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Water draws me, wherever it is – lake, ocean, pool.   We opened our pool this week and I’ve been in it twice already. Its temp now 72, warm enough to do some walking and a few laps, before hypothermia sets in. Too bad the air temps have been in the upper 50s, but if you keep moving, it’s not bad. I always enjoy discovering what the day leaves in the pool. Yesterday, it was a spider the size of a saucer, or so it seemed. I looked up what I saw, and it was a wolf spider. Turns out these spiders are energetic hunters with excellent eyesight. They are solitary and hunt alone in woodlands and suburban gardens, so they’re out there around our house. I am not a fan of spiders, but I respect them and what they do to hold down the insect population, so I picked this one up with a net and set it free on the pool deck. I’ve noticed they can move on the water surface for a while; one lived just inside one of the pool drains last year and grabbed insects as they floated by. A real opportunist! The next thing I removed from the pool definitely gave me the yuck factor: a slug, a shell-less terrestrial mollusk. Their bodies, like ours, are made up mostly of water, and without a full-sized shell, their tissues are prone to desiccation. We have skin, but the slug makes a protective mucus to survive. And yes, this one was slimy! They are most active just after a rain, and it rained hard yesterday, which is why this one was probably on the edge of the pool. I had to look up what they’re good for: slugs play an important role in the ecosystem by eating decaying plant material and fungi. The last thing I found was something which I find every day and which gives me a smile: a pink and gray feather, courtesy of a pair of cardinals that seem to think our pool is a great bird bath. Today, it was a plethora of small, fluffy Cardinal feathers. Can’t wait to see what I find tomorrow! 0 0

Remember to click on each painting to see a larger version and appreciate the beauty. Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497 – 1543) was a renowned German artist and printmaker of the Northern Renaissance.  He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century but also produced religious art and frescoes.  His portraits were usually oil or oil and tempera on wood panels. The Northern Renaissance occurred in the European countries north of the Alps.  Its painters traveled to Rome, where the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, and da Vinci had a great impact on their subsequent work. Born in Augsburg, the younger Holbein moved to Basel, Switzerland, in 1515, where the famous Dutch humanist Erasmus lived at the time.  He became a member of the Basel artists’ guild in 1519, painting  with a unique authenticity that combined his father’s largely late Gothic style with artistic trends from Italy and France. Holbein painted three portraits of Erasmus and also designed woodcuts to illustrate books, such as Martin Luther’s German translation of the Bible.  During his years in Basel, it is thought that he visited Italy, because the influence of da Vinci’s sfumato (smoky) technique is visible in some of Holbein’s work, such as Lais of Corinth. Between 1520-1522, Holbein painted the Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb.  Christ’s face, hands and feet, as well as the wounds in his torso, are depicted as realistic flesh in the early stages of putrefaction, which tends to support the idea that Holbein used a dead body as his model.  Note also the long and emaciated body with eyes and mouth left open.   This painting’s unusual dimensions make it a unique piece, but it is unknown for what it was painted. The factional strife that accompanied the Reformation made Basel a difficult for artists to work, and in 1526 Holbein left for London.  During the next two years, he began a long career of portraiture of both nobility and merchantmen, for example, his portrait of Erasmus and the Lady with the Squirrel and Starling.   It is thought that the sitter for this latter painting was a lady named  Anne Lovell and the starling and the pet squirrel on a chain may have alluded to the Lovell family coat of arms, an example of the fascinating layers of symbolism, allusion, and paradox in Holbein’s art.           Holbein returned Basel, where he painted portraits and murals for the town hall, before returning to London for good in 1532. From then until his death, he painted the nobility of the Tudor court, working under the patronage of both Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell.  Holbein’s famous portrait of Henry VIII was done during his second stay as well as The Ambassadors, which depicted two visitors to Henry’s court. In 1543, Holbein died in London of the plague. Holbein was unusual in that he founded no school.  By the 19th century, however, he was recognized as one of the great portrait masters, and it is through Holbein’s eyes that many famous figures of his day are now ‘seen’. 0 0

Don’t forget to click on each work of art to see it in all its beauty! This was a difficult decision since the G’s are heavily populated with Renaissance artists (Ghiberti and Ghirlandio, for example). Giotto, Giotto di Bondone (1266/7 –1337), was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late Middle Ages. Recent research suggests he was a born in Florence, the son of a blacksmith. Giotto was his real name, probably an abbreviation of Ambrogio (Ambrogiotto). Vasari wrote that Giotto was discovered by the renowned Florentine painter Cimabue , drawing pictures of his sheep on a rock and that Cimabue asked Giotto’s father if he could take the boy as an apprentice. It is not known if Giotto was really Cimabue’s pupil, but Giotto’s early art shares many qualities with Roman paintings and Cimabue was working in Rome in this period. From Rome, Cimabue went to Assisi, where he painted several large frescoes in the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. Whether or not Giotto assisted in the fresco cycle of the Life of St. Francis in the basilica is hotly disputed. In the absence of documentary evidence to the contrary, every fresco in the church that was not obviously painted by Cimabue has been ascribed to Giotto. Compare St. Francis Preaching to the Birds with the Madonna Enthroned painted by Cimabue. Note that Giotto’s human and animal figures are realistic and the scene clearly shows St. Francis’ gentle spirit. Sometime around 1305 Giotto painted a series of frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua, illustrating the lives of Jesus Christ and of the Virgin Mary. The chapel itself is totally unadorned except for Giotto’s painting. Each wall is arranged in three tiers of narrative frescoes, beginning with scenes from the life of the Virgin, continuing through the Pentecost. The figures show emotional intensity and appear sculptural in natural space. The panels are noted for their emotional intensity; The Kiss of Judas is especially gripping.   Giotto returned to Assisi, where he painted frescoes in the Lower Church and Maddalena Chapel and the style demonstrates developments his work. He moved back and forth from Florence to Rome through 1347, following his commissions and adorning the walls with his luminous frescoes. Particularly notable during this time is Ognissanti Madonna painted for the Church of the Ognissanti (Church of All Saints in Florence and the Stefaneschi Triptych (1350), now in the Vatican Museum. The latter was done in egg tempera on a panel. Egg tempera is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder, such as egg yolk; it was the primary method of painting until after 1500, when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting. In 1134, Giotto was appointed the chief architect of the Florence Cathedral and designed the bell tower or Campanile. His last known work is the decoration of Podestà Chapel in Florence, where he painted a portrait of Dante Alighieri, with great realism compared to the canonical faces painted by other artists at the time.   Giotto died in January 1337 and according to Vasari, was buried in the cathedral of Florence. Postscript: During an excavation in the 1970s, bones were discovered close to the location of Giotto’s tomb as given by Vasari. The bones contained a range of chemicals, including arsenic and lead, both commonly found in paint, and were those of a very short man with a very large head, a large hooked nose and one eye more prominent than the other. The bones of the neck indicated that the man spent a lot of time with his head tilted backwards. The front teeth were worn in a way consistent with frequently holding a brush between the teeth. The bones were reburied as Giotto’s, near the grave of Brunelleschi. 0 0

With both a sense of relief and a feeling of longing to do more (but realizing I’m done), I finished uploading and inserting all of the art into my A-Z Renaissance artists. I had a great time selecting art, comparing one artist with another, and choosing the styles and characteristics that made each artist unique.  There are at least a handful of artists that I wanted to write about, but the A-Z format only allowed me to cheat three times, when I couldn’t find an artist whose name began with the appropriate letter. You will notice that even though I did Raphael, I left out the other two of the grand triumvirate: da Vinci and Michelangelo.  My reason?  Both of them are so well known and had such a voluminous production of exquisite art during their careers, I would be hard put to summarize their lives in around 600 words and to choose illustrations.  I’ve given a whole lecture just on da Vinci’s anatomy! Thanks to everyone who stops by my blog, and if you have questions or other artists you’d like me to look at, leave me a note! 0 0

Please remember to click on the images to see them in all their beauty! I am taking liberties with ‘F’ because Fra means Father; but this painter is so interesting, I just had to include him. Fra Angelico, or Guido di Pietro (c.1395-1455) was an early Renaissance painter. Although his life and work have been recognized for centuries, it is only recently that his contribution to the development of European painting been fully appreciated. Fra Angelico pioneered many of the stylistic trends that distinguish the early Renaissance, including the treatment of pictorial space and the creation of volume with light and shadow. The earliest record of him dates from October 17, 1417 when he joined a Dominican order, still under the name of Guido di Pietro. He was known to his contemporaries as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole; the name Fra Giovanni Angelico was given to him after his death, based on his humility and modesty. Fra Angelico was already a painter when he joined the order, probably having received part of his training in the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. The strong modeling of figures and spatial organization seen in two of the fragments of a pen and ink drawing (probably done sometime between 1408 and 1418) demonstrate he was moving beyond the Late Gothic style. In 1436 Fra Angelico moved to the new Friary of San Marco in Florence,which brought him the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici. At Cosimo’s urging, Fra Angelico decorated the monastery with frescoes. Fresco is the technique of mural painting on freshly laid lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment and, with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes becomes an integral part of the wall. Fra Angelico’s frescoes in the friary are humble works in simple colors, more mauve/pink than brilliant red and blue. There is nothing lavish, nothing to distract from the spiritual experiences of the humble people who are depicted within the frescoes. In the 1430s, Angelico painted one of the most inspired works of the time, The Annunciation. Along the left side, Adam and Eve are being driven out of the Garden of Eden, while the bulk of the piece portrays the angel and the Virgin within a Renaissance-style portico. Fra Angelico occasionally used medieval techniques, such as a gold background, in deference to the wealthy patrons who commissioned the work. In 1439 he completed one of his most famous works, the Altarpiece for St. Marco’s, Florence. The work was unusual because rather than hovering above, the saints are grouped around the Virgin and Child, as if they were conversing about the experience of witnessing the Virgin. This arrangement was subsequently used Raphael. Fra Angelico and his assistants went to the Rome in 1447 to decorate the chapel of Pope Nicholas. The Nicoline Chapel is like a jewel box. The walls are decked in the Gothic style with brilliant color and gold, but Fra Angelico’s figures, with their lavish gilded robes, have the sweetness and gentleness for which his works are famous. He returned to Florence in 1450. During this time he painted scenes from the life of Christ  for the doors of a silver chest in the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. These works have been extensively repainted and are not representative of his true mastery. Fra Angelico died in Rome In 1453 or 1454. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982, in recognition of the holiness of his life. 0 0

Remember to click on the artwork to see it clearly in an enlarged format! Jan Van Eyk (circa 1390-1441) was a Flemish painter who is considered to be one of the most significant northern European Renaissance painters of the 15th century.  He was a member of a famous family of painters believed to have originated in the town of Maaseik, in the diocese of Liège. The work of the family van Eycks is exemplified by the great Ghent Alterpiece, begun by Hubert van Eyk and finished by his brother Jan. This particular painting brought an unprecedented realism to the themes and figures of late medieval art. You may have seen it featured in the recent movie, The Monuments Men, since it was stolen by the Nazis during WW II. Little is known of his early life, but his emergence as a painter followed his appointment to the court of Phillip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy(1425–41), who was his patron until his death.  His work in the court gave him a high social standing which was unusual for a painter, as well as artistic independence from the painters’ guild of Bruges, where he settled.  Van Eyck was literate (as shown by his own handwriting) which is why some of his frequent travels for the Duke were diplomatic missions. His practice of signing and dating his pictures (unusual for the time) was a way of promoting himself. Following his appointment by the Duke of Burgundy, Van Eyck’s reputation and technical ability grew.  He became known for his innovative approaches in the handling and manipulating of oil paint. His revolutionary approach to oil was such that some considered he had invented oil painting!  Van Eyck used the technique of applying layer after layer of thin translucent glazes to create paintings with intense tone and color.  He took advantage of the longer drying time of oil paint to blend colors to achieve subtle variations in light and shade; this heightened the illusion of three-dimensional forms. Another part of his prestige came from his skill was in pictorial illusionism.  The landscape of his Crucifixion is a good example:  cracked earth, cloud formations, and perspective.  Comments from his contemporaries marvel at his ability to mimic reality and to re-create the effects of light on different surfaces.  One of the best examples of these abilities is illustrated by the Virgin of Canon van der Paele (1434–36), from the glinting gold threads in the brocaded blue cape to the glow and dazzle of the faceted jewels to the precise detail of the kneeling Canon, which illustrates his skill as a portraitist.  These skills imbue an absolutely still, quiet scene with energy. Another van Eyk masterpiece is the Arnolfini Protrait or Arnolfini Marriage, an oil painting on oak panel dated 1434. The painting is a small full-length double portrait, believed to represent an Italian merchant named Arnolfini and possibly his wife. The glowing colors show the material wealth and opulence of Arnolfini’s world.  It is considered one of the more original and complex paintings in Western art because the unusual geometric orthagonal perspective (ability to portray three dimensions on a flat surface) and the use of the mirror to reflect the space. Van Eyck employed workshop assistants to make exact copies and variations of his completed paintings.  These helped to supply the demand for his work on the open market and contributed to the recognition of his name throughout Europe, especially after his death in June 1441. 0 0

Thanks to everyone for stopping by my blog! Now that I’ve gotten through all 26 artists, I have time to visit everyone else’s…what I’ve read so far is amazing. You are all so creative! 0 0

Remember to click on the artwork to see it clearly in an enlarged format! Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi or Donatello was born in Florence, Italy, sometime around 1386, and was an outstanding early Italian Renaissance sculptor. He is especially known for his work in bas-relief, a form of shallow relief sculpture that nevertheless can show depth and detail. Donatello’s work is significant because it incorporated significant 15th-century developments in perspectival illusionism, art that appears to share physical space with the viewer. His sculptures are considered the supreme expression of the spirit of his era, and they exercised a potent influence upon the artists of the age.  I picked him specifically because he is one of the earliest sculptors to create figures with accurate anatomy. He was the son of a member of the Florentine Wool Combers Guild and received his early artistic training in a goldsmith’s workshop and then briefly worked in the studio of Lorenzo Ghiberti, the artist to whom the commission for the bronze Baptistry doors was given, over Brunelleschi. Donatello assisted Ghiberti in creating the cathedral doors. Masterpieces survive from his early career, an example of which is his St. George. Georgio Vasari, whose Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects is considered the foundation of art history writing, wrote of the young Donatello’s work: “…There is a marvelous suggestion of life bursting out of the stone.” Donatello went to Rome with Brunelleschi, and the experience gave Donatello a deep understanding of classic forms, while his association with Brunelleschi likely influenced him in the Gothic style that can be seen in much of his early work.  During this period, Donatello perfected his skills, which are apparent in his bronze relief of the Feast of Herod on the baptismal font in the Baptistery of Siena (1425–29).  Note that the relief is employs a rigorous application of perspective so that each figure emerges clearly, even though the scene was modeled at a shallow depth.  By 1408, Donatello was back in Florence at the workshops of the cathedral where he completed a life-sized marble sculpture David.  Note that the figure follows a Gothic style, popular at the time, with long graceful lines and an expressionless face. Around 1430, Cosimo de’ Medici, the foremost art patron of his era, commissioned from Donatello a bronze David for the courtyard of his Palazzo Medici. This is Donatello’s most famous work, the first known free-standing nude statue produced since ancient times. Conceived fully in the round, independent of any architectural surroundings, it was the first major work of Renaissance sculpture. Compare this David with the earlier one. In 1443, Donatello was called to Padua by the heirs of Erasmo da Narni to create a sculpture in his honor.  Completed in 1450 and placed in the square facing the Basilica of St. Anthony, his equestrian statue was the first equestrian statue cast in bronze since the Romans. Donatello returned to Florence in 1453. Two of his major works after that time are Judith and Holofernes for the Duomo di Siena, later acquired by the Medici, and what is probably my favorite of all of his sculptures, Magdalene Penitent, a statue of a gaunt-looking Mary Magdelene, a work apparently intended to provide comfort and inspiration to the repentant prostitutes at the convent. Donatello continued his work by taking on commissions from wealthy patrons of the arts. His lifelong friendship with the Medici family earned him a retirement allowance; he died of unknown causes on December 13, 1466, in Florence and was buried in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, next to Cosimo de’ Medici.   0 0

Remember to click on the artwork to see it clearly in an enlarged format! Antonio Allegri da Correggio (1489 –1534) or Correggio was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance.  He is known for dynamic composition, perspective, and dramatic foreshortening, and his art is considered to have influenced both Baroque and Rococo artists in the 18th century.  I’ve chosen paintings from his prolific output to illustrate the development of his style. Correggio’s early artistic education was with his uncle, the painter Lorenze Allegri, a muralist of moderate ability, but in 1502 he was apprenticed to Francesco Bianchi Ferrara of Modena, whose works were much esteemed at the time. It is in the studio of Bianchi Ferrara that Correggio was introduced classicism in art.  He left Modena and arrived in Mantua sometime before the death of the famous early Renaissance painter Mantegna, in 1506.  Tradition has it that he completed the decoration of Mantegna’s family chapel after the artist’s death. Two round paintings or tondi, the Entombment of Christ and Madonna and Saints are by the young Correggio. He returned to Correggio where he stayed until 1510, and during this time painted  Adoration of the Child with St. Elizabeth and John, which shows the influence of Mantegna’s perspective and the maturation of his own style.  Corregio was clearly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci, a towering presence in the painters of northern Italy, because of his use of chiaroscuro, the name for a technique and manipulates light and shade to create a softness in a contour and an atmospheric effect (Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine).  He also visited Rome, where he would have seen, and possibly been influenced by, the Vatican frescoes of Michelangelo and Raphael. Correggio divided his time largely between Parma and his hometown. His first documented painting, an altarpiece of the Madonna of St. Francis, was commissioned for San Francesco in Correggio in 1514 . His artistic output was so prodigious, I can only introduce a few works, for example, the dome of the Cathedral of Parma with its Assumption of the Virgin, crowded with layers of receding figures  The massing of spectators in a vortex and its upward perspective were at the time without precedent and presaged the dynamism seen in Baroque painting.   Aside from his religious themes, which were many, Correggio also created a voluptuous series of paintings depicting the Loves of Jupiter as described in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, one of the most famous being Jupiter and Io. Correggio died in the town of the same name in 1534.  He was remembered as melancholic and introverted, enigmatic and eclectic.  He had no major apprenticeship in his background nor did he have any little immediate influence in terms of apprenticed successors.  Nevertheless, his experiments in illusion, in which imaginary spaces replace the natural reality, seem to prefigure many elements of Mannerist and Baroque style of painting. approaches more than a century later. 0 0

Remember to click on the artwork to see it clearly in an enlarged format! I would bet money that many would have chosen Botticelli, the grace of whose paintings such as Primavera and the Birth of Venus is so iconic.  I chose Brunelleschi because like Altichiero, he made a valuable contribution to the art of the Renaissance: his development of linear perspective, that is, the ability to show objects getting smaller as their distance from the observer increases.  He also considered the greatest architect and engineer of the Renaissance. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1436) was the child of a lawyer and was educated in literature and mathematics, so he could become a civil servant like his father. Instead, for reasons unknown, he enrolled in the silk merchants’ guild, which included goldsmiths, and metal- and bronze-workers, and became a master goldsmith. His first commission was the design of the first phase of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, an orphanage, which demonstrates a clean sense of proportion based on Classical Roman, Italian Romanesque and late Gothic architecture.  In 1401, Brunelleschi entered a competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery, the famous golden doors which are gilded. Brunelleschi’s panel, depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac, is one of only two to have survived. However, Ghiberti was announced the victor, largely because of his superior technical skill. Early in his architectural career, Brunelleschi rediscovered the principles of linear perspective, known to ancient Greeks and Romans, but lost during the Middle Ages.  His rediscovery was shown in two painted panels (since lost) of Florentine streets and buildings.  With his perspective principles, artists of his generation were able to use two-dimensional canvases to create illusions of three-dimensional space. Brunelleschi is best known for his design of the Duomo of Florence, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, an evocative outline of the cityscape of Florence.  At the time, it was unclear how a dome of that size could be constructed without it collapsing under its own weight, since the stresses of compression were not understood. Interestingly, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti competed for the commission, and in this case, Brunelleschi won. The building of the dome would occupy most of his life, and he was successful because of his genius in mathematics and engineering.  Remarkably, he built the Duomo without any formal training. He invented a hoist to bring the four million bricks used in the construction of the dome up to the work site.  He had food and drink brought up to his workers so they would not have to walk up and down hundreds of stairs, and he had a safety net erected to catch any workers that fell. Brunelleschi was supported by a sponsor, Cosimo de Medici, as were many other Florentine artists of the time.  When he died in 1436, he was buried beneath his greatest achievement. 0 0