A unique exhibition “Piero della Francesca. Monarch painting "will soon open in the Hermitage

A unique exhibition “Piero della Francesca. Monarch painting "will soon open in the Hermitage
22 November 2018, Thursday

The exhibition “Piero della Francesca. Monarch of Painting "- an event that is worth a special trip to St. Petersburg. What will be on it?


December 7, 2018, on St. Catherine's Day, a monographic exhibition “Piero della Francesca. Monarch of Painting ”, uniting the works of one of the most famous masters of the 15th century from art collections in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain.


This is a great event not only for the Hermitage, but also for cultural life in general, because for the first time so many works of Piero della Francesca get together. The exhibition provides a rare opportunity to get acquainted with the art of the master, since the works of Piero della Francesca are not represented in Russian museum collections. Most of the main works of the artist are in Italy, in places not frequented by tourists: Urbino, Arezzo, Borgo San Sepolcro.
 

"Discovery" by Piero della Francesca took place only in the middle of the XIX century. Prior to this, his works were often attributed to other masters or, scattered around the provincial towns of Italy, did not attract much attention. Nowadays, interest in the work of Piero della Francesca is great, and the master himself is regarded as the key figure of the Italian Quattrocento.

 
Piero della Francesca (1412 (?) - 1492) was born in a small village (later became a city) Borgo San Sepolcro. He worked in various centers of Italy - Florence, Ferrara, Rimini, Rome, Urbino, Perugia, but always preferred to return to his native Borgo San Sepolcro or Arezzo, in the province of which this place was located. Piero played a prominent role in the life of Borgo, he was repeatedly elected to various public positions. In the government building, he painted the fresco "The Resurrection of Christ", which became the symbol of the city.

 
Piero della Francesca worked at the courts of many Italian rulers, including the papal one. Around 1450, Piero was in Ferrara, where he could get acquainted with Dutch painting, in particular with the works of Rogier van der Weyden, invited by the Marquis of Lionello d’Este. He could also meet with Dutch masters at the court of the Duke Federico da Montefeltro of Urbina. From the northerners, Piero took over the accuracy in the transfer of nature and the new oil painting technique for Italy.

 
The pinnacle of Pierrot’s monumental painting and, more generally, the whole of Quatrocento, is the cycle of frescoes entitled “The History of the True Cross”, executed by the master in the church of St. Francis, Arezzo, between 1458 and 1466. Never before in the art of the Renaissance did a similar cycle appear, marked by such clarity and correspondence of all forms to each other, an unusual color gamut and a clear perspective. The exhibition shows a film dedicated to the "History of the True Cross", prepared by Italian documentary filmmakers.

 
Piero della Francesca was also a portrait painter. The names of the customers of the master are not always known, but the main one, no doubt, is Federico da Montefeltro. Piero created a magnificent double portrait of Federico and his wife with allegorical scenes of triumphs of the ducal couple on the back of the boards (Uffizi Gallery, Florence). Federico was not only the ruler of Urbino, but also one of the most successful condottieres in Italy. Mercenary military leaders - a phenomenon typical of the Italian Renaissance.


Painting Piero alien alien emotionality and dynamics. He embodies the main principle of the Renaissance: a person full of beauty and dignity is the center of the universe, and the world around him is harmonious. Pierrot’s undoubted masterpiece - “Madonna Senigalia” (National Gallery of Marche, Urbino) - refers to a late period of the artist’s activity. The name of the painting comes from the place for the church of which it was written. "Madonna Senigalia" can be regarded as the quintessence of creativity by Pierrot. It is particularly clearly reflected the main principles of his art: the mathematical perception of forms, verified proportionality in the ratio of figures, objects, space, a high degree of generalization, a consistent solution to the problem of lighting. Beautiful and sophisticated colors: the master prefers light, joyful tones.

 
In the last years of his life due to blindness, Piero della Francesca could not work as a painter and was engaged in theoretical research; his treatises on mathematics and geometry should be evaluated along with the merits in this area of ​​Leon Battista Alberti, Luca Pacioli, Leonardo da Vinci.

 
Piero della Francesca was one of the discoverers of the laws of perspective. Among the works of Piero della Francesca is a unique manuscript “On Perspective in Painting” from the collection of the Palazzo Magnani Foundation, which is the basis for understanding the whole perspective and essence of the Renaissance visual illusions.


State Hermitage
12/07/2018 - 03/10/2019
 

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