|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
Gothic Art
|
|
|
PAINTING
|
|
Pietro Lorenzetti
Ambrogio Lorenzetti
|
See also COLLECTION:
Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti
|
|
|
Lorenzetti Brothers
Lorenzetti - italian family of painters. Two members of this Sienese family, the brothers
Pietro Lorenzetti and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, were artists. While Ghiberti regarded
Ambrogio as the greatest of Sienese 14th-century painters, he was apparently
unaware of Pietro’s existence. Vasari, who misread the inscription on a panel of
the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Angels (Florence, Uffizi) as
PETRUS LAURATI DE SENIS, did not
recognize Pietro’s connection with Ambrogio. The fraternal relationship was
specified, however, in a lost inscription below frescoes on the façade of the
hospital of S Maria della Scala, Siena, first recorded by Ugurieri-Azzolini:
HOC OPUS FECIT PETRUS LAURENTII ET AMBROSIUS EIUS FRATER M.CCC.XXX.V.
There is also evidence that the brothers borrowed tools from each other,
although it is unlikely that they collaborated regularly or that they maintained
a joint workshop over any lengthy period. There is no doubt that they shared
artistic ideas and ambitions, not so much as a result of their family
connection, but because they were both major masters and exponents of
naturalism. Both painters’ innovations were too radical to be assimilated by
their immediate followers, but they foreshadow developments in the 15th century.
|
|
See also
COLLECTION: Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti
|
|
Pietro Lorenzetti
( fl c. 1306–45)
Although deeply indebted to the art of Duccio and his circle and
inclined to be retrospective, he was an artist of considerable
originality: his naturalistic figures, influenced by sculpture, are
imbued with intense emotions and set within innovative illusionistic
space.
Documents referring to Pietro and his works are comparatively
scant. It is not certain whether he is identifiable with a
‘Petruccio Lorenzo’ who, on 25 February 1306, was paid 1 lira and 10
soldi for a picture on a ‘panel’ of the nine governors of Siena.
Although Pietro’s earliest surviving works date to the second decade
of the 14th century, the course of his career suggests that he was
an independent master by the first decade. A single panel of the
Virgin and Child (on dep. Siena, Pin. N.) from Castiglione
d’Orcia (Siena) is the earliest surviving work attributed to him and
is technically unusual in that the image was painted on a silver
ground. The composition is a modification of a type current in
Duccio’s circle. A dismembered polyptych from SS Leonardo e
Cristoforo in Monticchiello (Pienza), composed of a half-length
Virgin and Child (in situ), a St Margaret (Le
Mans, Mus. Tesse) and St Benedict, St Catherine of
Alexandria and St Agnes (Florence, Mus. Horne), similarly
dates to c. 1315.
|
|
|
|

Pietro Lorenzetti
Madonna Enthroned with
Angels
1340
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence |
|
|

Pietro Lorenzetti
Adoration of the Magi
c. 1340
Musee du Louvre, Paris
|
|
See also:
COLLECTION:
Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti
|
|
|
|
Ambrogio Lorenzetti
( fl c. 1317; d before May 1348)
Brother of Pietro Lorenzetti. Ghiberti styled Ambrogio a ‘most
perfect’ and learned master. He was certainly the most inventive
Sienese artist of the early 14th century. Many of his innovations in
naturalism are without parallel; many of his works are characterized
by iconography that is equally original. His lost ‘Roman stories’
from the exterior of the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, suggest an ability
to deal with highly unusual subject matter; the lost Mappamondo, an
ability to create new forms. His career is marked by periodic shifts
and a constant search for innovation: works of the 1310s and 1320s
display a pursuit of naturalism that recurred throughout his career;
those from the early 1330s suggest that the artist was seeking to
emulate the decorative effects of Simone Martini and his circle; in
Ambrogio’s late work much of this ornament disappears, or is
severely restrained, while his distinctive use of inscribed
banderoles implies the desire to push content beyond the traditional
pictorial means of monumental painting.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
AMBROGIO LORENZETTI:
"THE EFFECTS OF GOOD AND BAD GOVERNMENT IN THE COUNTRY"
Circa 1337-39, Sala
del Nove. Palazzo Pitbblico, Siena
This large fresco was painted by the most "Florentine" in style of
the two Lorenzetti brothers, following his commission by the
Republic. It is the most important secular fresco cycle of the 13th
century in Italy, full of political and literary allegories. Here,
we see a detail of the countryside from the right-hand side of the
fresco. It shows the ''effects of good government" in the country
and depicts daily routines, such as farming, fishing, and hunting.
The other side of the picture, not shown, represents the city, based
on Siena, which in the 12th century had waned in power yet remained
one of the major artistic centres in Europe.
|
|
|

Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
The Effects of Good and Bad Government in the Town,
1337-39.
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena |
|
|
|

Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
The Effects of Good and Bad Government in the Town (detail), 1337-39.
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
|
|
|
|

Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
The Effects of Good and Bad Government in the Town (detail), 1337-39.
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena |
|
|
|
|

After Giovanni Balduccio, St Ambrose Offering the City of Milan to the
Virgin,
mid-14th century.
Civic Collection of Ancient Art, Milan |
THE CITY
The Effects of Good and Bad Government in the Town and in the
Country (1337-39), painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti for the Sala
dei Nove in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, shows in a broad, flowing
manner that which, more synthetically, is the meaning of the statue
from a door in Milan, of Saint Ambrose Offering the City of
Milan to the Virgin. The same urban focus of the two works — one
representing the point of communication between the city and the
world outside, and the other representing civic responsibility — has
a clear symbolic meaning of the relationship between Christian
virtue and orderly society. As bishop of Milan in the 14th century,
St Ambrose stood out against the emperor and imposed civic
moral order.
|
 Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
The Effects of Good and Bad Government in the Town (detail), 1337-39.
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
|
|

Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
Altarpiece of St
Proculus
1332
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
|
See also
COLLECTION: Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti
|
|
|
 |