“To make egg tempera paint, egg is mixed with water and pigment, which somewhat neutralizes the decomposition process of eggs, but it is also spread so thinly and dries so quickly that it never really has the chance to rot. Therefore it doesn’t smell.”
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For when one sees a story illustrated, whether of Troy or something else, he sees the actions of the worthy men that lived in those times, just as though they were present. —Richard de Fournival, Bestiare d’amours, ca. 1250 The… More»
In the French Middle Ages, as today, banquets were opportunities for the well-heeled to entertain guests in style. The set-up was simple: boards placed on trestles topped with white cloths, wine diluted with water in clay vessels, meats on five-day-old… More»
Andrea del Sarto, Various studies, c.1520’s
Son of a tailor (sarto). Andrea became one of the best loved artists of Florence. Vasari had good things to say about him.
…Andrea del Sarto, in whose single person Nature and art showed all that painting can achieve by means of drawing, colouring and invention: and indeed if Andrea had possessed a little more boldness and daring of spirit, to match his very profound judgement and talent as a painter, he would, there is no doubt at all, have been without equal.
Browning wrote poems about him:
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?His drawings are natural, graceful and sensitive, an excellent draughtsman.
…and he was very much in love with his wife… (something we don’t often hear about Renaissance artists!)
Our curator Julian Brooks is in Florence now researching del Sarto for an exhibition in 2015.