Figures in a Landscape: Two Nude Youths
Artist: Luca Signorelli (Italian, ca. 1441 or 1450-1523)
Date: about 1490
Dimensions:
painting: 27 1/4 x 16 1/4 in. (69.2 x 41.3 cm)
frame: 32 1/4 x 21 7/8 x 3 3/4 in.
Medium: Oil on wood panel
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1955.222A
Label Text:Admired by Michelangelo and Raphael, Luca Signorelli’s expressive depictions of the body reveal his study of anatomy—an interest that many Italian artists shared in the late 1400s. Looking at classical sculpture, in which the human body was celebrated as the most beautiful expression of nature, many Renaissance artists sought to surpass the achievements of ancient Greek and Roman artists.
Originally part of a large altarpiece created for a church in Siena, these panels of bathers formed a backdrop to a wood sculpture of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child across a river (in a pose echoed by the woman and baby in the right panel). Look carefully and you can see where Signorelli changed the position of the woman’s raised arm. Such changes, visible because the upper layer of paint has become transparent with age, are called pentimenti—Italian for “repentances.”
Originally part of a large altarpiece created for a church in Siena, these panels of bathers formed a backdrop to a wood sculpture of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child across a river (in a pose echoed by the woman and baby in the right panel). Look carefully and you can see where Signorelli changed the position of the woman’s raised arm. Such changes, visible because the upper layer of paint has become transparent with age, are called pentimenti—Italian for “repentances.”
On view
In Collection(s)