Andrea del Verrocchio: biography, personal life, work

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Andrea del Verrocchio was an Italian painter, sculptor and jeweler of the Early Renaissance period. He maintained a large workshop, in which some of the most famous creators of the era were trained. According to one version, the nickname Verrocchio, which from the Italian vero occhio means "precise eye", the master received thanks to his skillful achievements and excellent eye. Few paintings are attributed to him with complete certainty. For the most part, Andrea del Verrocchio is known as an excellent sculptor, and his latest work of the equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleni in Venice is considered one of the world's masterpieces.

Family

He was born in Florence between 1434 and 1437 in the parish of Sant'Ambrogio. His mother Gemma gave birth to eight children, among which Andrea was the fifth. His father, Michele di Choni, made tiles and later worked as a tax collector. Andrea never married and helped provide for some of his siblings. It is known that one of his brothers -Simone - became a monk, and then the abbot of the monastery of San Salvi. Another brother was a textile worker, and a sister married a hairdresser. The first document, where the name of the artist appears, dates back to 1452 and is associated with a lawsuit on charges of killing a fourteen-year-old boy Antonio Domenico with a stone, in which Andrea was found not guilty. On this, in fact, all the factual data about the personal life of Andrea del Verrocchio ends.

Training period

First he was a jeweler's apprentice. There is no information about this period, but it is believed that he began working in the jewelry workshop of Giuliano Verrocchi, whose changed name, perhaps, Andrea later took as a pseudonym. It is possible that Verrocchi was also his first teacher.

There is speculation that Verrocchio later became a student of Donatello, for which there is no evidence, and which contradicts the style of his early work. The beginning of painting practice dates back to the mid-1460s, when Andrea del Verrocchio, under the direction of Filippo Lippi, worked in the choir of the Prato Cathedral. According to a more convincing version, it was Lippi who trained Andrea as an artist.

Years of activity

It is known that Verrocchio was a member of the Guild of St. Luke, and his workshop was located in Florence, considered the center of art and science in Italy. In an effort to master various artistic techniques developed at that time in Florence, the master organized hisworkshop as a multi-purpose enterprise. Paintings, sculptures and jewelry were created here, which met the requirements of customers and patrons.

The fame of the artist increased significantly when Andrea del Verrocchio was accepted at the court of Piero and Lorenzo Medici, where the master remained until a few years before his death he moved to Venice. At the same time, he retained the Florentine workshop, leaving it to one of his students - Lorenzo Credi. At the end of his life, Andrea opened a new workshop in Venice, where he worked on the statue of Bartolomeo Colleni. In the same place, in Venice, the master died in 1488.

Students

Verrocchio's workshop was obviously considered one of the best in Florence and was formed thanks to such students as Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Francesco Bottinini, Francesco di Simone Ferrucci, Lorenzo di Credi, Luca Signorelli, Bartolomeo della Gatta. The early works of Bottinini, Perugino and Ghirlandaio are hard to distinguish from the paintings of their master.

Three stories are connected with the name of one brilliant student of Verrocchio. It is believed that it was Leonardo who became the model for the statue of David, and Andrea Del Verrocchio captured the sarcastic smile of his apprentice on the bronze face. This assumption remains an unconfirmed legend, like another story concerning the painting "The Baptism of Christ", in the work on which the student surpassed his teacher. It is authentically known that there was a document, an anonymous complaint of sodomy, in which the young da Vinci was accused of participating during his apprenticeship.

Painting

At that time, the artists worked in the technique of tempera painting, which differed significantly from oil painting, which was only being developed. The image was applied with water-soluble paints on a board covered with soil, on which a canvas was sometimes glued, according to the principle of icon painting. Therefore, almost all of Verrocchio's paintings are made in tempera on the board. His style in painting is distinguished by realism and sensuality, strong, expressive, sometimes sharp, especially in contours, lines, a somewhat pretentious manner, reminiscent of Flemish painting. Due to the lack of a signature, there is considerable difficulty in identifying the paintings of Andrea del Verrocchio, so not all works can be said with certainty that they belong to him.

1. "Madonna and Child" (1466-1470; 75.5 x 54.8 cm) - belongs to the early independent works. Located in the Art Gallery of Berlin.
2. The Nursing Madonna with Two Angels (1467–1469; 69.2 x 49.8 cm) was attributed to Verrocchio after it was restored in 2010 and is on display at the National Gallery in London.
3. "Tobias and the Angel" (1470-1480; 84 x 66 cm) - was previously attributed to Pollaiolo or Ghirlandaio. Located in London's National Gallery.
4. The Baptism of Christ (1475–1478; 180 x 152 cm) is the only known oil painting by Andrea del Verrocchio. Stored in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
5. "Madonna di Piazza" (1474-1486) - made in collaboration with Lorenzo di Credi and other students. The only painting with a signaturefound in the Cathedral of Pistoia, where it is now kept.
6. "Madonna and Child with Two Angels" (1476-1478; 96.5 x 70.5 cm) - kept at the National Gallery in London.
7. One early work - "The Enthroned Madonna with John the Baptist and St. Donat" - remained unfinished. It was completed by di Credi when Verrocchio was in Venice at the end of his life.

Several surviving copies made from the master's originals by his students are still known, as well as a number of frescoes made in Andrea's workshop.

Baptism of Christ

Andrea del Verrocchio, having received an order from the Benedictine monastery of San Salvi, attracted students to work, among whom was Leonardo. It was Verrocchio's largest painting, and it was also made with oil-based paints, in a technique little studied at that time.

In the angel, with his back turned and three-quarters of his face towards the observer, Leonardo's hand is recognized by his special manner and softness of performance, different from the sharp lines of the teacher. The young genius is also credited with part of the landscape of the valley with the river, which is located above the angel heads.

Verrocchio's biography, compiled by Giorgio Vasari, tells how Andrea was so impressed by the skillful work of a student that he decided never to touch the brushes again. However, this is just a metaphor, since works written by Verrocchio after the "Baptism of Christ" are known.

Sculpture

B 1465Andrea carved a bowl for washing hands in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo. Between 1465 and 1467 he executed the tomb of Cosimo de Medici in the crypt under the altar of the church. In the same year, the Tribunal della Mercancia, the judicial body of the Guilds in Florence, commissioned Andrea to create a bronze group depicting Christ and St. Thomas for the central tabernacle, which Orsanmicele had recently acquired on the east facade. The sculptural group was put into place in 1483 and from the day it was opened it was recognized as a masterpiece.

In 1468, Verrocchio made for the Signoria of Florence a bronze chandelier 1.57 m high, installed in the Palazzo Vecchio, now in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. In 1472 he completed the monument to Piero and Giovanni de' Medici by enclosing the sarcophagus in an arch with a bronze net-like lattice. The sarcophagus is decorated with exquisite naturalistic elements, also cast in bronze.

David

In the early 1470s, Andrea Verrocchio made a trip to Rome, after which, starting from the second half of the decade, he devoted his work mainly to sculpture.

The bronze statue of David, 126 cm high, he created in 1475 for the Medici family, in particular the brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano, from whom the Florentine Signoria bought the sculpture in 1476. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the statue joined the ducal Uffizi collection. And around 1870, "David" became an exhibit among the sculptures of the Renaissance in the nascent exhibition of the National Museum of the Bargello. The statue is there now.

Sculpture is consideredone of the best works of Andrea del Verrocchio. The master brilliantly managed to reproduce in his “David” the anatomically accurately modeled body of a teenager, as well as the expressive nuance of youthful bravado, which testifies to the sculptor’s understanding of psychological subtleties. The hypothesis that Leonardo, a new student of Verrocchio, posed for that work, is considered quite probable.

Other famous sculptures from the 1470s

In 1475, the master sculpted a refined half-length portrait of a lady with a bouquet, also called "Flora", from marble. And then he created the relief of the funeral monument of Francesca Tornabuoni for the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

Around 1478, Andrea created a winged Putto holding a dolphin. The sculpture was originally intended for the fountain of the Villa Medici, and the water was supposed to come from the mouth of a dolphin. Now the work is stored in the Florentine Palazzo Vecchio. In this work one can observe Verrocchio's dynamic naturalism, transforming the bronze into soft, smooth forms of a smiling putto, frozen in an unsteady dance position, with a robe stuck to his back and a wet tuft of hair on his forehead.

Last work

In 1475, Condotiero Colloni, the former captain-general of the Venetian Republic, died, and by will left a significant part of his property to the republic, on the condition that his equestrian statue be erected in Piazza San Marco. In 1479Venice has announced that it will accept the legacy, but since the installation of statues in the square was prohibited, the sculpture will be placed in an open space in front of the Scuola San Marco.

A competition was organized to select a sculptor. Three contractors competed for the contract: Verrocchio from Florence, Alessandro Leopardi from Venice and Bartolomeo Vellano from Padua. Verrocchio made a model of the equestrian statue in wax, while others offered models in wood, black leather and clay. All three projects were presented before the Venetian commission in 1483, and Verrocchio received the contract. After that, he opened a workshop in Venice, where he worked for several years on a full-scale clay model. When the statue was left to take on a bronze form, in 1488 death overtook Andrea, before he had time to ebb. The great master bequeathed to his student Lorenzo di Credi to finish the work. But after a significant delay in the contract, the Venetian state entrusted the casting process to Alessandro Leopardi, who also made the pedestal. The statue was eventually erected in Venice, in Piazza Santi Giovanni de Paolo, by the cathedral of the same name, in 1496, where it remains today.

Andrea Verrocchio was buried in the Florentine church of Sant'Ambrogio. But now only the tombstone exists because his remains are lost. At the moment, 34 works made by the great creator and his workshop are known.