tural poses. There is a small scene at the foot of the Saint Catherine and Christ figures. This is thought to be the Christ child with the Virgin Mary and grandmother, Saint Anne. Below these two scenes are three smaller bordered scenes. The central one depicts two enemies reconciled by an archangel and the outer ones show Saints Michael and Margaret fighting demons. All these images show the triumph of good over evil, with the middle characters shedding their weapons and embracing. All these small pictures support that the painting was commissioned by Arigoi di Nero Arighetti to celebrate the end of a feud.Painted on a panel, this painting was done in tempera, a pigment dissolved in egg. The chief medium till the late 1400s, tempera dries very quickly and when it does it gives a flat and dry appearance. This painting has sharp brushstrokes that do not fuse together and the forms have very sharp edges. All this is attributed partly to his style, and partly to the limitations of his medium. Artists at this time did not know much about the study of perspective, and Barna di Siena’s image reflects this flatness and lack of dimension. Not only are there different people on different scales supposedly in the same plane, even individual people appear to have no mass or depth to them at all. Also the colors used and the continuously rhythmic lines in thee vertical lines of the robes add to the flatness of the image. Most of the colors used are cool colors of red and orange and yellow, and although all these hues do not blend into one another because of the sharp brushstrokes used, the monocolor painting seems not only realistic, but it also adds to the flatness of the piece. The background, of a lighter shade of orange seems not to make the figures stick out but rather makes them blend into the background, or more appropriately, the backdrop. Traditionally, warm colors such as the ones seen have been used when the painter wan...
