Delivery Of The Keys To Saint Peter Essay

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Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV who decided to call to Rome the best artists to create fresco paintings on the walls of his newly built Sistine Chapel. He was determined to make the monuments of Christian Rome outshine the pagan monuments of Roman antiquity. Among the artists summoned by the Pope was Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino (1445–1523). Perugino who came from near the town of Perugia in Umbria had left his home some years before and had been active as an artist in Florence since 1472. While there, he had absorbed many of the artistic advances of the day and was considered to be one of the most accomplished artists of the time; he thus attracted the Pope’s attention.

Delivery of the Keys to Saint Peter, which measures 330 cm by 550 cm, is a mural painting that was created with water-based pigments applied to wet plaster placed directly on a wall. The figures in the painting are inserted into a city scene depicted in subdued colors, with a background of a distant idealized landscape and cloudy skies. The symmetrical design suggests the importance of the subject. Figures in the middle distance complement the near group, emphasizing its density and order by their scattered arrangement. The duplicate triumphal arches at the corners of the great piazza, serve as the base angles of a distant compositional triangle whose apex is in the central building.

In the painting, Christ hands the keys to Saint Peter, who stands …show more content…

The illusion of space is attained by Perugino using a very clearly marked out scheme of linear

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