Past Exhibition

Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence

Two women stand clasping hands between two seated men, all against a deep landscape with hills and a town in this nearly square painting. Dozens of people are gathered in the town to our right, and several cluster in front of a building to our left. All the people have pale, peachy skin. Close to us, the two women both have translucent, plate-like halos. They stand with their bodies angled toward each other, and they look at each other. The woman to our left, Mary, has smooth skin with a delicate profile. She wears a gold-edged, ultramarine-blue robe lined with forest green over a long-sleeved, ruby-red dress. Sandaled toes peek under the hem. An eggshell-white and gold scarf drapes over her blond hair, which is pulled back, and over her shoulders. Leaning toward her companion, Mary gazes directly into the eyes of the older woman, Elizabeth. They clasp their right hands, and Mary touches Elizabeth’s shoulder. They stand close together, so only a sliver of the background landscape is visible between their cloaks. Elizabeth wears a maroon-red dress mostly covered by a wine-red cloak that wraps around her body. Her opaque, white scarf drapes over her head and ties loosely on her chest. Her free, left hand is raised, the palm facing Mary. The women stand on a slightly raised platform as the elderly men sit on either side, their bodies angled toward the women. Both men have faint, barely visible halos floating over their balding heads. They have fringes of gray hair and long, gray beards. Their foreheads are deeply lined with wrinkles, and they look down long, straight noses at their laps. To our left, the man wears a scarlet-red cloak over a harvest-yellow garment with gray sleeves. He hunches over a book in his lap. Three gold balls lie next to him, near Mary’s feet. On our right, the second man wears black, round spectacles perched on his nose. The hood of his black robe lies across his shoulders, over an olive-green cape. The cape has gold trim, and the underside is scarlet red. He writes on a narrow piece of parchment with a quill on a closed, blue-covered book. He braces the book and an ink pot with one hand, and a leather pouch hangs from a cord in that hand. At his feet lie an iron-colored bell, a wooden cane, and a brown book. A single sprig of garnet-red flowers lies on the stone floor between the two men. Beyond the four people, the sand-colored land dips down between the town to our right and the building to our left. Dozens of women holding babies struggle against men with swords on a platform in the town. Four people look on from windows above, and buildings continue into the distance along high, steep hills. One of the buildings there is topped by a cross, and the side of that structure is painted with a scene showing a kneeling, winged angel holding a white lily toward a woman dressed in green, who kneels and crosses her arms over her chest. To our left and deep in the shadow cast by a tall building there, a woman and several men gather and some kneel around a baby. Beyond, the land extends to body of vivid blue water, which leads back to a pale blue mountain in the deep distance. A few puffy clouds float across the sky above, which deepens from powder blue along the top edge to nearly white along the horizon.
Piero di Cosimo, The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot, c. 1489/1490, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.361

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor, Northeast Galleries
Two women stand clasping hands between two seated men, all against a deep landscape with hills and a town in this nearly square painting. Dozens of people are gathered in the town to our right, and several cluster in front of a building to our left. All the people have pale, peachy skin. Close to us, the two women both have translucent, plate-like halos. They stand with their bodies angled toward each other, and they look at each other. The woman to our left, Mary, has smooth skin with a delicate profile. She wears a gold-edged, ultramarine-blue robe lined with forest green over a long-sleeved, ruby-red dress. Sandaled toes peek under the hem. An eggshell-white and gold scarf drapes over her blond hair, which is pulled back, and over her shoulders. Leaning toward her companion, Mary gazes directly into the eyes of the older woman, Elizabeth. They clasp their right hands, and Mary touches Elizabeth’s shoulder. They stand close together, so only a sliver of the background landscape is visible between their cloaks. Elizabeth wears a maroon-red dress mostly covered by a wine-red cloak that wraps around her body. Her opaque, white scarf drapes over her head and ties loosely on her chest. Her free, left hand is raised, the palm facing Mary. The women stand on a slightly raised platform as the elderly men sit on either side, their bodies angled toward the women. Both men have faint, barely visible halos floating over their balding heads. They have fringes of gray hair and long, gray beards. Their foreheads are deeply lined with wrinkles, and they look down long, straight noses at their laps. To our left, the man wears a scarlet-red cloak over a harvest-yellow garment with gray sleeves. He hunches over a book in his lap. Three gold balls lie next to him, near Mary’s feet. On our right, the second man wears black, round spectacles perched on his nose. The hood of his black robe lies across his shoulders, over an olive-green cape. The cape has gold trim, and the underside is scarlet red. He writes on a narrow piece of parchment with a quill on a closed, blue-covered book. He braces the book and an ink pot with one hand, and a leather pouch hangs from a cord in that hand. At his feet lie an iron-colored bell, a wooden cane, and a brown book. A single sprig of garnet-red flowers lies on the stone floor between the two men. Beyond the four people, the sand-colored land dips down between the town to our right and the building to our left. Dozens of women holding babies struggle against men with swords on a platform in the town. Four people look on from windows above, and buildings continue into the distance along high, steep hills. One of the buildings there is topped by a cross, and the side of that structure is painted with a scene showing a kneeling, winged angel holding a white lily toward a woman dressed in green, who kneels and crosses her arms over her chest. To our left and deep in the shadow cast by a tall building there, a woman and several men gather and some kneel around a baby. Beyond, the land extends to body of vivid blue water, which leads back to a pale blue mountain in the deep distance. A few puffy clouds float across the sky above, which deepens from powder blue along the top edge to nearly white along the horizon.
Piero di Cosimo, The Visitation with Saint Nicholas and Saint Anthony Abbot, c. 1489/1490, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.361

Overview: Piero di Cosimo (1462 – 1522) was a creative spirit of uncommon imagination. Although he worked in the shadow of his great Florentine contemporary Leonardo da Vinci, Piero was esteemed in his day for his fantastic inventions. His paintings rivaled the verses of the ancient poets whose tales he transformed into a wonderfully strange visual language all his own. The artist conjured up fanciful myths and allegories, the meanings of which can be mysterious. But fantasy was not his only realm. Piero’s affinity for vanished pagan worlds did not dull his Christian beliefs, reflected in the religious works he created with equal fervor. He provided tranquil, intimate images for private worship as well as large altarpieces with complex compositions to grace the public chapels belonging to some of the leading families of Florence. Piero also painted sensitive portraits and dwelled in the details of nature, animating his paintings with inviting landscapes — part observed, part imagined. No other painter of such quixotic inclination can be found in the entire renaissance.

Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence brings together forty-four paintings representing all facets of the artist’s career, including altar- pieces that still belong to the churches for which they were created. It also reunites several of his poetic mythological scenes, often painted in pairs or in a series to adorn Florentine palaces, but long since scattered from their original homes. With works lent by museums, churches, and private collectors in Europe and the Americas, this is the first major exhibition devoted to Piero di Cosimo.

Organization: The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Galleria degli Uffizi, Superintendency of Cultural Heritage for the City and the Museums of Florence.

Sponsor: The exhibition is supported by Sally Engelhard Pingree and The Charles Engelhard Foundation. Additional funding is provided by The Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art.

Attendance: 170,792

Catalog: Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence. By Gretchen A. Hirschauer et al. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2015.

Other Venues: Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, June 22–September 27, 2015

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