Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 104. (Budapest, 2006)
ANNA EÖRSI: "...there is One Among You Whom You Do Not Recognise": Some Golden Threads to Miklós Boskovits with Reference to Duccio's Saint John the Baptist
Zum Gold als Farbe," in Von Farbe und Farben. Albert Koepfli zum 70. Geburstag, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Denkwalpflege an der Eidgenössische?! Technischen Hochschule Zürich Band 4, Zurich 1980, 303-7; F. Deuchler, Duccio, Milan 1984, 165-67. The question is tackled more or less in detail by Hall 1992, 35; Ch. Wagner, "Metaphern der Blindheit und des Sehens in der Dantezeit. Beobachtungen zur 'Heilung des Blindgeborenen' in Duccios 'Maestà'," in Festschrift für Ch?'istian Lenz. Von Duccio bis Beckmann, Frankfurt am Main 1998, 24-25 (with special regard to the Transfiguration); R. R Tarr, '"Ecce Virgo Concipiet'. The Iconography and Context of Duccio's London Annunciation," Viator 31 (2002), 198, 201, 207-8 (with special regard to the Annimciation). Wagner 1998, 24. According to Hills this differentiation —not by gold —was made for the first time only by Taddeo Gaddi. See Hills 1987, 75-82. Gombrich regards as one of the greatest merits of Giotto that he fully excluded gold from his art, even at the expense that he had to totally ignore the phenomenon of glitter (E. H. Gombrich, "Light, Form and Texture in Fifteenth-Century Painting North and South of the Alps," The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, no. 5099 (1964), vol. 112, 826-49). This is really a novelty of outstanding importance, hut Duccio's merits are no less significant either; he succeeded in differentiating between modelling and reflecting light; see Hills 1987, 98. It is also disregarded in the literature that Duccio is among the greatest innovators also in the field of grisaille painting. See e.g., the illusionistic statues symbolising demons on the last predella scene on the front side of the Maestà representing the twelve-year-old Jesus (P. Seiler, "Duccios Tempelgötzen. Antijüdische Kritik oder mittelalterliches Wissen über römische Götter- und Kaiserstatuen im biblischen Jerusalem?," Pegasus. Berliner Beitrage zum Nachleben der Antike 3 (2001), 76-77). In my opinion, the little that Vasari writes on Duccio should be taken much more seriously than before (Le vite de fin eccellentipittori, scultori e architettori, 1568, con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, 1, Firenze 1906, 653-59). The highly-esteemed element repeated three times in the inadequately short biography is that "he was the first who made such marble mosaics —on the floor of the Cathedral of Siena —on which the figures are laid out from black and white stones; this method [...] was raised to astonishing perfection by modern artists." In spite of the fact that the biography is full of errors and the floor of the Cathedral of Siena was made after Duccio's death, Duccio could indeed play a role in the working out of the brand new method of "the monochrome painting of light and shade". The question was only raised by Wagner (Wagner 1998, 18). Interestingly enough, the eminent specialist of grisaille, Michaela Krieger, does not even mention Duccio's name in her studies. With regard to the structure of the Maestà, I follow White's reconstruction. See 1979, 50-95, figs. 51-52.
