Art Guide - September 2020

Columban - Catholic Calendar Art Guide September 2020  

The Holy Family with St Elizabeth, St John the Baptist and Three Noblewomen Illumination on vellum, c.1557 by Clovio, Giorgio Giulio (1498-1578)

Giorgio Giulio Clovio was an illuminator, miniaturist, painter and priest born in the Kingdom of Croatia, and is considered by Giorgio Vasari as one of the greatest illuminators of the Italian High Renaissance. The word ‘illumination’ refers to a painting in a devotional manuscript that usually accompanies hand-written text, and which has been painted on parchment (vellum is calf-skin), as the traditional support for an illuminated manuscript. Paint was made by combining coloured pigments ground to powder form, with gum Arabic as the binder to make paint. Clovio renders the drapery of the figures in soft harmonizing pastels of orange, blue, green and pink, utilizing the popular medieval pigments of vermillion and azurite blue. This subject traditionally illustrated the prayers or chants in honour of the Holy Family, and was created under the patronage of cardinal Alessandro Farnese of Rome. Clovio portrays the closely-knit group of holy figures within a domestic setting, and a window reveals an outdoor view of an Italian Renaissance cityscape with hills in the distance. The Virgin Mary interacts with her cousin Elizabeth, who is depicted with the weathered face of age. Saint John and his cousin Jesus huddle in an affectionate embrace, and are shown as the mirror-image of each other. The intimacy of the extended holy family of Jesus is further enhanced by their tight grouping in the foreground, in contrast to the female noblewomen and servant who hover behind them as disparate figures who avert their gaze.

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