Piero della Francesca

[PeterRS]

Until about 25 years ago I knew absolutely nothing about this 15th century painter who was arguably the most important painter of the early Renaissance period. Today his few works continue to amaze me.

I came across him completely by surprise. Good friends of mine had bought an old farmhouse on a hill about 20 minutes west of Arezzo in Umbria. One summer three friends and I went to stay in their beautifully decorated home. On our first evening, we had a barbecue by the swimming pool. In the early evening light, the fields stretching down were filled with wild poppies and the fireflies started to come out. Eventually we could see the lights from hilltop Renaissance towns far in the distance. Quite magical!

Nearby is the town of Sansepolchro. We decided to visit the Museum. Here are several paintings by Piero dell Francesca as he was born in the town around 1415, the exact date is not known. I was captivated. Later painters were known for their use of perspective and light, but Piero's predated them all. To cut a long story short, I returned to stay with my friends a couple of years later. By then I knew more about Piero and there was one painting I was determined to see, The Flagellation of Christ. The art historian Sir Kenneth Clark had had named it "the greatest small painting in the world." It is located in the small Museum in the town of Urbino, about 2 hours drive from where I was staying. So I drove over.

How to describe the painting. Small it certainly is. It is also displayed flat because it was actually painted on a table top around 1470. 

At first sight it seems lop sided with the figures on the right taking most of the attention away from Pontius Pilate watching Christ's flagellation by a Roman soldier on the left. Who are these large figures?  Who is the young man between the older men? Why is Christ not the focus of the painting as would usually be the case around the time it was painted?

Many theories have been presented as to the meaning of the characters and the composition. To start, I believe these are less important than the painting itself. Piero's use of light and the source of that light was to become typical in many Renaissance paintings. His use of perspective is far more advanced than in the works of other contemporary painters. It is his use of geometry, though, that marks this painting as extraordinary. At first we hardly notice this. Rather than my explaining it in writing, this video below goes into simple detail that illustrates the extraordinary geometric relationships within the painting. Unfortunately it is narrated by a man with a boring delivery. So skip the first part where he is giving some of the allegorical significances of the painting and its figures. Instead, start at 3'38" - and prepare to be amazed! As the narrator points out, Piero was a mathematician. I cannot think of any other painting where geometry and maths plays such a major part.