Caleb De Jong blogs about the exhibition Piero della Francesca: Personal Encounters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through March 30, 2014.

De Jong writes that the show is a "personally remunerative experience… this exhibition affords the chance to be in a truly devotional space with paintings that were created for exactly such a purpose. The limitations of the subject matter, two paintings each on the Madonna and Child as well as St. Jerome, further narrows the viewer into a position of receptiveness towards the devotional aspects (visual and otherwise) of the paintings." De Jong continues: "Piero's paintings inspire devotion not for their elucidation of his Renaissance faith or peculiar devotion to geometry, but because of the furtive enigma of temperament. Piero's paintings are not windows opening onto another plane of devotion, but objects of devotion in their own right. These objects are clarion calls of quality and visual integrity that is rare but free floating, descending out of the clouds to bless certain artists in certain centuries who have the silence and temerity to accept such gifts."