Andrea Orcagna

Italian artist and architect

• Born: c. 1308
• Birthplace: Florence (now in Italy)
• Died: c. 1368
• Place of death: Florence (now in Italy)

In paintings and in sculptural and architectural projects combining religious intensity with naturalism, Orcagna extended the expressive range of Italian art in the mid-fourteenth century.

Early Life

Little is known of the early life of Andrea Orcagna (ahn-DRAY-uh ohr-KAHN-yah); even the date of his birth is conjectural. In Le vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani (1549-1550; Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 1850-1907), Giorgio Vasari states that Orcagna lived to the age of sixty. This fact, together with the reasonable assumption that he died in 1368, is the only basis for claiming 1308 as the year of his birth.

The name “Orcagna” is derived from “Arcagnuolo”; the artist’s actual name was Andrea di Cione, and it is known that his three brothers were also artists: Nardo, probably older than Andrea, and two younger brothers, Matteo and Jacopo. While still a child, according to Vasari, Orcagna began to study sculpture under Andrea Pisano and only after some years took up drawing and painting . Orcagna had achieved some recognition as a painter by 1346, but it was not until 1352 that he became a member of the Florentine stonemason’s guild responsible for works of sculpture; thus Vasari’s claim may be incorrect. The uncertainty is not a matter of very great importance, however, because Orcagna’s career, like those of many artists of his time, was based on a variety of artistic endeavors, including the practice of architecture as well as of painting and sculpture.

Orcagna was born in an era when the practice of the visual arts was still based more on traditions of craftsmanship than on the exploration of individual artists. It was seldom thought necessary by contemporary writers to research and record the details of the lives of even those artists who emerged from the background of the workshops. Few such accounts survive, and much biographical detail is circumstantial. In Orcagna’s case, for example, it is known that he was married only from a 1371 reference to his widow; the same document serves as the only dated evidence of his death.

Life’s Work

Orcagna’s career is documented only between 1343 and 1368. By 1347, he was associated with his brother Nardo, sharing a workshop with him and probably participating in his commissions for paintings. Orcagna’s reputation grew rapidly in the early 1350’, leading to major commissions in Florence, Orvieto, and Siena. In 1354 he was commissioned by the wealthy Strozzi family to paint an altarpiece for the family chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The work, which was completed in 1357, is Christ Conferring Authority on Saints Peter and Thomas Aquinas . It is a panel painting executed in tempera, a medium that lends itself to precise shapes, deliberate design, and strong colors. In these characteristics, it is a somewhat conservative departure from the successful norms established by Orcagna’s great predecessor, Giotto, whom he knew during the latter part of Giotto’s life. Giotto’s life’s work was almost wholly concerned with painting in the fresco medium, which is more successfully employed to render objects as volumes rather than as shapes and which gives a greater sense of atmosphere as well as harmony of color. These differences in technique relate to differences in artistic objective. Giotto’s aim was to humanize the religious content of Christianity, particularly the legend of Saint Francis, in paintings possessing a sense of great physical reality. Orcagna’s purpose, more than a generation later, was to reemphasize the institutional authority of the Church by rendering religious topics in a majestically austere style. In the Strozzi altarpiece, the resurgent Dominican order is, in effect, given a vote of confidence over the less-orthodox Franciscan order the painting depicts Christ enthroned, bestowing a book on Saint Thomas Aquinas (the second patron of the order after Saint Dominic) while giving the keys of Paradise to Saint Peter, the symbol of the Church of Rome.

For the years 1355, 1356, and 1357, the records of the Florentine church Or San Michele show Orcagna as the capomaestro, or superintendent, of work on a kind of chapel within the arcade of an adjacent grain market. Known as the Tabernacle, it is an ornate structure decorated with a wealth of carving, enclosing a painting of an enthroned Madonna and Child by Orcagna’s near-contemporary, Bernardo Daddi. Planning and execution of the Tabernacle called on Orcagna’s varied skills in architecture, sculpture, and even goldsmithing. One authority has called it delightful and sumptuous; another compares its decoration to spun sugar and questions Orcagna’s reputation as an architect, which rests solely on this one surviving, documented example. It is clear, in any case, that Orcagna attempted to blend elements from disparate architectural and sculptural traditions, probably as much in response to demands of his patrons as to his own artistic objectives.

In 1357, Orcagna was employed in the work on the cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore; in 1358, he went to Orvieto, where he served as capomaestro until 1362. From 1360 to 1362 his work on the decoration of the Orvieto façade, consisting of a rose window and mosaics, was done in collaboration with his brother Matteo, who remained in Orvieto while Andrea returned to Florence to carry on other work. The last recorded work by Orcagna, finished in June, 1368, was a Madonna for Or San Michele, now lost. Two months later, he fell ill and presumably died shortly thereafter; a commission for a triptych on the subject of Saint Matthew was turned over to his brother Jacopo for completion.

Significance

Orcagna was not the leading Italian artist of the fourteenth century, an honor that unquestionably belongs to Giotto. Also held in precedence to Orcagna are Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and others. In the realm of Florentine painting , however, possibly only Maso di Banco could be judged to rank with Orcagna, and Maso’s painting lies largely within Giotto’s sphere of influence. Orcagna inherited the moral seriousness of Giotto and Maso but found it necessary to depart from the sense of equilibrium that characterizes the art of Giotto and his immediate followers. Orcagna’s dramatic feeling for active religious faith is different from the simplicity and humanism of Giotto and seems to reflect a sense of spiritual discipline that corresponds to the contemporary preaching of the Dominicans.

There can be little doubt that the nature of the times in which he lived influenced Orcagna’s art. In addition to political uncertainty during the early 1340’, there were significant Florentine bankruptcies in 1343 and 1345, followed by a famine in 1346 in Tuscany, the region that includes Florence and Siena. Then, in 1348, a calamitous plague struck in June. The Black Death , as it was called, was thought by many to be a punishment from God; the Dominicans capitalized on this fear by claiming that the order knew the secret of protecting the city from a recurrence of the plague. Much of the populace reacted to the material stresses of the times with increased devotion, but some responded with religious indifference; a tension between the two forms of reaction lent increased importance to the Church, its hierarchy and its rituals, and to the art that supported them. In response to the needs of the Church as well as to his own spiritual inclinations, Orcagna’s art assumed a powerful, dedicated character that distinguishes it from the work of less receptive and adventurous artists.

To some degree, one must speculate on the matter of Orcagna’s individual achievement in relation to the work of others who might have collaborated with him, including his brothers Nardo and Jacopo; Nardo, in particular, was an artist of great sensitivity. As in the case of many artists of the Gothic period and before, it is best to temper the concept of individual genius with an appreciation of the nature of collective endeavor and of shared artistic traits. Yet even accounting for these factors, Orcagna stands out as a strong figure in the midst of many remarkable artists emerging from the workshops of early and mid-fourteenth century Italy.

Bibliography

Hartt, Frederick, and David G. Wilkins. History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. 5th ed. New York: H. N. Abrams, 2003. This large volume, the standard survey of this period of the history of art, is both readable and profusely illustrated and offers an authoritative bibliography.

Meiss, Millard. Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death: The Arts, Religion, and Society in the Mid-Fourteenth Century. 1964. Reprint. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1978. This classic of art scholarship, detailed yet readable, places Orcagna, along with several other artists, in the social and historical context of mid-fourteenth century Italy. The book’s small black-and-white illustrations, though essential to understanding the author’s arguments, are unlikely to communicate the full power of the works discussed.

Paoletti, John T., and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Harry N. Abrams, 2002. An examination of art in Italy during the Renaissance, when Orcagna was active. Bibliography and index.

Understanding Art: A Reference Guide to Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque Periods. 2 vols. Armonk, N.Y.: Sharpe Reference, 2000. A reference work on art that sheds light on Orcagna’s art as well as that of his predecessors, contemporaries, and later artists. Illustrations, bibliography, and index.

Vasari, Giorgio. Vasari’s Lives of the Artists: Biographies of the Most Eminent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors of Italy. Reprint. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. Vasari, a sixteenth century painter, wrote his book “not to acquire praise as a writer but to revive the memory of those who adorned these professions.” First published in 1550, the work is more colorful than it is useful, since scholarship has overtaken virtually all of Vasari’s information; nevertheless, each page of this classic document enlivens its subject as no other source does.