Master Impressions from the UAMA Collections: Saints
January 15, 2008 - May 4, 2008
Francesco Villamena (after Federico Barocci),
St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, c.1597
Museum Purchase with funds provided by the
Edward J. Gallagher, Jr. Memorial Fund
1998.023.001
The six prints presented highlight the tradition of depicting
Christian saints in Western art. The works selected demonstrate a range
of styles representative of different geographical areas in
Europe -- Italy, France, Spain -- and of varying time periods, spanning
the
late 15th century to the late 17th century.
Religious subject matter dominated much of art throughout the medieval,
Renaissance, and Baroque periods, particularly in Italy and Spain, as
the Catholic Church was one of the most important patrons of artistic
production. Not only did the visual arts function as architectural
decoration, but they offered an important means of communicating
information to a largely illiterate public and of promoting public
devotion and worship.
The lives of saints provide a rich source of material for artists, and
the tradition of depicting them involved a complex program of
iconographic symbols, figural poses and compositional elements to
indicate the saints' identities to viewers. The portrayal of saints also
challenged artists to make visible the invisible in representing
spiritual experience.
From Francesco Villamena's emotive picture of St. Francis receiving the
stigmata to Jacques Callot's terrifying vision of the temptation of St.
Anthony, the prints on view exhibit a remarkable array of pictorial
innovation as well as masterful capabilities in engraving, etching, and
mezzotint.
- Susannah Maurer, Assistant Curator
Master Impressions from the UAMA Collections:
This series of small, rotating presentations showcases the exceptional
breadth and depth of the UAMA Old Master print collection. These
selections offer focused consideration of a particularly significant
artist or theme, and elucidate some of the most influential developments
in the Western printmaking tradition.
