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<\/p>\nThe National Gallery in London will open the largest ever exhibition of works by the influential Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca next autumn (2 October 2027-30 January 2028).<\/p>\n
The show will include around 25 pictures and manuscripts including The Urbino Diptych-Portraits of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza\u00a0(around 1472), travelling from the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence; the entire Pala di Perugia (Perugia Altarpiece, 1468), from the Galleria Nazionale dell\u2019Umbria, Perugia; and the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels (around 1460\u201370), from the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
Three works drawn from the gallery collection will be exhibition centrepieces: Baptism of Christ\u00a0(probably about 1437\u201345), Saint Michael (1469), and The Nativity\u00a0(early 1480s). A digital version of The\u00a0Legend of the True Cross\u00a0in the Bacci Chapel of the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo will also feature.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy delineating the pillars of Piero\u2019s art\u2014a distillation of what makes a Piero a Piero\u2014the exhibition will comprise seven interlocking building blocks of his art: colour, design, space, perspective, narrative, and light,\u201d says a gallery statement.<\/p>\n
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Piero della Francesca, The Baptism of Christ (probably about 1437\u201345)<\/p>\n
Photo: The National Gallery, London<\/p>\n
Last year Piero della Francesca\u2019s The Baptism of Christ\u00a0(1437-45) was selected by three artists as a favourite work in the collection for the publication The\u00a0National Gallery: Paintings, People, Portraits\u00a0(Taschen).<\/p>\n
The late artist David Hockney called it a \u201ctruly a magnificent picture\u201d, while the sculptor Antony Gormley says its stillness suggests \u201canother world free from pain and uncertainty\u201d. The Venezuela-born, London-based artist Alvaro Barrington said<\/a>: \u201cThere is a balance in The Baptism of Christ that allows one\u2019s eyes and body to rest, to stay still, while at the same time one\u2019s eyes move without struggle across the painting.\u201d<\/p>\n Piero, who was also a mathematical theorist, was the first artist to write a treatise on perspective, De prospectiva pingendi\u00a0(from a painting perspective, around 1474) which discussed, among other technical topics, creating an illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface. It also discusses techniques for painting faces.<\/p>\n