Feature: Devotion by Design: Italian Altarpieces before 1500 at the National Gallery until October 2
GIVEN that it is half a millennium since these sacred works were produced they present quite a jigsaw puzzle.
Devotion by Design presents a thematic look at the National Gallery’s own collection of Italian Christian altarpieces and their like – including a challenging section with those designed for personal worship and some with question- marks over their function – from the earliest of 1263 to the end of the 15th century.
It is not a celebration of their stylistic history – changes in design and religious prejudices and practice – but a snapshot of 40 or so works presenting the genre and asking what their legacy holds for us today.
The centrepiece is the recreation in one gallery of an early Renaissance, Tuscan-style church (plainchant and music included) showing how the hierarchy of works might by then have been arranged. So we have, demoted to the rear of the gallery, a 1263 The Virgin and Child Enthroned, with Scenes of the Nativity and the Lives of the Saints by Margarito of Arezzo, which would originally have had a starring role. Up top is the 2.5m The Circumcision by Luca Signorelli from 1490-91, dominating, and shown alongside one of three loan pieces in the show, a Tuscan processional cross from the V&A.
It is a brave attempt at recreating atmosphere but, ultimately, the show is about the diversity of works for various places of worship and how, over time, their fragmentation and dispersal affected the way they were perceived, projected and, often, priced.
An opening section introduces us to the “hierarchy of spaces in churches”, church geography, and the “different ways of differentiating that space”, says National curator Jenny Sliwka, who presents the show with Scott Nethersole of the Courtauld Institute.
A second room juxtaposes a multi-panel polyptych and its typical Gothic frame with the form which followed it, the rectangular pala framed in the style of classical architecture. These are displayed away from the wall to allow examination of their different construction at the rear.
Another section examines the business of the day. In this case Bennozzo Gozzoli’s The Virgin and Child Enthroned among Angels and Saints is displayed with the detailed contract of 1461 drawn up for the artist.
A fifth room is devoted to bits and pieces, roundels and fragments that have been removed from an altar for a collector or gallery. An undoubted highlight is here, Blessing Redeemer by Fra Angelico of about 1423 on loan from the Queen.
• Devotion by Design: Italian Altarpieces before 1500, is at the National Gallery until October 2. information@ng-london.org.uk, 020 7747 2885
Published: 21 July, 2011
by JOHN EVANS