The Gates of Paradise: A Review
Lorenzo Ghiberti's Italian Renaissance Sculptures on View at The Met
Seven sculptural works from Florence's Baptistery doors by Italian Renaissance artist Lorenzo Ghiberti are on view at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 30, 2007-January 13, 2008), is a gem of a dossier exhibition devoted to marvelous masterpieces of Italian 15th-century sculpture and their painstaking restoration. The last venue of this exciting show's four-city American tour is the Seattle Art Museum (January 26-April 6, 2008).
The Exhibition
All seven gilt bronze objects, crafted by virtuoso Italian sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), are labelled superlatively. In a stroke of sheer curatorial genius, they're also brilliantly installed in The Metropolitan Museum's first-floor Spanish Patio from the Castle of Vélez Blanco (1506-15), its remarkable Roman Renaissance sculptural ornamentation displayed to its greatest potential.
For this truly unique presentation, the courtyard's fine statuary has been replaced by the artworks on loan. These include three glistening panels from the Florentine Baptistery's left eastern door, each set against the majestic backdrop of a scale color photographic reproduction of the building's three-ton fixtures, both 17 feet in height. Four smaller sculptures from the Christian landmark are exhibited in a separate vitrine for closer study. Adjacent to The Met's ideal location for this show is its permanent display of Renaissance bronzes. With their awe-inspiring paintings and sculptures (many from the same period), the adjoining Jack and Belle Linksy Galleries surely should not be missed.
Lorenzo Ghiberti: Competition for the Baptistery's Northern Doors
In 1401, Florence's Signoria (governing council) and merchant's guild sponsored a contest for the sculptural decoration of the northern doors of its Romanesque Battistero di San Giovanni across from the massive Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. Trained primarily as a goldsmith, Lorenzo Ghiberti, also a designer and architect, entered the competition against Jacopo della Quercia (1374-1438), Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1466), best known for his later engineering feat of the city cathedral's impressive Duomo (dome), and other artists. The Old Testament subject of the bronze panel to be cast was the young Isaac's sacrifice by Abraham, his father, set within a customary yet somewhat restrictive Gothic quatrefoil or four-lobed frame.
Ghiberti and Brunelleschi were the fiercest competitors. Brunelleschi's figures, angular and extreme in their verticality, reflected the Italian Late Gothic sculptural tradition of their time. By comparison, Ghiberti's refreshingly elegant modeling of Isaac, based on a classical torso recently discovered near Florence, presented a stark contrast to that of his Tuscan rival. Economy of production also figured largely in the judges' decision. Brunelleschi's work was fabricated in separate sections affixed to a bronze plate; Ghiberti's more sophisticated work was innovatively cast in a single mold. Florence's ruling council and merchant's guild decided in Ghiberti's favor.
After the northern doors' theme was changed from the Old to New Testament, Ghiberti toiled on the commission for 24 years, having enlisted architect Michelozzo di Bartolommeo (1396-1472), sculptor Donatello (ca. 1386-1466) and painters Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) and Benozzo Gozzoli (ca. 1420-1497), among others, to join his workshop and complete the portal's 28 panels.
The Baptistery's Eastern Doors: Objects on Display
Work on the Baptistery's pair of gilt bronze eastern doors, a commission easily awarded to Ghiberti, commenced in 1425 and concluded in 1452. The master used the revived antique lost wax casting tecnique for their production. The doors' 10 panels, in bold rectangular format, illustrate more than 30 Old Testament episodes, from Adam and Eve's creation through King Solomon's encounter with the Queen of Sheba. Small statuettes of male prophets and female sibyls surround the biblical scenes. Portrait busts of Ghiberti and his son, Vittorio, unobtrusively join idealized Roman heads around the doors' periphery.
The exhibition presents three restored panels from the sculptor's eastern left door.
- The Creation of Adam and Eve, Ghiberti's earliest of the three works, demonstrates the artist's keen understanding of human anatomy and nature. God the Father and other heavenly beings play central roles in the composition.
- Jacob and Esau, the Genesis story of a father's misplaced blessing, is divided into two separate narrative scenes. Ghiberti's mastery of illusionistic depth and linear perspective is evident in the Roman arches' gradual recession into the work's background, a hallmark of Quattrocento (15th-century) art in Renaissance Florence.
- David and Goliath, most likely the eastern doors' last panel, depicts Israel's first two kings in a tumultuous battle within a detailed urban setting, perhaps the pinnacle of Ghiberti's artistic achievements.
Reinstallation
After the precious artworks' transatlantic voyage, Lorenzo Ghiberti's groundbreaking masterpieces will be reinstalled in the Baptistery's doors, sealed hermetically in a special case and displayed within Florence's Museo dell'Opera del Duomo for future generations to appreciate.
It's no wonder that Michelangelo Buonarroti (1476-1564) is reported to have called Ghiberti's eastern doors of Florence's Baptistery the Gates of Paradise. A reference to the beatific entrance to heaven, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's presentation of the sculptor's works justifies the High Renaissance master's appellation some five centuries later.
Source:
- Radke, Gary M. (ed.), et al. The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti's Renaissance Masterpiece (exh. cat.). New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.
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