RETABLE EN MORCEAUX (LE)

POLYPTYQUE , SASSETTA - COLLECTION PALETTES

of JAUBERT Alain

FRANCE, 1990, 00:31:00

Production : DELTA IMAGES, FR3, LA SEPT, MUSEE DU LOUVRE, PAINI Dominique, REUNION DES MUSEES NATIONAUX, MUSEE D'ORSAY
Collection : Musée du Louvre
Genre : Documentary
Keyword : History of art, Painting, Louvre Museum, Religion

Summary :
Choosing key-works in the imaginary of the Western culture, the series called “Palettes” tells in each episode the story of a different painting. In a word, it tells the genealogy of the painting. For a painting has its ancestors and its descendants. A double technical and philosophical knowledge, fed on by a long tradition, gave birth to the painting. And the painting itself gave birth, year after year, to a multitude of other images…
Assuming the idea that the deep meaning of a painting is conveyed by the choice of colours and themes, we dissect the canvas from its most visible composition to its deepest significance.

With the altarpiece of Saint Francis, painted by Sassetta for the church of Borgo Sansepolcro, Alain Jaubert uses the methodology and the learning that are so interesting in the series “Palette”. He first recounts the story, adventures and misadventures of that famous polyptych. Ordered by an ecclesiastic, it took 7 years to be made. That can be explained by the size of the work and the difficulty of the preparation part. Dismantled in the 17th century (probably not popular any more), the puzzle of the panels will be piece together in the 1900s by the art critic, Berenson, who will find evidences in the European and American collections and museums. As an art history detective, Berenson and other people, thanks to these evidences, manage to identify 26 pieces and venture hypotheses about their place in the overall work. The second part of the film analyses the work of Sassetta: his relation to the setting up of perspective rules; what he knew of anatomy and the way he used it in his drawings of bodies and faces; without forgetting his sense of narration (an altarpiece was a “book of images” that told the story of Christ and the Saints) and his organization of the composition that is constructed on a play of looks

to print