The Middle Ages, from Byzantium to Giotto
In the Middle Ages, Byzantium inspired the Florentine primitive painters. Also under Byzantine influence, with his icons and gilding, Cimabue (1272-1302) nevertheless found a personal style that would mark Italian art with crucifixes painted in tempera and gold on wood, with particularly sensual swaying. A well-known example of this can be seen in the Museum of the Work of Santa Croce in Florence
Tuscan sculptors Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni are the two fundamental figures of Italian Gothic. The essential role of their work is always in the tradition of this "Bible of the poor". It is about illustrating the divine Word. They refer to ancient sculpture, and thus announce a characteristic gesture of the Renaissance. We owe them mainly the pulpit of the cathedral of Siena (1265), to which Arnolfo di Cambio collaborated, or the magnificent fontana della Piazza (1278) of Perugia.
Giotto (circa 1265-1337) is the best representative of the modernity of the time. He painted an early work, already freed from the Byzantine style, in the Basilica of Santa Croce. Within this building, he dedicated the Peruzzi Chapel to his patrons, the Bardi family, a powerful Florentine banking and business family, and retraced the life of St. Francis in the Bardi Chapel, the best preserved. After traveling in Italy, Giotto was appointed by the city to oversee the construction of the Municipality and the Duomo. He designed the plans and bas-reliefs for the Florence campanile, which were executed by Andrea Pisano (1290-1348), who succeeded him after his death, in Florence itself.
The Florentine and Tuscan Renaissance
In the Quattrocento, Masaccio (1401-1428) was an early genius who moved to Florence at the age of 15 and very quickly imposed his style. He was notably the first to use the perspective discovered by Brunelleschi, as in The Trinity ofSanta Maria Novella or in his famous Madonna at theChild. What impresses in this young painter, who died at the age of 27, is the restlessness that shows in the faces and looks. His personality and his staging finds inspired many great artists of the following centuries, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
Contemporary of Masaccio, Guido di Pietro (c. 1395-1455) known as Fra Angelico, literally the "brother of angels", also known as the "painter of angels", was born near Florence and dedicated part of his life to the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole, where he became a monk. From his earliest works, his painting is distinguished by its Gothic architecture, precise lines, clearly delineated spaces, blond angels and biblical themes. He worked at the time for the Convent of San Marco, the restoration of which was financed by Cosme de Medici. In Florence, he is currently exhibited at the Uffizi and The Last Judgement, painted around 1431, is in the San Marco Museum. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982.
In both sculpture and architecture, Brunelleschi (1377-1446) played a transitional rolewith Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455 ) towards the Renaissance. We owe to the latter, one of the greatest goldsmiths of his time, the North Gate of the Baptistery and the Gate of Paradise (1425-1452) in Florence, of exceptional refinement, contrasting with the abrupt work of the Middle Ages.
But the undisputed genius and visionary forerunner of the period is, without a doubt, Donatello (1386-1466). He knew how to interpret the Gothic style in a radical way to pave the way for the Renaissance. His real name was Donato di Betto Bardi, and he was born and lived in Florence, where his first works appeared around 1408. He integrated ancient mythology and hagiography into his paintings, and was equally at home in religious scenes and portraits. Many of his works are classics, such as his David in bronze, in the Bargello Museum in Florence, or his Mary Magdalene, sculpted at the end of his life, to be seen at the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.
Geometry becomes, with Paolo Ucello (1397-1475) and Piero Della Francesca (1415-1492), the centre of pictorial preoccupations. Piero, an unclassifiable monument in the history of Western art, of great modernity, impressed Picasso and the whole of the 20th century. A mathematics enthusiast, the shapes and colours of his frescoes in Arezzo herald abstraction. The frightening precision, the strange silence, the unreal light (of dream or nightmare) that permeate his paintings strike with admiration the greatest filmmakers, such as Fellini or Tarkovski, who pays tribute to him in Nostalghia, made in 1983, during his exile in Florence.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), born in Vinci, near Florence, was the most influential of thehumanist Renaissance. His contribution to pictorial art would probably have been enough to make him go down in history, despite a relatively small number of paintings, many of which were destroyed, disappeared or irretrievably damaged. In addition to the brilliant artist that we know, he was a revolutionary engineer (especially military): he invented the helicopter and the tank. The artist learnt the basics of his art as well as his first notions of science at Verrocchio's workshop in Florence from 1469. From this early Tuscan period, his works include TheAdoration of the Magi and The Madonna of the Rocks. After a few trips to Italy, he returned to Florence at the beginning of the 16th century. It was there that he painted the Mona Lisa, one of the most famous paintings in the history of painting and an essential stage in the art of portraiture with the erasure of the outline by the sfumato process
Sandro Filipepi Botticelli (1445-1510) is also today one of the best-known Renaissance painters. But it was not until the 19th century that he was rediscovered. In fact, after having frequented the Neoplatonist humanist philosophers of the time and the Medici had made him their official painter, at the end of his life he unfortunately decided to renounce his work, bringing with him a few paintings to be burned at the stake of the fundamentalist priest Savonarola. He dies in misery. TheAdoration of the Magi, The Birth of Venusand Spring have fortunately been preserved: they can be found in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Botticelli also illustrated Dante's Divine Comedy.
At the beginning of the Fifteenth Century, the religious paintings of Fra Bartolomeo (1472-1517), despite their often dark backgrounds, were sober and solemn in character. This Florentine painter was a zealous disciple of Savonarola and was convinced of the mystery of the faith he portrayed many times. His works can be found in many Tuscan places, museums and religious buildings: cathedrals and museum in Lucca, the Academy Gallery in Florence.
Raffaello Sanzio, known as Raphael (1483-1520), was born in Urbino. Another monument in the history of art, he is often compared to Mozart for his early genius and short life. After studying in Perugia, he settled in Florence for four years. He was then 21 years old. Leonardo da Vinci receives him in his studio and studies Michelangelo. He then painted several Madonnas and perfected his art. Most of his works in Florence are in the Uffizi, including a self-portrait painted between 1504 and 1506 and the Madonna in the Meadow, which holds an open book, proof of his humanism, painted between 1506 and 1507, while the gallery in Palazzo Pitti holds La Donna gravida (Pregnant Woman)
Michelangelo (1475-1564) said that for the artist it was not a question of "creating, but of allowing beauty to be revealed in the naked marble". Sculptor and painter, but also poet and architect, he apprenticed in the Ghirlandaio workshop, then with Bertoldo di Giovanni, in the gardens of the Medici palace. He thus discovered ancient statuary, of which the family had an abundant collection, and ensured the protection of Lorenzo the Magnificent. He frequented the greatest minds of the time and was particularly seduced by Plato's ideas, which at the time were highly commented on. Michelangelo was upset by the death of his protector and abhorred the preaching of Savonarola. He fled to Bologna, then to Rome. It was there that the artist matured and was already shaking up preconceived ideas with the Pietàin St Peter's Basilica. He is (rightly) recognised for all his qualities: technical perfection and happy inspiration, energy and anatomical precision. He then sailed between Rome and Florence, working for the greatest (the Medici in Florence and the Popes in Rome) and sowing one masterpiece after another: the David or the Sagrestia Nuova, the funeral chapel of the Medici in Florence.
Another major sculptor of the period, but somewhat eclipsed by Michelangelo, was Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), whose fiery Perseus adorned the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. This Florentine marked his time by the quality of his work, but also by the account of his eventful and passionate life(La Vita), faithfully transcribed by his assistant and which inspired an opera by Hector Berlioz. He is famous at a very young age, since, at barely 20 years of age, he receives a commission from Pope Clement VIII and settles in Rome. He is credited with numerous bronzes (by Francis I, for example) and remarkable portraits.
The legacy of the Renaissance was overwhelming in Florence and apart from Peter of Cortona (1596-1669) and Luca Giordano, to whom we owe the frescoes in the Pitti and Medici palaces, Ludovico Cardi, Il Cigoli (1559-1613), remains the most inventive painter of the time. And in sculpture, one of the few to stand out in the 18th century is Antonio Canova (1757-1822), a favourite of the Bonaparte family.
From Macchiaioli to street art
In the nineteenth century, Tuscan painters, especially Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega and Telemaco Signorini found a new way for painting, the Macchiaioli movement, which spread throughout Italy. They fought against academism, rejected traditional and historical subjects and proposed a naturalism that had nothing to envy the impressionism to which they were assimilated.
A pupil of the Scuola Libera di Nudo of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence directed by Fattori, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), a child of Livorno and exiled in Paris, remains unquestionably the great name of twentieth-century Tuscan painting, liberated from the Renaissance and an original and influential actor of modernity.
20th century Italian art is exhibited at the Museo Novecento in Florence. The permanent collection presents many Florentine and Tuscan artists, including Gino Severini, Ottone Rosai, Vinicio Berti, Gualtiero Nativi, Mario Nigro, Alberto Moretti, Lorenzo Viani, Venturino Venturi and Alberto Magnelli. In addition to the museum's permanent itinerary, temporary exhibitions enrich the museum's activity. Some exhibitions and special projects focus on artists born or based in Tuscany. For example, during 2019, the museum exhibited specific works and installations by Maurizio Nannucci, Remo Salvadori, Paolo Masi, Marco Bagnoli and Luciano Caruso, among others. Among the temporary exhibitions, the one devoted to drawing hosted a selection of works by Tuscan artists such as Massimo Bartolini, Emanuele Becheri, Chiara Camoni, Antonio Catelani, Giulia Cenci, Daniela De Lorenzo, Carlo Guaita and Paolo Meoni, among others.
Also kept at the Museo Novecento, the work of Marino Marini (1901-1980), born in Pistoia, Tuscany, friend and collaborator of Stravinsky or Henry Miller, has been brought together in the Marino Marini Museum dedicated to him, and there is a documentation centre on his works in Pistoia.
In the twenty-first century, we can mention Sandro Chia (born in 1946 in Florence), painter and sculptor, protagonist of the Italian Trans-avant-garde movement that emerged in the 1970s. And for a taste of international programming of ancient and contemporary art, founded in 2006, Palazzo Strozzi is a symbol of the Florentine Renaissance, an internationally renowned cultural centre and a major temporary exhibition space in Florence. Its cultural programme also includes a permanent exhibition on the palace itself and a café. The courtyard hosts concerts, performances, contemporary art installations and theatrical shows.
Street art, meanwhile, makes its discreet appearances in the city, thanks to Clet Abraham's circuitous road signs and the fashionable graffiti artist Blub. Take a good look, you'll be right in the heart of Tuscan activism.
