The Holy Family, about 1520–1523, Giulio Romano. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Giulio Romano's Holy Family: The Renaissance Devotional Image as Poetic Prayer

GETTY CENTER

Museum Lecture Hall



As a religious image, Giulio Romano's Holy Family was intended to concentrate the viewer's attention in the process of prayer, but the elegant and poetically expressive treatment of the subject also aimed to elicit admiration for its specific artistic quality. Robert Williams, professor of art history at UC Santa Barbara, explains how these two sources of value—often considered incompatible, if not mutually contradictory—were reconciled in the Renaissance viewer's mind.

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