Adar Yarom
Exploring Topographies: Landscapes of Mythical Journeys in Early Renaissance
Art
Artists of the early renaissance may have had their interest sparked by at least three
long distance journeys mentioned or described in the New Testament: The Adoration
of the Magi (Matthew 2: 7 - 12); The Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13 – 23); and
Saint John the Baptist Entering the Wilderness (Luke 1: 80; also known as Saint
John the Baptist Retiring to the Desert). Many artists of the 14th and 15th centuries
developed their interest in these topics through painting their own variations of the
appropriate topographies: mountains and forests, fields and lakes, rivers and roads.
The New Testament does not expand upon any of the landscape features encountered
on these journeys. In fact, two relevant words, "Journey" and "Desert", together
usually associated with Solitude, are not common in the gospels. Therefore artists
resorted to reading travel accounts and studying nature closely, in order to visually
represent mythical narratives of these travels. My aim in this lecture is to survey the
complex link between observing world and nature (using the Italian concept of
realtà), imagination (immaginazione) and invention (invenzione), all components of
the Renaissance artists' quest for topographies of biblical journeys and landscapes.