Room 57

Look at how a frame divides an altarpiece into separate spaces, then at how the painted figures relate across those divisions. Such ensembles stood on church and chapel altars, where they gave a visual focus to Christian worship. Some were paid for by families, others by guilds or religious communities. Workshops could produce several parts with the help of assistants, and some painters were themselves members of religious orders. Masaccio’s The Virgin and Child offers one concentrated encounter among these larger groupings. Notice the size of a figure and imagine the distance from which the painting was intended to be seen. A museum’s eye-level view can be very different from its original setting.