"The Madonna of the Healed: [Re]framing An Annunciation Panel Painting in Aversa" (original) (raw)
Related papers
Saints, Miracles and the Image. Healing Saints and Miraculous Images in the Reinassance, Sandra Cardarelli and Lara Fenelli eds., Turnhout: Brepols, 2018, pp. 229-249.
The icon of the Madonna Bruna del Carmine is the most famous cult image in Naples. Its immense devotional status has earned it a place on the high altar of the fourteenth-century Carmelite church situated in Piazza Mercato, the bustling hub of Neapolitan social and economic life for more than seven centuries. Venerated as miraculous since the sixteenth century, its prodigious healing powers have continued to inspire the devotion of all social classes. The icon as we see it today is an enigmatic artefact. Its format and iconography testify to medieval origins, while its current appearance dates to 1975 when the overpainting of earlier restorations was removed, and it was almost entirely repainted. This article hypothetically reconstructs the material history of the Madonna Bruna del Carmine and explores the social dynamics that gave rise to its veneration. A close examination of the painting and its restorations allows a better understanding of the icon’s history, style, and iconography. The possible dating to c. 1280 links the icon to the early history of the church and convent of Santa Maria del Carmine in Naples. Founded in 1270, the church was rebuilt at the beginning of the 1300’s but its importance in the city emerged in the second half of the 1400’s when it was incorporated into the city walls, became the seat of public rituals and a destination of civic processions, as well as a privileged site for artisans' city guilds. Textual and visual sources testify to the events that determined the affirmation of the icon as a cult image in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it became a formidable tool of propaganda and social control.
This dissertation is an exploration of the context surrounding the creation of a single painting, now in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. I will begin with a general introduction to the painting, which I will refer to as the Edinburgh Madonna, including previous theories regarding the extraordinary trompe l’oeil frame. Following that, I have divided the context into two spheres, the devotional and the artistic. Leading with the devotional context, I will introduce the methods of piety as practiced in the fifteenth century, then discuss the specific penitential and ascetic tenor of devotion in Ferrara. Many of the unique artistic decisions made by the painter of the Edinburgh Madonna can be understood as responding to the demands of Ferrarese piety. Following contemplation of the Edinburgh Madonna as a devotional object, I will consider it as a painting produced in the context Ferrarese artistic production. First, introducing another painting that, I will provide justification for believing, is by the artist of the Edinburgh Madonna, then by comparing specific aspects of the Edinburgh Madonna to other Ferrarese panel paintings. Finally I will consider the extraordinary conceptualisation of space in relation to manuscript illumination. In concord, these comparisons will provide an overall understanding of the decisions made by the painter in the creation of this extraordinary painting.
2013
Abstract: This paper aims to highlight the artistic and conceptual relevance acquired by the iconographic theme of The Coronation of the Virgin in Italy during the Late Middle Ages. To achieve this goal we analyzed twenty-seven Trecento and Quattrocento paintings, with the purpose of discovering in them the more or less innovative compositional formulas proposed by these artists, as well as the possible literary sources that inspired them. From the formal perspective we have discovered three different iconographic types, which complement themselves mutually, as progressively complex variations of a similar basic structure. From the conceptual perspective we could also specify that these three different iconographic types of The Coronation of the Virgin in Italy are inspired directly in specific comments by some Church Fathers and medieval theologians. Keywords : Medieval Art, Marian iconography, Coronation of the Virgin, Trecento , Quattrocento , theological sources. Resumen: E...
2013
This dissertation examines the aesthetic response to altarpieces in early modern Italy, which culminated in the reconstitution of altarpieces as gallery paintings, when, beginning in the seventeenth century, wealthy collectors began removing them from churches and displaying them in their private collections. Such a transformation not only entailed a complete rupture in the function of these paintings – from object of public veneration to private delectation – but also frequently met with resistance and censure from local authorities. It is precisely because it was a very difficult thing to do that the documents concerning the removal of altarpieces are frequently revealing about contemporary attitudes toward art among collectors as well as ecclesiastics. In order to understand the mechanisms – both theoretical and practical –that had to be in place for such a transformation to occur, I explore the history of the altarpiece from the rise of ius patronatus as an economically motivated form of piety in late-medieval Italy, through the encroachment of artistic criteria such as invention and difficulty in the making and viewing of religious art in the sixteenth century, and, finally, to the post-Tridentine discourse on sacred images. Because the purpose of this study is to establish the church as a venue for a nascent connoisseurial discourse, I also consider the development of art collecting in Italy, which was circumscribed in extent through most of the sixteenth century. Lastly, I provide a comprehensive overview of the removal of altarpieces in seventeenth-century Italy, a phenomenon that has previously received only scant attention in art historical literature.
Panel painting between the 13th and 14th century in southern Lazio: Two “forgotten” works in Amaseno
Amaseno, a small center in southern Lazio, now in the province of Frosinone, is a treasure chest of medieval gems that have yet to be studied. Among them are two works I would like to introduce, which unfortunately, due to poor conservation, have remained on the periphery of Italian panel painting. The first work was preserved in the Collegiate Church of S. Maria Assunta, a Cistercian building consecrated in 1179. The painting was a triptych in which the Virgin and Child “were” shown enthroned in the central panel, St. Ambrose on the left panel and St. Nicholas on the right. The second work is now kept in the “Laboratori di restauro” of the “Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini”, but it originally came from the “Santuario di Santa Maria del Perpetuo Soccorso.” The Santuario is best known as “Auricola”, a thirteenth-century monastery, of uncertain Benedictine origin, that preserved some Cistercian forms before its reconstruction in 1892. The area of this painting is divided into three parts: in the center there is the enthroned Virgin shown nursing Christ, two female saints on either side, the Annunciation of Mary in the upper left and the Nativity of Christ in the upper right.
THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN IN LATE MEDIEVAL ITALIAN PAINTING. A CASE STUDY
Eikón Imago, 3 (2013 / 1), ISSN-e 2254-8718, 2013
This paper aims to highlight the artistic and conceptual relevance acquired by the iconographic theme of The Coronation of the Virgin in Italy during the Late Middle Ages. To achieve this goal we analyzed twenty-seven Trecento and Quattrocento paintings, with the purpose of discovering in them the more or less innovative compositional formulas proposed by these artists, as well as the possible literary sources that inspired them. From the formal perspective we have discovered three different iconographic types, which complement themselves mutually, as progressively complex variations of a similar basic structure. From the conceptual perspective we could also specify that these three different iconographic types of The Coronation of the Virgin in Italy are inspired directly in specific comments by some Church Fathers and medieval theologians.
ESCARC 2019. 11th European Symposium on Religious Art, Restoration & Conservation. Proceedings Book, ed. M. L. Vázquez de Ágredos-Pascula, I. Rusu, C. Pelosi, L. Lanteri, A. Lo Monaco, N. Apostolescu, Torí, Kermes, 2019, pp. 193-196, 2019
This paper focuses on the study of the intriguing mid-14th century painted cloth, which is known as The Measure of Christ (‘La Mida’ or ‘Longitud de Cristo’). This odd sendal has been usually related to the Catalan-Italian Gothic style, especially, to the circles of Ramon Destorrents and the Brothers Serra. As a matter of fact, this artwork was probably made by an artist who perfectly knew very specific Italian traditions and was able to translate them into a spiritual and apocalyptical manner. As the surface of the painting was extensively restored in the past, our study aimed to enquire the pictorial material on the cloth, the painting making process as well as to identify and date its various former restorations. The results allow us to shed new light on the artistic background of the painter who mastered the use of blue pigments and the cloth painting as they are described by Cennino Cennini following the 14th century Italian workshop tradition.