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So it is indeed fortunate that, at the National Gallery, one can
for a brief interval both see and compare the works of two masters
– both from the same city of Pisa and both more or less contemporaneous.
Masaccio’s altarpiece is dated 1426. But there is little more
to find in common between the two. Pisanello still occupies a world
of nature’s imagery – animals, wild flowers and with that
the symbolic representation these facilitated during the mediaeval
period. Masaccio has, by contrast, already embraced the new humanist
manifestos of the Renaissance. Flowers were to be taken apart, bodies
dissected, ruins deconstructed and then re-assembled with the enlightenment
of new perspective techniques. But Pisanello had studied antiquity
too.
Of the Louvre drawings, many seem to be sketched, and others seem
to be preparatory to more formal representation, as in his most
celebrated painting, The Vision of St Eustace. St Eustace
is a knight on horseback, seen penetrating a dark wood to the apparent
welcome of wild creatures. However, in the middle ground, a stag
blocks his path ahead, standing erect with a crucifix figure, between
his antlers, impeccably scaled down. All around are the painted
flowers of the forest. The air is heady with symbolism. Over nearly
six centuries, the tone of the wood has darkened, creating an even
greater sense of mystery.
As the director, Neil MacGregor can claim, ‘Pisanello’s
true subjects are … the glamour of aristocratic ideals, the
heady beauty and variety of nature, and above all the enchantment
of dreams’. Not the ‘heroic dramas of human and divine
history’. These we will recognise, for subsequent ages, as
our own. As if by reference to this age, and its tribulations, the
National Gallery opens an exhibition of current works by the American
artist Ron Kitaj on 6 November. This will be reviewed here during
November. It should be said that this exhibition par excellence
will bring to an end what has been a superb and memorable year at
the National Gallery.
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