Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

ack to the viewer attended to Mary’s robe. The altar wings depicted pairs of saints and bishops. She quickly glanced atthe label: San Giovenale Triptych, Masaccio, 1422."Masaccio. who painted this triptych for a Tuscan village church, was an extraordinary man. It was his first altarcommission. A few years earlier Brunelleschi had invented three-dimensional perspective drawing. Massacio was thefirst to use it in painting. He also conceived of employing light and shade to give his figures body and form. Hiscontemporaries suspected him of magic! Compare Massacio’s throne with that of the Duccio Madonna. You see how itsarmrests 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 couldnot 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 apencil from his pocket, and drew, on a nearby window sill, a point from which radiated several lines. "This is theimaginary point and these lines are called vanishing lines. They are not shown in the painting, the artist only imaginesthem."Fascinated Alexandra watched this otherwise so impractical man insert the circular base of the throne, its armrests, legs,and the high back of the chair into the framework of those lines. For the first time in her life she saw a three-dimensionalobject being created on a flat surface. A wave of recognition passed over her face. The method looked exceedinglysimple.Walter smiled satisfied at his drawing. "Brunelleschi’s Perspective in a nutshell!" He looked around and then at her. "Hemust have guided my hand. I have never done that before!""Now I see what you see!" she exclaimed and clapped her hand over her mouth.Walter smiled beguiled. He awkwardly hid the sketch in his pocket. "And now you don’t! Look at the triptych again. Whatdo you see?"Excited she pointed at the receding armrests of the throne and the angels in the foreground, which gave the paintingdepth.Walter stepped away from her. "Yes, yes, but did you also notice that the Christ child is a naked village urchin who stickshis two fingers squarely into his mouth? The same fingers that used to bless the believers!"Walter laughed happily as she nodded with a flushed face. She had been so preoccupied with visualizing the imaginaryvanishing lines that she had not paid any attention to the child and his little gesture."Renaissance painting began with the Christ child sucking his fingers! Can you imagine how excited Masaccio’scontemporaries must have been, awed and delighted? This child and his mother lived in their villages! God himself waswalking among them."He pointed at the figures on the side panels. "Neither are these sturdy saints with their beards and dark, gloomydemeanor any longer superhuman. You see how Masaccio uses light and shading to give his figures body? Look at theface of the Madonna with its lovely dimples—she is alive!"Alexandra’s sensitive features were glowing. Walter looked at his rapt student. "Unfortunately Masaccio died very young,he lived only twenty-seven years. But what effect he had on his contemporaries!"He prepared to leave. "Let me take you to another painting from a different part of Europe to show you how quickly thisnew way of seeing spread in the fifty years following Massacio."Without looking right or left, passing through droves of people, he walked her rapidly to the farthest corner of the museumwhere in a narrow corridor hung a very large triptych."This is the Pontinari Altarpiece painted in 1475 by the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes. It has been crammed intothis forgotten corner because it was not painted by an Italian artist. We are standing much too close, but never mind, itsdetails are so extraordinary that you may as well examine them from close up."Alexandra tried to take it all in. On the center panel the Madonna was kneeling before her naked child—a real baby, nolonger the future Christ—lying on a lowly blanket on the ground. Still, this humble earthling was the center of attention.Three flocks of kneeling angels in colorfully embroidered garments surrounded the child. Joseph in a red coat on the leftand three burly shepherds on the opposite side gazed at the newborn in rapture.Walter, hands behind his back, quietly moved aside. Alexandra now noticed that directly before her appeared two vasesof flowers, a bunch of red tiger lilies and white and blue iris in one, blue columbines in the other, their petals strewn allacross the foreground in front of the child. The lifelike detail of these flowers took her breath away. She turned to Walter."This must be the most beautiful painting I have ever seen. Its translucent clarity and warm intimacy would beunimaginable, did not stand before it.""Yes, the Flemish have different eyes. You have not looked at the side panels. See the splendid garments of the ladieson the right? And on the left stand two holy men, and kneeling, in old-fashioned, piously in inverted perspective, themuch smaller Pontinari, the sponsor of the altar with his two sons. His wife and daughter kneel on the other side.Pontinari was a rich merchant, like Konrad’s ancestor. The self-important merchants and the cocky Italian princes paidfor this revolution in art. Thanks to their riches Tuscany and Flanders became the birthplaces of the Renaissance."Walter in his excitement took her arm. "Let me show you two Italian paintings that share the clarity of this van der Goes50