The Role of Curtains in Painting and Sculpture: 15th Century Italy

Claire Mullarny
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2004
BA

Subject: Painting / Sculpture
Country: Western Europe / Italy
Period: 15th Century

10,000 words

This dissertation examines the use of curtains in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries primarily in Florence and other Umbrian towns, Arrezzo, Assisi and Sienna, and then moves north to Lombardy and Venice. The dissertation is concerned with the curtain as a symbol and as a devise for revealing and concealing various elements of the composition. The second chapter deals with status; the status of space and of the individual. The position of the curtains in the composition, in relation to the key figure, is examined. In the third chaper the author examines divine revelation in the the formal, or Biblical sence, and how it is conveyed through the representation of curtains. The next chapter explores curtains in relation to fictive space and the dissertation concludes by examining the emergance of the baldacchino.

Irish Georgian Society

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The Role of Curtains in Painting and Sculpture: 15th Century Italy