A detail of Francesco Pesellino’s *The Story of David and Goliath* (around 1445-55) © National Gallery, London

I recently visited an excellent exhibition about the Renaissance painter Francesco Pesellino. (The National Gallery, London until 10 March. Free.)

Pesellino, born into an artistic Florentine family in 1422, trained with his father and later his grandfather, and then formed partnerships with other artists. He painted panels for devotional and decorative use. And his work, mostly considering religious themes, had bold colours, sensitive characterisation and strong narrative force.

Casting a soft shadow, a blue-cloaked Mary bows her head as she learns from an angel of her solemn destiny. The elderly King Melchior sets sail for the Holy Land to pay homage to the new-born Christ, a casket of gold on his knee. Watched by Constantine’s court, an ox collapses dead to the ground, having heard the secret name of God.

Wandering around this small one-room show about a mostly forgotten artist, I found myself reflecting on the contemporary communications business.

King Melchior Sailing to the Holy Land by Francesco Pesellino.
Photograph: © Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA (1955.940)

The painting ‘Virgin and Child’ presents a familiar subject. But it is exquisitely executed and marks a fascinating development in Florentine art. A youthful Mary, with elegantly curled hair, tenderly supports her baby Jesus on the shoulder and side, as he looks mournfully out at us. Pesellino gave this picture crisp outlines. It was a prototype, a design to be copied and adapted multiple times, addressing the booming market for devotional images for domestic display.

Our industry today is obsessed with change and difference. We constantly reinvent, revamp and replace. But back in the day the Catholic Church understood the cognitive power of the repeated image: the mesmerising quality of a consistent motif, echoing across time and space, sustained by the nuances of theme and variation.

At the heart of the exhibition are two wide wooden panels depicting the story of David and Goliath – vibrantly coloured and richly decorated with gold and silver leaf. David, in violet tunic and pink cape, appears multiple times: tending his flock, refusing to don armour, collecting shot, attacking the nine-foot Philistine warrior Goliath with his sling; and then in the second panel standing atop a carriage in his triumphal procession, brandishing Goliath’s severed head by the hair.

Francesco Pesellino (probably 1422–July 29, 1457), Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon

The panels are populated with elegantly attired foot soldiers and lance-wielding cavaliers; with dogs, falcons and a cheetah. The horses have opulent bridles and bejewelled reins. The ground is strewn with delicate flowers. The soldiers’ armour glistens in the light.

I was struck by the episode in this story in which Goliath challenges the Israelites to choose one champion to face him in single combat, and so decide the war. I’m sure I read somewhere that this practice was quite popular in ancient times.

In the communications sector we expend vast amounts of time and money pitching for business. Even if we win, it usually takes a few years to recoup the loss. Wouldn’t it be more sensible if each agency simply nominated a creative champion to take on its competitors in single combat?

Pesellino died of plague in Florence in 1457. He was just 35. Had he survived longer, perhaps he would have earned more than a page in Vasari’s ‘Lives of the Artists.’ And yet, like all great painters, his legacy is his work, and his ability to make us think.

'In my heart I will wait
By the stony gate,
And the little one
In my arms will sleep.
Every rising of the moon
Makes the years grow late,
And the love in our hearts will keep.
There are friends I will make
And bonds I will break,
As the seasons roll by
And we build our own sky.
In my heart I will wait
By the stony gate,
And the little one
In my arms will sleep.’
Joan Baez, ‘A Song for David'

No. 458