Piero della Francesca (1411/13–1492); Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels, c. 1460-70; Oil (and tempera?) transferred to fabric on panel; 42.4 x 30.9 inches; © The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Piero della Francesca’s Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels (ca. 1460–70), once encountered, is not easily forgotten or, for that matter, absorbed. A cornerstone of The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Virgin and Child is a wildly unpredictable picture, though its stoic demeanor offsets its radical nature. There are Piero’s angels: they are, if not exactly wedged into the rectangular format, book-ended significantly within its edges, their wings offering only a hint of “escape” from the picture’s confines. Piero has increased the scale of the human form for mother and child, rendering them mountainous. A painted architectural frieze running along the top of the composition crowns the Virgin’s head, pressurizing Piero’s diorama. Space, once stated, is made shallow, stark and stage-like. Combined with the milky green pallor of the angels and Piero’s exacting geometry, Virgin and Child is revealed as a pictorial machine whose logic threatens to collapse even as it holds true.
Piero della Francesca (1411/13–1492); Saint Apollonia, 1454–1469; Oil and tempera on poplar panel 15.3 x 11 inches; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Augustinian Nun (Saint Monica), 1454–1469; Oil and tempera on poplar panel 15.2 x 11 inches; The Frick Collection, New York; and An Augustinian Friar (Saint Leonard?), 1454–1469; Oil and tempera