Description

Icon of Saint Francis painted in tempera and pure gold on an ancient table according to the ancient recipes of the Sienese school. Reproduction of Art. Icon, St. Francis receives the stigmata. Reproduction of art by Taddeo Gaddi (1295 - 1366). Medieval art. History of the painting: Taddeo Gaddi was an Italian painter, the son of Gaddo di Zanobi known as Gaddo Gaddi, he was in Giotto's workshop from 1313 to 1337, the year of the master's death. Father of the painters Giovanni Gaddi, Agnolo Gaddi and Niccolò Gaddi. He also had a fourth child, Zanobi, who seems not to have embarked on an artist career. Taddeo Gaddi was probably, as on the other hand says Giorgio Vasari, Giotto's disciple with greater talent or at least the one who best managed to carry on the style of the great master Giotto. Giorgio Vasari goes on to describe Taddeo Gaddi in his Lives "The lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors and architects" by writing: "He kept Taddeo Gaddi continually in Giotto's way but never much improved it, except that his complexion was fresher and more lively that Giotto's, having long waited to improve all the other parts and the other difficulties of this art. And even if he cared for it, he could not have the grace to do it. Laonde having seen Thaddeus what was facilitated in Giotto, and learning it, he could have time to add easily and to improve that in the coloring. It was with tender tears from Agnolo and Giovanni his sons wept, and in Santa Croce in the first cloister given him burial, not ceasing infinite friends and craftsmen composed sonnets and epigrams in his praise, praising him in customs, in judgment and in art, as much as they still praised him in the good execution he gave to the bell tower of Santa Maria del Fiore by sign left by his teacher Giotto .... ". In 1347 Taddeo Gaddi is remembered at the head of a list of the best painters in Florence. Among his works the most important is the cycle of frescoes with Stories of the Virgin in the Baroncelli Chapel of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence (1328-1338). In this prestigious work, Taddeo Gaddi, showed that he had put Giotto's teachings to good use, arranging the figures in the scenes with considerable narrative freedom, which are more crowded than those of his master Giotto. The experimentation of perspective in architectural backgrounds also resumes and bold results are reached, as in the oblique and broken staircase in the Presentation of the Virgin at the temple. Other works are: the tiles and the lunettes with the Life of Christ and St. Francis (now dismembered between Florence, Berlin and Munich). Taddeo Gaddi was collaborator, according to some, to the Stefaneschi Polyptych (Rome). And still to remember are the icon of the Madonna (Bern), the icon of the Adoration of the Magi (Dijon), the Stories of Job (Pisa, Camposanto), the icon of the Madonna with the child on the throne and angels (Florence, Uffizi), the Madonna del Parto (Florence), the Polyptych (Florence, Santa Felicita). Giorgio Vasari is also credited with the design of the reconstruction of the Ponte Vecchio, now questioned by scholars, who are oriented towards Neri di Fioravante. Even in the "Giotto" context, Taddeo Gaddi in the more mature works has an unmistakable style, with sometimes sophisticated effects of night light, almost unique in the fourteenth-century painting of central Italy. The space installations sought in some of his works are often majestic and solemn, approaching Maso di Banco in this. The features of the delicate and soft faces are indicative of the late development of Taddeo Gaddi's art.