Lippo memmi simone martini biography
•
Simone Martini
Italian painter from the 14th century (–)
Simone Martini (c.&#; – July ) was an Italian painter born in Siena. He was a major figure in the development of early Italian painting and greatly influenced the development of the International Gothic style.
It is thought that Martini was a pupil of Duccio di Buoninsegna, the leading Sienese painter of his time. According to late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari, Simone was instead a pupil of Giotto di Bondone, with whom he went to Rome to paint at the Old St. Peter's Basilica, Giotto also executing a mosaic there. Martini's brother-in-law was the artist Lippo Memmi. Very little documentation of Simone's life survives, and many attributions are debated by art historians. According to E. H. Gombrich, he was a friend of petrarca (italiensk poet) and had painted a portrait of Laura.
Biography
[edit]Simone was doubtlessly apprenticed from an early age, as would have been the normal practice. Among his first documented works
•
Annunciation by Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi
This beautiful Annunciation was painted around by Simone Martini and his brother-in-law Lippo Menni for the altar of Sant&#;Ansano in the Cathedral of Siena. The autograph of the two painters is immortalized in the Latin inscription below “SYMON MARTINI ET LIPPVS MEMMI DE SENIS ME PINXERVNT ANNO DOMINI MCCCXXXIII”.
The work is considered an absolute masterpiece and one of the greatest examples of Sienese Gothic painting, characterized by the wonderful elegance of both line and color.
The Archangel has just touched ground in front of the Virgin as shown bygd his unfold wings and his swirling mantle. The scene seems a theatrical performance, as stressed by the comic strip like sentence in the middle of the composition with the greeting of the angel. The Virgin is portrayed almost surprised and frightened by the sudden appearance. Her movement, so prim and elegant, adds a certain effect of sophistication to the work.
The altarpi
•
Biography
Sienese painter, the pupil of Duccio, who developed the use of outline for the sake of linear rhythm as well as the sophisticated colour harmonies implicit in Duccio. He was also deeply influenced by the sculpture of Giovanni Pisano, and even more by French Gothic art.
His first work was a large fresco of the Maestà (, reworked ) painted for the Town Hall of Siena as a counterpart to the huge pala by Duccio in the Cathedral. This shows the formative influence of Duccio on him, but there is already a perceptible Gothic influence in it which is much strengthened in his next work, the St Louis of Toulouse (, Naples). At this date Naples was a French kingdom, ruled by Robert of Anjou, who sent for Simone and commissioned him to paint a new kind of picture: Robert's claim to the throne of Naples was not impeccable, and he therefore caused Simone to paint a large votive image of the newly canonized St Louis of Toulouse (a member of the French Royal house) shown in the act