Ruth Leon recommends… National Gallery – Picture of the Month
Ruth Leon recommendsNational Gallery – Picture of the Month
The National Gallery’s Picture of the Month for May is Piero della Francesca’s ‘The Baptism of Christ’ and, In celebration of the Gallery’s 200th birthday, Director Gabriele Finaldi has picked one of his favourite works in the collection to share with us.
As always, his commentary is informative and succinct. I always come away from these brief descriptive videos knowing more than I knew before and with a deeper understanding of the art.
Piero della Francesca was surely one of the greatest of the early renaissance painters. The paintings in the Musem of his home town of Sansepolchro in Umbria are superb, as is what the late Kenneth Clark called the greatest small painting in the world, Piero’s “Flagellation of Christ” in Urbino. Painted on a small wooden table top, its use of light and its geometric proportions are stunning.
Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam
Nach seines Vaters Willen,
Von Sankt Johanns die Taufe nahm,
Sein Werk und Amt zu erfüllen;
Da wollt er stiften uns ein Bad,
Zu waschen uns von Sünden,
Ersäufen auch den bittern Tod
Durch sein selbst Blut und Wunden;
Es galt ein neues Leben.
(Bach, cantata BWV 7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RopDsw3weGQ)