NARRATOR:
David Brown, Curator of Italian Renaissance Paintings:
DAVID BROWN:
“We have an outstanding collection of Trecento, or 14th century, Italian painting at the gallery, and that collection is headed by two of the greatest masters of the time. One is Giotto in Florence, and the other is Duccio, his counterpart in Sienna. Duccio’s greatest work was the Maesta, or the Madonna in Majesty, which he painted for the cathedral of Sienna between 1308 and 1311. This many-paneled altarpiece was carried in triumph through the streets of the city, and placed on the high altar of the cathedral in 1311. It’s hard to believe, but when tastes change, even works of art as great as Duccio’s Maesta could be dismantled. And that was done in the 16th century.”
“The gallery is very fortunate in having two panels from the altar base. One is the Nativity. The Nativity belongs to a series of scenes from the infancy of Christ and it represents the event occurring in a cave. The prophets hold scrolls referring to the events depicted. And it is Ezekiel in the panel on the right who holds a scroll referring to the Nativity.”
NARRATOR:
The scroll reads:
ACTOR:
“I saw a door in the house of the Lord which was closed, and no man went through it. The Lord only enters through it.”
NARRATOR:
In the largest panel here, an angel with a scroll bends down to bring news of Christ’s birth to the shepherds.
ACTOR:
“Behold I bring you tidings of great joy.”
NARRATOR:
And in the left panel, we find the figure of Isaiah, looking toward the missing scene that was once the center of the altar base. It showed the moment when the angel tells the Virgin Mary that she will give birth to the Son of God. Isaiah’s scroll tells us:
ACTOR:
“Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel.”
DAVID BROWN:
“Duccio was like Giotto, an artist who inherited the Byzantine tradition of painting in Italy, emanating out of Constantinople, but changed it profoundly. We can see the Byzantine influence in this picture in the treatment of the figures, the stylization, and also in what’s known as hieratic scale. By this system, the larger figures are the more important ones. The Virgin is therefore the largest figure in the Nativity scene. But below is the scene of handmaidens washing the infant represented at a much smaller scale because they are of lesser importance.”
“One of the interesting things about this picture is the way Duccio has transformed this Byzantine style. And you can see that particularly in this washing scene, in the realism of it. The baby appears to be quite uncomfortable being lifted into the basin of water by one of the handmaidens. This kind of naturalistic note, this human note, is something that both Giotto and Duccio introduced into Italian painting.”
