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Madonna del parto Piero della Francesca. Piero della Francesca (Piero di Benedetto or Piero dal Borgo). See what "Francesca, Piero della" is in other dictionaries

Then, quite a long time ago, I didn’t know that I would end up inTuscanyand see with my own eyes the places where I filmedTarkovsky.

I have already seen San Galgano many times ( SanGalgano ) AndBagniVignone ( Bagni Vignone ) when I wanted to visitMonterki ( Monterchi ), a very small town in the east of the provinceArezzo, where a fresco is still preserved in the cemetery chapel"MadonnaDelParto"“Madonna del Parto ” Italian artist of the early RenaissancePierrotdellaFrancesca - Piero della Francesca .

Imagine my surprise when having taxiedalmost two hundred km., I discovered that there had been no chapel for a long time, and the fresco removed from the wall hangs in a small museum under bulletproof glass and the halls surrounding it tell about the history of the creation and life of this work. The last church where this masterpiece was kept collapsed in the early forties, surprisingly! Only the wall on which the fresco was fixed was not damaged!

So Tarkovsky I saw this work in approximately the same conditions as I saw it. OOOO ! Great fiction of cinema! But what about the small church from the film where an incredible ritual of releasing birds from the belly of a doll maiden takes place? And what kind of church is this?

The invention of a great master brought me closer to another master.

Amazing workdellaFrancescabecause on it we see Madonna, as they say “ondemolished", Not yetJesusChrist, and she already exists, a virgin woman, a future mother. What I like about Italian culture is their attitude towards Mary, it’s some kind of mixture"passions", reverence, love and chastity. In the beginning there was"MadonnadelParto"-woman in labor,

original "Mammamia! our mother, great and omnipotent as life itself.

Turns out!

Pierrot della Francesca - Italian artist and mathematician 1412-1492. Born in Sansepollcro, province of Arezzo. Dedicated "Madonna del Parto" , to his mother Romana di Perino, born in Monterchio . It is assumed that the fresco was painted by the artist in 1459, when Piero was in Monterchio at his mother's funeral.
Pierrot was not only an artist but also a mathematician.

His pen includes such studies of perspective and anatomy as: "De Perspective Pingendi ", "De quinque corporibus regularibus " where a scientist talks about geometry in painting and a mathematics textbook "De Abaco ".
Exact Date of BirthTuscanartist not identified, communal archive(artist's birthplace)Vover the centuries it burned several times, turning valuable documents about the life and death of free citizenscommunesto ashes. Vasariin his book "Biographies of Famous Painters",onin Italian it is called simply "Vite" and states that the artist died at the age of 86 completely blind. The second fact is not confirmed by art historians. The first one is questioned. The artist could have been born between 1406 and 1420. In the city museumvery nice collection of worksdellaFrancesca, and the city is magnificent.

INwas also bornMateodiJovanny, his works can be seen in the city's CathedralGrossetoand churches sanNicoloVMontepescali.

Per daytaxiingon the roadsTuscany, I saw a small townMonterki,

Vittorio Zgarbi- world-famous art critic, curator and writer, author of books already published in Russia "Treasures of Italy. Premonition of the Renaissance" And "Treasures of Italy. Renaissance".

In April at the publishing house "Word/Slovo" his third collection is coming out “The melting image. Stories about artists and subjects", where he masterfully talks about Renaissance and Renaissance artists, intertwining their stories with modern times.

In anticipation of the book's release, the publisher provided ARTANDHOUSES with a chapter for publication "Madonna del Parto / Piero della Francesca", which talks about the artist's famous fresco, also known as the "Pregnant Madonna".

The imperturbable Pierrot would not have appreciated the uncertain future - or rather, the lack of a permanent place for his simplest fresco, intended for the most modest room. He could not even imagine that she would be removed from the wall and taken away from this place of prayer and pilgrimage - a small chapel in the Monterki cemetery. Today, the artist would not believe his eyes if he saw these poorly painted and carelessly restored walls near the cemetery fence - everything has been renovated, faceless and abandoned... Now only a white wall remains in the chapel. Madonna is no longer there. And it was not time that damaged or destroyed it: it was people who took it away, supposedly to save it from the cramped and uncomfortable space of the chapel, it was better to preserve it and put it on display. And so began the ordeal of the one who had once served as an inexhaustible source of consolation. What fate awaits her, what evil will has torn her from her usual place! Of course, now it is in a spacious hall, under constant care, in a case that seems to emphasize the miraculous power of the icon. But this is precisely what Pierrot did not want, because such a fate does not correspond to the deeply folk nature of his work. The Madonna, conceived by the artist and painted on this modest wall especially for pious pilgrims, should not be a saint or the Mother of God, but a friend and comforter, close and dear. This is just a pregnant woman who is revealed to two dancing angels. With just her appearance, she drives away all worries and anxieties.

She unzips her dress a little so that the clothes don't restrict her breathing. One hand is on your side, the other points to the smooth curve of your stomach. There is no discomfort or heaviness in her pregnancy - only dignity. Madonna Pierrot is a comforter, at the same time regal and folk, close and understandable in her position: any woman expecting a child sees in her a reflection of her own condition. This was Pierrot’s idea, this is the meaning he put into his work. And the transfer of the fresco violated this plan. The fresco was originally created for the church of Santa Maria in Silvis, standing among the fields, probably in the year of his mother’s death, when Piero came to Monterchi for the funeral. His plan - the portly figure of a royal mother - was so naked and obvious that women in labor began to turn to his Madonna for help in labor pains. Already in 1784–1786, this suburban area with a small church was chosen as the site for the Monterki cemetery. On this occasion, three quarters of the church was demolished and turned into a cemetery chapel. The miraculous fresco was removed, moved to a niche above the main altar of the renovated chapel and forgotten, and a century later the inquisitive and successful polymath Vincenzo Fungini rediscovered this simple and pure masterpiece of Piero della Francesca. After the earthquake of April 26, 1917, it was decided to move the fresco first to a storage facility in the Le Ville area, and then to the Municipal Museum of Sansepolcro, where it was kept until 1922, when fate returned it to the original chapel.

Piero della Francesca
"Madonna del Parto"
around 1460

In 1956, the church began to be rebuilt once again, and the fresco had to be removed again. Since then, years of wandering began again for Madonna del Parto. It was temporarily moved to the former high school building in Via Reglia. When I think about the discussions about the future of this work, my heart sank, because after the transfer the fresco seemed to have lost its life. While disputes continued between the ministry, the municipality and the diocese, the architect Paolo Zermani designed a modest chapel specifically for the fresco, which has long become both a religious relic and a cultural monument. Perhaps Piero would have appreciated Dzermani’s efforts, but he would probably have been upset by the fate of his work - the absolute idea of ​​​​motherhood, embodied in a fresco in memory of his deceased mother, and now lost in the most sad way. His Madonna is literally visible: she enters the stage as two twin angels raise the curtain. The figure does not stand facing the viewer, but slightly sideways, as if wanting to emphasize her pregnancy and the smooth curves of her body. The expression on her face is impassive and restrained: if the angels look directly at us, then the Virgin Mary looks down, slightly lowering her eyelids. A portly body, a stern look - in her pregnancy, the Mother of God cannot meet anyone’s eyes, cannot enter into dialogue. She thinks about her position - special, since she is the Mother of God, ordinary and natural, since she is simply a mother. Pierrot did not know and could not imagine what fate would befall his most intimate and personal work, doomed to an indefinite existence, contrary to its spirit and purpose. But one of the fans of the fresco took revenge for her. In the film “The First Night of Rest,” Tonino Guerra suggests to director Valerio Zurlini a scene where the main character, a professor in love with his student, lectures her in front of a fresco by Piero della Francesca. The scene is filled with incredible charm, poetry and love. But if you look closely, you notice that while in reality the confusion continues, in the film the problem of placing the work has already been solved. We see the fresco not in a shabby cemetery chapel or in a school, where it was placed “for a while” and is still located, but in a wonderful early Renaissance church, small, but with three naves, separated by rows of columns, on a wall that seems to have been specially designed created for her. Here Madonna Piero della Francesca looks completely natural and in her place.

Piero della Francesca (Italian: Piero della Francesca; c. 1420, Borgo San Sepolcro, Signoria of Rimini - October 12, 1492, Borgo San Sepolcro, Florentine Republic) - Italian artist and theorist, representative of the Early Renaissance.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST

Born in the small village of Borgo San Sepolcro, in Tuscany, in 1415/1420.

Artist from a small town, before the 16th century. not falling within the sphere of cultural influence of Florence, Piero readily studied with masters from other cities. In , the formation of which, in turn, was influenced by the style of international Gothic, represented in the Veneto by the work of Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello, Piero della Francesca learned the naturalistic rendering of lighting and chiaroscuro; this technique formed the basis of the powerful poetic realism of his works. In 1439, under his leadership, the artist worked on decorating the church of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence with frescoes. Impressionistic motifs in the interpretation of foliage, borrowed by the artist, possibly from Domenico Veneziano, in his later works, written under the influence of Flemish painting, became one of the earliest attempts in Western European art to depict objects taking into account lighting.

The formation of Piero della Francesca's mature style was influenced by classical sculpture, which he saw in Rome. His only documented trip to Rome occurred in September 1458–1459, when, by order of Pope Pius II, he painted two halls in the Vatican Palace with frescoes.

From about the mid-1460s, Piero della Francesca worked at the court of Federigo da Montefeltro, Count, and from 1474 Duke of Urbino. By order of the Duke, the famous diptych was painted with portraits of Federigo himself and his wife, Battista Sforza (Florence, Uffizi Gallery). They are depicted against the backdrop of a landscape seen from a bird's eye view (a feature characteristic of Flemish painting). In the allegorical compositions on the reverse sides of the portraits, each of the spouses is represented seated on a triumphal chariot, also against the backdrop of a landscape. The portraits were created in memory of Battista Sforza after her death in 1472.

In 1469, he was called to the court of Duke Federico in Urbino, where, by order of this sovereign, he executed the painting “The Flagellation” in the sacristy of the Urbino Cathedral (in the Urbino Gallery).

He worked in Perugia, Loreto, Florence, Arezzo, Monterchi, Ferrara, Urbino, Rimini, Rome, but always returned to his hometown, where since 1442 he was a city councilor and spent the last two decades of his life there.

CREATION

The master's works are distinguished by majestic solemnity, nobility and harmony of images, generalized forms, compositional balance, proportionality, precision of perspective constructions, and a soft palette full of light.

In the period from 1446 to 1454, Pierrot created a style that, in its main features, was preserved in works dating back to the period of his creative maturity. It is characterized by conventionality in the depiction of hair and eyes (the famous almond-shaped eyes, borrowed from the characters of Domenico Veneziano) and the idealization of facial features. The tall figures are built according to the classical canon of Vitruvius proportions, but the female figures have elongated, slightly curved necks and high foreheads - elements of the late Gothic ideal of beauty. In modeling the carnation, Piero della Francesca gives preference to soft tones and smooth transitions, as opposed to the sharp and dark shadows that Masaccio resorted to in his works.

Piero della Francesca had a great sense of beauty, excellent drawing, delicate coloring and an extraordinary knowledge of the technical aspects of painting, especially perspective, for his time.

At the courts of humanist rulers in Ferrara, Pesaro and Rimini, Piero della Francesca became acquainted with a culture whose main aspiration was the revival of antiquity and the use of its achievements in all spheres of human activity, from writing and handwriting to the fine arts. Influenced by this fascination with antiquity, Pierrot began to use classical forms in his paintings, primarily in architectural backgrounds.

Despite numerous attempts to understand Piero della Francesca's methods of constructing architectural and landscape backgrounds, it was not possible to detect a consistent use of a geometric module or a system of perspective constructions in his paintings.

On the contrary, it can be argued that Piero used the compositional principle that dominated Florentine painting in the mid-1430s: a progressive reduction in the size of figures from the foreground to the background; the foreground figures also determine the size of the columns of the depicted buildings. Pierrot's ancient architecture combines massiveness, clarity and nobility of forms with graceful lightness of ornament. Buildings often turn out to be unfinished within the picture plane, parts of them seem to be cut off as a result of framing the canvas with a frame.

THE FLAGELLING OF CHRIST

One of the most mysterious paintings by Pierrot, reminiscent of a diptych in its composition, where on the left there is a scene of flagellation, and on the right there are three men talking.

There are three versions of the possible plot depicted in the painting. The most common version convinces us that this is the flagellation of Jesus Christ before Pilate (in many sources this picture is referred to precisely as “The Flagellation of Christ”, “The Flagellation of the Savior”), according to another version this is St. Martin, Pope of the 7th century, (Rome in at that time part of the Byzantine Empire), who was summoned to Constantinople for trial, convicted and subsequently suffered martyrdom. According to the third version, this is Bl's dream. Jerome.

Jerome once dreamed that he was scourged for reading Cicero to the pagans... three figures in the background - two men and an angel with bare feet - "discuss the relationship between classical and patristic literature as reflected in the story of Jerome's dream."

In the Flagellation of Christ, Pierrot shows a clear reluctance to depict fast, abrupt or frequently repeated movements. This is primarily due to his temperament, but the study of ancient sculpture also played a role here. The main action, the actual scourging of Christ, is depicted on the left in the background, while in the foreground on the right three characters stand in frozen poses with their backs to what is happening. The torturers of Christ seem impassive, stopped in their movement, like participants in a “living picture.” In paintings with strictly canonical iconography, Piero della Francesca proposed original coloristic solutions, giving preference to the use of cold tones and especially a large number of shades of blue.

FRESCO CYCLE “THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY CROSS”

In 1453 or 1454 Piero della Francesca received a commission to paint frescoes for the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo. This is the master's most famous work. The subject of the frescoes is the story of the discovery of the life-giving tree of the Cross on which Christ was crucified. The walls are divided into three registers. On the back wall are two prophets. The lunette on the right wall represents the death of Adam, over whose grave a holy tree grows. Next, the Queen of Sheba, who came to Solomon, worships the Tree from which the threshold is made, seeing in it the image of the future Cross. The next episode is the vision of the Cross to Constantine and his victory over Maxentius. In the second tier of the left and rear wall, Empress Helena’s finding of the Cross is represented: she is shown the place where the crosses on which Christ and the two thieves were executed were buried, and she miraculously learns on which of the three crosses Christ was crucified.

The scenes of this famous fresco cycle do not form a strict chronological sequence, but are consistent with each other in meaning, establishing correspondences between various episodes in the history of the discovery of the Cross.

In the fresco “The Battle of Constantine with Maxentius” Piero della Francesca repeats the motif of reflection.

Meeting of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon
Death of Adam Victory of Constantine over Maxentius

DIPTYCH

From about the mid-1460s, Piero della Francesca worked at the court of Federigo da Montefeltro, Count, and from 1474 Duke of Urbino. By order of the Duke, the famous diptych was painted with portraits of Federigo himself and his wife, Battista Sforza (Florence, Uffizi Gallery). They are depicted against the backdrop of a landscape seen from a bird's eye view (a feature characteristic of Flemish painting). In the allegorical compositions on the reverse sides of the portraits, each of the spouses is represented seated on a triumphal chariot, also against the backdrop of a landscape.

The portraits were created in memory of Battista Sforza after her death in 1472.

In addition, Federigo da Montefeltro commissioned Piero della Francesca to create an altarpiece (Milan, Brera Gallery) for the Franciscan church of San Donato, which he rebuilt, later renamed San Bernardino, where he is depicted kneeling before the Virgin. The Mother of God is accompanied by saints, so calm and motionless that their figures seem to be part of the majestic walls rising behind them.

European portraiture of the 15th–16th centuries
Piero della Francesca

(c. 1420–1492)

Contemporaries called Piero della Francescu “the monarch of painting.” But he was not only a talented artist, the author of numerous altar compositions, but also a famous art researcher who wrote theoretical treatises “On Perspective in Painting” and “The Book of the Five Regular Bodies.”

The Italian artist Piero della Francesca, the brightest representative of the art of the Early Renaissance, was born in Borgo San Sepolcro (now the city of Sansepolcro). He studied in the workshop of the famous Domenico Veneziano.

Working in Florence, the artist carefully studied the work of his predecessors: Paolo Uccello, Masaccio and Giotto. He was also greatly influenced by the art of the Dutch masters. Piero della Francesca's favorite genre was religious.

The Baptist of Christ

His altar paintings are characterized by clarity and rigor of composition, freshness and sonority of colors. These are the works “Madonna della Misericordia” (c. 1448, Pinacoteca, Sansepolcro), “Madonna with Saints” (c. 1472–1474, Brera Gallery, Milan) and the fresco compositions “Mary Magdalene” (c. 1460, Cathedral, Arezzo) , “The Ascension of Christ” (1463–1465, Pinacoteca, Sansepolcro).

The paintings of Piero della Francesca are devoid of intense drama; the characters in his paintings, calm and stately, do not resemble the heroes of the paintings of the masters of the Late Renaissance, for whom it was important to depict the internal conflicts of a person.

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA MADONNA DEL PARTO

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA SAINT MARY MAGDALEN

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA POLYPTYCH OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

Flagellation

This attitude of the master towards man can be traced in his famous paired portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino. Portraits of Federigo da Montefeltro and his wife, Battista Sforza (c. 1465, Uffizi Gallery, Florence) are perhaps the artist’s only and very successful experience in the field of portraiture.

Turning to the traditional type of profile portrait of that time, Piero della Francesca abandoned the usual stylization and created paintings in which the monumental majesty and significance of the images were combined with the accuracy and thoroughness of the rendering of nature.

Madonna and Child with Saints (also known as Montefeltro Altarpiece)

The Nativity

Portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino

The faces are painted with plastic volume and seem natural against the background of a landscape shrouded in an airy haze (the artist did not surround his heroes with a landscape background, like many portrait painters of his time, but harmoniously fit them into this background). On the reverse of the diptych, Piero della Francesca showed the triumph of the dukes. This image, in its detail, resembles the style of the artists of the Dutch school.

Resurrection

Saint Apollonia
Attributed to Piero della Francesca - circa 1455-1460

Saint Michael

Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, an outstanding military leader, politician and philanthropist, was a friend of the painter. Piero della Francesca also depicted him in his famous painting “Madonna with Saints and Angels and Customer Federigo da Montefeltro” (c. 1472–1474, Brera Gallery, Milan).

Portrait images of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino occupy a significant place in the history of portraiture of the 15th century and place their author on a par with the most prominent Italian artists - representatives of this genre.

State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin presents the exhibition “Piero della Francesca and his contemporaries. The image of the Madonna in Renaissance paintings from Italian museums.” The exhibition continues the tradition of introducing the works of the great masters of the Renaissance, provided by the largest art collections in Italy - the Venetian Accademia Gallery, the National Gallery of Marche from Urbino.

In the Christian tradition, the Madonna holding the Child in her arms is a central subject, both in Byzantine icon painting and in the painting of the Italian Renaissance, and the image of the Mother of God is at the center of the narrative of salvation.

In the Eastern (Orthodox) tradition, every depicted character or object is endowed with a symbolic meaning. To honor an image means to honor what is hidden behind this image. According to the decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, the rules for the creation of sacred images were determined not by the artist, but by the church authorities. In Western culture, starting from the 12th century, and then in Renaissance painting, which did not deny what was enshrined in tradition, images of the Virgin Mary are not only icons; symbolic attributes do not lose their meaning, but now the paintings acquire not only sacred, but also universal meaning. From now on, these are images of mother and baby, endowed with individual characteristics, filled with genuine feeling, images that not only remind of the divine principle and the greatness of the Mother of God, but also awaken emotions.

During the Renaissance, at the noble courts of Mantua, Ferrara and Ubrino, as well as in Venice, small images of the Virgin Mary painted on boards, in which there were details endowed with symbolic meaning, performed almost the same function as icons in the Eastern tradition, where most icons were painted not for churches, but for private customers. Basically, we were talking about portable altars, about images, the creation of which was timed to coincide with certain events.

In the second half of the 15th century, interest in Byzantine culture grew, initially due to an attempt to unite the Eastern and Western churches, and then to the presence in the West of numerous representatives of Byzantine culture who fled the Ottoman conquest.

The exhibition presents works by painters of the second half of the 15th century, united by one theme - the Madonna and Child. In addition to their exceptional artistic significance, the works make it possible to understand that between the Western and Eastern Christian traditions there are not only differences, but also deep similarities. The exhibition allows the viewer to gain insight into how one of the main Christian images was understood and interpreted during the Renaissance.

The center of the exhibition is the famous painting by Piero della Francesca “Madonna with the Blessing Child and Two Angels”, or “Madonna of Senigaglia” (1491), from the National Gallery of Marche in Urbino. Despite numerous studies, there is still no objective data that allows us to definitively answer questions about what meanings are hidden in it and what are the circumstances of its creation. The master depicts the Mother of God with the Child, following the Byzantine iconographic type of Hodegetria, that is, the Guide: the Madonna - the intercessor of people before the Lord - points her hand to the Child as Salvation. The stream of light symbolizes Christ. The image of the Mother of God seated on a throne with the Child on her lap and two archangels behind her goes back to examples of the 5th-6th centuries. The classic proportions of the figures create a feeling of solemnity. The severity of the characters in the picture is reminiscent of Christian mosaics or Byzantine icons. Every detail - from the white rose in Jesus' hand to pearl and coral jewelry, a wicker vase, linen - has a symbolic meaning. The Baby's robe is similar to the robe of ancient philosophers, the candle flame means Holy Week, the fabric is the curtain of the Jerusalem Temple. In the artistic design, a special role is played by color, based on a combination of white and shades of blue and gray. The manner of conveying the light-air environment speaks of Piero della Francesca's familiarity with the achievements of Dutch painters.

The exhibition also shows works by Piero della Francesca's contemporaries, whose work is associated with the cities of Northern Italy. These are works by Giovanni Bellini, Carlo Crivelli, Cosimo Tura. Each master has his own understanding of the topic, his own dramaturgy of its disclosure.

The Venetian Giovanni Bellini is characterized by a poetic interpretation of the plot. In most of his paintings, the Madonna does not look at Jesus, her gaze is turned to the future. The composition “Madonna with Cherubs” (circa 1490) from the famous Venetian Accademia Gallery is constructed differently - this is a dialogue between Mother and Child.

The works of Carlo Crivelli, an artist from the Veneto region, are more decorative and symbolic. In the “Madonna and Child” from the Municipal Pinacoteca Francesco Podesti (Ancona), the symbolism is traditional: the apple recalls original sin, the cucumber is a symbol of the Resurrection, the goldfinch is the Passion, the clam in the shell in the hands of Jesus is the Incarnation, the solemn robes of the Virgin indicate that she queen of heaven.

The Ferrara master Cosimo Tura's Madonna and the Sleeping Child (circa 1470), on loan from the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice, is characterized by expression and drama. In the painting, the Madonna awakens the Child from sleep. This plot is connected with the theme of the Resurrection, the fate of Christ, who died for the salvation of people.

In Ferrara, court artists worked side by side with masters of decorative art. Tura himself often imitated the enamel technique, likening his small paintings to exquisite jewelry - such an approach when creating images of the Virgin Mary was quite appropriate, since in the Christian East icons were richly decorated.

The painting "Madonna and the Sleeping Child" is also known as the "Madonna of the Zodiac" because the signs of the zodiac are depicted in the background using thin gold lines. The presence of secular, astrological details in a work on a religious subject is explained by the culture of that era: the Zodiac motif, which Cosimo Tura repeatedly turned to, was popular at the sophisticated Ferrara court. The desire to reconcile the Christian faith and astrology, seeing in the arrangement of the stars a reflection of God's plan, justified the joint presence and mutual overlay of Christian and pagan symbols.

Exhibition “Piero della Francesca and his contemporaries. The image of the Madonna in Renaissance paintings from Italian museums" gives the Russian viewer another rare opportunity to see the works of Piero della Francesca, Cosimo Tura, Carlo Crivelli, Giovanni Bellini, whose works are not in the collections of Russian museums.

Exhibition curator: Victoria Markova, leading researcher at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin.