Back to Blog
Face memory pictures7/1/2023 Giotto’s deeply disquieting Day of Judgement (which broadcasts above the rear door of the chapel on a split-screen fresco that simultaneously portrays the matriculation into heaven of the righteous and redeemed) may not be subtle, but it is effective. The last thing worshippers witness on exiting the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy, for example, is a ghoulish glimpse into a sump of damned souls as they are sucked into the fiery maw of hell as imagined by the late-13th Century Florentine master, Giotto di Bondone. The first time sex was depicted in art? Terrifying visions of what eternal discomforts await in the afterlife should parishioners fail to live piously in this world (typically positioned near the exit to a church in order to leave an indelible impression), served a clear, if ghastly, purpose: to scare the congregation straight. ![]() Medieval and Renaissance religious artists were especially tuned in to its appalling power. ![]() Has art forgotten how to frighten us? In times past, artists understood fear and exploited it as among the most potent emotional levers that a painting or sculpture could pull.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |