Pesellino at the National Gallery, reviewed

The detail in Pesellino's painting 'Virgin and Child' is "dazzlingly textured"

(Image credit: Francesco Pesellino/National Gallery)

published 12 January 2024

The Renaissance artist Pesellino may well be unfamiliar to you, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. He was unfamiliar to me, too. Born Francesco di Stefano in Florence in around 1422, he trained under his grandfather, an artist known as "Pesello" (the Italian word for "pea", but also Florentine street slang for "a tiny member"; Pesellino, its diminutive, thus translates as "even smaller member"). Despite his unfortunate nickname, Pesellino prospered. His art showed a genius for interesting detail, and for pictorial storytelling, winning him commissions from both the Medicis and the Papacy. Notably, he invented an intimate and "much copied" way of depicting the Madonna and Child on a small scale. Yet after his death from plague aged just 35, he was forgotten. Indeed, until the National Gallery opened this new show, he had never been the subject of an exhibition. Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed "does do what it says on the tin": and it is a minor triumph. It contains only eight paintings – some fragments of larger works created in collaboration with other artists – but it is "a punchy, vivid, dramatic little event".

"There were reasons Pesellino was successful" in his lifetime, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. He had a particular knack for bestowing "clarity upon complex scenes", as witnessed by two panels depicting the story of David and Goliath. The former, clad in "a fluttering pink cape", appears repeatedly, ultimately emerging in triumph as he clutches "the giant’s severed head by the hair". The same work also testifies to Pesellino's "skill at representing animals", taking in "a whinnying, growling menagerie of domestic and exotic beasts", from cattle and falcons to a bear and a leopard. Alas, much here is too "small" or "fragmentary" to do Pesellino justice. Many early pictures appear "naive and stiff": one wilderness scene involving Saint Francis, for instance, gives us a "Christ-like seraph, zapping golden rays at the friar" like an "awkward comic-book superhero". Ultimately, this show is "a minor affair".

I disagree, said Jackie Wullschläger in the FT. One of Pesellino’s innovative, "domestic-scale" Madonna's explains why they were much imitated: the figures – a "waif-like" mother holding her "chubby baby with delicate hands, caressing his cheek with a finger" – are "crisply defined", the background "dazzlingly textured." Most striking, perhaps, is Pesellino’s final work, an altarpiece completed by Fra Filippo Lippi after his death. Depicting the Holy Trinity, it shows God supporting the crucified Christ, surrounded by other saints in "startling" poses. Here, Pesellino "exhilaratingly" points towards something entirely "new" in art, giving individuality to the scene’s supporting characters. Small though it is, this is the "loveliest" winter exhibition the National Gallery has mounted "in years".