Scenes from a Legend

Giovanni Larciani, known as the Master of the Kress Landscapes, was a Florentine painter of the early sixteenth century identified through a group of narrative panels in which the landscape dominates the composition to a degree unusual in contemporary Florentine practice. These Scenes from a Legend of probably ca. 1515–1520 demonstrate the distinctive quality that defines this artist's work: the narrative figures are subsidiary to the elaborate, fantastical landscape through which they move, suggesting a sensibility more attuned to the Venetian tradition of the pastoral landscape than to the Florentine priority of the human figure. The identity of the legend depicted remains uncertain, adding an element of interpretive mystery appropriate to paintings in which environment and narrative are so richly intertwined. Larciani represents a fascinating minor current in early-sixteenth-century Florentine painting.

The landscape dominates the composition in a manner unusual for Florentine practice — the narrative scenes are smaller and more dispersed than the conventional Florentine priority of figure over ground. The landscape details — rocks, trees, water, distant hills — are painted with careful observation and atmospheric recession.