Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

elaborate Gothic settings. The profusion of gold surfaces oppressed Alexandra. Since her
discovery of Giorgione at the Accademia she was looking for something new, something
beyond the Byzantine art she had grown up with.
She was about to beg Walter to take her to the adjacent Renaissance room when he
paused before a Madonna. A label identified the altar leaf: Madonna Rucellai, Duccio, 1285.
The Mother of God sat on an elaborately carved throne before a shimmering gold background
wearing a blue, hooded cloak. On her knee an age-old Christ child wrapped in a purple cloth
extending his right hand in blessing. Six angels in colorful garments held onto a curtain behind
mother and child.
"Look at this Madonna, Alexandra, first from a distance then close up. This Duccio is
one of the most splendid Byzantine gold-ground panels of Tuscany painted just before the
revolution of the Renaissance. Duccio’s formality is steeped in Byzantine art, but he infused
this Madonna and the folds of her garment with a fluidity that is thoroughly Italian."
Walter waved his outstretched arm at the other paintings in the room. "In our eyes the
beauty of these Byzantine panels lies in their hierarchical monumentality. The artist and the
viewers were not aware of this beauty, their feelings were entirely unimportant. These images
showed the spiritual powers of the depicted saint. He and his icon were considered identical by
the believers. I love the Byzantine images because of their forbidding magnificence, not
because of their spiritual content. I am not a believer."
He pointed at the Duccio Madonna. "Now look closer. The painting is two-dimensional, it
has no depth. Obviously Duccio did not know how to create the illusion of three-dimensional
perspective on a flat surface."
Alexandra tilted her head and looked at the painting again. She turned to Walter. "To me
this painting appears perfectly reasonable. In Georgian and Russian a saint is a Lightman of
otherworldly splendor."
Walter looked at the floor. "I want to show you why the Renaissance discovery of threedimensional
painting was so important to our thinking. As you say, in Russia and here too
Christ, the Madonna, and the saints were superhuman. They were different from ordinary
people. The Renaissance changed all that and with it our entire attitude."
Walter took her before a large triptych in the next room. In the center a lovely Madonna
was sitting on a raised throne, her sturdy child stood on her lap, as children do when they first
test their legs. Two angels in the foreground with their back to the viewer attended to Mary’s
robe. The altar wings depicted pairs of saints and bishops. She quickly glanced at the label:
San Giovenale Triptych, Masaccio, 1422.
"Masaccio. who painted this triptych for a Tuscan village church, was an extraordinary
man. It was his first altar commission. A few years earlier Brunelleschi had invented threedimensional
perspective drawing. Massacio was the first to use it in painting. He also
conceived of employing light and shade to give his figures body and form. His contemporaries
suspected him of magic! Compare Massacio’s throne with that of the Duccio Madonna. You
see how its armrests recede towards an imaginary point behind the Madonna."
Alexandra peered at the revolutionary Masaccio. She had to admit, the throne appeared
more like a chair, but she could not tell why, nor could she see Walter’s imaginary point.
Challenged by the skeptical look in her blue eyes, a desperate Walter outdid himself,
produced a piece of paper and a pencil from his pocket, and drew, on a nearby window sill, a
point from which radiated several lines. "This is the imaginary point and these lines are called
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