Tags
1300s, 1400s, 14th Century, 15th Century, art, Artists, Florence, Italy, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Religious, Renaissance, Sculptors, Sculptures
Name: Lorenzo Ghiberti
Work: Sculptor
Born: 1378
Died: 1455
Hometown: Florence, Italy
Period: Renaissance
What I have learnt about his work:
Lorenzo Ghiberti trained as a goldsmith and sculptor and won his first main commission from a competition in 1401 to design the north doors of the Florence Baptistry (Brunelleschi was the runner-up). In 1425 he was commissioned to design the East Doors, which are considered his masterpiece. He also completed many other works during his lifetime. In his works Ghiberti focused on showing his technical ability, and explored new ways of depicting space and depth in a naturalistic way using linear perspective and proportion. He also took a humanist approach to his scenes with lifelike figures as well as dramatic narrative.
Bronze Doors of the Florence Baptistry (named Gates of Paradise by Michelangelo), Lorenzo Ghiberti
1425-52
Florence
What I have learnt about this piece:
These doors are considered Ghiberti’s masterpiece. Each door depicts 5 scenes from the Old Tesament in bronze. Each scene is intricately carved with realistic human figures and landscapes – he demonstrated his equisite grasp of perspective and proportion from a single-point-of-view through the architecture on the central two panels as well as in the scenes that stretch out into the distance to a central vanishing point. He also extended the sense of depth by having the figures in the foreground protrude outwards into the viewer’s space, while those in the background are almost flat.
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