Corot’s view from the Boboli Gardens, Thomas Cole, John Brett’s landscape masterwork, intimate view from local painters, and a portrait by Paul Sérusier.
Florence
Dante and Beatrice, the Black Death that opens Boccaccio’s Decameron, the death of Brunelleschi, Botticelli in his studio, and the de’ Medicis.
Painted entirely in front of the motif, and in fine detail, Brett followed Ruskin’s rules for landscape paintings, but this was rejected by the Royal Academy.
In Florence, stories told in paintings became increasingly secular, and ingeniously integrated multiple scenes from the single story into one painting.
From Corot to Sérusier, the American Thomas Cole to the British John Brett, a collection of superb landscapes of the city.
Paintings of the city of Florence recreating times past, from Dante’s meeting with Beatrice, to Lorenzo the Magnificent in the late 15th century.
His pupils, and the pupils of those artists, included Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, and di Credi.
Over 550 years ago, a 14 year-old boy started his apprenticeship with the Florentine painter and sculptor Verrocchio. He was Leonardo da Vinci, and here are some of his master’s works.
Set in a framing story of the Black Death striking Florence, its ten characters each tell ten stories over two weeks. Many fine paintings result.
Vasari praised Masaccio’s fresco, then six years later painted over parts of it, and put his altarpiece in front, obscuring it for nearly 300 years.
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