Signorelli, "Gli Eleti" , affresco -- particolare -- 1500 -- Cattedrale d'Orvieto

Speranza


The importance of the nude was so great to Signorelli that he considered it the essential object of his pictorial experiments.

To the glory of the nude he dedicated his major work, for Orvieto Cathedral.

The couple at left in the Crowning of the Elect are about to receive golden crowns from the hands of the angels.

Here the human body is drawn with an anatomical precision that Signorelli learned from Pollaiuolo, while to his master, Piero della Francesca, he owes his feeling for imposing and heavy stature.

Signorelli, the last of the great Tuscan fresco-painters, was  weaned on the Apocalypse of St. John and Dante's "Divina Commedia".

This his figures, in the dramatic lightning of this end-of-the-world atmosphere, have a violet and solemn character that already heralds Michelangelo.