Word: piero
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...After a nearly 15-year restoration that was completed in 2000, the fresco has become a must-see stop on any Tuscan art lover's itinerary. It is this (necessarily permanent) presence of The Legend of the True Cross in Arezzo, along with other notable Piero works housed in his birthplace of Borgo Sansepolcro and the nearby village of Monterchi, that make the current exhibit so powerful. The unprecedented collection of his six paintings on display - brought in from the Louvre and Uffizi, among other sources - shares the billing with Piero's famous works already residing in and around Arezzo...
...central exhibit, which features some 100 works by artists influenced by Piero and five of his own mathematical treatises, is being billed as the Renaissance art exhibit of the year in Italy, and an unprecedented chance for Arezzo to spread its wings. "Piero has become the very expression of the city's identity," says Arezzo's commissioner of culture Camillo Brezzi, noting the importance of the True Cross restoration in drawing visitors. "But like all of Italy really, this remains a small town no matter how big it might get." With its medieval architecture and steep cobblestone streets, the city...
...these days Piero is the city's star, even if it wasn't always that way. Bertelli, one of the three co-curators of the exhibit, calls Piero "an unlucky artist," because some of his greatest works were permanently lost, including frescoes in Ferrara (after his patron died, they were torn down) and in the Vatican (to make room for Raphael frescoes in the early 16th century). But his surviving works show a subtle mastery that influenced Raphael, Venetian painter Gentile Bellini and visiting Flemish painters along the Adriatic coast. He even inspired 20th century surrealists...
...portraits on display offer an intimate look at Piero's skill. The facing profiles of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino are iconic Renaissance images, especially the Duke, Federico III, one of the Renaissance's most accomplished condottieri, or mercenary barons. Painting with brilliant color and unfiltered realism, Piero doesn't blink at the prominence of Federico's nose and chin, but he never crosses into caricature. His approach gives Piero's portraiture a strikingly modern aspect. "It is almost hyper-realism," Bertelli says. "The faces are gigantic compared to the background landscape, making them monumental." The same attention...
...Following his travels and years of service in the courts of nobles, Piero spent most of his later life in Borgo Sansepolcro and Arezzo. He died on Oct. 12, 1492, the very same day Genoa native Christopher Columbus landed in America - an unlikely reminder that travel can yield discoveries of limitless and priceless variety...