Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 – an 'intense and betwitching' show
'Blockbuster' National Gallery exhibition explores whether Siena was truly 'the birthplace of the Renaissance'

In the early 1300s, the Tuscan hilltop city of Siena lived through a great period of prosperity, said Charlotte Higgins in The Guardian. Its economic, military and political strength provided the conditions for a "rapid artistic transformation": its painters abandoned "the distant, hieratic grace" of Byzantine-influenced art and concocted a new style, characterised by "dynamism, drama and emotion".
But, by the 1350s, its "most glorious years" would be "as good as over". The Black Death "halved" the city's population and "stripped away its wilder ambitions". Its chief rival, Florence, emerged as the new superpower, its own art eclipsing Siena's.
This new "blockbuster" at the National Gallery – featuring more than 100 exhibits including paintings, manuscripts and decorative objects – questions the received wisdom that Florence, not Siena, was "the birthplace of the Renaissance", said Joanna Moorhead in The Spectator. And convincingly, too. The show is focused mostly on the work of four artists: Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Simone Martini; and, "first and foremost", Duccio di Buoninsegna, a polymath whose "towering legacy would reshape art history".
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The lighting here is "dark", the galleries "crypt-like", said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. Paintings are "dramatically spot-lit" and juxtaposed with some marvellous examples of Sienese sculpture and textiles. It's the paintings, though, that really thrill. "Exquisite craftsmanship" is a hallmark of Sienese art – gold leaf was used liberally and virtuosically – along with "a newfound interest in the emotional lives of the holy figures being represented". One Duccio painting here dating from 1290-1300 sees "a sweet yet sorrowful Virgin" tilting her head as "a perky Christ Child tugs at her veil and involuntarily caresses her wrist" with his toes. Another "standout", by Duccio's pupil Simone Martini, depicts a "truculent" young Christ "chided by remonstrating parents. Even the son of God, it seems, could get the grumps." This is an "intense and bewitching" show.
The "emotional power" of these paintings comes from their "mastery of space", said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. While we think of perspective as a 15th-century Florentine invention, these artists were already experimenting with space a century earlier, "to create fairy-tale vistas of walled cities, merchant ships and the soaring interiors of gothic cathedrals". The climax of these innovations is Duccio's "masterpiece", the Maestà – a "massive" altarpiece, whose eight panels have been brought together here. You follow the scenes "like a comic strip", as Jesus "defeats the devil, heals a blind man and raises Lazarus from the dead". "Visual trickery" gives the impression of "gothic arches and a particoloured pavement" receding "with hypnotic reality". It is the highlight of an "epochal exhibition about the moment Western art came alive".
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
6 head-turning homes for town house living
Feature Featuring a roof deck with city views in South Carolina and a renovated Harlem brownstone in New York City
-
Bookish: delightful period detective drama from Mark Gatiss
The Week Recommends 'Cosy crime' series is a 'standout pleasure' in an Agatha Christie-style formula
-
Music Reviews: Justin Bieber, Wet Leg, and Clipse
Feature "Swag," "Moisturizer," and "Let God Sort Em Out"
-
Film reviews: Eddington and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
Feature A New Mexico border town goes berserk and civil war through a child's eyes
-
Art Review: Hilma af Klint's What Stands Behind the Flowers
Feature Museum of Modern Art, New York City, through Sept. 27
-
Geoff Dyer's 6 favorite books about the realities of war
Feature The award-winning author recommends works by Ernie Pyle, Michael Herr, and more
-
Book review: 'A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck'
Feature A couple works to keep their marriage together while lost at sea
-
Kartoffelsalat (potato salad) recipe
The Week Recommends German dish is fresh, creamy and an ideal summer meal