Table of contents:
- Fra Filippo Lippi - Botticelli's teacher
- Andrea del Verrocchio - Leonardo's teacher
- Domenico Ghirlandaio - Michelangelo's teacher
- Pietro Perugino - Raphael's teacher
Video: Who Taught Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo: Forgotten Painters of the Renaissance
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Admiring the genius artists of the Renaissance, we often forget about those who taught them painting and sculpture, who showed how to preserve such a changeable and transient beauty for eternity. But the teachers of the outstanding creators of the Renaissance were themselves gifted people, famous artists. They dreamed of passing on their experience and knowledge to the younger generation - and found themselves in the shadow of the glory of their students …
Fra Filippo Lippi - Botticelli's teacher
Lippi, at the age of fifteen, took a monastic vow - “fra” in his name means “brother”. Looking at the touching Madonnas created by him, it is impossible to even imagine how crazy the artist's biography was. At twenty-four, he fled from the monastery, although he continued to wear monastic clothes almost all his life.
According to legend, he was captured by the Berbers and spent several years in Africa. It is easy to see that all of his Mother of God is on one face, and this is not an ideal virgin, but a real woman … his wife. The monk Fra Filippo Lippi was married; moreover, he kidnapped the beautiful Lucretia Buti from the monastery. This marriage gave both of them a lot of worries - Lippi was worried that their union was not recognized as legal (however, Cosimo Medici intervened, and the Pope freed the couple from monastic vows), and Lucretia was worried about her husband's carelessness. He was constantly pursued by creditors, he regularly got involved in adventures and dubious enterprises …
In painting, Lippi was an innovator. He promoted realism and sensuality, abandoned canons and rigid rules in religious painting and was the first to paint round paintings - later this composition was used by many Florentine artists, including Botticelli. The latter was a pupil of Lippi - and, apparently, a model.
Andrea del Verrocchio - Leonardo's teacher
Andrea del Verrocchio came from a wealthy family and was educated as a jeweler, but was engaged in painting, sculpture and architecture. His youth was overshadowed by the accidental murder of a peer, and his first painting, though not preserved, was a portrait of a deceased young man.
However, Verrocchio remained in history as a sculptor. The earliest known work of his is a bronze statue of David. A sophisticated, almost feminine, slightly narcissistic young winner appears before the audience with a triumphant smile. Verrocchio was one of the first to create statues that retain their expressiveness from any angle. Verrocchio and his workshop performed work for both the Catholic Church and secular customers. Gentle angels and lyrical Madonnas coexist here with stern condottiere and brilliant representatives of the Medici family.
Verrocchio became one of the forerunners of the Renaissance, combining antique sensuality and medieval spiritualism in his works. He did not start his own family, giving all his strength to art and pedagogy. The master taught a lot and with talent, educating a whole generation of Renaissance masters. In his workshop, heated debates were constantly conducted about painting, color, symbolism of the image.
The most famous student of Verrocchio was Leonardo da Vinci. Young Leonardo took part in the creation of some of the teacher's works - as an apprentice. It is known that Leonardo painted the image of an angel for Verrocchio's painting The Baptism of Christ. The surviving drawings of Verrocchio unambiguously indicate that the great Leonardo inherited his mastery of silver pencil from him.
Domenico Ghirlandaio - Michelangelo's teacher
The real name of Ghirlandaio is Bigordi, and there is a legend that his father was the inventor of the jewelry "garlands" that young Florentine women of fashion wore in their hair. Domenico studied with the aforementioned Verrocchio.
Ghirlandaio was famous for fresco cycles on biblical themes, where he dressed up Old Testament and Gospel characters in modern clothes and thoroughly worked out everyday details. The prototypes of the heroes of his paintings were the noble inhabitants of Florence, who ordered their portraits "in the role" of a sorcerer or saint.
Together with his brother - later he preferred the position of administrator in the workshop of Domenico - he painted the walls of the Vatican Library. At the invitation of Pope Sixtus IV, he participated in the painting of the Sistine Chapel. In the future, Ghirlandaio, fanned with fame and literally inundated with orders, worked exclusively in Florence. In addition to frescoes, he performed portraits and mosaics, and also managed a huge workshop, where the fulfillment of orders from the church and noble townspeople was literally put on stream.
Ghirlandaio was the teacher of one of the "titans of the Renaissance" - Michelangelo. True, he spent only a year in Ghirlandaio's workshop as an apprentice. Surprisingly, this name - Michelangelo - was taken in monasticism by one of the sons of Ghirlandaio from his second marriage.
Pietro Perugino - Raphael's teacher
Unlike his colleagues, Perugino was born into a poor family and spent his entire youth almost in poverty. However, this did not prevent him from gaining fame and wealth, which he was completely unable to dispose of - there were rumors that he slept in a chest all his life, although he could afford a more decent bed.
Perugino himself studied all the same Verrocchio, and then went to apprenticeship with Leonardo da Vinci himself. Together with Ghirlandaio and Botticelli, he participated in the work on the paintings of the Sistine Chapel. His fresco "Handing the Keys to St. Peter" demonstrates his masterly mastery of perspective and is distinguished by the realistic types, facial expressions and gestures of the characters. At the same time, Perugino is a master of lyrical images. His gentle golden-eyed saints and Madonnas gaze at the audience with mild reproach.
Perugino headed a large workshop, but his most famous - and probably his most beloved - student was Raphael. Perugino was destined to outlive his student by four years. He had a difficult, albeit noble, fate - to complete Raphael's work for the church in Perugia.
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