Building the Picture | Sassetta | Saint Francis renounces his Earthly Father | The National Gallery, London

As a watchman I can use this picture in something like the way it was intended to be used, and for that I am grateful. An artist in the fourteenth century wouldn’t have dreamed that one day there would be art connoisseurs and textbooks dedicated to something called art history. In Bernardo Daddi’s mind the painting must have been a kind of machine

I sympathize with our unhappy customer. But, though I’m not a Christian, I adore the Jesus pictures. Pacing these galleries is like paging through a family photo album of a grim but exceptionally intimate kind. There are the baby pictures: Adorations, Holy Familys, Virgin and Childs. There are moments of transition in a young man’s life: Baptisms,

Crucifixion by Antonello da Messina.