Let It Be

Siena, The Rise of Painting?1200- ?1350

The National Gallery, London?

Robin Richmond, March 13, 2025Mother Mary, Comfort me.?

The embossed municipal city seal of Siena, created in 1250, declares ; “May the Virgin preserve Siena the ancient, whose loveliness she seals.” ?The small labyrinthine Tuscan city, only 50 miles south of Florence, is a jewel of incomparable loveliness to this very day, and she (for to me at least, she is indisputably a she) still bases her identity around the sacred cult of Mary, whose numinous power has, over the centuries, protected her against the depredations of nearby powerful, militaristic, male Florence. ?Gender politics be damned.

The Sienese Republic, founded in 1125, and lasting until 1555, was one of the greatest trading centres of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and a very welcome stop on the wealthier pilgrimages undertaken from Northern Europe to Rome, 145 miles to the south. Altar pieces, sculpture, ivories, elaborate gold work, rich tapestry, silk textiles and fine wool made Siena hugely successful in her glory days, and the Sienese still give the Virgin Mary all the credit for their wellbeing. ?In?the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar,?August 14th, the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, known also as Ferragosto or even Quinze Aout to the more heathen of us fellow Europeans, brings the city’s neighbourhoods - or contrade - together in her honour. Sienese citizens renew their old Marian vows in the form of the world-famous Palio. This is a bare backed (often deadly) horse race in the Piazza del Campo, the city’s main square.?

It’s crazy.

This event is what most people think about when they think about Siena, and this is a great pity.?Siena the ancient has been long?considered the malnourished artistic sibling of grand old Florence, and in many ways we have to thank the prejudices of the Renaissance artist and art historian Giorgio Vasari for this misconception. Vasari got so much wrong in his famous Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects in 1568. His dedication to his native city has blinded generations of art lovers to Siena’s glories, and we, in the 21st century, are still victims of Florentine prejudice. Many tourists completely forego a stop in Siena - except to marvel at the poor exhausted horses at the Palio - and are persuaded that a foray into the city churches and museums is merely a postscript to more serious time spent in Florence.

This is a serious mistake.

This show at the National Gallery gathers paintings from all over the world that haven’t been seen together in centuries and this is extraordinary. It unites disparate panels from huge altarpieces. Duccio’s great Maestá (which understandably has not been brought to London) has been invoked here with the gathering together of parts of its predelle (small narrative panels that sit under the main altarpiece) which have been long since dispersed all around the world. This is thrilling. An excellent discreet diagram explains the disposition of the polyptych’s complex original elements. I have never understood the elements of polyptych painting so well.

The National pulled in the crowds (with justification) for their recent blockbuster show of Van Gogh, and this new show is certainly quieter, more austere and more demanding than that blazing triumph, but it is all the more rewarding for it. The title of the show nails its colours to the mast, sets the record straight, and declares its argument forcefully and legitimately. In cool, dark and beautifully conceived galleries that have the hushed atmosphere of medieval churches, the iconic paintings of the four greatest?of the Sienese painters of the 14th century : Duccio di Buoninsegna (1250/5 -1319), Simone Martini?(1284. -1344) and the Lorenzetti brothers Pietro (1306? -1348?) and Ambrogio (1319?-1348/9) glow from within. Gold leaf gleams. Every painting insists on close observation and time spent. There is so much forcefully observed narrative detail. ?In, for example, Pietro Lorenzetti’s Birth of the Virgin of 1335 - 42 (?) from the Museo dell’ Opera della Metropolitana, Siena, the Virgin’s mother, St. Anne, lies peacefully post partum on a plaid rug that could almost be from the Boden catalogue. ?One of her midwives fans her with an elaborate Indian ivory fan while others wear Jewish prayer shawls in reference to the moment in time it depicts, as they stand on a Moorish tiled floor, wrought in single point perspective.?Who said that single point perspective arrived a generation later with the Florentine architect and artist Filippo Brunelleschi? We have it here in Siena, 50 years earlier.

This show asks us to think about what art is. Is it religion? Is it history? Is it Bible stories? Is it just storytelling? The Sienese masters of the trecento paint their subjects as living breathing people, with deep emotion and vivid empathy. These are not the hieratic, formalised faces we see in the Byzantine icons of previous generations. They are painted by artists making art. They sign their work. This is art made in contemplation of what it is to be human.?This is the rise of painting that the show invites us to contemplate. This is painting in service of God, but also of Man and Woman.

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