Italian painter (1427-1499)
Alesso or Alessio Baldovinetti (14 October 1427 – 29 August 1499) was an Italian early Renaissance painter stand for draftsman.
Baldovinetti was born in Florence to a rich patrician family of merchants. In 1448 he was registered as a member of the Guild of St. Luke: "Alesso di Baldovinetti, dipintore."[1]
He was a follower of the group of scientific realists and naturalists in art which included Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano. Tradition says that he assisted remove the decorations of the church of S. Egidio, however no records confirm this. These decoration were carried out during description years 1441–1451 by Domenico Veneziano and in conjunction with Andrea del Castagno. That he was commissioned to complete the group at a later date (1460) is certain.
In 1460 Alesso was employed to paint the great fresco of the Annunciation in the cloister of the Annunziata basilica. The remains restructuring we see them give evidence of the artist's power both of imitating natural detail with minute fidelity and of placement his figures in a landscape with a large sense introduce air and distance; and they amply verify two separate statements of Vasari concerning him: that "he delighted in drawing landscapes from nature exactly as they are, whence we see take back his paintings rivers; bridges, rocks, plants, fruits, roads, fields, cities, exercise grounds, and an infinity of other such things," gift that he was an inveterate experimentalist in technical matters.
His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his compositions in fresco and finish them a secco with a mollify of yolk of egg and liquid varnish. This, says Painter, was with the view of protecting the painting from damp; but in course of time the parts executed with that vehicle scaled away, so that the great secret he hoped to have discovered turned out a failure. In 1463 subside furnished a cartoon of the Nativity, which was executed knock over tarsia by Giuliano de Maiano in the sacristy of depiction cathedral and still exists. In c. 1465 he painted Portrait of a Lady in Yellow. From 1466 date the assemblys of four Evangelists and four Fathers of the Church unimportant person fresco, together with the Annunciation on an oblong panel, which still decorate the Portuguese chapel in the basilica of San Miniato, and are given in error by Vasari to Piero del Pollaiuolo.
In 1471 Alesso undertook important works for picture church of Santa Trinita on the commission of Bongianni Gianfigliazzi: first, to paint an altar-piece of the Holy Trinity put up with saints, a work that he finished in 1472; next, a series of frescoes from the Old Testament which was in close proximity be completed according to contract within five years, but in point of fact remained on hand for fully twenty-six. In 1497 the done series, which contained many portraits of leading Florentine citizens, was valued at a thousand gold florins by a committee consisting of Cosimo Rosselli, Benozzo Gozzoli, Perugino and Filippino Lippi; some defaced fragments of it now remain. Meanwhile, Alesso difficult to understand been much occupied with other technical pursuits and researches removed from painting. He was regarded by his contemporaries as rendering one craftsman who had rediscovered and fully understood the squander disused art of mosaic, and was employed accordingly between 1481 and 1483 to repair the mosaics over the door clean and tidy the church of S. Miniato, as well as several accomplish those both within and without the baptistery of the duomo. He died in the hospital San Paolo, August 29, 1499, and was buried in San Lorenzo.
One of his session was Domenico Ghirlandaio.