DUCCIO di Buoninsegna

Duccio di Buoninsegna was the first great Sienese painter, and he stands in relation to the Sienese School as Giotto does to the Florentine; yet without the powerful naturalismGLOSSARYGeneric term for scientific positions supported by natural insights. In fine arts and literature between approximately 1870 and 1900, Naturalism tried to reproduce the reality comprehended through sensory experience as realistically as possible, i.e. without idealising the object, but with scientific precision. In contrast to Realism, which was also based on the accurate description of natural occurrences, Naturalism concerns itself with the sensual dimensions of observation, whereby questions of morality and social criticism come to the fore. The spokesman for literary Naturalism was Emile Zola, who believed the artistic methods provided evidence of human existence. that makes the art of Giotto so revolutionary. Rather, Duccio sums up the grave and austere beauty of centuries of Byzantine tradition and infuses it with a breath of the new humanity which was being spread by the new Orders of SS. Francis and Dominic.

Duccio is first recorded in 1278 and 1279, working for the Commune, and then in 1280 he was heavily fined for an unspecified offence, probably political: it was the first of many fines to be inflicted on him, but the others were all much smaller. In 1285 a large Madonna was ordered from him for the Florentine church of Sta Maria Novella: this was almost certainly the Rucellai Madonna (now in the Uffizi), but the picture is sometimes called a work of the 'Master of the Rucellai Madonna', and Vasari, in one of his patriotic moods, ascribed it to the Florentine Cimabue. The picture was probably painted in Siena, where Duccio is recorded at intervals 1285-99, when he was again fined for refusing to swear fealty to the Capitano del Popolo, a civic official. In 1296 and 1297, however, a 'Duche de Siene' is recorded in Paris, which may explain the GothicGLOSSARYGothic, which may well have originated with Alberti as a derogatory term and which certainly corresponds to Vasari's 'maniera tedesca' ('German style'), is properly the descriptive term for an artistic style which achieved its first full flowering in the Ile de France and the surrounding areas in the period between c. 1200 and c. 1270, and which then spread throughout northern Europe. It is characterized by the hitherto unprecedented integration of the arts of sculpture, painting, stained glass and architecture which is epitomized in the great cathedrals of Chartres, Amiens, and Reims or in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In all the arts the predominantly planar forms of the Romanesque are replaced by an emphasis on line. There is a transcendental quality, whether in the soaring forms of the pointed arches or in the new stress on the humanity of Christ, which similarly distinguishes it from the preceding Romanesque style. In thinking of Nicola (d. c. 1284) or Giovanni Pisano (d. after 1314) there is same danger of forgetting what had happened in French sculpture half a century or more earlier, and likewise it is hard to remember that the spectacular achievements of early Renaissance art are a singularly localized eddy in the continuing stream of late gothic European art. By northern European standards few Italian works of art can be called gothic without qualification, and the story of 13th and 14th century Italian architecture is as much one of resistance to the new style as of its reception, whether directly from France or through German or central European intermediaries. In sculpture and in painting, the Italian reluctance to distort the human figure, conditioned by a never wholly submerged awareness of the omnipresent antique heritage, gives a special quality to the work of even those artists such as Giovanni Pisano or Simone Martini who most closely approached a pure gothic style. Nevertheless, the vitalizing role of Northern gothic art throughout the early Renaissance and the period leading up to it should never be underestimated. The artistic, like the cultural and commercial, interaction was continuous and much of the Italian achievement is incomprehensible if seen in isolation. It is not merely at the level of direct exchanges between one artist and another, or the influence of one building; painting, manuscript or piece of sculpture upon another, that the effects are to be felt. The streaming quality of line which is so characteristic of Brunelleschi's early Renaissance architecture surely reflects a sensitivity to the gothic contribution which is entirely independent of, and lies much deeper than, the superficial particularities of form. The counterflow of influence and inspiration from South to North must likewise not be underrated. In particular, the contribution of Italian painters from Duccio and Simone Martini onwards is central to the evolution of the so-called International Gothic style developing in Burgundy, Bohemia and north Italy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. influence in some of his works and in those of his followers.

In 1302, in Siena, he was fined again, probably for debt, but he also received the commission to paint a Maestà for Siena Town Hall, now lost. He was also fined again, this time for refusing military service, and yet again for some activity apparently connected with sorcery. This last accusation cannot have been very serious, since in 1308 Duccio achieved the consummation of his career with the contract for the huge Maestà for the High Altar of the CathedralGLOSSARYThe principal church of a province or diocese, where the throne of the bishop is placed. For reasons lost to time and tradition, a cathedral always faces west - toward the setting sun. The altar is placed at the east end. The main body, or nave, of the cathedral is usually divided into one main and two side aisles. These lead up to the north and south transepts, or arms of the cross, the shape in which a cathedral is usually formed.. The work was finished in 1311 and carried in solemn procession from his workshop to the Cathedral. Most of it is still in Siena (Cathedral Museum), but a few small panels are missing, and the other panels, all small ones from the predelle, are in several foreign museums.

In its original form the Maestà proper - that is, the Enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by Saints and Angels - occupied the whole of the main panel facing the congregationGLOSSARYA close community of monasteries within the same monastic order.. Above and below were scenes from the Life of Christ and the Virgin, with small figures of Saints. Most of these smaller scenes would have been visible only to the officiating priest. The whole of the back of the main panel was taken up by twenty-six scenes from the PassionGLOSSARYThe events leading up to Good Friday, beginning with Christ's arrest and ending with his burial. Portrayals of the Passion, which focus on the Suffering Christ, include depictions of Judas betraying Christ with a kiss, Peter cutting off Malchus's ear, the crown of thorns, and so on., while above and below, as on the front, were smaller panels with scenes from the Life of Christ. While the front is principally an iconGLOSSARYa small, portable painting in the Orthodox Church. The form and colours are strictly idealized and unnatural. The cultic worship of icons was a result of traditionally prescribed patterns of representation in terms of theme and form, for it was believed that icons depicted the original appearances of Christ, Mary and the saints. for devout contemplation, the narrative cycle may have been visible only to those in the sanctuaryGLOSSARYthe part of a church or temple containing the shrine; in Christian churches the choir and high altar., or perhaps the ambulatoryGLOSSARYSemicircular or polygonal circulation space enclosing an apse or a straight-ended sanctuary.. For this reason, the narrative may act as a commentary on Scripture.

From the artistic point of view both sides show Duccio as a profound innovator, for the front has figures of greater weight and solidity, and more characterization, than had been seen previously in Siena; while the back shows him as a master of narrative, equal to Giotto in his power of story-telling though less fresh in iconographical invention, for Duccio was content to use the old Byzantine models for most (though not all) of his scenes from the New Testament. The superb craftsmanship, the use of gold as a decoration and a compositional feature at the same time, the rich and subtle colour which is made into an aesthetic feature in its own right, rather than treated (as in Giotto's works) as explaining the forms, and above all the use of varied and elegant outlines as a surface pattern as well as a description of form: all these features characterized the Sienese School for nearly two centuries. In the next generation artists as profoundly different as Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti started from aspects of Duccio's work, although the influence which Giovanni Pisano's sculpture had had on Duccio himself was also a potent factor in the development of the Lorenzetti.

Other works by or ascribed to Duccio are in the Royal Collection, Windsor and in Badia a Isola near Siena (a Madonna often ascribed to the Badia a Isola Master rather than to Duccio himself), Bern, Turin, London, Bologna, Perugia, Siena.