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About the Artist
Ridolfo Ghirlandaio came from a long line of famous
painters and fine craftsmen. From an early age he exhibited exceptional
artistic abilities. He was gifted with the exceptional skill of
portraying the likeness and personality of his subjects. Ghirlandaio was
a master at using a newly developed painting technique called sfumato or
chiaroscuro. This technique imparted a dramatic, almost a sense of
otherworldly radiance for which his masterpieces are famous.
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About The High Renaissance
Period
Artists of the
Renaissance were elevated in social standing and their art was no longer
looked upon as simple handicrafts, but as divinely inspired creations.
The spirit of an era awoke, revitalized with knowledge and creativity.
The major painters of the Renaissance were not only artists but men of
great genius who gave the world their great intellectual gifts.
Florentine and Venetian painting were both formed by extraordinary
personalities. These men tackled mathematical, artistic and
philosophical problems of the highest interest, and presented solutions
that have never lost their value. Baldassare Castiglione, the great
Italian Writer of the High Renaissance advised painters, "Employ in
everything a certain casualness which conceals art and creates the
impression that what is done and said is accomplished without effort and
without its being thought about. It is from this, in my opinion, that
grace largely derives." The sense of humanism pervading renaissance
painting is still palpable. The painters touched on a multitude of
issues regarding the human condition - death, love, reason, religion,
universal morality, social problems.
Until the
Middle Ages
men regarded themselves
as following the
Good
Shepherd, and
art consequently did not
recognize the individual
in particular. In the
structure and position
of the figures, as
in their expression, a
general and uniform type
of beauty prevailed. The
early Renaissance marks
the victory of
individualism and the
uncompromising
prominence of he
individual.
According to Renaissance
historian Walter Pater "Here,
artists and philosophers
and those whom the
action of the world has
elevated and made keen,
do not live in
isolation, but breathe a
common air, and catch
light and heat from each
other’s thoughts. There
is a spirit of general
elevation and
enlightenment in which
all alike communicate.
The unity of this spirit
gives unity to all the
various products of the
Renaissance; and it is
to this intimate
alliance with the mind,
this participation in
the best thoughts which
that age produced, that
the art of Italy in the
fifteenth century owes
much of its grave
dignity and influence.."
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Key Descriptive Words
and Phrases associated
with the Renaissance
Movement -
rebirth,
rediscovery of the
classical world, publication of Della
Pittura, a book about the laws of mathematical perspective for
artists, sfumato, chiaroscuro, spiritually
significant,
illuminated
manuscript, idealized biblical themes,
scriptorium,
illuminator,
plague, Age of Discovery, curiosity about the natural world, realistic use of colours and
light, Old Testament stories, ethereal and
vaporous surroundings, Gospel parables, romanticized landscapes,
Christian symbolism.
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