Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - January 11, 1494) was a Florentine
Renaissance painter, a contemporary of Botticelli and Filippino Lippi.
Michelangelo was one of his apprentices.
His full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi; it
appears therefore that his father's surname was Curradi, and his
grandfather's Bigordi. Domenico, the eldest of eight children, was at
first apprenticed to a jeweller or a goldsmith, most likely his own
father. The Ghirlandajo (garland-maker) nickname, came to Domenico from
his renown in fashioning the metallic garlands worn by Florentine damsels.
In his shop he was continually making portraits of the passers-by, and he
was apprenticed to Alessio Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic.
First works in Florence and Rome
In 1480 Ghirlandajo painted Saint Jerome and other frescoes in the church
of Ognissanti, Florence, and a life-sized Last Supper in its refectory.
From 1481 to 1485 he was employed upon frescoes in the Sala dell Orologio
of the Palazzo Vecchio; he painted the Apotheosis of St. Zenobius, a work
beyond the size of life, with much architectural framework, figures of
Roman heroes and other detail, striking in perspective and structural
propriety.
He was summoned in 1483 to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV to paint a Sistine
Chapel wall fresco: Christ calling Peter and Andrew to their Apostleship.
Other works in Rome are now perished. Before 1485 he had likewise produced
his frescoes in the chapel of S. Fina, in the Tuscan town of S. Gimignano.
His future brother-in-law, Sebastian Mainardi, assisted him in these
productions in Rome and in S. Gimignano.
Later Works in Tuscany
Back in Florence in 1485, he painted fresco cycles in the Sassetti chapel
of S. Trinita: six scenes from the life of St Francis, including St
Francis obtaining from Pope Honorius the approval of the Rules of his
Order; Death and Obsequies, and Resuscitation, by the interposition of the
beatified saint, of a child of the Spini family, who had been killed by
falling out of a window. In the first work is a portrait of Lorenzo de
Medici; and in the third the painter's own likeness, which he introduced
also into one of the pictures in S. Maria Novella, and in the Adoration of
the Magi in the hospital of the Innocenti. The altarpiece of the Sassetti
chapel,Adoration of the Shepherds, is now in the Florentine Academy.
Immediately after this commission, Ghirlandajo was asked to renew the
frescoes in the choir of S. Maria Novella, which formed the chapel of the
Ricci family, but the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families, then much more
opulent than the Ricci, undertook the cost of the restoration, under
conditions, as to preserving the arms of the Ricci, which gave rise in the
end to some amusing incidents of litigation. The frescoes, by Domenico and
many assistants, are in four courses along the three walls, the leading
subjects being the lives of the Madonna and of the Baptist. These works
are particularly interesting in containing many historical portraits, a
method of treatment in which Ghirlandajo was preeminently skilled.
There are no less than twenty-one portraits of the Tornabuoni and
Tornaquinci families; in the subject of the Angel appearing to Zacharias,
those of Politian, Marsilio Ficino and others; in the Salutation of Anna
and Elizabeth, the beautiful Ginevra de Benci; in the Expulsion of Joachim
from the Temple, Mainardi and Baldovinetti (or the latter figure may
perhaps be Ghirlandajo's father). The Ricci chapel was reopened and
completed in 1490; the altarpiece was probably executed with the
assistance of Domenico's brothers, David and Benedetto; the painted window
was from Domenico's own design. Other distinguished works from his hand
are an altarpiece in tempera of the Virgin Adored by Sts Zenobius, Justus
and others, painted for the church of St Justus, but now in the Uffizi
gallery, a remarkable masterpiece; Christ in Glory with Romuald and other
Saints, in the Badia of Volterra; the Adoration of the Magi, in the church
of the Innocenti (already mentioned), perhaps his finest panel-picture
(1488); and the Visitation (Louvre) which bears the latest ascertained
date (1491) of all his works. Ghirlandajo did not often attempt the nude;
one of his pictures of this character, Vulcan and his Assistants forging
Thunderbolts, was painted for Lo Spedaletto, but (like several others
specified by Vasari), no longer exists. The mosaics which he produced date
before 1491; one, of especial celebrity, is the Annunciation, on a portal
of the cathedral of Florence.
Critical Assessment and Legacy
His scheme of composition is grand and decorous; his chiaroscuro
excellent, and especially his perspectives, which he would design on a
very elaborate scale by the eye alone; his color is more open to
criticism, but this remark applies much less to the frescoes than the
tempera-pictures, which are sometimes too broadly and crudely bright. He
worked in these two methods alone---never in oils; and his frescoes are
what the Italians term buon fresco, without any finishing in tempera.
A certain hardness of outline, not unlike the character of bronze
sculpture, may attest his early training in metal work. He first
introduced into Florentine art that mixture of the sacred and the profane
which had already been practiced in Siena. Vasari says that Ghirlandajo
was the first to abandon in great part the use of gilding in his pictures,
representing by genuine painting any objects supposed to be gilded; yet
this does not hold good without some considerable exceptions the
highlights of the landscape, for instance, in the Adoration of the
Shepherds, now in the Florence Academy, being put in gold. Many drawings
and sketches by this painter, now in the Uffizi gallery, are remarkable
for vigour of outline. One of the great glories of Ghirlandajo is that he
gave some early art education to Michelangelo, who cannot, however, have
remained with him long.
This renowned artist died of pestilential fever on the 11th of January
1494, and was buried in S. Maria Novella. He had been twice married, and
left six children, three of them being sons. He had a long and honorable
line of descendants, which came to a close in the 17th century, when the
last members of the family entered monasteries. It is probable that
Domenico died poor; he appears to have been gentle, honorable and
conscientious, as well as energetically diligent.
Anthology of Works
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (c.(1479, Tempera on wood,Duomo
San Martino, Lucca)
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (c.(1483, Tempera on wood,
Galleria Uffizi, Florence)
Coronation of the Virgin(1486, Tempera on wood, 330 x 230 cm, Palazzo
Comunale, Narni)
Coronation of the Virgin(1486, Tempera on wood, Pinacoteca Comunale, Citta
di Castello)
Madonna and Child Enthroned between Angels and Saints(c.1486, Tempera on
wood, Uffizi, Florence)
Adoration of the Magi,(1487, Tempera on wood, diameter: 171 cm, Uffizi,
Florence)
Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni,(1488, Tempera on wood, 76 x 50 cm,
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid)
An Old Man and His Grandson (c.(1490, Tempera on wood, 62 x 46 cm, Musée
du Louvre, Paris)
Visitation (c.(1491, Tempera on wood,Musée du Louvre, Paris)
Christ in Heaven with Four Saints and a Donor(c1492, Tempera on wood,
Pinacoteca Comunale, Volterra
Madonna in Glory with Saints(1490-96, Tempera on wood)
St Catherine of Siena and St Lawrence(1490-98, Tempera on wood, Alte
Pinakothek, Munich)
St Stephen(1490-94, Tempera on wood, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest)
Adoration of the Child, Tempera on wood, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan)
Annunciation,(1489-90, Mosaic, Porta della Mandorla, Duomo, Florence)
Frescoes of Life of Ste. Fina for the Colleggiata at San Gimignano,
1473-75
Announcement of Death to St Fina[1]and Obsequies of St Fina [2]
St Jerome in his Study (1480,Fresco, Ognissanti, Florence)
Calling of the Apostles(1481,Fresco, Cappella Sistina, Vatican,Decoration
of the Sala del Gigli (1482-84, Fresco Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)
Decoration of the Sala del Gigli (1482-84, FrescoPalazzo Vecchio,
Florence)
Frescoes for Capella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90)
Angel Appearing to Zacharias
Visitation
Birth of St John the Baptist
Zacharias Writes Down Name of his Son
Preaching of St John the Baptist
Baptism of Christ
Herod's Banquet
Expulsion of Joachim from Temple[3]
Birth of Mary[4]
Adoration of the Magi[5]
Marriage of Mary[6]
Frescoes for Sassetti Chapel ( c.1485,Santa Trinità, Florence)[7]
Portrait of the Donors: wife Nera Corsi [8] and husband Francesco Sassetti
[9]
Sibyl [10], Meeting of Augustus and Sibyl[11] and David [12]
Adoration of the Magi (1488, Tempera on wood,Spedale degli Innocenti,
Florence)
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It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Italian Renaissance".