Transfiguration

The Transfiguration is the Gospel moment when Christ climbs a mountain with three of his followers and is suddenly lit from within, his clothes turning blinding white as Moses and Elijah appear beside him. It is a scene about light, which made it the right subject for Savoldo. This Brescian painter, working mostly in Venice around 1530, was quietly obsessed with how light falls, how it catches an edge of cloth or glints in the dark, and later admirers prized him for exactly that. He was never famous or prolific, and only a few dozen of his paintings survive. This panel passed through a private Venetian collection and reached the Uffizi in 1798, which also keeps a drawing he made while working the composition out. Down at the foot of the mountain the three companions shield their eyes, unable to look straight at what is happening above them.