Fra Bartolomeo | Florentine Renaissance Painter

Fra Bartolomeo was born in Florence, Italy on 28 March 1472 and died on 31 October 1517.

A leading artist of the Italian Renaissance, he initially trained under Cosimo Rosselli, and opened a worshop with a fellow pupil, Mariotto Albertinelli.

He entered the Dominican Order in 1500, reportedly due to the influence of Savronela's preaching, and from that point on restricted his painting to religious subjects only.

Fra Bartolomeo's contemporaries included Leonardo, Raphael, and Bellini, and their artistic influences appear in his use of sfumato, composition, and the way he addressed landscapes in his paintings.

His work is characterized by a reserved approach to the thematic content, and solidly painted forms.

You can read more about his work and biography at The Oxford Dictionary of Art  and The Web Gallery of Art.

A few of his monumental works are displayed below:

The Adoration of the Christ Child  c. 1499 
Tempera on wood, diameter 89 cm 
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Prophet Isaiah   c. 1516  
Panel, 168 x 108 cm  
Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence  

The Marriage of St Catherine of Siena 1511 
Wood panel, 257 x 228 cm 
Musée du Louvre, Paris

How High is Your Learning Curve?

I don't always have a five-year plan. One thing you must do in life is keep your learning curve as high as possible. (Yo-Yo Ma)

Yo-Yo is speaking about challenges, and keep one's skills on a continual quest for improvement.

What skills do you need to reconsider and improve?

What learning curve do you need to expand higher?

PARMIGIANINO - Portrait of a Young Lady   c. 1535 -  Oil on canvas, 139 x 88 cm  
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples

Where is fantasy bred, in the heart or in the head? (Willy Wonka)

DOMENICHINO - The Cumaean Sibyl - c. 1610  
Oil on canvas - Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome

The Spirituality of Art

First, one seeks to become an artist by training the hand.

Then one finds it is the eye that needs improving.

Later one learns it is the mind that wants developing,

only to find that the ultimate quest of the artist is in the spirit.

(Larry Brullo)

How have you experienced the spirituality of art?

 Lorenzo Lotto   Madonna and Child with Saints and an Angel (detail)  
1527-28  
Oil on canvas  

Discipline | What's Your Struggle?

Artemisia Gentileschi  
Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting   1630s
Oil on canvas, 96,5 x 73,7 cm  
Royal Collection, Windsor  

It is one thing to praise discipline,

and another to submit to it. (Miguel De Cervantes)

Every morning I wake up and look at my treadmill. I want to have the self discipline to run on it daily, but I struggle to get up and get on it. Some days, its very easy. Most days, it takes almost herculean effort.

As artists, it's necessary to adhere to self discipline in the studio. Without it, there would be no art, or at least no completed artwork. Thankfully, I am much better at being disciplined in the studio.

How have you struggled with self-discipline in the studio or your life?

Jaws of Darkness | Caravaggio in Art and Life

On this day in 1571, the artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born in Milan, Italy. He would later be referred to as simply, "Caravaggio."

His short life was a dichotomy of darkness and light, eerily reflected in his use of chiaroscuro, a technique he refined in his paintings. In art, chiaroscuro describes the strong contrast of light and dark, resulting in a bold composition and realistic rendering of objects. Caravaggio took chiaroscuro to new heights in painting, yet his life was marked by a similarly bold contrast of light and dark.

CARAVAGGIO   Boy Peeling a Fruit  
c. 1593
Oil on canvas, 75,5 x 64,4 cm  
Fondazione di Studi di Storia dell'Arte Roberto Longhi, Florence

 As a young boy, Caravaggio lost his father to a plague, and his mother died when he was about 13, just as he began a four year apprenticeship to the artist Simone Peterzano. His young adulthood was marred by brawls, outbursts of violent behavior, killing and imprisonment. As he aged, he grew increasingly turbulent, and was imprisoned a second time for a violent incident. The court documents of his trials and proceedings show a troubled and chaotic man, so fearful of his enemies that he slept with his dagger. This was the blackness of his life, the "jaws of darkness" from which he could not escape.

CARAVAGGIO   St Jerome  
c. 1606  
Oil on canvas, 112 x 157 cm
   Galleria Borghese, Rome

In stark contrast, his artistic career flourished, although the heightened realism of his paintings often offended his patrons, resulting in some of his works being repainted to suit their modesty. Through the use of chiaroscuro and realism, Caravaggio depicted his human subjects with intense naturalism. His compositions often portray biblical figures experiencing an episode of keen emotional or psychological conflict, or at the precise moment of  an event, such as in Judith Beheading Holofernes (1599). He also mastered still life, and genre scenes of musicians and fortune tellers. This was the light of his life, the blinding brightness against the obsidian darkness.

CARAVAGGIO   The Fortune Teller 
1596-97 
Oil on canvas, 99 x 131 cm 
Musée du Louvre, Paris

Caravaggio's art has greatly influenced other artists such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, La Tour, Delacroix, Courbet and Manet. His art and life have been the subject of recent books and articles, including the latest by Andrew Graham-Dixon, Caravaggio - A Life Sacred and Profane.

notes:
Article main source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio
Secondary source: Andrew Graham-Dixon, Caravaggio - A Life Sacred and Profane.
The quote"jaws of darkness" is from Wm. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
Web Gallery Of Art