Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/619

 GHIRLANDAJO

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GHIRLANDAJO

he lacked practice in the larger style of sculpture. In fact, from Vasari's time. (Jhilierii w:is often unduly admired. He falls occasionally below .some of his con- temporaries in sharp characterization, in vigorous movement and unatTectetl naturalness. It must, however, be admitted that in contrast to the harsh realism of Donatello he observetl always the dictates of grace and beaut}', approaching therein Lucca della Kobbia. His art belongs to a period of transition. Clear traces of the earlier Gothic art survive in Ghi- berti, e. g. the inannerism of his slender and pleasing rather than expressive figures, also a similar treat- ment of the background. On the other hand his

Ghirlandajo (Dome.nko di Tom.maso Bigordi), a fanious Kloreiitiiie painter; b. 1449; d. 11 Jan.. 1494. His father, ■I'dnimaso di Gurradi Bigordi, is spoken of as a dealer isciisdle) in jewellery. According to Vasari he owes his surname (Ihirlandajo, i. e. the "Garland- maker", to a branch of his trade of which he made a speciality, namely, the manufacture of silver or gold crowns or diadems, which formed a kind of head-dress affected by the young women of I'lorence. Like Ver- rocchio and the Pollaiuoli, Uomenico began as a gold- smith. There existed once in the Florentine church of the Annunziata silver ex-votos and lamps of his workmanship, destroyed during the sack of 1530.

St. John the Baptist Or San Michele, Florence

Main Portal Baptistery of S. Giovanni, Florence Lorenzo Ghiberti

St. Stephen Or San Michele, Florence

study of classic art is visible in the draperies and often in the heads of his figures. His fidelity to nature, moreover, developed in him a strong drift towards realism.

His sense of the beautiful and his originality stamp Ghiberti as the precursor of Raphael. He was no pioneer like Donatello, yet his work, especially his bronze doors, had a lasting influence on his successors. In him native genius was aided by reflection and theory. In a certain sense, therefore, a new era in art may be said to date from him. In his "Commen- taries" he critically reviewed the development of art from the time of Cimabue to his own day. While giving an account of his own works he clearly suggests that he consciously strove after a new art. He seems to characterize himself in his description of the second bronze gate, when he says: "In this work I sought to imitate nature as closely as possible, both in propor- tions and in perspective as well as in the beauty and picturesqueness of the composition and the numbers of figures; some of these scenes contain nearly one himdred figures, others less, but all were executed with the utmost care ; the buildings appear as seen by the eye of one who gazes on them from a distance."

Frey, Vasari'lVila tli Lorenzo Ghiberti with the Commenlaries oj Ghiberti (Berlin, 1S86); Perkins. Historical Handbook of Italian Sculpture (London, 1883); Idem, Ghiberti el son ecole (Paris, 18S6).

A. GlETMANN. VI.— 35

Traces of his early training in the goldsmith's art are recognizable in the splendour of his ornamental decor- ation, the carvings of his pilasters, also in his friezes and the garlands with which he adorns his work. Ar- tistic ability seems to have run in the family, for Do- menico had two brothers, slightly yoimger than him- self, David and Benedetto, his collaborators in nearly all his great works. Together with their brother-in- law, Mainardi, who had married their sister Alessan- dra, the three Ghirlandajos conducted in their day, under the name and leadership of Domenico, the principal atelier of Florence for the production of works of art. Domenico's master was that singularly dis- tinguished collector and antiquary, Ale.ssio Baklovin- etti (1427-1499). By more than one characteristic, e. g. his straining after realism, his anxiety for a per- fect expression of life, his taste for analysis, and his technical skill in the use of colours, Alessio was a pre- cursor of Leonardo da Vinci. Domenico was much less impulsive and more fully master of himself, but he assuretUy owed Alessio his success in fresco, in which many think him the most perfect painter of his age. Ghirlandajo's earliest works, e. g. the frescoes of St. Andrea Brozzi. and those in the Vespucci chapel (dis- covered in 1S9S) of the church of Ognissanti at Flor- ence, date perhaps from 1472 or 1473, and as yet ex- hibit little individuality. His "De.scent from the Cross", executed when the artist was twenty-three