The Art of Domenico Ghirlandaio

Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494) was born Domenico di Curradi di Bigordi. He was nicknamed after the golden garland necklaces made by his father. Ghirlandaio was a religious painter first and foremost and was also one of the most popular and proficient portrait painters of the 15th century in Florence.

 
(Ghirlandaio, Domenico. Giovanna Tornabuoni nee Albizzi.
c. 1488. oil on panel. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid, Spain.)

Giovanna Tornabuoni is one of the few surviving portraits by Ghirlandaio. The posthumous portrayal of Giovanna Tornabuoni depicts her as an ideal of beauty informal profile, with her delicate features and sumptuous dress realistically highlighted against the dark background.

 
(Ghirlandaio, Domenico. The Birth of the Virgin.
c. 1486-90. fresco. Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy.)

The Birth of the Virgin was perhaps Ghirlandaio’s finest fresco. It is set in an architectural framework and painted in realistic detail. The setting owes more to contemporary Florence than to the Bible. He often incorporated portrayals of Florentine people and life into his religious works, such as the contemporary ships that are depicted in the background of the biblical painting, “ St. John the Baptist in the Desert.”

 
(Ghirlandaio, Domenico. Saint John the Baptist in the Desert.
c. 1486. fresco. Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella,
Florence, Italy.)

In the early 1480s, Ghirlandaio was commissioned to paint frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, and in the Sistine Chapel. On his return to Florence in 1485, the Medici’s banker Francesco Sassetti commissioned him to paint a cycle of frescoes in S. Trinita and employed him to replace the frescoes in the Sassetti‘s family chapel.

 
(Ghirlandaio, Domenico. Saint Barbara.
c. 1471. fresco. Parish Church of Santa Andrea, Cercina.)

Ghirlandaio’s busy workshop was located in Florence, the city that is often described as the cradle of the Renaissance. It produced a number of altarpieces and society portraits, painted with often startling realism. It was here that the young Michelangelo was apprenticed. Ghirlandaio's paintings would instigate realism and inspire many of the future high renaissance painters of Italy. His work is much appreciated here! 

Enjoy :) 

Reference: King, R. Art. New York: DK Publishing, 2008.

The Art of Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci (1492 – 1519), is featured in the current exhibit, “Leonardo: 500 Years into the Future” which is at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California USA, and will be showing until January 25, 2009. If you are in the area, and you are interested in science and engineering, I highly recommend it. For more information, see TheTech.org. Leonardo’s studies in science and engineering are as impressive and innovative as his artistic work.

 
(Leonardo da Vinci. Vitruvian Man. c. 1485-90.
sketch on paper. Galleria dell' Accademia, Venice.)

It is very hard, to sum up, the work and life of a man that made so many contributions to art, science, and engineering. He recorded observations in his notebooks every day, comprising some 13,000 pages of notes and drawings, which fuse art and natural philosophy and are the forerunners of modern science. These notebooks were maintained daily throughout Leonardo’s life and travel as he made continual observations of the world around him.

 
(Leonardo da Vinci. Study of Hydraulic Instrumentation.
c. 1482. sketch on paper. Milan, Spain.)

Leonardo is now famous for the range and variety of his talents, embracing science as well as art. However, most of his scientific work remained hidden in his notebooks for centuries, and his contemporaries only recognized him primarily as a painter. His output of paintings was small (and he left several works unfinished), partly because his mind was constantly roaming to new interests, but in spite of this, he was immensely influential.

 
(Leonardo da Vinci. The Last Supper. c. 1495 - 1498.
tempera on gesso. Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.)

He is regarded as the main creator of the majestic High Renaissance style, which moved away from the emphasis on line and the decorative detailed characteristics of so many 15th century Italian paintings. Although no one painted detail more exquisitely than Leonardo, he combined this detail with the grandeur of form and the unity of atmosphere, through his wonderfully subtle handling of light and shade.

 
(Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna in der Felsengrotte (Virgin on
the Rocks). c. 1503 - 1506. oil on panel. National Gallery, London.)

At times Leonardo led an unsettling existence. His career was divided mainly between Florence and Milan, plus he spent his final years in France as an honored guest of Francois I. By the time of his death he had already acquired a legendary aura.

 
(Leonardo da Vinci. The Annunciation. c. 1472-1475.
oil & tempera on panel. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.)

Although the identity of the sitter still remains unknown, the Mona Lisa is now so famous that it is difficult to imagine how fresh and innovative it must have looked to Leonardo’s contemporaries. The portrait was among the first to depict the sitter before a made-up landscape, unlike the plain backgrounds characteristics of the previous portrait paintings that came before it. The sensuous curves of the sitter’s hair and clothing mirror the rolling imaginary valleys and rivers behind her creating a calming sense of harmony throughout the painting. The relaxed naturalism of the pose, with the hands, casually overlapping, and the intriguing subtlety of the expression made all of the earlier portraits of the 15th century look extremely stiff.

 
(Leonardo da Vinci. La Gioconda (Mona Lisa).
c. 1503-1506. oil on Poplar. Louvre, Paris.)

Using a half-figure pose with the subject’s upper body turned three-quarters of the way toward the artist, the composition is made up of a pyramid. Her folded hands form the bottom of the pyramid while her shoulders form the sides and her head is at the peak. This naturally leads the eye of the viewer up to the eyes of the subject which line up perfectly with the line of the landscape behind her. Leonardo revolutionized portrait painting. Five centuries later, portraits are still using his style! I can't say enough about his contributions to art, science & engineering, his work is very much appreciated here! 

Enjoy :)