Penser l’hybridité visuelle. Une Crucifixion entre Lorenzo Monaco et Neri di Bicci

The Musée des Augustins in Toulouse preserves a 15th-century Florentine Crucifixion made of poplar, on which are represented the Virgin, Saint John, and Mary Magdalene. Two other pieces of painted poplar, a crucifix and a pedestal that hugs the base of the panel, are inserted within it. The scalloped cross is said to be by Lorenzo Monaco and dates from around 1400. The rest of the work would have been made by Neri di Bicci around 1460 or perhaps 1470. The panel is thinner than the crucifix and the base, which produces an effect of displacement. The material heterogeneity doubles the stylistic gap to produce a true visual hybridity, which concretely raises the question of the limits of the “artistic” object in the second half of the 15th century.