Day 173 - 16th century French church decor
August 5, 2019
I've walked past Gallery 502, which is right next to the Gubbio studiolo, innumerable times but never looked in until today. The gallery is devoted to French church decoration between 1530 and 1550. Its contents come from two principal places: the "intarsia" (inlaid) altarpiece and wainscoting from the Chapel of the Chateau de la Bastie d' Urfe, near Lyon, and the stained glass windows from the choir of the Benedictine priory church of Saint Fermin in Flavigny-sur-Moselle, in Lorraine.
Both the intarsia and the stained glass, I think, reflect the Italian influence. Indeed, the wooden panels were commissioned by Claude D'Urfe', who, according to the descriptive text, became interested in Italian art when he served as the ambassador of the French king in Rome.
While some of the inlaid panels have abstract and geometric designs, others depict landscapes, architectural settings, or religious scenes, with darker woods used to create illusionistic depths. Today's object is the altarpiece, which measures about 5 1/2 feet tall and 4 feet wide and shows the Last Supper. The event takes place in a grand room lined on either side by elaborate square pillars that support a coffered ceiling. The composition seems to follow standard conventions concerning how to represent perspective, with receding lines that lead to a vanishing point somewhere behind the head of Christ, who is, predictably, at the center of the panel, surrounded by his disciples. More unexpectedly, the architectural space opens onto a landscape, an opportunity once again to show the artist's prowess in using the different woods to create three dimensions in a two-dimensional space.
The largest stained glass panels represent the Deluge, with the ark afloat in the mid-distance, and Moses holding the tablets of the law. The Moses figure, in particular, shows real solidity and mass, qualities we associate wth Italian Renaissance depictions of the human form.
We (I, at least) tend to think of Gothic religious art as anonymous. It is interesting to note that both the altarpiece and the windows were designed and made by artists whose identities are known. The intarsia was designed by Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola and made by Fra Damiano da Bergamo and his workshop at, of all places, the Convent of San Domenico in Bologna! What a packing job it must have been to get all the panels intact to Lyon.
Both the intarsia and the stained glass, I think, reflect the Italian influence. Indeed, the wooden panels were commissioned by Claude D'Urfe', who, according to the descriptive text, became interested in Italian art when he served as the ambassador of the French king in Rome.
While some of the inlaid panels have abstract and geometric designs, others depict landscapes, architectural settings, or religious scenes, with darker woods used to create illusionistic depths. Today's object is the altarpiece, which measures about 5 1/2 feet tall and 4 feet wide and shows the Last Supper. The event takes place in a grand room lined on either side by elaborate square pillars that support a coffered ceiling. The composition seems to follow standard conventions concerning how to represent perspective, with receding lines that lead to a vanishing point somewhere behind the head of Christ, who is, predictably, at the center of the panel, surrounded by his disciples. More unexpectedly, the architectural space opens onto a landscape, an opportunity once again to show the artist's prowess in using the different woods to create three dimensions in a two-dimensional space.
The largest stained glass panels represent the Deluge, with the ark afloat in the mid-distance, and Moses holding the tablets of the law. The Moses figure, in particular, shows real solidity and mass, qualities we associate wth Italian Renaissance depictions of the human form.
We (I, at least) tend to think of Gothic religious art as anonymous. It is interesting to note that both the altarpiece and the windows were designed and made by artists whose identities are known. The intarsia was designed by Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola and made by Fra Damiano da Bergamo and his workshop at, of all places, the Convent of San Domenico in Bologna! What a packing job it must have been to get all the panels intact to Lyon.
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