Siena Drawing Issues

Today several boathouse friends met up at The Met.

Kedrin and I can spend hours there, and indeed we were there for 6 hours.

Everyone else arrived and left at various times.

There is a Sienese show from the 1300s up right now.

It's all religious stuff because that's all they were allowed to paint.

It's also all egg tempera!

Back in those days, perspective and realistic representation wasn't developed yet.  3-d sculpture was more advanced; painters were still working out the 3D optical illusions on a 2D plane.

Also, because everything was religion the physical world, material objects, emotions, etc just weren't important. It was all about the afterlife and transcendence.

People were still greedy and materialistic, but the afterlife was the focus of the times.

Anyhow, sometimes they couldn't draw very well, as seen in this angel:

Aside from freakish drawing issues, the show was lovely and it's nice to see egg tempera on significant display. A lot of these pieces are small and the detail is extraordinary.