the Uffizi Study Abroad Journal May 21

Seen May 21, 2014.  Photo courtesy of Uffizi website.  Rogier Van der Weyden's Deposition of the Sepulcher from 1450 in the collection of the Medici.

Unlike everyplace else that we've been, the Uffizi will not allow you to take pictures.  None.  We were able to buy some postcards, magnets or things like that to remember some of the great art, but that is it.  So, we had an alternative assignment today.  We were to find 5 works of art in the Uffizi that changed art history and explain why they did so.  First, the above work which is important in the Uffizi because it is the earliest example of an oil painting that I could find in the gallery.  The Italian painters continued to use tempera for many years after this.  The man looking at the viewer in modern dress for the time is considered to be Cosimo the Elder Medici.

Seen May 21, 2014.  Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.  Veneziano, Santa Lucia de' Magnoli altarpiece on website, Madonna and Child at the gallery, 1445.  Tempera on Wood.

Next, the altarpiece by Veneziano.  I chose this painting because it's use of perspective, light was ahead of its time in the room that it was installed in.  The colors and choices that Veneziano used stood out and this did not resemble other altarpieces of the time as there is no gold on it.  Next, we move into a new realm of religion with Cranach the Elder's portrait of Martin Luther.

Seen May 21, 2014 at the Uffizi, photo courtesy of Web Gallery of Art.  Lukas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Martin Luther and his wife Katherine Bore, oil on wood, 1529, in the Medici collection since 1666.

I chose this painting because I found it interesting that the Medici who were devout Catholics would even have a portrait of Martin Luther in their collection.  Not only that, but I didn't know that Martin Luther had a wife.  I had to google her when we got back to the hotel to find out that she used to be a nun and set the standard for how to be a wife to a religious man in the new age of religion.

Seen May 21, 2014 at the Uffizi, photo courtesy of chinaoilpainting.com.  Jean Pillement, pastel on gessoed canvas, 1782-1792.  

  
I included this picture because it doesn't look like anything else in the Uffizi.  It not only is hidden in the "Foreign painters" room, it is French Rococo and very dramatic.  I was drawn to the subject matter and the colors that are present in it.  This painting shows a departure from the rest of the collection because all the previous paintings were part of the Medici collection that came to the museum in 1666.  This work shows that the museum continued to grow after that time.

Seen May 21, 2014, photo courtesy of Wikipedia.  Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538, oil on canvas.

I included this painting because it is my favorite in the Uffizi.  This is the first work I've shown from an Italian master that is done in oil.  I think that Titian has captured the effectiveness of oil over tempera in this painting as the Venus is much more realistic than the Botticelli Venuses, and the entire painting feels like a scene that you could walk into.  Unlike the majority of the paintings in the Uffizi, Titian is not just displaying a religious moment, he is inviting the viewer into an erotic moment that is unusual in this setting.