LUCA SIGNORELLI, The Complete Paintings

LUCA SIGNORELLI (CA. 1450-1523)

Signorelli var lærling af Piero della Francesca og Andrea del Verrocchio, hvor også Leonardo Da Vinci stod i lære.

Hans første kendte værk er eet i det Sixtinske Kapel i Vatikanet fra 1482. Fra den dato og fem til sin død, arbejde han for mange af de mægtigste mæcener over hele det centrale Italien, og han opnåede ry for at være blandt de væsentligste kunstnere i sin generation.

Signorelli var født i Cortona i Toscana, her havde han også værksted fra 1512-23. På det lille fine kunstmuseum The Diocesan Museum kan se flere af hans værker. Byen er derudover absolut et besøg værd og er blevet kendt og elsket gennem Frances Mayes bog Et hus i Toscana.

‘With his profound mastery of design, particularly of nudes, and with his grace in invention and composition, [Luca Signorelli] opened the way to the perfection of art.’

These words, written by Giorgio Vasari in his celebrated Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, express the great admiration with which Signorelli was regarded by his contemporaries.

Illustrated with stunning colour plates, this book is the first in fifty years to re-evaluate Signorelli’s importance and to catalogue his oeuvre.

Born around 1450, Signorelli began his apprenticeship under Piero della Francesca before going on to study with Andrea del Verrocchio, in whose workshop Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Lorenzo di Credi and Pietro Perugino also learned their art.

Signorelli worked throughout central Italy for some of the greatest patrons of the age, earning himself a reputation as one of the leading painters of his generation. Recently restored – and here exquisitely reproduced – the extraordinary cycle of frescoes of the Last Judgment in the Cappella Nova at Orvieto, are rightly considered a highpoint of the Italian Renaissance. They reveal in all their force and glory the artist’s skill as a colourist of the first rank and as one of the supreme exponents of the male nude.

In a detailed life of the artist, Laurence Kanter traces his career from its origins in Piero’s workshop to his late work in Tuscany and Umbria. In the catalogue, Tom Henry presents the artist’s entire painted oeuvre, including a number of paintings never before reproduced, while in a separate plate section he discusses twenty-one of his most important works. Together these contributions make up the most complete volume on Luca Signorelli ever published.