Mary with Child and Saints

In Venice Palma was closely associated with the circle around Giovanni Bellini and Titian. For this depiction of the saints (to the left Catherine and Celestine, to the right John the Baptist and Barbara) gathered around the Madonna, the artist drew on an idea of Bellini to set this assembly in an open landscape instead of a church interior. An innovation is the way the figures are depicted full-length, and with a “humanised” demeanour. The scene which up till that point had been ordered by strict hierarchy thus attains an intimate, almost profane character.