Gilded Sanctity: Venetian Painting Before the Renaissance, from Paolo Veneziano to the Vivarini

In the very heart of Venice, the Byzantine-style Basilica of San Marco sits adjacent to the florid Gothic forms of the Doge’s Palace. This quintessentially Venetian juxtaposition is also reflected in the development of painting during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, before and even alongside the burgeoning naturalism associated with the new Renaissance style. Elaborate polyptychs on gold ground adorned the altars of the city’s churches, recalling the glittering gold mosaics that filled the vaults and domes of the Basilica – a stylistic preference that would remain fashionable in Venice for far longer than it would in central Italy. This lecture will explore some of the most remarkable examples of these sacred works, produced by artists from Paolo Veneziano to Antonio and Bartolomeo Vivarini, among others, illuminating the generations of artists that brought Venetian painting to new heights before the flowering of the Renaissance.