Nota critica a Millard Meiss, La luce come forma e simbolo in alcuni dipinti del Quattrocento (1945)

It is hereby published a translation of Millard Meiss' famous article "Light as Form and Symbol in Some Fifteenth-Century Paintings", which first appeared on The Art Bulletin in 1945. Meiss had noticed that fifteenth-century artists shared a specific interest in the study of light, which resulted in the use of previously seldom represented iconographical subjects and in certain variations to traditional ones, together with a pivotal formal emphasis on this element, in order to endow light with a symbolical meaning. Indeed, in such works as The Virgin in the Church (Berlin) by Jan van Eyck, light penetrating through glass became the symbol of the Immaculate Conception. This theory is supported by evidence in contemporary religious literature, especially the Nativity hymns the author refers to. The commentary includes a biographical and critical profile of this American art historian, assessing his methodological approach, which combined formal and iconological analysis, and his critical fortune and misfortune.