From Botticelli to the great Leonardo

 Blog #1

Sandro Botticelli

                Sandro Botticelli was born in 1445.  As a child, he was admitted to the Medici’s Florentine school, under the Lorenzo di’ Medici.  He became an apprentice at the age of fourteen, and he was taught some most of his talent, by Fra Filippo Lippi.  Botticelli learned to pay attention to detail of the body from Lippi, who was very interested in the works of Masaccio.  Botticelli created many fantastic works including Primavera, the Adoration of the Maggi, and the Birth of Venus.  Because the Birth of Venus is so popular and widely known it is an interesting experience to see it in person, at the Uffizi.  This painting is tempera on panel, with Venus in the middle of the painting, standing on a shell.  It is as if she was born from the sea, out of a shell, created by God.  The background includes an ocean that is very flat and does not look very realistic.  But the eye does not recognize it as bad, because the attention is supposed to be on Venus, who is in a typical baptism scene.  This scene is very beautiful; showing the color of Venus’ blonde hair contrasting against the water, and sky makes her seem so majestic, and separated from the background.  Botticelli, knew how to show the importance of this goddess, who is seen as a comparison to the Virgin Mary.

Birth of Venus

Sandro Botticelli

Uffizi Gallery

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Vasari on Leonardo Da Vinci

                Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 and died in 1519 during his life; he completely mastered the art of painting, and much more.  Leonardo was very interested in learning as a kid, but Vasari states that he” set himself to learn many things, and then, after having begun them, abandoned them.”  Although he did this, he excelled in arithmetic.  One of his flaws, most likely the only one is that Leonardo had trouble finishing his projects.  We can understand why, because Vasari tells us that he believed “the hand was not able to attain to the perfection of art in carrying out the things which he imagined.”  This is a very interesting belief, because Leonardo’s mind was so complex in what he saw in his mind as things to paint, he himself did not think that it was possible for his hand to create them.  Leonardo was probably one of the best painters of all time, and it is very easy to understand the genius that he held.   

Self Portrait in chalk

Leonardo da Vinci

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Quattrocento Artists of the Renaissance

   Filippo Lippi

                Born in 1406, Fra Filippo Lippi was an Italian painter during the Quattrocento, during the Italian renaissance.  Orphaned as a young child, he was taken care of by his aunt for some years until he joined the Carmelite Friars, in his teenage years.  Lippi did not do much studying, but he liked to draw, so eventually his prior allowed him to study painting.  This was a good choice on his part, because Filippo went on in life to create many beautiful paintings.  Filippo eventually met a woman that he asked to model for his painting of the Madonna, which led to a physical relationship.  This relationship resulted in a child whom he named Filippino.  His son too later on became a famous painter. 

                Lippi had many works that are beautiful, including his Madonna with Child, where it is as though he painted the angel to look like his son. More focus goes to the angel rather than the baby, Jesus.  This is a beautiful tempera on panel, where the Madonna is recognized as Lucrezia Buti, the mother of his own child.  Another Painting of Lippi’s that I found online, and found to be very interesting is his fresco of the Feast of Herod.   This fresco shows the scene of the beheading of Saint John the  Baptist, where Salmone is presenting the head of St John the Baptist to Herod, and on the other side is entertaining her guests with a dance. 

The Feast of Herod: Salmone's Dance

1460-1464

Filippo Lippi

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Sandro Botticelli

    

                Sandro Botticelli was born in 1445, and Vasari says him to have never been “satisfied in school with reading, writing, and arithmetic.”  This boy had a passion for more than the type of thing that teachers taught; he was interested in the arts.  His father placed him to work with a goldsmith and friend.  Sandro “took a fancy to painting” and so his father took him to the Carmelita Fra Filippino Lippi, who became the teacher of the great painter Botticelli.  This talented student was able to imitate his mentor so well that Lippi really took a liking to him and taught him through and through on what he knew.  Sandro had this talent, where he took painting, and instead of a hobby, he definitely made it a career and hard work.  The paths that he chose with his paintings were new, and daring in the eyes of some.  His genius took him to a whole different level, using some of the ideas of the Greeks that the human body was beautiful and should be praised.  With this, he also painted scenes of characters from the pagan religions of more than one god.  Beyond these daring scenes, Botticelli paid close attention to the detail of his characters.  Vasari states that the details “reveal the artist’s mastery of his craft.”  This is a very agreeable statement, because Botticelli was sort of a turning point, and definitely a master when it comes to painting.

Primavera 

Sandro Botticelli 1482

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Two of the Best

Filippo Brunellschi

            Brunelleschi’s training began with apprenticing as a goldsmith and sculptor.  During this time, a major influence in his life was a merchant and medical doctor, Paolo Toscanelli, who was a man of mathematics.  This man taught Brunelleschi a lot about math, including geometry, which he became very interested in. 

            Brunelleschi decided to enter a competition to build the bronze doors of the Florentine baptistery, while teaching.  His competitor was Lorenzo Ghiberti, a very good sculptor.  After losing the competition, Brunelleschi decided to get out of Florence for a while, and went to Rome.  This trip to Rome that he had, really taught him the meaning of Architecture, and seems to have given him a better understanding of his own personal interests.  Returning to Florence, with a new talent in hand, Brunelleschi signed up for a competition to be a consultant on the dome of the cathedral.  This time, his idea and design won, and Brunelleschi was chosen to design the dome. 

            This dome is amazing to the eye, especially with an understanding of how difficult, and how much time went into it. The pointed dome is a double shelled dome, consisting of a rib that is the main bone structure of the dome.  The bricks inside are laid in herring bone style, where they are not all stacked one on top of the other, but in fact they some are vertical, and some are horizontal.  This helps to distribute weight more evenly.  Brunelleschi, since he studied the architecture of the ancient Romans, he understood the way things needed to be constructed to last.  He was a magnificent architect, and was probably the only person at the time that could come up with a way to build such a massive dome that would last as long as it has.

Dome of the Duomo

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Vasari on Masaccio

            From the beginning of his painting career, Masaccio always tried to convey the most lifelike figures in his works.  Vasari mentions that he tried “following as closely as possible” to the way that Donatello and Brunelleschi worked.  Although the job of painting was much different, he tried to make his painting animated and real.  Masaccio’s paintings were now different than anybody had ever seen, more humanistic and natural than even Giotto.  One of the reasons being, is, Masaccio studied, and practiced perspective.  In one of the temperas he created, Masaccio tried something not many had before; he shows a view from below.  Vasari states that because not many had tried this before he received “no little praise.”  These experiments with perspective showed the talent, and the genius behind the art that is done by Masaccio, and many later artists. 

            One of his most amazing works is the scene of St. Peter asking Christ how to pay the taxes, and is told to get them out of the fish’s belly.  The natural and realistic details of this painting include Saint Peter “especially lifelike, for his head is flushed from bending over.”  This detail is very evolutionary in the way of painting, because in paintings, the detail of how the human body reacts to things has been scarce if not absent completely.  This is the concept of art as genius, because it is no longer just paintings with pretty colors and how the way people look in imagination, but how humans look anatomically.  Masaccio definitely understood the way that the human body looks, and Vasari understood the level of talent that Masaccio had.

Tribute Money

Masaccio

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