National Gallery Assignment

Vision of the Blessed Clare of Ramini--National Gallery

St. John the Baptist Preaching-- National Gallery

The “Vision of Blessed Clare Ramini” is a medieval painting that depicts the character Clare Ramini in the presence of Jesus Christ, where she is probaby being forgiven of her sins. It is slightly gory, in typical medieval fashion, and depicts the wounds in Christ’s wrists, side, hands, and feet very graphically- blood and all. Raphael’s painting is similar in that it’s subject matter is entirely religious. His painting, “St. John Preaching,” is much gentler in it’s approach to repentance and forgiveness. John the Baptist is preaching to a crowd of people and everyone looks pretty mellow, as opposed to “Vision of Blessed Clare Ramini” where she looks distraught and Christ’s expression is far from gentle.

I felt like the subject matter of these two paintings had a lot in common with each other, as well as with the rest Renaissance and Medieval art in general. Art in this time period is almost entirely religious in its nature, and centered around a key religious character. That character, as well as the rest of the characters in the painting usually has a certain face or expression that is repeated over and over again. In “Vision of Blessed Clare Ramini” Christ and his apostles all have pretty much the same face, and in “St. John Preaching” all of the faces are significantly different from Medieval art, but very similar to each other. It seems to me that expressions didn’t break out of a “mold” until later when artists broke away from strictly painting religious scenes and began to paint portraits of people they knew or had seen, using models.

Despite these similarities, I observed a lot of differences in the asesthetic elements of the two paintings. Medieval painting seems to be more symbolic than realistic. The most important characters or elements are oversized and very obvious, like the artist was afraid the audience wouldn’t notice them unless they were exaggerated. For example, in the medieval painting of Clare Ramini Christ is almost twice her size. Behind him are all of his apostles, who are slightly smaller, and then Clare is the smallest. There are also metallic accents in the painting to help bring emphasis to certain elements- most often the halos. Renaissance art is more realistic and proportioned, as can be seen in “St. John Preaching.” The people are all the same size and they stand in proportion to their surroundings. Consequently, the Renaissance painting requires deeper observation and thought in a way because the key elements of the picture aren’t highlighted in the same way as Medieval painting is. As well as being exaggerated, Medieval painting is also less realistic in it’s depictions of people. The style is very flat and only has one dimension. Raphael uses blends of light and shadow, as well as other artistic techniques to make his paintings come to life. He also uses bolder, brighter colors whereas medieval paintings have a duller look to them.