Madonna of Humility

religious

The impact of Masaccio's new vision had a limited impact on Siena, since for the most part, Siena maintained a distinct stylistic tradition of its own. A Sienese artist who does seem to have been affected by Masaccio, perhaps mediated by the art of Filippo Lippi, is Domenico di Bartolo. His art is exemplified by this signed and dated work of 1433, which contains passages of trompe l'oeil including the banderole with writing on it.

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About the Artist

Domenico Di Bartolo

1400 – 1447

Sienese painter, some of his paintings were long attributed to his tutor, Taddeo di Bartolo. According to Vasari, although unconfirmed by other sources, he spent a period of time in Florence and had even worked in the Carmine church, where he is said to have painted the main altar (lost). He painted one of the most beautiful panels of the Early Renaissance, the Madonna dell' Umiltà. It is signed and dated 1433 and is one of the earliest truly Masaccesque paintings for which we have a firm date. In Domenico's art following the Madonna of Humility, he becomes progressively removed from Florentine examples, and in the frescoes he painted in the mid-1440s for the Pellegrinaio of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena he tends toward caricature and illustration. He was the tutor of Piero della Francesca.

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