Emily Humphries

Ecstasy of Piero della Francesca- the Madonna has departed

As critic Helen Stuckey writes the body of work produced during the Summer of 2010 by Humphries in Italy is a reflection of a profound interaction with history and art around her: "The Madonna Departed is a playful departure from Piero Della Francesca Madonna Del Parto and shows a winged figure clad in the Madonna’s traditional lapis lazuli blue, giving a last fleeting glance over his shoulder at the spectator. In this work the Madonna appears to have evolved to an existence within a mere mortal frame. Traditionally she is the symbol of purity and unconditional maternal love, however, no longer proud and resolute in this sphere, has fled leaving behind a sole attending angel, abandoned in a dishevelled world. Humphries also plays on the fate of the Della Francesca work, which was expropriated from the Chapel in Monterchi, redestined to the local museum and replaced by a reproduction. In this work the artist is giving a conscious nod to the historical burden or shadowy auspices in which this picture now exists. The artist echoes the remark of André Malraux in his discourse on museum cultural whereby ‘gods become sculptures’. (Helen Stuckey, Catalogue of Works, 2010) In Emily Humphries words this pausing over Della Francesca acquires a more subversive tone where the sublime confronts the world: "A thin, thin veil of gesso backs the works The Ecstasy of Piero della Francesca, or the Madonna has departed; which dialogues the breakdown of traditional paths to the sublime along with a rather absent Madonna to relieve our worldly cares, waters, broken." ( Emily Humphries, Catalogue of Works, 2010)