My Favorite Painting.. At Least Today

Madonna and Child with Angels.(1457-1465) Tempera on panel.
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Painted by Fra Filippo Lippi.

This is my favorite painting in Florence, Italy. In 1421, Lippi entered the monastery of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence and eventually became one of the great fresco painters along with Fra Angelico. Botticelli was one of his students. On of the most interesting features in paintings of the Renaissance is the dichotomy of time. The subjects were usually Biblical figures, yet they are costumed in clothes of the Renaissance period. I am amazed at the fine detail in the dress and in the framed window scene behind the Madonna. Painting on canvas was not yet popular and most of these famous pieces were actually painted on wooden panels.

"There remains in the face of women who are naturally serene and peaceful, and of those rendered so by religion, an after-spring, and later an after-summer, the reflex of their most beautiful bloom." ~ Jean Paul Richter (German Novelist, 1763-1825)

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