Hello, DUers! Your Friday Afternoon Challenge awaits with “The Masterful Details.”

[CTyankee]

64. Art critics are nuts over Piero.

della Francesca is an early Renaissance painter. There is actually such a thing as the "della Francesca trail" in Italy, where you can follow his stuff around from one hilltop town to another and I actually know someone who did just that (my ex-husband and a bit of an art snob). It's "fashionable" to do the trail. Here's an interesting short description from slowtravel:http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/art/pk_arttrails.htm

My favorite work by him is the one with the large egg suspended over a "sacra conversazione,"
and featuring one of his oddly oversized madonne. Art historians haggle over the meaning of "the egg," as they call it. It's actually called the Brera Altarpiece and is in Milan.

Here is a Wikipedia entry on "baptism" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baptism_of_Christ_%28Piero_della_Francesca%29

Masaccio also painting such baptisms depicting young men readying themselves for baptism: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/masaccio/baptism-of-the-neophytes-1427

"The Flagellation of Christ" is prolly his most famous painting and it is a bit of a mystery. I am not that fond of his overly white figures but his work with the Brera piece is one of extraordinary beauty:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brera_Madonna (even with the egg and the duke in gleaming armor looking a little silly...).

You might just get hooked on this artist. He IS interesting, but he is not my big favorite. I'm just not fashionable enough, I guess...