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The Early Renaissance
(Renaissance
Art Map)
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Cosimo
Rosselli
EXPLORATION:
Sandro Botticelli
"Visual
Poetry"
see also:
Venus - The Evening Star
*
See also
COLLECTION:
Luca Signorelli
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THE 15TH-CENTURY CYCLES IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL
Pope Sixtus IV Della Rovere summoned to Rome the best Umbrian and Tuscan
painters in 1428. to decorate in fresco the lower walls of his new chapel:
Signorelli (c.1441-1523),
Perugino (1445-1523),
Ghirlandaio
(1452-1525),
Cosimo
Rosselli (1439-1507). and
Botticelli (1445-1510) came to paint stories from the
Old and New Testaments. An element of competition emerged between the various
pictorial styles, which included
Botticelli's ability to render the stories as
decorative friezes, copiously borrowing from the Roman repertory of antiquity.
Perugino preferred ordered spaciousness and perspective, while a simpler,
narrative style with overcrowded landscapes characterized the work of
Rosselli
and Luca Signorelli. In this remarkable contest, the compositional and narrative
precepts set clown in 1435 by Leon Battista Alberti reached maturity. Some of
these would soon be glimpsed in tlte youthful aspirations of Raphael, a pupil of
Perugino and
Michelangelo, a former pupil of
Ghirlandaio. Nearby is the chapel
of Nicholas V, beautifully decorated by
Fra Angelico between 1447 and 1449 with
the Lives of Saint Lawrence and Saint Stephen. These reveal a
emphasis on narrative detail that is new to the artist.
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Luca Signorelli
Moses's Testament
1481-82
Fresco, 350 x 572 cm
Cappella Sistina, Vatican
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See also
COLLECTION:
Luca Signorelli
Luca Signorelli
born 1445/50, Cortona, Republic of Florence
died Oct. 16, 1523, Cortona
in full Luca D'Egidio di Ventura de' Signorelli , also called Luca
da Cortona Renaissance painter, best known for his nudes and forhis
novel compositional devices.
It is likely that Signorelli was a pupil of Piero della Francesca in
the 1460s. The first certain surviving work by him, a fragmentary
fresco (1474) now in the museum at Cittą di Castello, shows a strong
influence from Piero. His first signed work was a processional
banner with a Madonna on one side and a Flagellation on the other;
these hang in the Brera, Milan, as separate pictures. They still
show links with the style of Piero, but the dominant influence is
that of Florence and especially the scientific naturalism of the
Pollaiuoli brothers,which suggests that Signorelli visited Florence
in the 1470s. In 1479 he was elected to the Council of 18 in his
native Cortona, and for the rest of his life he was active in
politics.
About 1483 he went to Rome, where the “Testament of Moses” fresco in
the Sistine Chapel is unanimously attributed to him. By that date
his style had become fixed, his interest in dramatic action and the
expression of great muscular effort marking him as an essentially
Florentine naturalist. The S. Onofrio altarpiece (1484) for Perugia
cathedral shows the same qualities. Between 1497 and 1498he was at
work on a fresco cycle of scenes from the life of St. Benedict in
the monastery at Monteoliveto Maggiore, near Siena.
His masterpiece, the frescoes of “The End of the World” and the
“Last Judgment” (1499–1502), is in the chapel of S. Brizio in
Orvieto cathedral. Those frescoes, which greatly influenced
Michelangelo, are crowded with powerful nudes painted in many
postures that accentuate their musculature.Signorelli had little
sense of colour, but here his greenish and purple devils add to the
horror induced by the strained poses and the anatomical details in
the decayed bodies.
When commissions in Rome and Florence became infrequent, Signorelli
returned to his less sophisticated Umbrian clientele. Most of his
later works betray the hands ofhis numerous assistants.
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Sandro Botticelli
The Trials and Calling of Moses
1481-82
Fresco, 350 x 572 cm
Cappella Sistina, Vatican
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Cosimo
Rosselli
(b Florence, 1439; d Florence, ?7 Jan 1507).
Painter. He was documented in Neri di Bicci’s workshop
between May 1453 and October 1456; in 1459 he received his
first known commission, for an altarpiece in Santa Trinita,
Florence (untraced). It is thought that he subsequently
worked with Benozzo Gozzoli, whose influence is evident in
his early work, but Cosimo was receptive to the styles of
almost all his more gifted contemporaries, including Alesso
Baldovinetti (said by Baldinucci to have been his master),
Andrea del Verrocchio and the Pollaiuolo brothers. Cosimo’s
first surviving works of importance are the frescoes in the
style of Baldovinetti in the Salutati Chapel, Fiesole
Cathedral, datable to between 1462 and 1466, but these are
heavily restored. A better illustration of his early style
is the St Barbara altarpiece (1468–9; Florence, Accad.) from
the Flemish and German confraternity’s chapel in SS
Annunziata, Florence; it has hard forms, incised outlines
and stiff, slightly ungainly figures.
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Cosimo Rosselli
Madonna and Child Enthroned
c.1480
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Cosimo Rosselli
Virgin and Child with SS. John the Baptist, Andrew
Bartholomew and Zenobius
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Cosimo Rosselli
Crossing of the Red Sea
1481-82
Fresco, 350 x 572 cm
Cappella Sistina, Vatican
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Cosimo Rosselli
The Last Supper
1481-82
Fresco, 349 x 570 cm
Cappella Sistina, Vatican
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Cosimo Rosselli
Sermon on the Mount
1481-82
Fresco, 349 x 570 cm
Cappella Sistina, Vatican
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Cosimo Rosselli
Tables of the Law with the Golden Calf
1481-82
Fresco, 350 x 572 cm
Cappella Sistina, Vatican
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EXPLORATION:
Sandro Botticelli
"Visual
Poetry"
see also:
Venus - The Evening Star
See also
COLLECTION:
Luca Signorelli
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