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Looking at a Masterpiece: The Pieta of Avignon
This masterpiece of the late Middle Ages (1455), its authorship having been disputed for many decades, is now attributed to the French painter Enguerrand Quarton (1410-1466), and hangs in the Louvre in...
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Looking at a Masterpiece: Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter
Pietro Perugino painted this fresco on a side wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican between 1481 and 1483. It illustrates the moment when Christ says: And I say to thee: Thou art Peter, and upon...
View ArticleLooking at a Masterpiece: The Supper at Emmaus
The great Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) was a visionary painter, able to see into the deep recesses of mystery, as is the case in this The Supper at Emmaus (1648), which is now in the...
View ArticleLooking at a Masterpiece: The Deliverance of St. Peter
This 1514 fresco by the great Renaissance artist, Raphael Sanzio, decorates the wall in a half-moon over a doorway in one of the “Stanze di Raffaello” (Rooms of Raphael) in the Vatican. It illustrates...
View ArticleLooking at a Masterpiece: The Blind Leading the Blind
Since we are approaching the end of the “Year of Faith” proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI, it is appropriate by way of contrast to dwell on the calamity of the loss of faith in God, when the eyes of the...
View ArticleLooking at a Masterpiece: The Adoration of the Shepherds
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), one of the great Renaissance artists, painted this masterpiece (1485) for the Sassetti Chapel in the basilica of Santa Trinita in Florence. Later the young...
View ArticleSpousal Love
In a time when the world has lost the true vision of marriage, when a false and superficial vision has come to the fore, it is important through the medium of great art to dwell on what marriage really...
View ArticleLooking at a Masterpiece: The Lamentation of Christ
This fresco by Giotto di Bondone in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua was painted circa 1305. Giotto’s style heralded a new development in the art of the late Middle Ages. The sacred art of the Byzantine...
View ArticleLooking at a Masterpiece: Jesus Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery
This painting (c. 1528) by the Northern Italian artist Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480-1557) hangs in the Louvre in Paris. It shows the scribes and Pharisees bringing Jesus a woman caught in adultery saying,...
View ArticleLooking at a Masterpiece: The Assumption of the Virgin Mary
Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488–1576), known in English as Titian, was probably the greatest Venetian painter, recognized in his time as “‘The Sun Amidst Small Stars’ (recalling the famous final line of...
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