Duccio di Buoninsegna: icon of painters, or painter of 'icons'?
Date
2006
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
In the fall of 2004, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York purchased an 8 ½ by 10 ½ inch painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna, known as the Stroganoff Madonna, for 45 million dollars. Such an exorbitant expense was justified by extolling Duccio, and in particular this painting, as one of the first breaths of the Renaissance. The museum claimed that the Stroganoff Madonna demonstrated a clear and intentional break from the stiff and formulaic imagery supposedly found in the western medieval and Byzantine traditions. The basis for this claim is both the “new” intensely human and naturalistic interaction Duccio created between Mary and Christ, as well as the presence of an unusual architectural element, typically termed a parapet, which is interpreted as a precursor to a motif employed by Giovanni Bellini and other Quattrocento masters. This paper explores new ways of seeing Duccio’s Stroganoff Madonna – not looking back from the Renaissance, but instead looking forward from a medieval and Byzantine perspective. I demonstrate that the “new” human elements Duccio employed may in fact be a creative synthesis of quotations from and evocations of Eastern icons. Viewed in light of Hans Belting’s discussion of icon transmission, these Eastern quotations may indicate an intention to imbue this painting with iconic spiritual power. Furthermore, I argue that the Stroganoff Madonna was designed to invoke specific traditions within the civic Marian cult in Duccio’s home of Siena. In the end, the evidence suggests that in the Stroganoff Madonna, Duccio consciously and intentionally referred to and recreated both established Byzantine image types as well as Sienese civic works, deftly transforming their power and meaning for use as a private devotional image.