In 1401 a wool merchants guild-sponsored competition for a design for the prominent east doors for the city of Florence's baptistery. The east doors face the Florence cathedral and winning the competition was considered very prestigious. The top seven designs went into the semifinalists, and of those only two survived. All contestants were to use the same scene; Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac. The two surviving examples were from the winning sculptor, Lorenzo Ghiberti and that of Filippo Brunelleschi; both were very good, but Ghiberti's won for a reason.
Ghiberti was the youngest contestant and he focused on graceful beauty. Ghiberti's scene is lyrical and flows with a thrusting diagonal from top left to bottom right created be mountain side and a diagonal of human action starting with an angel trying to stop Abraham as he is about to sacrifice Isaac who is beautifully sculpted in what could be considered, according to our text, as the first classical nude since antiquity.
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| Lorenzo Ghiberti, The Sacrifice of Abraham, 1401 |
Filippo Brunelleschi was a seasoned sculptor who never recovered from this loss. His is more reminiscent of a heavy Gothic scene and his focus is on the dramatic emotion of the scene. His composition fills the frame and there is something going on in every corner which pulls focus away from the top left where the angel grabs Abrahams arm as he frantically tries to plunge a knife into a tortured looking Isaac. His sculpting skills are beautiful and every detail is well developed, but all of the action and business detracts from the central story, and his composition lacks the finesse of Ghiberti's.
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| Filippo Brunelleschi, The Sacrifice of Abraham, 1401 |
References:
- Gardener's Art Through the Ages: A Global History, 13th ed., by Fred S. Kleiner - Chapter 21
- http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Lorenzo-Ghiberti.html
- http://artchronicler.wordpress.com/
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