Look at This Lovely Tondo
The long history of circular art
The Madonna and Child with a Male Saint, Catherine of Alexandria and a Donor, about 1496, Michelangelo di Pietro Membrini. Tempera on panel, 56 3/4 × 56 3/4 × 3 in. Getty Museum, 68.PB.4
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How do you describe a work of art?
With art terms, of course! We’ve heard your questions about works of art at Getty, and we’re here to answer your Frequently Asked Art Questions (FAAQs).
Let’s take a look at Madonna and Child with a Male Saint, Catherine of Alexandria and a Donor the perfect work of art to discuss the art term “tondo.”
Watch the video, or read on below!
When you think of a painting, what shape do you have in mind? It probably isn’t a circle, but that’s a more popular format than you think.
Tondo is the art historian’s term—also the Italian one: rotondo means round—for a painting or sculpture in a circular format. Now that you know how to spot a tondo, be prepared to start seeing them everywhere.
Attic Red-Figure Cup, about 510 B.C.E., Epiktetos. Terracotta, 3 1/16 × 9 15/16 × 7 1/16 in. Getty Museum, 86.AE.279
Attic Red-Figure Kylix, 500–490 B.C. Attributed to Onesimos. Terracotta, 3 1/4 × 12 × 9 1/4 in. Getty Museum, 86.AE.607
Who Made the First Circular Art?
Although the rectangle is the most common canvas shape, circular art has been decorating interiors for millennia. Tondi (the plural of tondo) date back to antiquity.
Among the earliest examples in Getty’s collection are the Greek wine cups or kylixes above. Ancient Greek artists often decorated the circular interior, resulting in creative compositions.
Left: Tondo with the Bust of a Man, AD 300–400, Roman. Marble, 22 5/8 in. Getty Museum, 73.AA.113. Right: Gallery shot of tondo
Fast forward 500 years, and you’ll find tondi crop up again, this time in Ancient Rome. Tondi like the Bust of a Young Man above, were based on the shape of a Roman shield. They were often made for important figures (like the subject of this Getty mystery), and mounted high on the walls of temples, civic buildings, and private homes.
A Tondo Renaissance
Renaissance artists were fascinated by the artforms of antiquity. Inspired by tondi like the ones above, Florentine artist made circular paintings or reliefs into an independent art form in the early 1400s. Later, artists like Michelangelo and Raphael made more modern versions for domestic settings.
