Widely considered the central figure of fifteenth-century painting,
Piero della Francesca is also the most modern of all Renaissance
painters. To our post-Cubist eyes, Piero's most famous work, his
fresco cycle "The Legend of the True Cross" at Arezzo in Tuscany,
conjures nothing so much as Cezanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire
paintings; his serene articulations of architecture and perspective
bring other modern traditions and painters to mind, such as Giorgio
de Chirico. But it was Philip Guston--a major exponent of Piero in
the twentieth century--who most eloquently identified what
magnetizes us in Piero: "A different fervor, grave and delicate,
moves in the daylight of his pictures. Without our familiar
passions, he is like a visitor to earth, reflecting on distances,
gravity and positions of essential forms." Piero's exquisitely
subtle palette has meant that he has not been well served by past
monographs, which have been scant enough: the last two major
overviews, by Ronald Lightbown and Carlo Bertelli, were both
published in 1992. This new monograph, benefiting from subsequent
advances in color reproduction, therefore constitutes the first in
20 years. Its 150 color plates reproduce all of his works, from the
classic "Baptism of Christ" (1450) at the National Gallery in
London to the astounding frescos done for Sigismundo Malatesta at
the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini. Particular focus is given to the
"Legend of the True Cross" fresco cycle at the Basilica of St.
Francis in Arezzo.
Piero della Francesca (1415-1492) was born in the town of Borgo
Santo Sepolcro in Tuscany, where, in 1442, he was commissioned to
paint the altarpiece of the town's church. Two years later he was
at work on Malatesta's legendary Tempio in Rimini (where he may
have first met Leon Battista Alberti). In 1485 he authored a famous
treatise on geometry, and in his last years went blind.
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