Happy New Year!

8 February 2025

Dr Matthew Whyte: ‘Siena in the Middle Ages: Tradition & Innovation in the Arts’

© The Cathedral of Siena

In March 2025, the National Gallery in London will open an exhibition exploring the breadth and wealth of visual art in fourteenth-century Siena. In anticipation of this event, this talk seeks to introduce some ways we can consider the character of Siena’s rich artistic tradition in these years. Defined by master painters such as Duccio, Simone Martini, and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Sienese visual culture was one of simultaneous progress and retrospect, incorporating a new naturalism into the prevailing Gothic style, and blending a real world of emotion, movement, and space with the mystical setting of the Early Christian Byzantine icon. While famous for its painting, Siena in the 1300s was also a locus of sculptural innovation, particularly in the captivating design for the cathedral. Artists such as Giovanni Pisano pushed the expressive boundaries of the medium and illustrated the effect of Siena’s position as a vital trade route through the adoption of French Gothic technique into Italian principles. This talk brings together the most striking examples of Sienese art before the Black Death in 1348, conveying a city with a consciously distinct and captivatingly beautiful visual tradition.

Dr Matthew Whyte teaches and researches in the History of Art Department at University College Cork, where he is College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences Excellence Scholar. He received his BA in History of Art and Philosophy from UCC, followed by an MRes in History of Art, specialising in Renaissance Italy and the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti. He teaches across the undergraduate programme in History of Art, and is Coordinator of the Diploma in European Art History for the Centre for Adult Continuing Education. For the latter, he regularly offers public Short Courses on aspects of Italian art, leading field trips in Italy to support learning. Since 2018, Matthew has led both private and public tours for the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork. Currently, Matthew’s research engages with cultural exchange in Renaissance Italy, examining the impact of 13th and 14th century sculpture on that of the High Renaissance.