Art Guide - December 2019

Columban - Catholic Calendar Art Guide December 2019  

Adoration of the Magi and Adoration of the Shepherds (detail) 1530-32 Pordenone, Giovanni Antonio (1484-1539)

The North Italian artist, Pordenone took his name from the small town where he grew up in north-west Italy. A contemporary of Michelangelo, he later worked in Venice where his rival was the great master Titian. This detail from a fresco in the church of the Madonna della Campagna, Piacenza (a small Italian town near Milan) includes many of the features typical of the artist. Like Titian and other North Italian artists, Pordenone breathes life and warmth into his figures and setting through his use of colour and light. From the sparkling golden reflection off the goblet presented by the Magi at right to the lush green landscape in the distance, the scene depicted attracts the viewer’s attention.

The subject The Adoration of the Magi includes characters whose appearance conveys a convincing lifelikeness. The two Magi (we glimpse only the head of the Magi who kisses the Christ child’s foot at left) especially have the kind of individualised features that suggest they are in fact portraits of contemporaries. Details of setting and costumes are sensitively differentiated so that the luxurious softness of the fur trim on the Magi’s cloak contrasts with the rustic palings of the wooden fence. The Virgin and Child situated mid-way between Joseph at left and the Magi at right cannot fail to capture the viewer’s gaze. The red sleeve of Mary’s dress creates a dramatic focus. Mary fixes her attention on the Child while the kneeling Magi reverently grasps Christ’s flesh.

The intimacy of the Magi’s gesture evokes the mystery of the Incarnation, of the God who is both human and divine. Symbolically the colours of Mary’s costume remind the viewer of her sons’ humanity – red recalls the flesh, while his divinity is suggested by the blue of the heavens.

 

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