Chapter 5 | WORKS OF ART

In a Christian Passion story about Jesus’ journey through the Cross, Saint Veronica wiped Jesus’s smudged and bloodied face with her own headscarf out of pity. When she returned home, she was astonished to see Jesus’s face depicted on the cloth. She now wears a new, artfully draped headscarf.

The wondrous story has been painted many times. The canvas is usually held on both sides. Often, the paintings feature much more intricate drapery than just the miraculous cloth. Drapery with the most complex folds was also a demonstration of virtuosity.

In a fairy tale like painting by Hans Memling from around 1470 on the same subject, about half of the picture plane consists of drapery.

A few hundred years earlier, one of the first artists to use shadow and light to give real substance to his human figures, was the 13th-century Italian Giotto di Bondone. His figures and the way they are dressed are highly recommended for copying drapery. In this mural, Lazarus (right), who had died of illness, is resurrected by Jesus.