ANDY WARHOL, PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA MADONNA DEL DUCA DA MONTEFELTRO CIRCA 1472, DETAILS OF RENAISSANCE PAINTINGS SERIES, SIGNED SCREEN PRINT, 1984
Taken from Andy Warhol’s Details of Renaissance Paintings series (1984), Piero Della Francesa Madonna Del Duca Da Montefeltro Circa 1472 is a print based on an oil painting by the eponymous artist and is housed in the Pinacoteca di Bera of Milan. The original painting shows the enthroned Virgin Mary with Christ on her lap, surrounded by angels and saints. Warhol tightly crops the image to focus on the apse of the church above the figures, showing a semi-dome shape with a hanging ostrich egg as the central subject. The egg is recognised as a symbol of eternal beauty, virgin conception, and the Creation.
In tightly cropping the original painting, thus removing its historical and narrative context, Warhol successfully abstracts the image into a signature piece of Warholian Pop Art. This is accentuated by Warhol’s iconic screen printing method wherein he colours the print with unusually bright, monochromatic hues of green, blue and yellow and creates kaleidoscopic free flowing lines to silhouette the original image. Through colour and line Warhol flattens the original oil painting, undermining the Italian Renaissance ideal of creating realist perspective and accurate detail with the medium of paint.
As one of Warhol’s later works, created three years before his death in 1987, this is a true exploration of the tension between realism and abstraction that the artist was so fascinated by. In appropriating and subverting the original oil painting, Warhol poses the question of what fine art is and what its true value is.
Find out more about Details of Renaissance Paintings by Andy Warhol.
ABOUT ANDY WARHOL
Andy Warhol (born Andrew Warhola) is a name synonymous with the celebrity culture and mass consumerism which coloured the boulevards of New York City in the Post World War II era. Born into a working class immigrant family in the urban landscape around the bustling metropolis, Warhol’s early life was characterised by a climb up the capitalist rungs of society.
The artist himself noted, “buying is more American than thinking, and I’m as American as they come”, this quote came to demarcate Warhol’s artistic practice as he embraced the commodification of the American Dream. The Pop artist’s beginnings in the business sector gave him the practical skill set to experiment with a more commercial approach to art throughout his career, particularly with regards to screen printing. Read more about Andy Warhol.
