Incredulity of St Thomas with Bishop Magno

Even after Giorgione had introduced his revolutionary tonal reform, Giambattista Cima continued with his own lines of expression - his figures statue-like in their firmness and his colours richly limpid. These are the qualities we find in works of his that date from the first decade of the sixteenth century, works like the Incredulity of St Thomas and Bishop Magno for example, which was painted for the Guild headquarters of the Stone-masons at S. Samuele. Spaced with perfect harmony amid the sharp interplay of light and shade, the figures of Christ, of the Apostle and the saint stand statue-like and monumental against the perfectly matching marble slabs of a niche which seems to have been conjured into existence in the dreamy beauty of the countryside of the Veneto. Human figures, architecture and countryside all partake of the same sublime, formal heightening, images of an uncorrupted and incorruptible world, of a timeless, mythically serene present.