Abstract
This paper examines two salient, but apparently unconnected, features of the work of the early Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi, his de-emphasis of the boundary between world and image and the inclusion in his paintings of humour in the form of pictorial play, comic figures and amusing incidents. Drawing on Lacanian theory, this paper will demonstrate that these two aspects of Lippi's art can be seen as interdependent responses to the physical and spiritual distancing of the iconic, devotional image in the age of perspectival painting. This discussion will begin by examining Lippi's response to the problems raised by the perspectival picture plane. Unlike many other painters of his generation, Lippi used a number of pictorial devices to minimise the divide between viewer and image that emerged as a result of the technique of scientific perspective. This can be seen by comparing some of Lippi's works with those of his contemporaries Masaccio and Fra Angelico.1
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