Gentile da
Fabriano

Grew up an orphan (mother died, father went to the monastery and soon also died). He studied in his native town in a small artist Allegretto Nazi probably closer in his youth with someone from other Siennese masters and quickly reached great fame.

Worked in Central Italy - Brescia, Venice, Florence, Siena, Orvieto and in Rome, where 1426 to the death of his were engaged in decorating the Lateran Cathedral with frescoes depicting scenes from the life of John the Baptist. After his death his younger contemporary and friend of Pisanello, which Gentile bequeathed their working tools, finished painting Basilica (not preserved).

OK. 1370, Fabriano - 1427, Rome. Italian painter. Born in the Northern Italian province of the Marche. Worked in the cities of Le Marche, Venice (1408-1412), Brescia (1414-1418), Florence (1422-1425), Orvieto (1425), Siena (1425-1426), Rome (1427). In 1422 entered in the Florentine Guild of painters. Creative heritage survive; known mainly easel works by the artist. Paintings in Venice, Brescia and Rome were killed.

The largest master of Italian Gothic Gentile da Fabriano enjoyed during his life, despite the emergence in the mid-1420-x Masaccio, reputation first painter of Italy and has not lost its even in the middle of XV century, including in the humanist circles; so, in 1456 humanist B. Fazio included in their biographies of great contemporaries only two Italian artists - Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello.

Creative formation of Gentile da Fabriano is connected with the artistic environment of Northern Italy the end of XIV-XV centuries, the dominant here the traditions of the late Gothic. At the same time, these traditions get the Gentile da Fabriano new understandings.

Already in his early works - the Madonna with St. Nicholas, St. Margaret and aid donor (approx. 1395, Berlin, GOS. museums), the polyptych of Valle San Gimignano (approx 1400, Milan, the Brera gallery) - a few mere prettiness of the characters and such typical late Gothic motifs as strewn with flowers, green meadow, connected with restraint, enlightened mind. The artist prefers broad, smooth lines, according to their characters dignified posture; pristaniste field observations shows a portrait of the donor, in the first of two paintings. Restraint, calmness, great breadth of style and elements of live immediacy grow in later works - the Madonna and Child with angels (approx. 1415, new York, Metropolitan Museum of art), the Madonna and Child (approx. 1420, Pisa, NAC. Museum), fragmented polyptych of Quaratesi (1425, Florence, Uffizi gallery, London, Bakinese Palace, etc. of the meeting) and the only extant fresco of the Madonna enthroned (1425, Orvieto, Cathedral).

The culmination of creativity Gentile da Fabriano altar is the adoration of the Magi, written on request of humanist Palla Strozzi for the Florentine Church of Santa Trinita, including the main picture and three decorating the base of predella (1423, Florence, Uffizi gallery; predella bringing in the temple - Paris, Louvre). Gothic traditions if compositions on the plane, the abundance of gold, precious radiant colors, elements of stylization in the image of the human figure - connected in the altar with a colorful and joyful picture of the world, are extremely diverse in their directly and accurately seen the details from characters of the procession, of their appearance and clothing to perfectly depicted animals and landscape panoramas with hills and castles. Wonderful and attempt to overcome the flatness compositions, depicting the angles of the building, against which presents Mary, the prancing horses, and standing at the manger of the ox. A number of motives of the altar shows the acquaintance Gentile da Fabriano with French-Burgundian miniature. Even more obviously this effect in decorating the base of the altar small compositions Christmas and the Flight into Egypt with their soft and widely written, lit landscape backgrounds; in the birth of the artist gave the effect of night lighting. In the third composition - bringing in the temple - he tried to give the spatial structure of the city square with a centric Church, which demonstrates its interest to new artistic problems. The breadth of creative interests of the artist show and performed in 1427 in Rome sketches of antique monuments.

Organic combination of poetics of the late Gothic style with elements of a new attitude and a new artistic language resulted in widespread influence of Gentile da Fabriano on a whole generation of Italian painters from Masolino and fra Angelico to former assistant Gentile in the Roman period A. Pisanello and the most famous of the disciples Gentile - Ya Bellini.