Giacobbe Giusti, SPINELLO ARETINO: Annunciation

Giacobbe Giusti, SPINELLO ARETINO: Annunciation

 

 

Giacobbe Giusti, SPINELLO ARETINO: Annunciation

Annunciation

Spinello Aretino(c. 1350 – c. 1410) was an Italian painterfrom Arezzo, whose style influenced the development of late 14th- and early 15th-century painting in Tuscany.^[1]

Life

Spinello Aretino was the son of a Florentine named Luca, who had taken refuge in Arezzo in 1310 when the rest of the Ghibelline party was exiled from Florence. His actual name was Spinello Di Luca Spinelli but he was called ‘Aretino’ which means ‘from Arezzo’.

Salome

In the past it was believed that Spinello was a pupil of Jacopo del Casentino, a follower of Giotto. However, this is no longer accepted by art historians.^[2] Spinello’s style was a sort of link between the school of Giotto and that of Siena. In the early part of his life he worked in Florence as an assistant to his master Jacopo while painting frescoes in the church of the Carmine and in Santa Maria Novella. Between 1360 and 1384 he was occupied in painting many frescoes in and near Arezzo, almost all of which have now perished.^[3]

After the sack of Arezzo in 1384 Spinello returned to Florence, and in 1387-1388 with some assistants covered the walls and vault of the sacristy of San Miniato of Florence with a series of frescoes, the chief of which represent scenes from the life of Saint Benedict. These still exist, though in a sadly restored condition; they are very Giotto-like in composition, but have some of the Siena decorative brilliance of color.^[3]

In 1391-1392 Spinello was painting six frescoes, which still remain on the south wall of the Pisan Campo Santo, representing miracles of St. Potitus and St. Ephesus. For these he received 270 gold florins. Among his later works the chief are the very fine series of frescoes painted in 1407-1408 on the walls and vault of a chapel in the municipal buildings of Siena; these also have suffered much from repainting, but still are the finest of Spinello’s existing frescoes. Frescoes in Sala di Balia of the Palazzo Pubblico represent the war of Frederick Barbarossa against the Pope Alexander III. Spinello died in Arezzo about 1410. ^[3]

References

1. ^ Boggi, Flavio. « Spinello Aretino. » The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 29 Mar. 2016
2. ^ Frank Dabell and Stephen K. Scher. « Spinelli. » Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 16 June 2016
3. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Chisholm 1911, p. 685.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). « Spinello Aretino« . Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 685.

There is a devotional theme Late Medieval Period painting in the Saint Louis Art Museum by Spinello Aretino (« Madonna and Child Enthroned With Angels »)

Further reading

• Pope-Hennessy, John & Kanter, Laurence B. (1987). The Robert Lehman Collection I, Italian Paintings. New York, Princeton: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press. ISBN 0870994794. (see index; plate 33-35)
• Weppelman, Stefan (2011). Spinello Aretino e la pittura del Trecento in Toscana. Firenze. ISBN 978-88-596-0877-6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinello_Aretino

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, BARNA da Siena: Christ Bearing the Cross, with a Dominican Friar

Giacobbe Giusti, BARNA da Siena: Christ Bearing the Cross, with a Dominican Friar

Giacobbe Giusti, BARNA da Siena: Christ Bearing the Cross, with a Dominican Friar

Giacobbe Giusti, BARNA da Siena: Christ Bearing the Cross, with a Dominican Friar

‘Christ Bearing the Cross, with a Dominican Friar’, tempera on panel, 1330-1350, Frick Collection

Barna da Siena, also known as Berna di Siena, was presumed to be a Sienese painter active from about 1330 to 1350. The painter was first referred to by Lorenzo Ghiberti in his I Commentarii (mid 15th century) as a Sienese painter who painted several works in Tuscany, including many stories from the Old Testament in San Gimignano. Giorgio Vasari referred in the first edition of his Vite (1550) to the Sienese painter ‘Berna’ who was responsible for frescos of Old Testament scenes in the Collegiata di San Gimignano. In the second edition of the Vite (1568) Vasari only connected the artist with the New Testamentscenes in that church, dating them to the very end of Barna’s life, apparently to 1381.

Because of the wide variations in style and quality in the New Testament paintings in San Gimignano it is believed that they were the work of three or four distinct painters. It is further believed that Vasari’s dating of the New Testament scenes was incorrect as on stylistic grounds they should be dated to the period 1330-1340s. Because of these problems with the identification of the artist a majority of scholars now believe that ‘Barna’ is a historical fiction. This conclusion has generated various theories on the authorship of the San Gimignano frescoes. The view is that the Collegiata frescoes and other panel paintings attributed to the artist are all closely linked to the work of followers of Simone Martiniand the circle of Lippo Memmi.^[1]

 

References

1. Jump up^ H. B. J. Maginnis.  » Barna. » Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 25 Feb. 2016
2. Jump up^ Faison, S. L. Jr (Dec 1932). « Barna and Bartolo di Fredi ». The Art Bulletin. 14 (4): 285–315.
3. Jump up^ Sullivan, Ruth Wilkins (Sep 1988). « Duccio’s Raising of Lazarus Reexamined ». The Art Bulletin. 70 (3): 374–387.
4. Jump up^ Pope-Hennessy, John (Feb 1946). « Barna, the Pseudo-Barna and Giovanni d’Asciano ». The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. 88 (515): 34–37.

Sources

• Cecchi, Emilio, Sienese Painters of the Trecento, London, F. Warne, 1931.
• Ghiberti, Lorenzo, Lorenzo Ghiberti, I commentarii, Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze, Firenze, Giunti, 1998.
• Vasari, Giorgio, Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori, many editions and translations.

Further reading

• Pope-Hennessy, John & Kanter, Laurence B. (1987). The Robert Lehman Collection I, Italian Paintings. New York, Princeton: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press. ISBN 0870994794. (see index; plate 11-12)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barna_da_Siena

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com