Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 review – saints and sinners come alive in art’s golden moment

National Gallery, London
From young Christ in a strop to Lazarus coming back from the dead, astonishingly relatable paintings by medieval Siena’s finest reach into the present in this dazzling show

The picture glows in the dark, small but incandescent. It shows three men by the shore. Two are in a boat, trawling the sea with a net, delicately visible beneath the surface. The other stands on a rock, inviting them to follow him in an atmosphere of glimmering gold air. Fish swim straight at you, head on through translucent green waters, as the boatmen turn in amazement at the speaking gestures of Christ. Everything is fluid, mobile, elemental.

Duccio painted this panel for the spectacular double-sided altarpiece installed with immense pageantry in Siena Cathedral in 1311. The scene is from Saint Luke. The front of the altar is still in the city, but these wooden back panels were hacked apart in the 18th century – some lost, possibly destroyed, others scattered across the globe. Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 unites eight long-separated paintings from as far afield as Texas, New York and Madrid, along with many other radiant wonders. The show is as beautiful as it is transformational.

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