Artist: Piero della Francesca Painting: Madonna della Misericordia Introduction: Madonna della Misericordia
Piero della Francesca, 1460-1462
Oil and tempera on panel
Pinacoteca Comunale, Sansepolcro
Artist: Piero della Francesca Painting: Flagellation of Christ Introduction: Flagellation of Christ
Piero della Francesca, probably 1455?C1460
Oil and tempera on panel
58.4 ?? 81.5 cm
Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino
Artist: Piero della Francesca Painting: Madonna del Parto Introduction: Madonna del Parto
Piero della Francesca, after 1457
detached fresco
Museo della Madonna del Parto, Monterchi
Artist: Piero della Francesca Painting: Polyptych of Perugia Introduction: Polyptych of Perugia
Piero della Francesca, c. 1470
Oil and tempera on panel
338 ?? 230 cm
Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1422-1492 Italian painter and theorist. His work is the embodiment of rational, calm, monumental painting in the Italian Early Renaissance, an age in which art and science were indissolubly linked through the writings of Leon Battista Alberti. Born two generations before Leonardo da Vinci, Piero was similarly interested in the scientific application of the recently discovered rules of perspective to narrative or devotional painting, especially in fresco, of which he was an imaginative master; and although he was less universally creative than Leonardo and worked in an earlier idiom, he was equally keen to experiment with painting technique. Piero was as adept at resolving problems in Euclid, whose modern rediscovery is largely due to him, as he was at creating serene, memorable figures, whose gestures are as telling and spare as those in the frescoes of Giotto or Masaccio. His tactile, gravely convincing figures are also indebted to the sculpture of Donatello, an equally attentive observer of Classical antiquity. In his best works, such as the frescoes in the Bacci Chapel in S Francesco, Arezzo, there is an ideal balance between his serene, classical compositions and the figures that inhabit them, the whole depicted in a distinctive and economical language. In his autograph works Piero was a perfectionist, creating precise, logical and light-filled images (although analysis of their perspective schemes shows that these were always subordinated to narrative effect). However, he often delegated important passages of works (e.g. the Arezzo frescoes) to an ordinary, even incompetent, assistant.
. Related Artists to Piero della Francesca : | Luca Signorelli | Dosso Dossi | Pieter Cornelisz. van Slingelandt | Antonio Puccio Called Pisanello | Tintoretto |