domenico ghirlandaio biography

(From Wikipedia)

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Ghirlandaio did not often attempt the nude-one of his pictures including nudes, Vulcan and His Assistants Forging Thunderbolts, was painted for Lorenzo II de' Medici, but (like several others specified by Vasari) no longer exists. Early years. Ghirlandaio's 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. Among his best-known works are a pair representing scenes from the life of St. Zenobius (1517). His chiaroscuro, in the sense of realistic shading and three-dimensionalism, was reasonably advanced, as were his perspectives, which he designed on a very elaborate scale by eye alone, without the use of sophisticated mathematics. History at your fingertips Vasari says that Ghirlandaio 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 claim is not applicable to his entire oeuvre, since the landscape highlights in, for instance, the Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the Florence Academy, were rendered in gold leaf. The earliest works attributed to him, dating from the early 1470s, show strong influences from the The village church of Cercina, near Florence, has a fresco of three saints, now thought to be Ghirlandaio’s earliest work, but there is general agreement that some frescoes in the Ghirlandaio’s first major commissioned works were the two frescoes depicting scenes from the life of St. Fina, painted in 1475 in the Chapel of Santa Fina in the Collegiata at In 1481–82 Ghirlandaio received an important commission in the Ghirlandaio must have used his stay in Rome to study Roman antiquities at first hand, for many details of Late in his short life, Ghirlandaio and his assistants, including his brothers Davide and Ghirlandaio’s last and greatest fresco cycle was painted for another Medici banker, Giovanni Tornabuoni, and represents scenes from the life of the The frescoes in Santa Maria Novella are overcrowded with detail, so that the Ghirlandaio was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the best painters of his generation.

Ghirlandaio (original name Domenico di Tommaso Bighordi) was an early Renaissance painter of the Florentine school noted for his detailed narrative frescoes, which include many portraits of leading citizens in contemporary dress. These works are particularly interesting in that they include many historical portraits, a genre in which Ghirlandaio was preeminently skilled.In this cycle, there are no fewer than twenty-one portraits of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families: in the Angel appearing to Zacharias, portraits of Politian, Marsilio Ficino, and others; in the Salutation of Anna and Elizabeth, the beautiful Giovanna Tornabuoni (wrongly attributed by Giorgio Vasari as Ginevra de Benci); in the Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple, (Sebastiano) Mainardi and Baldovinetti (or the latter figure may, perhaps, be Ghirlandaio's father).

He was the eldest of six children born to Tommaso Bigordi by his first wife Antonia di ser Paolo Paoli; of these, only Domenico and his brothers and collaborators Davide and Benedetto Ghirlandaio survived childhood. The day and month of his birth remain undocumented, but since he died in early January, he most likely did not reach his forty-fifth birthday. Many drawings and sketches by this painter, now in the Uffizi gallery, are particularly remarkable for their naturalistic vigor of outline.One of the great legacies of Ghirlandaio is that he is commonly credited with having given some early art education to Michelangelo, who cannot, however, have remained with him long.

Domenico, the eldest of eight children, was at first apprenticed to a jeweller or a goldsmith, most likely his own father. According to Giorgio Vasari, Tommaso was called Ghirlandaio (the garland maker) because he made metal garlands.

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Domenico Ghirlandaio, painter of the Florentine school noted for his detailed narrative frescoes, which include many portraits of leading citizens in contemporary dress.

Biography. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.Domenico was the son of a goldsmith, and his nickname, “Ghirlandaio,” was derived from his father’s skill in making garlands for the hair of Florentine women.

His other works in Rome are now lost.

From 1481 to 1485, he was employed on frescoes in the Sala dell Orologio of the Palazzo Vecchio.

He had been twice married and left six children, three of them sons. In 1480, Ghirlandaio painted the Saint Jerome in His Study and other frescoes in the Church of Ognissanti, Florence, and a life-sized Last Supper in its refectory. Interior of the Tornabuoni Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, with altarpiece, frescoes, and stained glass by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1486–90.

Vasari also declared that Domenico studied painting with Alessio Baldovinetti. The Tornabuoni Chapel frescoes, by Ghirlandaio and many assistants, were painted in four courses along the three walls, the main subjects being the lives of the Madonna and St. John the Baptist. For great ceremonial occasions the lowest portions of the side walls were covered with a series of tapestries depicting events from the Gospels… His work has been reevaluated since the 1960s, and he is now regarded as one of the most Ghirlandaio’s son, Ridolfo, was also a noted painter and a friend of Vasari. Ridolfo, in particular, was also a painter.