The Virgin's House and other Architectural Narratives in Renaissance Marian Painting

This project investigates the fictive architecture that surrounds and encases the Virgin Mary in Italian Renaissance paintings. Although such a central feature of European religion as the cult of the Virgin Mary may seem a well trodden field, most art historians have focussed on the figures of the Virgin herself, her son and accompanying saints rather than on other parts of the picture. Even those who have studied pictorial space in this period have tended to concentrate on the impact of mathematical perspective on works of art and the viewer. A new study of the buildings and architectural frameworks created within images entirely changes the way we perceive these paintings. Rather than being something added on or subordinate to the rest of the picture, an architectonic approach often structures the whole image at the planning stage as painters constructed a framework of buildings before placing figures within them. Likewise, it is remarkable the extent to which architecture was crucial in establishing the subject of the image, in telling a visual story, and in creating the aura projected by the cult figure. Although the precise content of the dissertation remains to be discussed with the successful PhD candidate, a possible structure would follow the architectural life of the Virgin from the bedchamber of her birth, to the temple in Jerusalem where she was presented as a girl, to her house in the Annunciation, to the humble stable contrasted with grand ancient ruins at the Nativity.

During 2013 The National Gallery will host an exhibition on Architecture in Renaissance Painting, curated by Dr Lillie, who will also supervise the doctoral student at the University of York. This is one of the National Gallery's series of free-entry exhibitions intended to focus on aspects of the Gallery's own collection. The aim of this exhibition, accompanied by a scholarly National Gallery website publication, is to explore this rich, but under-explored topic in Renaissance painting and lead visitors to see the works in a new light. The CDA project will feed directly into the exhibition and its accompanying publications as well as pursuing further research paths appropriate for doctoral work such as: the precise relationship between the Virgin's house in images and the Santa Casa at Loreto; theories of private and domestic space as interpretative tools for these paintings; art beyond the contract or the notion that the non-figure areas of pictures, which were not usually stipulated by patrons, were more fully expressive of the will of the artist.

Italian Renaissance painting attracts a vast audience not only in the UK and the rest of Europe, but across the world. It has been collected and displayed in museums and galleries on almost every continent, and is taught in schools and universities as a canonical product of European culture. On a more popular level it is consumed and disseminated in every medium from posters to internet sites. There is therefore a large, enthusiastic general audience for research in this field.

The National Gallery exhibition which runs parallel to this project is one of a series of free exhibitions especially designed to maximise access to a wider public and highlighting lesser known aspects of the National Gallery's own holdings.The placing of this project at the intersection of painting and architecture also ensures that it will attract public from both camps.

The National Gallery had a total of over four and a half million visitors during 2009, while the three most recent free exhibitions drawn from the National Gallery's own collections were each seen by between 120,000 and 180,000 visitors. The National Gallery website had just over four million visits between 1st October 2009 and 1st October 2010.