This virtual exhibition seeks to challenge the perception of Italian Renaissance Sculpture as unpainted marble statues that are devoid of life and colour by focusing on the lush reds, luminous whites, flourishing greens, and royal blues of Tuscan sculpture from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. With paints, glazes, and actual fabrics, artists made breathtakingly naturalistic sculptures but also called attention to the rich materials and artistry with which they were created. Colour was inextricable from the economics of trade in this cosmopolitan society – red lake, vermillion, malachite, ochre, and lapis lazuli were carried over seas, jostled over caravan routes, and smuggled into borders. A single pound of ultramarine could cost the same as 40,000 eggs, whereas lead white was inexpensive to make but dangerously unstable. Colours did not have fixed meanings in the Renaissance – the same colour could signify both life and death, the earthly and the heavenly, and the horrifying and the sublime. From the rosy flush of the Christ Child’s foot and the lead white skin of an Italian beauty to the deep blue of the Madonna’s eyes and the vibrant greens of living plants, these sculptures bring the Renaissance to life in all of its colour.
This exhibition was created by students and faculty at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada: Bronwyn Bond, Katie Mergelas, Nuard Tadevosyan, and Prof. Una D’Elia. The images are drawn from Renaissance Polychrome Sculpture in Tuscany, an open access database that offers high resolution photographs of and information about over 350 sculptures: http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/14832
The Colours of Italian Renaissance Sculpture 