Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 1342, tempera on panel, 257 x 168 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)
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Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:04] We’re in the Uffizi in Florence, and we’re looking at Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s “Presentation in the Temple.” Ambrogio Lorenzetti was one of two brothers. The other was Pietro Lorenzetti. They were both students of the great early Sienese master, Duccio.
[0:18] This is one of Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s most important paintings. It tells the story early in the New Testament narrative of Christ being brought to the temple to be circumcised.
[0:29] This is the moment when Simeon is presenting Christ to the temple and Anna, the seer, is recognizing Christ as the redeemer and points him out.
[0:39] What I find so interesting is that whereas Christ is so often represented as all-knowing, even as an infant, here, he really looks like an infant.
Dr. Beth Harris: [0:47] He is. He’s putting fingers in his mouth.
Dr. Zucker: [0:48] It’s hard to miss the beautiful emphasis on architecture. This is something that Ambrogio often emphasizes. Look at the Gothic characteristics of this church. This panel was originally intended for the Duomo in Siena. It would itself have been in this great Gothic environment.
[1:07] Look at the way in which we look back towards the apse through this nave. There’s all this fabulous emphasis on these vaguely Corinthian columns and lots of paint on the ceiling.
[1:18] For instance, we can see a Christ in a mandorla with angels. We can see ribbed vaults, which actually have painted gold stars against a blue ground, very much like we would expect to see in a 14th-century church.
Dr. Harris: [1:31] And we have an illusion of space. If we look down at the floor, we see diagonal lines that appear to recede into space. Although this is not correct use of linear perspective.
Dr. Zucker: [1:41] It’s not. But it is an attempt to create a sense of recession. Just look at the capitals and the way they allow our eye to move back slowly but deliberately into space as one space opens up into another. There is mystery and drama.
[1:54] What’s so interesting is that we see this wonderful transhistorical representation of Christ, this ancient figure, in a modern Gothic environment, wonderfully eliding the past and the present.
Dr. Harris: [2:06] In some way, that would have made a Sienese person in the 1300s really be able to relate to what was going on here.
Dr. Zucker: [2:12] I think that that’s right, making this ancient scene immediate.
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