The Met’s Siena Renaissance show is a masterpiece

What a sight it must have been. On June 9, 1311, Duccios The Maesta was paraded from his studio to Siena Cathedral. Bells rang as priests, monks, nobles and government officials walked alongside. The citizens held candles in their hands. They honored a huge double-sided altarpiece with 53 images depicting martyrs, saints, miracles and poignant scenes from the lives of Mary and Jesus. In the center, on one side, was a life-sized Virgin holding the child, surrounded by 40 reverent halo figures. A plaque attached to the work reads: “Holy Mother of God, be the cause of peace for Siena and life for Duccio, for he painted you so.”

The Maesta is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gorgeous exhibition Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350a unique opportunity to engage with art that will likely never be matched again. Curated by Stephan Wolohojian, the exhibition brings together works that have not been seen together for more than 500 years; Some have never traveled outside Italy. How this feat of lending came about could fill a book. In the 18th century, Duccio’s mighty altarpiece was cut in half, cut into pieces, his panels were sold; Now we can marvel at the amazing sight of eight panels The Maesta brought together from all over the world and installed just a few centimeters apart. There are nearly 100 works by at least 20 named artists. There are textiles, manuscripts, ivory carvings, stone sculptures and a shocking wooden head of Christ that was split open during World War II.

Sienese painting represents a break in world art, breaking with Gothic flatness and hieratic Byzantine art. With its stricter proto-perspective grids and solid minimalist forms, it is more reserved than Florentine painting. In Siena, perspective was only part of the mix. Narratives of all kinds, from the simultaneous to the sequential, are given a tangible space. (My wife remarked, “The perspective was really bad for painting.”) In Siena, a new wealth of detail appears, the space takes on character, figures fill, the color becomes fleshy, and colors, particularly a range of blues, are released . This explosion of innovation gave rise to Flemish, Dutch and Nordic painting. It also led to the illuminated manuscript Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. But in the midst of so many revolutionary changes, the presence of Sienese painting is felt as something restorative and healing.

The Sienese Renaissance ended with half of Siena’s population being wiped out by the Black Death around 1350. None of the city’s four artistic masters – Duccio, Simone Martini and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti – survived. It took a generation for Sienese artists to re-emerge. By this time, the gossip biographer Giorgio Vasari had identified Florence, Rome and Venice as centers of Renaissance art.

One feels that the center is actually here, in front of him The Maestawhere gravity seems to bend. On the right side, Maria rises in noticeable architectural space. Her curved body is filled with a terrible premonition of her son’s death. On the left, Archangel Michael raises his hand in a gesture of blessing and compassion. His bioluminescent wings seemed to be temporarily caught in this rhythm while fluttering.

On a tablet, a man born blind is healed as he is brought before Christ. In the same picture we see him walking away happily. In another panel, The calling of the apostles Peter and AndrewChrist is portrayed as commanding and oversized, while Peter and Andrew look up dazedly from a boat and are already turning to follow him as disciples. Below opens another room with fish visible in a net caught beneath the waves. In a panel depicting the temptation of Christ, a giant Jesus drives out Satan against a backdrop of seven jeweled cities. The Transfiguration offers us an almost abstract expressionistic overall space with six standing figures that seem to float into the realms of the infinite. This is a complete book of painting knowledge.

The Virgin Mary was the patron saint of Siena, commemorated by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in his masterpiece in the city. At the Met, his depictions of the life of St. Nicholas immerse us in expressiveness, insight, and pictorial complexity. In one scene we witness the murder of a boy. Above, Nicolas and an angel send two beams of light across the painting to the dead boy’s body, and we see the boy’s soul rising. Here we have dimensionality, tactility and the beauty and infinity of being human.

Simone Martinis Christ discovered in the temple shows Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Jerusalem, where the 12-year-old Jesus disappeared for three days. Joseph finds the boy in the temple talking to teachers. He brings him home, grabs him by the shoulder and presents him to a worried, sick mother. These are human emotions and suffering, coupled with psychological insight and a sophisticated image solution.

I love Sienese art. When I was 10 years old, my mother left me alone at the Art Institute of Chicago. Like a printed baby duck, I was taken by two small panels of Saint John the Baptist. I didn’t know it at the time, but these were made by the second generation of Sienese artist Giovanni Di Paolo, who took up the work of the early Sienese masters. I thought, Is everything in this museum trying to tell me something? How can art be so beautiful, mysterious and clear at the same time? The paintings on display at the Met provide the answer.