The Isaac Master was an Italian Gothic painter active in the decoration of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi in Assisi at the end of the thirteenth century. [1] Master's name is derived from a fresco painting of the death of Isaac for which he is known, the fresco is located in the Upper Church of St Francis at Assisi, depicting Isaac blessing Jacob and Esau. [2]
The Isaac Master has been attributed with a historic series of artworks on the Old Testament in the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, dated c. 1291–1295, among which are the following:
In the first two frescoes (depicting Isaac and Jacob and then Esau and Isaac), the setting is the same. Isaac lies blind on his death bed while another person (first Jacob, then Esau) reaches out to their father. A third setting is taken by Rebecca that watches over, worrying over whether the deception of the exchange of brothers succeeds.
In both scenes, a heavy curtain closes the background to highlight the representation like a three-dimensional box. Each person's volume takes up space in the scene: an imagined architecture in asymmetrical relief makes an frame for the bed of Isaac, composing a solid parallelepiped. Interrupting the two scenes is an episode that depicts Isaac in the act of giving his blessing to Isaac. The curtain lifted by Rebecca forms folds that give more movement to the scene.
The Isaac Master, for his elevated technical level, is considered one of the first Italian Gothic painters, distant from the painters of his age. Much discussion has been held as to who the Master was. Some speculate that he was Gaddo di Zanobi Gaddi (due to similarity with Gaddi's work in Rome and Florence), [3] while others say Pietro Cavallini, Arnolfo di Cambio, or Giotto. [4]
The Master seems to have been familiar with the Roman artists Filippo Rusuti and Jacopo Torriti, as well as with the Tuscan artists Cimabue and Duccio. In his depictions of volume and dimension, he anticipates some of the advances made by Giotto in his work by about a decade; for this reason, he is considered to be a central figure in the "Giotto question" . These features also contribute to the theory that he was an artist at the peak of his career or a student of Cimabue, perhaps a very young Giotto.
For many decades, the traditional attribution of the frescoes of the Vita di San Francesco in the Upper Basilica has been questioned, particularly by English art historians like Rintelen, Oertel, or Meiss. Italian scholars, however, remain mostly convinced by Vasari's attribution of the frescoes to Giotto. The recent conservation by Bruno Zanardi after the 1997 Umbria and Marche earthquake shed new light on the debate. [5] Zanardi supported the opinion of Federico Zeri that thought the frescoes executed by a painting of the Roman school, perhaps Pietro Cavallini, the only great Gothic painter not confirmed to have contributed to the basilica, or his contemporaries Filippo Rusuti and Jacopo Torriti.
The frescoes are close to both Cavallini's techniques and his saturated and warm color palette: they are similar to his frescoes at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. Still, the accepted attribution is still to Giotto or, less often, Arnolfo di Cambio. [6]
Cimabue, also known as Cenni di Pepo or Cenni di Pepi, was an Italian painter and designer of mosaics from Florence.
Assisi is a town and comune of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio.
Simone Martini was an Italian painter born in Siena. He was a major figure in the development of early Italian painting and greatly influenced the development of the International Gothic style.
Pietro Cavallini was an Italian painter and mosaic designer working during the late Middle Ages.
The Basilica di Santa Croce is a minor basilica and the principal Franciscan church of Florence, Italy. It is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres southeast of the Duomo, on what was once marshland beyond the city walls. Being the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, the poet Foscolo, the philosopher Gentile and the composer Rossini, it is also known as the Temple of the Italian Glories.
The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor Conventual in Assisi, a town in the Umbria region in central Italy, where Saint Francis was born and died. It is a Papal minor basilica and one of the most important places of Christian pilgrimage in Italy. With its accompanying friary, Sacro Convento, the basilica is a distinctive landmark to those approaching Assisi. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.
San Francesco a Ripa is a church in Rome, Italy. It is dedicated to Francis of Assisi who once stayed at the adjacent convent. The term Ripa refers to the nearby riverbank of the Tiber.
The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels is a papal minor basilica situated in the plain at the foot of the hill of Assisi, Italy, in the frazione of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
Gaddo Gaddi was a painter and mosaicist of Florence in a Gothic art style. Almost no works survive. He was the father of Taddeo Gaddi. He completed mosaics on the facade of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The "Coronation of the Virgin" mosaic over the inside door of Florence Cathedral, dated 1307, is also attributed to Gaddo Gaddi.
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political states, some independent but others controlled by external powers. The painters of Renaissance Italy, although often attached to particular courts and with loyalties to particular towns, nonetheless wandered the length and breadth of Italy, often occupying a diplomatic status and disseminating artistic and philosophical ideas.
The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, often simply known as The Lives, is a series of artist biographies written by 16th-century Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, which is considered "perhaps the most famous, and even today the most-read work of the older literature of art", "some of the Italian Renaissance's most influential writing on art", and "the first important book on art history".
The decade of the 1290s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1300s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1320s in art involved some significant events.
Giotto di Bondone, known mononymously as Giotto and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic and Proto-Renaissance period. Giotto's contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature" and of his publicly recognized "talent and excellence". Giorgio Vasari described Giotto as making a decisive break from the prevalent Byzantine style and as initiating "the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years".
Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata is a panel painting in tempera by the Italian artist Giotto, painted around 1295–1300 for the Church of Saint Francis in Pisa and it is now in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. It shows an episode from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, and is 314 cm high by 162 cm wide. It is signed OPUS IOCTI FLORENTINI.
The Santa Trinita Maestà is a panel painting by the Italian medieval artist Cimabue, dating to c. 1290-1300. Originally painted for the church of Santa Trinita, Florence, where it remained until 1471, it is now housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy. It represents the Madonna enthroned with the Baby Jesus and surrounded by eight angels and, below, four half portraits of prophets.
The Artistic Patronage of the Neapolitan Angevin dynasty includes the creation of sculpture, architecture and paintings during the reigns of Charles I, Charles II and Robert of Anjou in the south of Italy.
Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna, originally called Cimabue's [Celebrated] Madonna [is] Carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence, is an oil painting by English artist Frederic Leighton. Measuring more than two metres tall and more than five metres wide, the canvas was painted by Leighton from 1853 to 1855 in Rome as his first major work.
Filippo Rusuti, was an Italian painter, active in Rome between 1288 and 1297, and in Naples around 1320.
