Prudence and Justice with Six Antique Wisemen 1497

Pietro Perugino painted 'Prudence and Justice with Six Antique Wisemen', using oil paint on a plaster wall, a technique known as ‘fresco secco’. Look closely and you’ll notice that the paint sits on the surface, allowing for highly saturated colours to be applied and carefully blended. However, it required a great deal of meticulous labor. This piece exemplifies a moment where Renaissance art turned toward precision and polish, but it also involved considerable labor and resources to produce. The luminous hues, especially the reds and blues, are achieved through pigments, some of which were incredibly rare and valuable at the time. The artist’s handling of the materials results in a smooth, almost porcelain-like surface, enhancing the ethereal quality of the scene. The decision to use fresco secco allowed Perugino to achieve an incredible level of detail and refinement that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. The use of rare pigments was intended to convey the importance of the virtues depicted. It challenges us to consider the economic and social context in which such artworks were produced.