Renaissance Woman

#73004     29 X 21″     mmp

• Pisanello: “Ginevra d’Este”, ca. 1437. Louvre, Paris

After that Adamnable piece it is a relief to find an artwork which simply gives us the icon of a Renaissance beauty, without making us work too hard.Antonio Pisano, called Pisanello, (ca 1395-ca 1450), was an exceptional draftsman, as lodes of drawings in Paris, Milan, Vienna, and London attest. Portraits, nudes, animals, costumes. Everything interested him. Five and a half centuries ago he worked in Mantua for the court of Ganzaga. Spectacular frescoes on the wall of the ducal palace have been discovered which, though incomplete, bear capital testament to the brilliance of the painter: an immense melee of horsemen, wandering soldiers, beautiful women watching battle, legends, including King Arthur, Gothic chivalry. Ginevra d’Este was one of the Gonzagas.

Although the Renaissance was a period of many excesses, it was also a period of humanistic enlightenment, piety, and loveliness, as this elegant icon reminds us.

– Lawrance Jeppson