Art in an Early Global World at WAM: A WAM/College of the Holy Cross CollaborationMain MenuAmanda Luyster17d39c1ecea88fb7ff282fe74a410b89478b8327Created by the Worcester Art Museum and the College of the Holy Cross, with the Worcester Public Schools AP Art History class of 2024. Financial support provided by the Medieval Academy of America and "Scholarship in Action" at Holy Cross.
The Crucifixion, by Paolo Veneziano, c. 1340-45
1media/Veneziano_Crucifixion_NG1939.1.143_thumb.jpg2024-04-14T09:52:46-07:00Amanda Luyster17d39c1ecea88fb7ff282fe74a410b89478b8327448013Paolo Veneziano, The Crucifixion, c. 1340-45, National Gallery of Art, 1939.1.143.plain2024-08-18T09:35:47-07:00Zoe Zimmer726b0bce27fe407b566d2fd9122871e9e9ddcf50
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1media/1923.34 detail angel.jpg2024-03-28T13:31:14-07:00Who made The Last Judgment?6plain2024-08-15T10:22:19-07:00Tommy Leimkuhler, College of the Holy Cross, Class of 2025
This painting was created by an unknown artist, probably in the early 1300s in or near Venice. A well-known artist working in this time and place was Paolo Veneziano. Veneziano is known for introducing the “composite altarpiece” of many small scenes within an elaborate gilded frame. He also combined Byzantine iconography, like the setting of this scene before the walls of Jerusalem, with Gothic emotional expression, like the swooning Virgin at left here, in blue. It is quite possible that the artist responsible for The Last Judgment knew Veneziano. It may be possible to discover who painted the Worcester Art Museum's Last Judgment by examining its gold leaf. Through the use of x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, art historians were able to determine that the amount of thickness or overlap in gold leaf panels differed depending on the artist, and that the degree of overlap was consistent within artists. This means that by looking at the gold leaf panel in The Last Judgment and comparing it to other Italian paintings with gold leaf, it may be possible to determine its artist.
