Background
Andrea del Castagno was born in 1419 in Castagno, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. During the war between Florence and Milan, he lived in Corella, returning to his home after its end.
Andrea del Castagno was born in 1419 in Castagno, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. During the war between Florence and Milan, he lived in Corella, returning to his home after its end.
Little is known about his formation, though it has been hypothised that he apprenticed under Fra Filippo Lippi and Paolo Uccello.
Little is known of Castagno's early life, and it is also difficult to ascertain the stages of his artistic development owing to the loss of many of his paintings. As a youth, he was precocious. He executed a mural of Cosimo de' Medici's adversaries at the Palazzo del Podestà in Florence, earning him the byname Andreino degli Impiccati ("Little Andrea of the Hanged Men"). In Vasari’s “The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects”, Castagno was discovered drawing in the countryside of the Mugello, by the Florentine nobleman, Bernardetto de’Medici, who brought Castagno to Florence to become a painter.
In 1442 he was in Venice, where with Francesco da Faenza he painted the signed and dated frescoes on the vault of the San Tarasio chapel in the church of San Zaccaria. The stylistically uniform decoration of the chapel, however, leads one to conclude that Francesco's intervention must have been marginal. The Venice murals, the earliest surviving dated work by Andrea, demonstrate his interest in using perspective foreshortening to impart monumentality and physical density to his athletic figures. The murals also show the influence of Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi, and above all, Donatello on the young artist.
His first notable works were a “Last Supper” and three scenes from the “Passion of Christ”, all for the former Convent of Sant'Apollonia in Florence, now known as the Cenacolo di Sant'Apollonia and also as the Castagno Museum.
These monumental frescoes, revealing the influence of Masaccio's pictorial illusionism and Castagno's own use of scientific perspective, received wide acclaim. In his altarpiece painting of the “Assumption of the Virgin” for San Miniato fra le Torri in Florence, Castagno's style more closely resembled International Gothic. In 1451 Castagno continued the frescoes at San Egidio begun earlier by Domenico Veneziano. The light tones that Castagno adopted for his outstanding St Julian show Veneziano's influence.
In a work for a loggia of the Villa Carducci Pandalfini at Legnaia, Castagno broke with earlier styles and painted a larger-than-life-size series of “Famous Men and Women”, within a painted frame. In this work, Castagno displayed more than mere craftsmanship; he portrayed movement of body and facial expression, creating dramatic tension. Castagno set the figures in painted architectural niches, thus giving the impression that they are actual sculptural forms. He achieved similar force in his “Youthful David”, painted on a shield.
In 1456 Andrea painted the fresco in Santa Maria del Fiore of the equestrian monument to Niccolò da Tolentino, and in 1457 the “Last Supper” in the refectory of Santa Maria Nuova. Andrea's very intense activity was interrupted by his sudden death, probably from the plague, in 1457.
Portraits of two members of Medici family
The Last Supper
The Cuman Sibyl
God the Father
Crucifixion
St. Mark
Giovanni Boccaccio
Equestrian monument to Niccolo da Tolentino
Queen Tomyris
Queen Esther
Our Lady of the Assumption with Saints Miniato and Julian
Niccolò Acciaioli
Crucifixion
Martyrdom of St. Thomas
Madonna and Child
Stories of Christ's Passion
David with the Head of Goliath
Deposition of Christ
Farinata degli Uberti
Eve
Stories of Christ's Passion
Portrait of a Gentleman
St. Julian and the Redeemer
Crucifixion and Saints
Petrarch
Stories of Christ's Passion
Resurrection
Stories of Christ's Passion
Mary seated under the Cross
Dante Alighieri
St. Jerome
St. John the Evangelist
Madonna and Child with Saints
Stories of Christ's Passion
Pietà
Dormition of the Virgin
Holy Trinity with St. Jerome
Lying Saint
St. John the Baptist
Stories of Christ's Passion
On May 30, 1445 he became a member of the Guild of the Medicians.