NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER
By Menachem Wecker
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"St. Luke the Evangelist in the Studio" (circa 1625) by Orsola Maddalena Caccia (Art courtesy of the National Museum of Women in the Arts) |
WASHINGTON, DC---One of the best places to learn about the tools and techniques that medieval artists employed to create illuminated manuscripts is their depictions of saints writing and illustrating sacred texts. The
Caccia painting is one of about 70 works in the exhibit, which include standout pieces by
Luca della Robbia, Fra Filippo Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, Albrecht Dürer, Titian, Caravaggio, and
Rembrandt. Lorenzo di Credi's "Annunciation" (from Florence's Uffizi Gallery), which portrays Gabriel's appearance to Mary in a beautifully rendered interior space, set above three panels with Genesis stories -- the creation of man, the temptation, and the expulsion from Eden -- is noteworthy both for its religious symbolic program and for its aesthetic composition. [
link]
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"Rest on the Flight into Egypt" (1594–96) by Caravaggio. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome |