Art and Eye

  Piero del Pollaiolo's depiction of Faith draws a viewer in through detail. The seated figure remains tantalisingly close, as her foot hovers above the edge of the fictive throne she sits upon. Mapped out by complex, crisp, three-dimensional draperies, Pollaiolo celebrates his astute handling of perspective on the knees of Faith, which push into a viewer's space with surprising force. From the various artistic attributes, to the recessional niche behind the figure, Pollaiolo's panel includes diverse pictorial imagery whilst continuing to drive the central message of devotion home.  Created for the audience chamber in the Tribunale di Mercanzia in Florence, a gathering place off the Piazza della Signoria to resolve disputes between Florentine merchants, this allegorical figure was part of a series of Virtues and is now in the Uffizi. The panel, painted in tempera, with its large size and tilted perspective indicates that it was seen from above, looming over onlookers in jud...

  Charles West Cope's memorialisation of fellow painter Samuel Palmer, who died three years before this work was produced, is a small yet thoughtful etching which pulls a viewer closer. Palmer is aged and stooped, almost swaddled in layers of clothing, and leaning on the back of a chair as if to support himself, yet his gaze remains captivating and knowing. It is an interesting choice by Cope to choose the medium of etching to honour Palmer, and perhaps an oil of the same subject did at one point exist, as this was his favoured material. Training at the Royal Academy and travelling to Paris in the 1830s to expand his artistic knowledge, Cope built a career initially upon copying Old Masters which he then sold, before he created his own painted representations of historical scenes and looked to imagery centred on rural life for further inspiration. Often, he drew on the minute detail and vivid colouration found in the Pre-Raphaelite mode of working: his The Thorn of 1866, for exampl...