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Allegory of Fortitude
Luca Giordano·1682
Historical Context
Allegory of Fortitude at the National Gallery, from the 1682 Palazzo Medici-Riccardi cycle, depicts one of the cardinal virtues. The complete ceiling program represented the most ambitious decorative commission of Giordano's Florentine years and established his European reputation. Giordano's mythological canvases display his absorption of Venetian colorism, deploying warm flesh tones and lavish drapery against luminous skies with the fluency of a born decorative painter. These works circulat...
Technical Analysis
The personified virtue is rendered with heroic proportions and symbolic attributes. The ceiling perspective creates dynamic foreshortening suited to the upward viewing angle.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the heroic proportions and symbolic attributes of the personified Fortitude — a shield, a column, or a lion identify the virtue that bears suffering with courage.
- ◆Look at the ceiling perspective creating dynamic foreshortening: this National Gallery work from the 1682 Medici-Riccardi cycle is designed specifically for upward viewing.
- ◆Find the upward compositional movement appropriate to ceiling painting: the figure seems to ascend into or descend from the space above the viewer.
- ◆Observe that the complete Medici-Riccardi cycle demonstrated Giordano's supremacy in ceiling fresco — his ability to organize large-scale aerial compositions with multiple figures brought him commissions from across Europe.
