Artists
In Florence a separate Guild of Saint Luke for artists did not exist. Painters belonged to the guild of the Doctors and Apothecaries ("Arte dei Medici e Speziali") as they bought their pigments from the apothecaries, while sculptors were members of the Masters of Stone and Wood ("Maestri di Pietri e Legname), or the metalworkers if working in that medium. They were also frequently members in the confraternity of St. Luke (Compagnia di San Luca)—which had been founded as early as 1349—although it was a separate entity from the guild system. In the sixteenth century, the Compagnia di San Luca began to meet at SS. Annunziata, and sculptors, who had previously been members of a confraternity dedicated to St. Paul (Compagnia di San Paolo), also joined. This form of the compagnia developed into the Florentine Accademia e Compagnia delle arti del Disegno in 1563, which was then formally incorporated into the city's guild system in 1572.
The guilds were important patrons of the arts. The statues of the Orsanmichele were a lavish joint, and highly competitive, effort, the Calimala were responsible for the Baptistry and paid for Ghiberti's famous doors, while the Lana were responsible for the cathedral itself, and paid for the cupola, the altar frontal and other works, and the Seta built and ran the Ospedale degli Innocenti.
Read more about this topic: Guilds Of Florence
Famous quotes containing the word artists:
“Decade after decade, artists came to paint the light of Provincetown, and comparisons were made to the lagoons of Venice and the marshes of Holland, but then the summer ended and most of the painters left, and the long dingy undergarment of the gray New England winter, gray as the spirit of my mood, came down to visit.”
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—Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990)
“Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A really great poet is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)