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| The Gates of Paradise |
The Gates of Paradise: Ghiberti's Doorway to the RenaissanceThe artistic revolution known as the Renaissance, which spread throughout Europe from the 15th century onwards, had its roots in Tuscany. Tuscany was the scene of one of the most influential and sustained artistic revolutions in history. Its masterpieces record the transition from medieval art to the classical beauty and richness of the High Renaissance. Inspired by ancient Roman art, sculptors and painters brought about a "rebirth" of classical ideals. Scenes from everyday life became accepted subjects for art. Renaissance artists were innovative, learning how to incorporate linear perspective within their art.
Lorenzo Ghiberti's celebrated doors were commissioned in 1401 to mark Florence's deliverance from the plague. Ghiberti was chosen to create the doors in a competition involving seven leading artists of the day, including Donatello and Brunelleschi. The trial panels submitted by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi were so different from Florentine Gothic art of the time that they are often regarded as the first products of the Renaissance. Ghiberti worked on the East Doors from 1424 to 1452. Michelangelo found the bronze doors to be remarkable, calling them a "divine work." He reportedly gave them the name by which they are still known today, the "Gates of Paradise." Lorenzo Ghiberti's doorway masterpiece stands today as an icon of Renaissance art. He took great pride in his accomplishment. Like Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, Raphael's images at the Stanze, and Michelangelo's own paintings on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, they are priceless works that changed forever the course of European art. The Gates have been admired and celebrated for nearly six hundred years and are considered among the greatest creations of Renaissance art. In his book, "I Commentarii," written in the 1440s, Ghiberti wrote that he labored on the Gates of Paradise "with the greatest diligence and the greatest love." This extraordinary remark, perhaps the first of its kind to survive in the history of art, suggests that the design of the narrative panels took considerable time. A work of such complexity and ingenuity is surely the result of a long process of imagination, elaboration and revision. Given the intricacy of detail, the multiplicity of figures and the originality of invention, Ghiberti must have made hundreds of preparatory drawings and sketch models for the reliefs.
In their matchless form and realistic detail, the Gates of Paradise were unique, both from a historical and artistic standpoint. The harmony of the figures' proportions, the elegance of the poses of the bodies, the fluidity of the draperies, and the dancing rhythmical lines of the compositions reach a level of unearthly refinement that was all but unprecedented in Italian art. Of the Gates of Paradise, Vasari wrote, "And it may be said in truth, that this work is in every way perfect and that it is the most beautiful work which has ever been seen in the world, whether ancient or modern."
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Set in the heart of Florence, Italy, Santa Maria del Fiore - the Duomo, or cathedral, of Florence - is a magnificent medieval cathedral that graces the skyline of the city with its dome. It is one of Florence's oldest buildings, dating as far back as the 4th century A.D. The Duomo is elegantly partnered by Giotto's campanile and the Baptistry, whose celebrated East Doors demonstrate the artistic ideas that led to the Renaissance.
The Gates of Paradise were conceived and executed as a unified set of artistic elements. They were the most extensive, original and effective experiment in the representation of deep space in sculpture created up to that time. In ambition and achievement they surpass anything made before, even in classical antiquity. As a work of breathtaking imagination and dazzling originality the Gates were unequaled.