Luca Signorelli was an
Italian painter from Cortona, active in various cities of central Italy,
notably Arezzo, Florence, Orvieto, Perugia, and Rome. According to Vasari,
Signorelli was a pupil of Piero della Francesca and this seems highly
probable on stylistic grounds, for his solid figures and sensitive
handling of light echo the work of the master. Signorelli differed from
Piero, however, in his interest in the representation of action, which
put him in line with contemporary Florentine artists such as the
Pollaiuolo brothers. The Scourging of Christ (c. 1480), a signed
processional banner for the church of Santa Maria del Mercato at
Fabriano, reveals his developed handling of anatomy. Between 1477
and 1482 he decorated the Sacristy of St John in the Santuario della
Santa Casa (Sanctuary of the Holy House) at Loreto.
He must have had a considerable reputation by about 1483, when he was
called on to complete the cycle of frescoes on the walls of the Sistine
Chapel in Rome, left unfinished by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino,
and Rosselli. (Its is not known why these four artists abandoned the
work in 1482, but it has been suggested that they simply downed tools
because of slow payment.) Signorelli completed the scheme with distinction.
Signorelli worked in Rome until 1484 when he returned to his native
Cortona, which remained from this time his home. In the Monastery of
Monte Oliveto Maggiore (Siena) he painted eight frescoes, forming part
of a vast series of the life of St Benedict. From the Monastery of
Monte Oliveto Maggiore went to Orvieto, where he painted a magnificent
series of six frescoes illustrating the end of the world and the Last
Judgement (1499–1504).
In the grand and dramatic scenes in Orvieto, inspired by the Divine Comedy
of Dante Alighieri, he displayed a mastery of the nude in a wide variety
of poses surpassed at that time only by Michelangelo. Vasari says that
“Luca's works were highly praised by Michelangelo” and several instances
of close similarity between the work of the two men can be cited; perhaps
the most interesting is the enigmatic seated nude youth in Signorelli's
Last Acts and Death of Moses in the Sistine Chapel, which is remarkably
close to some of the Ignudi painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of
the chapel a quarter of a century later.
By the end of his career, however, Luca had become a conservative artist,
working in provincial Cortona, where his large workshop produced numerous
altarpieces.
From October of 1916 through January of 1917, Rudolf Steiner gave a series
of nine lectures known as the Art Course. These lectures were given
the title of:
The History of Art.
Click here to discover what Steiner said about
Signorelli
in the first lecture, or in the entire
lecture series.