#lorenzetti

Author: Ambrogio Lorenzetti 

Date: 1342

Museum: The Uffizi

Technique: Tempera on wood

Size: 257 x 168 cm

The Presentation at the Temple is a painting by the Italian late medieval painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti, signed and dated 1342, now housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy. It is one of the largest works by the Italian medieval painter, as well as one of the five which he signed and dated.

- Wikipedia 

Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s work shows the presentation at the temple and the purification of Mary, forty days after giving birth, according to Hebrew rituals.

 Mary, who can be recognized by her usual blue cloak and red dress, is holding her son out to Simeon and to the prophetess Anna, both of whom recognize the Child as being the Messiah. 

Anna is holding a scroll citing a passage from the Gospels, narrating this event. 

On the altar, the priest is sacrificing the gifts brought by Mary and Joseph. 

Joseph is shown alone, on the far left. 

The temple, for which we can see both interior and exterior, according to medieval custom, is imagined by Ambrogio Lorenzetti as a church, with columns, starry vaults, paintings, and windows. 

The converging widths of the polychrome marble floor serve to enhance the idea of depth, showing the artist’s interest in depicting spatiality.

- Uffizi Museum

Pavement reaches mathematical accuracy

Groundlines converge into a precisely defined the vanishing point

Detail of Allegory of Good Government

The Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a series of three fresco panels. 

Artist: Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Date: 1338

Medium: Fresco

Movement: Gothic art, Sienese School

Subject: Allegorical depictions of good and bad government

Dimensions: 7.7 x 14.4m 

Location: Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy

Owner: Fondazione Musei Senesi

The paintings have been construed as being "designed to remind the Nine [magistrates] of just how much was at stake as they made their decisions"

Participate in the pictorial revolution of Trecento using space in a new way.

Man is at the heart of the world's activities

To begin with, unlike other works produced by the Sienese School of painting, The Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government has a secular rather than a religious theme - a rare characteristic at a time when the bulk of all Proto-Renaissance art consisted of religious paintings. Indeed, it remains one of the first significant examples of secular political art, since classical antiquity. Compare, for instance, works by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319), Duccio's pupil Simone Martini (1285-1344), Pietro Lorenzetti (active 1320-45) and Sassetta (1394-1450).

Secondly, the work demonstrates the artistic modernism of its creator Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Not only was he active in Siena - a city noted for its conservative style of medieval painting - he was also a member of an important crafts guild in Florence, which suggests he was familiar with the advances made by Giotto and others. This is borne out by his depiction of realistic architectural space, his use of primitive perspective (see also his 1342 painting entitled The Presentation in the Temple), and his modeling of faces and figures.