BALDOVINETTI, Alessio

Faithfully adhering to the Florentine tradition, Alessio Baldovinetti made refined use of a clear, almost sharp line, together with a great curiosity for the tiniest details. In this work, note the slender elegance of the Madonna, whose traditional gesture of reverent surprise at the angel’s announcement has been replaced by an almost mannered pose, worthy of some worldly ritual. The artist attempts a perspective view by setting the scene under a portico, thus creating a background plane with the tops of the trees that can be seen above the surrounding wall.

Baldovinetti was chose in 1466 to decorate the walls, lunettes, and spandrels of the burial Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal. The Annunciation is placed over the empty throne that faces the tomb by Antonio Rossellino. The background of cypresses and cedars is painted in fresco, the wall, bench and figures were painted on oak panel. The lily in the centre is carved and gilded.

Formerly the painting was attributed to Piero della Francesca whose influence can be observed in the treatment of the landscape background.

This altarpiece was commissioned to Baldovinetti for the Medici villa of Cafaggiolo. Represented in the painting are, from left to right, Saint Anthony Abbot, Saint Julian, Saint Lawrence, Saint John the Baptist, and Saints Cosmas and Damian. Saint Peter the Martyr (right) and Saint Francis (left) are the kneeling figures.

Alessio Baldovinetti, like many other artists of his time, emerged from Beato Angelico’s circle. Only apparently open to the innovations of Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano, Baldovinetti actually grasped only some superficial hint of them, as for example in the vivid luminosity of his spaces, the atmospheric transparence discernible in the hyperbolic distances of his landscapes.

Baldovinetti’s Annunciation is in the atrium of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. His interest in local landscape is evident in the Arno Valley view that he chose as the background of this fresco. In fact he painted only a few portions of the picture in true fresco, and then waited until the plaster had dried so that he could paint ‘a secco.’ But because the fresco was located in an atrium exposed to winter fogs and even rain, in time the a secco faces, hands, and drapery peeled off, and his underdrawing is now visible. Even so, the painting is impressive in the airy openness of its setting and the view over the expansive Tuscan plain, which is filled with the light of a clear winter day.

Baldovinetti’s profile portrait of an unknown Florentine woman expresses patrician Quattrocento elegance. She is posed in the conventional profile view that is used almost without exception for female portraits until the end of the century, long after male sitters are shown turned toward the observer.

In the Quattrocento, painted portraits were usually placed in the “camere,” the chambers that were the multipurpose rooms at the heart of household life. The portrait of a woman, attributed to Alesso Baldovinetti, retains its original gold frame, and the inventory of the Tornabuoni palace list that of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni as in a gilt frame.

This painting is a characteristic example of the genre of Italian Madonna paintings in the fifteenth century. Furthermore, it is one of the earliest surviving Florentine paintings which depict an extensive landscape fading into the distance. This type of landscape background can be traced back to lost prototypes by Jan van Eyck.