Illuminating Darkness: An Examination of Italian Night Paintings from the Trecento to the Seicento

This thesis shall examine the development and meaning of night painting in Italy. While paintings featuring night and functional fires were more common in northern Europe, they did not begin to become a significant artistic preoccupation in Italy until after Raphael’s execution of his night fresco The Liberation of Saint Peter (1513). The first chapter of this thesis identifies cultural milieus and materials that shaped views and practices that did not readily lend themselves to night painting. My argument is centered on an investigation of Platonic light metaphysics and its successful Christianization by prominent Scholastics. The aim of this philosophical survey is to show that it was possible for artists and patrons to understand light metaphorically and that an emphasis on supernatural sources of light was privileged in Christian subjects. I also argue that some materials and processes, such as tempera and fresco, and the modes of coloring advocated by Cennino Cennini and Leon Battista Alberti, authors of the two most influential technical manuals of the period, are not immediately conducive to dark or night painting. The second chapter will more deeply investigate the turning point in Italian night painting marked by Raphael’s Liberation fresco, which owes a significant debt to Leonardo, whose praxis explored optical effects of light and shadow. Leonardo, in turn was indebted in part to Alberti, whose development of a coloring system and innovations with materials that lent themselves to low-key painting, and whose intellectualization of depicting functional fire as an additive light source for secular scenes laid particular groundwork in night painting. Although scholars have noted Raphael’s certain formal influence by Leonardo during the latter’s contemporary stay in Rome, this chapter demonstrates the extent to which the Urbinate knew and understood his elder colleague’s theoretical claims concerning night painting. Additionally, this analysis will show how Raphael synthesized these advances into an innovative work of his own. The final chapter examines the reach of these innovations over the course of the remaining century, arguing that they inspired further advances in night painting with respect to certain traditional subjects: the Nativity, various Judith subjects, and St. Lawrence’s martyrdom. I will focus on the work of several late Cinquecento artists who developed novel approaches to painted night scenes, and new techniques and materials that lent themselves to particularly innovative examples in the period. The works and artists discussed hailed especially from northern Italy, above all Venice and Emilia Romagna. Thus, the crucial role mobility played in the sharing of these ideas and techniques shall also be considered. Ultimately, this thesis concludes that Italian night paintings, although developing later than in northern Europe, are philosophically rich and occupy an important place in the development of pictorial approaches to color and light that would lead ultimately to the rich tenebrism that would become a hallmark of Italian art in the Seicento.