Upon first glance, this painting may be under appreciated. It is a small work, which according to the museum, was probably used as a personal devotion. It is not a grand piece that was created for a palace or cathedral, but simply a piece of painted wood that was intended as a religious meditation for an individual in their home. However, within this small piece of work, Tura manages to capture an enormous amount of emotion and thought through the efforts he made to incorporate the developing Renaissance techniques of his time.
This artwork is classified as an “early-Renaissance” work and was painted in 1472 during the 15th century. As a result of the period when this was painted, it seems to be an almost even mixture of the Gothic and Renaissance styles. The work is experimenting with the new Renaissance ideas of human characteristics, a larger number of color variations, and perception but still incorporates the Gothic style.
The first aspects of Renaissance to be incorporated are demonstrated through the figures. Tura’s Madonna and child is not the commonly replicated scene of Mary holding the Christ child. It is instead Mary holding her crucified child. He is placed across her lap and she is embracing him in the same way that a woman would hold her infant. Tura’s famous for mixing idiosyncratic figures into his artwork, and this piece is no exception. Jesus is portrayed in a somewhat corpse-like manner. The fact that Christ looks peculiar, especially within his facial expression, is what makes this piece epitomize the style of Tura. The awkwardness of his body, however, was more likely due to the lack of understanding about human movement. It wasn’t until the Renaissance, according to Gombrich, that newer models were developed for creating a realistic human body which was capable of movement. “Erhard Schon's Underweisung der proporzion of 1538 is a sophisticated affair. Here we find a basic schema for the human head seen from all sides and a method of imagining the human body as composed of simple forms.” The fact that Gombrich refers to this idea as sophisticated, shows that it is ahead of its time. If this painting had been created years earlier, it would have lacked the ability to form the human body into the position that Tura has chosen, but in the years that followed, artists were able to develop an even stronger understanding of the workings of the body.
Within the same painting, Mary seems realistic and humanized. Her garment is beautifully depicted with a realistic draping of the fabric. The lighting and use of different shades of the same pink give the garment depth and texture, which in accord with Panofsky’s description of the Gothic style of portraying fabric, is a sign of Tura’s use of Renaissance style. Panofsky says that “The streaks of light and grooves of shade that served as the depiction of drapery tended to be hardened into strips; but these strips were never transformed into purely graphic lines.” This style of harsh coloring is represented in the rest of the painting where the colors do not flow as smoothly. Mary also emanates emotion. There is honesty in this work that was normally avoided during the Gothic era when artwork was created of the Madonna and child for solely religious purposes. It gives the viewer a different perspective of the events involved with the crucifixion.
Besides the two figures in this painting, there is also a rather noticeable background. Mary is holding her beloved son in front of the mountain of Calvary. Upon the mountain are the three crosses which were present during Christ’s crucifixion. Jesus has been taken down while the other two criminals are still nailed to their crosses. This painting tells a story in itself. It is not just a freeze frame of a point in time, because it shows what happened while still representing the aftermath of the crucifixion as well. Mary’s face shows the broken heartedness she is feeling after watching her son’s death. The viewer can understand this because the events are all suggested within the frame, and Tura captures that emotion so vividly in the expression upon her face. In addition to the figures, several other techniques used by Tura show a movement into the Renaissance era.
Tura experiments with perception and landscape in his work, Pietà. While he is able to master it in some areas, others fail to portray it. Mary and Jesus are much larger in proportion to the rest of the artwork. Because of the mixture of Gothic and Renaissance works, it is difficult to tell whether this is an imperfect attempt at perspective or whether it is showing that Mary and Jesus are important religious icons. The three dimensional figures are however sitting upon a bench which indeed shows perspective. The mountain in the background has some depth to it as well, but the rest of the picture is two dimensional. The hills off in the distance, and the tree placed on the left hand side of the painting are unrealistic representations of the nature that they depict, but the simple fact that there is vegetation and landscape in general shows Tura’s movement away from Gothic painting.
Through his courageous attempts at the innovative styles of the Renaissance, Tura is able to connect with the viewer. He gives his painting a realistic sense, and invites them to feel the pain that Mary endured. It gives the ability to be empathetic to the reality of the event in a way that the Gothic style does not. Tura’s piece, while intending to still be a religious meditation, is enhanced by his ability to incorporate the Renaissance.
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