Saturday, March 11, 2023

2 Religious Icons, Barnaba da Modena and Veneto-Cretan Icons of the Madonna and Child, with footnotes #27

Barnaba da Modena  (1328–1386)
Madonna and Child, c. 1370s
Tempera on panel
height: 109 cm (42.9 in); width: 72 cm (28.3 in)
Louvre Museum

The panel, probably originally rectangular, was cut at the top following the profile of the moldings in relief. Central element of a polyptych.

The Nursing Madonna, Virgo Lactans, or Madonna Lactans, is an iconography of the Madonna and Child in which the Virgin Mary is shown breastfeeding the infant Jesus. In Italian it is called the Madonna del Latte ("Madonna of milk"). It was a common type in painting until the change in atmosphere after the Council of Trent, in which it was rather discouraged by the church, at least in public contexts, on grounds of propriety.

The depiction is mentioned by Pope Gregory the Great, and a mosaic depiction probably of the 12th century is on the facade of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome, though few other examples survive from before the late Middle Ages. It continued to be found in Orthodox icons (as Galaktotrophousa in Greek, Mlekopitatelnitsa in Russian), especially in Russia. More on The Nursing Madonna

Barnaba da Modena (c. 1328-c.1386) was a mid-14th-century Italian painter who painted in the style of Byzantine art. He is considered the first Lombard painter of note and was active in Lombardy, Piedmont, and Pisa in Tuscany.

As his name indicates, the artist was a native of Modena (Emilia). The first records regarding Barnaba date to 1361 and 1362 when he had already become a Genoese citizen and was hiring Tuscan assistants. His earliest dated paintings relate to his activities in Genoa. He produced paintings for the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa in 1364. His earliest known painting is a polyptych of the Virgin and Child with Saints (Palazzo Bianco, Genoa), which combines the Gothic style of Tuscan polyptychs with Emilian design. Another work, a Virgin and Child (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), shows the influence of Sienese painting in the rounded faces and the gold-striated highlights on Mary's mantle. More on Barnaba da Modena

Unidentified Veneto-Cretan artist
MOTHER OF GOD GALAKTOTROPHOUSA/ Nursing Madonna, c. 17th
Tempera on panel
34cm, 15¾ by 13⅜in.
Private collection

Cretan School describes an important school of icon painting, under the umbrella of post-Byzantine art, which flourished while Crete was under Venetian rule during the late Middle Ages, reaching its climax after the Fall of Constantinople, becoming the central force in Greek painting during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. The Cretan artists developed a particular style of painting under the influence of both Eastern and Western artistic traditions and movements; the most famous product of the school, El Greco, was the most successful of the many artists who tried to build a career in Western Europe, and also the one who left the Byzantine style farthest behind him in his later career. More on Cretan School




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