Domenico Ghirlandaio
Domenico Ghirlandaio | |
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Church of Ognissanti, Palazzo Vecchio, Santa Trinita, Tornabuoni Chapel in Florence and Sistine Chapel, Rome | |
Movement | Italian Renaissance |
Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi (2 June 1448 – 11 January 1494), professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio (also spelt as Ghirlandajo),
Life and works
Early years
Ghirlandaio was born Domenico di Tommaso di Currado di Doffo Bigordi. He was the eldest of six children born to Tommaso Bigordi by his first wife Antonia di ser Paolo Paoli; of these, only Domenico and his brothers and collaborators Davide and Benedetto Ghirlandaio survived childhood. Tommaso had two more children by his second wife, also named Antonia, whom he married in 1464. Domenico's half-sister Alessandra (b. 1475) married the painter Bastiano Mainardi in 1494.[6] Both Ghirlandaio's father and his uncle, Antonio, were setaiuolo a minuto (dealers of silks and related objects in small quantities).[citation needed]
First works in Florence, Rome, and Tuscany
Ghirlandaio excelled in the painting of
In 1480, Ghirlandaio painted
In 1481, Ghirlandaio was summoned to
In 1484, an agent of
Later works in Tuscany
Between 1482 and 1485, Ghirlandaio painted a fresco cycle in the
In 1483, there arrived in Florence a masterpiece of the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes. Now known as the Portinari Altarpiece, it was an Adoration of the Shepherds, commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, an employee of the Medici Bank. The painting was in oil paint, not the tempera employed in Florence, and demonstrated the flexibility of that medium in the painting of textures and intensity of light and shade. The aspect of the painting that had a profound effect on Ghirlandaio was the naturalism with which the shepherds were depicted.[5]
Ghirlandaio painted the altarpiece of the Sassetti chapel, an Adoration of the Shepherds, in 1485. It is in this painting that he particularly shows his indebtedness to the Portinari Altarpiece. The shepherds, among whom is a self-portrait of the artist, are portrayed with a realism that was an advance in Florentine painting at that time.[5] The altarpiece is still in position in Santa Trinita, surrounded by the six frescoes depicting the Life of St. Francis of which it became the centrepiece. On either side are portraits of the kneeling donors, and although the figures are in fresco on the wall, they occupy the same position and relationship to the central scene of the Adoration that the donors do on the outer panels of the Portinari triptych.[15]
Immediately after the commission for the Sassetti Chapel, Ghirlandaio was asked to renew the frescoes in the choir of the
In this cycle, there are no fewer than twenty-one portraits of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families. In the Angel appearing to Zacharias, there are portraits of members of the Medici Academy:
Although mainly known for his fresco cycles Ghirlandaio painted a number of altarpieces including the Virgin Adored by Saints Zenobius, Justus and Others, painted for the church of Saint Justus, now in the
According to Vasari, Ghirlandaio also painted several scenes of Classical subjects with nude figures, including a Vulcan and his Assistants forging Thunderbolts, for
Death
Ghirlandaio died on 11 January 1494 of "pestilential fever" and was buried in Santa Maria Novella.[4][16] The day and month of his birth remain undocumented, but he is recorded as having died in early January of his forty-fifth year. He had been married twice and left six children. One of his three sons, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, also became a painter. Although he had a long line of descendants, the family name died out in the seventeenth century, when its last members entered monasteries.[11]
Critical assessment and legacy
Ghirlandaio worked mainly in fresco, with a number of important works being executed in tempera. Vasari states that Ghirlandaio was the first to abandon, in great part, the use of gilding in his pictures, representing by painting any objects that were made of gold. This is not applicable to his entire oeuvre, as details in some paintings, for example, the altarpiece of the Adoration of the Shepherds (now in
According to
Ghirlandaio is credited as the teacher of Michelangelo. Francesco Granacci is another among his pupils.[4] According to Vasari, these two were sent by Ghirlandaio to the Medici Academy, when Lorenzo de' Medici requested his two best pupils. Although Michelangelo regarded himself as primarily a sculptor, in the sixteenth century he was to follow his master as a painter of frescos, at the Sistine Chapel.[17]
Ghirlandaio was highly praised by Vasari: "[Ghirlandaio] who, from his talent and from the greatness and the vast number of his works, may be called one of the most important and most excellent masters of the age..." In the nineteenth century Jacob Burckhardt and others praised him for his compositions, for his technical ability, and for the lifelike quality of his figures, seen by Archibald Joseph Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle as being as innovative as those of Giotto had been.[9] By the late nineteenth century the appreciation of his work had waned and it was not until 1994, the five-hundredth anniversary of the artist's death, that interest in him was rekindled.[9][c] At this time a symposium was held and subsequently in-depth monographs on the artist were published. Rosenauer comments on the usefulness of Ghirlandaio's paintings as pictorial records for the historian.[9]
Works by Ghirlandaio
Portraits
Altarpieces
Frescos
Details
See also
Notes
- ^ UK: /ˌɡɪərlænˈdaɪoʊ/ GHEER-lan-DY-oh, US: /ˌɡɪərlənˈdaɪoʊ, ˌɡɪərlənˈdɑːjoʊ/ GHEER-lən-DY-oh, GHEER-lən-DAH-yoh,[1][2][3] Italian: [doˈmeːniko ɡirlanˈdaːjo].
- ^ According to Vasari the question of preserving the arms of the Ricci gave rise to litigation.
- ^ Note that Rosenauer's article erroneously states 1994 as the anniversary of the artist's birth rather than death.
References
- ^ "Ghirlandaio" (US) and "Ghirlandaio". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 22 March 2020.
- ^ "Ghirlandaio". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
- ^ "Ghirlandajo". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Vasari, Giorgio. "Domenico Ghirlandaio". Lives of the Painters. Archived from the original on 10 March 2015. Retrieved 11 May 2014.
- ^ a b c d e Toman, Rolf[full citation needed]
- ISBN 9780300087208
- ^ a b c Rossetti 1911.
- ^ Passavant, Gunter: Verrochio Sculptures Paintings & Drawings (Phaidon. London.1969) p.45
- ^ a b c d Rosenauer, Artur, Review of Domenico Ghirlandaio: Artist and Artisan by Jean K. Cadogan, Mutual Art.com, [1] (Sept 2003)
- ^ Vantaggi, Rosella, San Gimignano, Town of Fine Towers, Plurigraf (1979)
- ^ a b c d public domain: Rossetti, William Michael (1911). "Ghirlandajo, Domenico". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 922–923. Endnotes:
- The biography of Ghirlandajo is carefully worked out in Crowe and Cavalcaselle's book.
- A recent German work on the subject is that of Ernst Steinmann (1897).
- See also Codex Escurialensis, ein Skizzenbuch aus der Werkstatt Domenico Ghirlandaios (texts and plates), by Chr. Hülsen, Adolf Michaelis and Hermann Egger in the Sonderschriften des österr. archäol. Instituts in Wien (2 vols., 1906)
- cf. T. Ashby in Classical Quarterly (April 1909).
- ^ Cadogan, Jean K., and Andrea Muzzi. 2003 "Ghirlandaio family." Grove Art Online.
- ^ a b c Chastel 1983, p. 98.
- ^ Chastel 1983, p. 103.
- ^ ISBN 9781856694391.
- ^ Treccani biographical dictionary: "Il B. morì di peste l'11 genn. 1494 a Firenze e fu sepolto in S. Maria Novella."
- ^ Goldscheider, Ludwig, Michelangelo, Phaidon, (1953)
Sources
- Chastel, André (1983). Art of the Italian Renaissance. UK: Alpine Fine Arts Collection. ISBN 0-88168-139-3.
External links
Media related to Domenico Ghirlandaio at Wikimedia Commons
- Paintings by Domenico Ghirlandaio with details about each
- ghirlandaio.it, Museums and exhibitions in Florence
- Web Gallery of Art
- Ghirlandaio in Panopticon Virtual Art Gallery
- Ghirlandaio's Cappella Sassetti Frescoes
- Where to find Ghirlandaio's works in Florence
- Ghirlandaio and Renaissance Florence exhibition
- Italian Paintings: Florentine School, a collection catalog containing information about the artist and his works (see pages: 128–137).
- Domenico Ghirlandaio at the National Gallery of Art
- Carl Brandon Strehlke, "The Man of Sorrows (Christ Crowned with Thorns) by Domenico Ghirlandaio (cat. 1176a)[permanent dead link]" in The John G. Johnson Collection: A History and Selected Works[permanent dead link], a Philadelphia Museum of Art free digital publication.