienese art, and especially
the Rucellai Madonna, I tend to think
of an artist who is so in love with the ability
to create beauty that pattern and form tend
to trump the overall representation and the emphasis
on any kind of naturalism or any physicality.
For instance, look at the Byzantine-influenced hands
of Mary.
Look how long those fingers are.
It's almost as if the artist has gotten
lost in the length of those fingers
as they wrap around Christ's waist.
SPEAKER 2: They're very beautiful, those hands.
I'm thinking also about the amount of gold here.
We see the disappearance of all of that gold
through the 1300s into the 1400s.
Here, the painting's value is largely
in that ultramarine paint-- that was expensive--
and in the use of gold.
And what happens during the Renaissance
is that the artist himself is valued,
the artist's skill becomes more valued.
Not that Duccio's skill wasn't valued,
but the value was also heavily in the materials that
were used that were often dictated by the patron.
SPEAKER 1: Now, the ultramarine blue that you're referencing
was actually made of the semi-precious stone lapis
lazuli.
And during the Renaissance, the only mines
that were available for lapis were in Afghanistan, still
a remote place for us in the 21st century.
One can only imagine how exotic and rare and difficult
importing from Afghanistan would have been in the 1200s.
SPEAKER 2: And here we have an enormous quantity
of that color being used.
SPEAKER 1: So this is, in some ways, ostentatious.
In some ways, this is a painting that
is broadcasting its value, its wealth, its importance.
What's so interesting is this was
a commission for the main altar in Santa Maria
Novella in Florence, although it's by a Sienese artist.
And Santa Maria Novella is the main Dominican church,
that is, one of the mendicant orders,
this order of begging monks, that
had renounced worldly possessions.
So there's this interesting kind of tension.
We mentioned that this is called the Rucellai Madonna,
and that's a later title.
This painting was later moved away
from the main altar in Santa Maria Novella
and into the Rucellai Chapel, that
is, the private chapel that was controlled
by the Florentine family, the Rucellai.
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