Alesso Baldovinetti

Alesso or Alessio Baldovinetti (14 October 1427 – 29 August 1499) was an Italian early Renaissance painter and draftsman.

Biography

Baldovinetti was born in Florence to a rich noble family of merchants. In 1448 he was registered as a member of the Guild of St. Luke: "Alesso di Baldovinetti, dipintore."^[1]

He was a follower of the group of scientific realists and naturalists in art which included Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano. Tradition says that he assisted in the decorations of the church of S. Egidio, however no records confirm this. These decoration were carried out during the years 1441–1451 by Domenico Veneziano and in conjunction with Andrea del Castagno. That he was commissioned to complete the series at a later date (1460) is certain.

In 1460 Alesso was employed to paint the great fresco of the Annunciation in the cloister of the

Annunziata basilica. The remains as we see them give evidence of the artist's power both of imitating natural detail with minute fidelity and of spacing his figures in a landscape with a large sense of air and distance; and they amply verify two separate statements of Vasari

concerning him: that "he delighted in drawing landscapes from nature exactly as they are, whence we see in his paintings rivers; bridges, rocks, plants, fruits, roads, fields, cities, exercise grounds, and an infinity of other such things," and that he was an inveterate experimentalist in technical matters.

His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his compositions in

San Miniato, and are given in error by Vasari to Piero del Pollaiuolo

.

In 1471 Alesso undertook important works for the church of

baptistery of the cathedral

. He died in the hospital San Paolo, August 29, 1499, and was buried in San Lorenzo.

One of his pupils was Domenico Ghirlandaio.

Notes

^ Bryan, Michael (1886). Robert Edmund Graves (ed.). Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical. Vol. I: A-K. London: George Bell and Sons. pp. 71–72.

References

Colvin, Sidney (1911). "Baldovinetti, Alessio" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). pp. 243–244.
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Alesso Baldovinetti" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Huebscher, Arne: Alesso Baldovinetti und die Florentiner Malerei der Frührenaissance (Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, 16). Münster: Rhema 2020

[1] Bryan, Michael (1886). Robert Edmund Graves (ed.). Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical. Vol. I: A-K. London: George Bell and Sons. pp. 71–72.

[1]

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