Well, here, finally, after an very long wait, is the 2nd part of my review of 'Siena and the Rise of Painting 1300-1350' at the National Gallery. I'm not that sure it makes much sense. Make of it what you will.
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
Now to the actual exhibition, and as is so often the case with exhibitions of this type, it is haunted by absence. In many ways the viewer is presented with a mystery. In this particular case there is the unknowable, yet palpable, presence of the Medieval city, which sometimes saw itself as the New Jerusalem.
During the near half century covered by this exhibition Siena was at the height of her wealth and power. A city where, like the meeting of two great ocean currents, the Gothic north and the Byzantine east came into fruitful contact. As this exhibition shows it produced an interesting, scintillating synthesis; as to whether in doing so, as the curators argue, it kickstarts Western Art I have my doubts. Much is made of the position of the city on the Via Francigena, the Pilgrim route between Canterbury and Rome, with the suggestion that objects - luxury objects - such as illuminated breviaries and ivory triptychs were brought to the city by pilgrims. They would have to be pretty grand pilgrims, it must be said. Only it isn't said. It is suggested also that pilgrims ordered items from Sienese painters to be picked up later on the return journey. There is no evidence for this, as far as I can see, and again they would have to be at the wealthier end of pilgrim traffic; the items in this exhibition are 'high status'. But then nature abhors a vacuum, and something, i.e. supposition, must take its place.
Nothing is made, as far as I can remember, of what must have been the presence of contemporaneous Byzantine art in the city. Its presence, like that of Gothic art from the North must be inferred because its influence, like that of the Gothic, is there in Sienese art, particularly in the work of Duccio.
At this time Siena was ruled by a mercantile oligarchy - hardly the 'most representative', or 'inclusive' (yes, that is on one of the information panels at the start of the exhibition). Out of this oligarchy, the 'Noveschi', a nine men council, the 'Nove', was elected to govern the Commune of the city for periods of two months at a time. This provided, in a city state that was notoriously unstable, a sustained period of relative political stability. I say 'relative', because for all her power and wealth during that those five decades Siena was still subject to regular bouts of communal violence. Be that as it may, that half century saw a remarkable flowering of art and architecture in the city, as the authorities sought to re-order the city politically and spiritually. In 1348, however, came the fearful arrival of the Black Death, the population of the city was decimated and in the ensuing years there was the repeated threat of famine. In 1355, after 68 years, the rule of the 'Nine' was overthrown.
And then there is the absence of two immensely large, and immensely important, paintings, both works by Duccio: 'The Rucellai Madonna' and 'The Maesta'. Presences that may have had the ability to change the 'narrative' of the exhibition. I have talked about the former before, here. Panels from the predella of the latter form the centre piece of the exhibition, occupying the central octagonal room. Along with the panels in the preceding room they clearly show the master's profound debt to Byzantine art. For some they are evidence that Duccio may have been trained by a Byzantine master, but tempting though that is we are back to supposition. The Maesta was designed as a free-standing altarpiece for the cathedral in Siena. The front is essentially a massive icon of the Panakranta type with the Virgin and the Christ child sitting enthroned and surrounded by all the company of heaven. The reverse however is a collection of scenes, a collection of icons of a devotional scale. How much any this was clearly visible to the congregation, i.e. the laity, is another matter. In Duccio's work the Theotokos continues to wear the blue Maphorion; other later artists, as this exhibition illustrates, are not so humble in regard to the tradition.
Of the works exhibited I find Duccio's the most sympatico; I certainly felt less warm to some of the work of the Lorenzetti brothers. I however, particularly warm to a panel painting - religious in theme, I cannot remember if the artist was named - that hung in the tax office of the Palazzo Pubblico. And why not?
The strange thing is that while the exhibition began with icons it ended with an icon: Simone Martini's 'Christ Discovered in the Temple'. The Virgin Mary still wears her dark blue Maphorion. Is the exhibition actually saying nothing has changed? A narrative could be created thus.
* On June 9th, 1311, the newly complete altarpiece, the embodiment of the cultural, political, economic, and spiritual power and aspiration of the city was brought in procession from Duccio's workshop to the cathedral. Like the Ark of Covenant, in 1 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13 it rode upon a cart drawn by oxen to its resting place. The Theotokos being the ark of the New Covenant, and the tabernacle in the passage quoted at the head of this post which is from the Book of Revelations. This extremely large double-sided altarpiece was placed behind the High Altar until it fell victim to fashion and was eventually riven asunder, with parts of the predella ending up in the National Gallery.
