Today’s Sketch are from the Seattle Art Museum’s Medieval collection. Specifically details from the Conversion of St. Paul by Luca di Tommè done in tempera around 1380 & 89.

While it’s easy to knock medieval art, making fun of how stylized it is and how nobody seemed to know about perspective and basic anatomy, I’m endlessly amazed about the shear craftsmanship of it. Not just getting into the logistics of what a headache mixing egg tempera is,  the detail work in this piece is amazing. There are parts of it where I can only wonder about just how small the artist’s brushes were.Original