in Lucca His art style was late
Romanesque, mainly line-based, with neohellenistic and Byzantine influences. He is considered to be one of the main artists of the
Tuscan art of the period. He is also one of the few artists who painted in what is considered the
Italo-Byzantine style to whom work can be attributed with certainty, though distinguishing his work from that of his sons is sometimes difficult. His earliest work, or at least that attributed to him, is the "Madonna di sotto gli organi" in the
Cathedral of Pisa and dates no earlier than 1210. in Lucca One of his more famous works,
Madonna and Child, is now on display at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. It exemplifies several key elements that typify it as quintessentially Byzantine, but it also contains later Italian elements. One can begin with the most recognizable attributes, for example, the halos, the flat and uncrowded
gold background, and the blue and red robes of the Virgin and her long features. The golden background and halos surrounding the heads of the Virgin and Child are common in the Byzantine representation of divine or holy figures, as are the colours used throughout the composition. These golden halos differ between the two figures in the painting—Christ's is articulated by an inlaid cruciform to distinguish his divine status. The Madonna boasts timeless stylized features of the Virgin. Her fingers, nose, and neck are exaggeratedly long and slender and her face itself is elongated and narrow. Her soulful eyes are large and intensely focused, lending her visage a particular elegance. Upon seeing the painting in person, one can observe a red tint in the cheeks of both Jesus and Mary that gives the flesh a lifelike quality—more vivacious, in fact, than its Byzantine predecessors. The particular depth created by the shading of the faces, Mary's in particular—an attribute of early Italian painting—also gives it an air of naturalism that Byzantine figures often lacked. Works by Berlinghieri can be found at the
San Matteo National Museum in
Pisa, the
National Museum of Villa Guinigi in Lucca, the church of
Santa Maria Assunta in Villa Basilica near Lucca, the
North Carolina Museum of Art in
Raleigh, the
Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York City. ==Notes==