Madonna and child

Andrea del Castagno's Madonna and Child, painted around 1443 and now in the Uffizi, demonstrates the artist's ability to infuse traditional devotional subjects with his powerful, sculptural approach. Castagno's Madonnas have a monumental physical presence that distinguishes them from the more lyrical treatments of his Florentine contemporaries. Andrea del Castagno was among the most powerful fresco painters in mid-fifteenth-century Florence, developing a style of monumental figure painting influenced by Donatello's sculpture and the spatial revolution of Masaccio.

The Madonna and Child are rendered with Castagno's characteristic emphasis on solid form and strong contour, the Virgin's face modeled with a sculptural clarity that reflects the artist's study of contemporary Florentine sculpture.