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Cima da Conegliano (artist) Italian, c. 1459 - 1517 or 1518 Saint Helena, c. 1495 oil on panel Overall: 40.2 x 32.2 cm (15 13/16 x 12 11/16 in.) framed: 61 x 53.3 x 6.4 cm (24 x 21 x 2 1/2 in.) Samuel H. Kress Collection 1961.9.12 |
Object 7 of 7
Mother of the emperor Constantine, Saint Helena journeyed to the Holy Land to find the True Cross, which she holds here.
Born in the town of Conegliano, Cima moved to nearby Venice by the mid-1480s, but he always remained in close contact with his hometown. Perhaps Conegliano appears in the background of this small devotional panel. Almost all of Cima's paintings include idyllic landscapes that recall the mountainous region of his home.
Cima formed his artistic style early in life and never deviated from it. Even though his clear colors and meticulous detail became a bit old-fashioned, his work remained popular with Venetian patrons, especially the more conservative ones. The artist specialized in depicting saints in landscape settings. (See Saint Jerome in the Wilderness) He became the leading painter of altarpieces in Venice in the 1490s, while Giovanni Bellini was occupied with decorating the ducal palace. Cima is sometimes referred to as a "rustic" Bellini for his direct and ingenuous figures. He posed them with greater casualness than Bellini and thereby relaxed the imposing symmetry of Bellini's compositions. The informality and greater sense of movement of Cima's figures influenced Titian and other Venetian artists of the next generation.
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