Last Judgement | |
---|---|
Artist | Fra Bartolomeo and Mariotto Albertinelli |
Year | 1499-1501 |
Medium | fresco |
Dimensions | 360 cm× 375 cm(140 in× 148 in) |
Location | Museo Nazionale di San Marco, Florence |
Last Judgement is a fresco, begun by Fra Bartolomeo in 1499 and completed by his colleague Mariotto Albertinelli in 1501. Originally commissioned for a cemetery chapel of Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova, it is now in the Museo Nazionale di San Marco in Florence. An incomplete work, it still was a key influence on contemporary artists such as Raphael. [1]
On 22 April 1499 Gerozzo di Monna Vanna Dini commissioned the work from Fra Bartolomeo, though he was only able to complete the upper part of the lunette before taking vows as a Dominican friar on 26 July 1500 and temporarily renouncing painting. [2] Using Fra Bartolomeo's "finished cartoon" and preparatory drawings, Albertinelli completed the fresco and received payment on 11 March 1501. [3]
Vasari described the work passionately: "He conducted with so much diligence and beautiful manner in that part that he ended up acquiring great fame, besides the one he had, much was celebrated for having with very good consideration expressed the glory of Heaven and Christ with the twelve Apostles judge the twelve tribes, which with beautiful cloths are softly colored. (...) This work [remained] imperfect, having more desire to attend to religion than to painting". [4]
The upper part of the painting shows Christ the judge within a luminous almond, raising His arm as a sign of judgment, a typical gesture of iconography. He is surrounded by cherubs and seraphs, while below Him a flying angel holds the symbols of the Passion and two others blow the trumpets of the Apocalypse. On the sides, on benches of clouds, the Apostles and the Virgin Mary are arranged in two perspective foreshortened rows.
Below there are a series of figures arranged in a semicircle, today very incomplete, with the archangel Michael in the center. There are 75 figures, legible today mainly thanks to the existence of two copies, one of the Tuscan school (courtyard of the former convent of Sant'Apollonia, Florence) and a cartoon by Raffaello Bonaiuti executed in 1871, at the time of the detachment (Uffizi, Florence).
The figures of the angels in the center downwards are generally assigned to the Albertinelli. In the characters below there were various portraits that are scarcely legible today, including that of Giuliano Bugiardini and of Beato Angelico.
Overall, the work is inspired by the calm serenity of Perugino's works, or the Coronation of the Virgin in Domenico Ghirlandaio's Tornabuoni Chapel, but the artist detached himself from the 15-century style by creating a completely new monumentality, solemn and calm but also vigorous. He would have great influence on his young friend Raphael, who copied the setting of the figures in the Trinity and Saints of Perugia and who also had it in mind, a few years later, for the Dispute of the Sacrament in the Stanza della Segnatura.
Fra Angelico, OP was a Dominican friar and Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, described by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent". He earned his reputation primarily for the series of frescoes he made for his own friary, San Marco, in Florence, then worked in Rome and other cities. All his known work is of religious subjects.
Fra Bartolomeo or Bartolommeo, also known as Bartolommeo di Pagholo, Bartolommeo di San Marco, Paolo di Jacopo del Fattorino, and his original nickname Baccio della Porta, was an Italian Renaissance painter of religious subjects. He spent all his career in Florence until his mid-forties, when he travelled to work in various cities, as far south as Rome. He trained with Cosimo Rosselli and in the 1490s fell under the influence of Savonarola, which led him to become a Dominican friar in 1500, renouncing painting for several years. Typically his paintings are of static groups of figures in subjects such as the Virgin and Child with Saints.
Mariotto di Bindo di Biagio Albertinelli was an Italian Renaissance painter active in Florence. He was a close friend and collaborator of Fra Bartolomeo.
Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi, professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio, also spelt as Ghirlandajo, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the so-called "third generation" of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers and Sandro Botticelli. Ghirlandaio led a large and efficient workshop that included his brothers Davide Ghirlandaio and Benedetto Ghirlandaio, his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi from San Gimignano, and later his son Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Many apprentices passed through Ghirlandaio's workshop, including the famous Michelangelo. His particular talent lay in his ability to posit depictions of contemporary life and portraits of contemporary people within the context of religious narratives, bringing him great popularity and many large commissions.
Luca Signorelli was an Italian Renaissance painter from Cortona, in Tuscany, who was noted in particular for his ability as a draftsman and his use of foreshortening. His massive frescos of the Last Judgment (1499–1503) in Orvieto Cathedral are considered his masterpiece.
Jacopo Carucci, usually known as Jacopo (da) Pontormo or simply Pontormo, was an Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School. His work represents a profound stylistic shift from the calm perspectival regularity that characterized the art of the Florentine Renaissance. He is famous for his use of twining poses, coupled with ambiguous perspective; his figures often seem to float in an uncertain environment, unhampered by the forces of gravity.
Pietro Perugino, born Pietro Vannucci, was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Umbrian school, who developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance. Raphael was his most famous pupil.
Cosimo Rosselli was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento, active mainly in his birthplace of Florence, but also in Pisa earlier in his career and in 1481–82 in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, where he painted some of the large frescoes on the side walls.
Ridolfo di Domenico Bigordi, better known as Ridolfo Ghirlandaio was an Italian Renaissance painter active mainly in Florence. He was the son of Domenico Ghirlandaio.
Giovanni Antonio Sogliani was an Italian painter of the Renaissance, active mainly in Florence.
Giuliano di Piero di Simone Bugiardini was an Italian Renaissance painter. He was born and was mainly active in Florence. He was a painter primarily of religious subjects but he also executed a number of portraits and a few works with mythological subjects.
Sister Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588) was a self-taught nun-artist and the first ever known female Renaissance painter of Florence. She was a nun of the Dominican convent of St. Catherine of Siena located in Piazza San Marco, Florence, and was heavily influenced by the teachings of Savonarola and by the artwork of Fra Bartolomeo.
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 Last Judgment is part of the eschatology of the Abrahamic religions and in the Frashokereti of Zoroastrianism.
André Chastel was a French art historian, author of an important work on the Italian Renaissance.
Andrea del Sarto was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. He was known as an outstanding fresco decorator, painter of altar-pieces, portraitist, draughtsman, and colorist. Although highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori, his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Volterra Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Volterra, Italy, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It is the seat of the bishop of Volterra.
The Libro de' Disegni was a collection of drawings gathered, sorted and grouped by Giorgio Vasari whilst writing his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. By the time of his death in 1574 it is thought to have contained around 526 drawings, of which 162 are now in the Louvre and 83 in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. There are also drawings from the Libro in the prints and drawings departments of the Uffizi, the British Museum, the Albertina, the National Gallery of Art and other institutions.
Assumption of the Virgin is a fresco by Rosso Fiorentino in the Chiostro dei Voti of the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence.
The Last Judgment in the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, in Florence, Italy is a fresco painting which was begun by the Italian Renaissance master Giorgio Vasari in 1572 and completed after his death by Federico Zuccari, in 1579. Initially commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, it is located on the ceiling of the dome of the cathedral. It was the subject of an extensive restoration undertaken between 1989 and 1994.