Andrea del Verrocchio
1435-1488
One of the Greatest Painters Of All Time
Florentine Early Renaissance Sculptor and Painter
Influences - Donatello, Giotto Bondone, Jan Van Eyke, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Classical Greek Art
Education - apprenticed to a goldsmith Giuliano Verrocchio
Cause of Death - According to Renaissance biographer Giorgio Vasari when reminiscing about Andrea del Verrocchio untimely demise "So he mended his first model, and cast it in bronze; but he did not perfectly finish it, for being heated in casting it, he caught a chill, of which he died in a few days."
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About The Artist
Verrocchio' s workshop was the first one in Florence where oil-painting was systematically carried on. He also guided Florence landscape painting into new paths. In contrast to the earlier Florentines, who had lost themselves in elaborate detail and caused the most distant objects to gleam in unbroken colors. Verrocchio had a taste for simple plains, which he depicted with certain plein air tendencies. His favorite hour was the twilight, when the trees stand out in black from the light grey heaven and the cool moisture sinks over withered dusty plains. But even more characteristic of the impression of his pictures is the dainty grace which he endeavors to render facial expressions and motion. While the figures of Donatello and Castigno hold their hands wide open and extend the second finger, Verrocchio merely bend the little finger -- a detail which alone is significant of the change of taste; there, energy; here, an almost effected delicacy. Noli me tangere is the inscription upon his portrait of Pippo Spano, though in a very different since. Verrocchio himself felt what a delicate, fragile ideal he substituted for the mighty, powerful figures of the older masters. He was the first to depict a dainty Christ child in place of a robust, healthy child; to give to the features of the Madonna a touch of that soft enchanting smile associated with Leonardo's name. -- Richard Muther, The History of Modern Painting, Henry and Co., London, 1896
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