{"id":13897,"date":"2019-03-11T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arttrav.com\/?p=13897"},"modified":"2019-08-26T08:05:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T06:05:11","slug":"verrocchio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arttrav.com\/florence\/verrocchio\/","title":{"rendered":"Verrocchio, Master of Leonardo Exhibition Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of the celebrations for the 500th<\/sup> anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci<\/strong>\u2019s death, the first comprehensive retrospective devoted to his teacher, Andrea del Verrocchio<\/strong> (1435\u20101488), is now open at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence<\/strong>, with a section at the Bargello Museum<\/strong>, and will travel (in part) to Washington\u2019s National Gallery in the Fall of 2019. 120 works by Verrocchio, Leonardo<\/strong>, and their contemporaries illustrate the artistic output of Florence from 1460 to 1490 during the era of Lorenzo the Magnificent.<\/p>\n

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A room dedicated to Verrocchio as painter and teacher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Great teachers are always remembered by their students, but aren\u2019t always the best at their chosen profession. Think about it: maybe you\u2019ve had a brilliant high school English teacher who really taught you how to structure an essay but never published any of her own, or a tennis instructor who finally explained the backhand to you, but didn\u2019t rank top in his country\u2019s competitions. Verrocchio,\u00a0<\/strong>the polymath sculptor, painter, goldsmith and even architect, is that artist who was pretty good all round and taught<\/strong> a whole lot of great artists, including Leonardo, but perhaps spread himself too thin to garner critical fame. Trained as a goldsmith, he learned sculpture from Desiderio da Settignano and Donatello. He came to painting late, in the 1470s (he was already in his mid 30s) and Perugino and Ghirlandaio learned from him. The pupils of his pupils include no less than Raphael and Michelangelo. From a technical point of view, he must have been impeccable. In this show we see many works by members of Verrocchio\u2019s large workshop and it often hard to tell what was his, contributing \u201cto the negative criticism that blighted Verrocchio\u2019s reputation.\u201d The curators suggest that with the pupil, Leonardo, outshining the teacher, nobody has taken the time to assemble a retrospective show about Verrocchio… until now. The result? A good show that indeed sheds light on an artist that has always been on our radar, but never really under the microscope.<\/p>\n

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Handy diagram of Verrocchio, his master and his students | via Palazzo Strozzi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This exhibit is organized into eleven parts, nine of which are at Palazzo Strozzi, while two sections continue at the Bargello with works that could not be moved. The Bargello has generously loaned some of its most important works (Verrocchio\u2019s David<\/em> and the Lady with Flowers<\/em> are arguably amongst the top pieces here), and other loans come from major institutions around the world. In the video below, I take you on a spontaneous walkthrough of the show that I created for Instagram IGTV and stories; the casual vertical format video gives you a quick 3-minute tour before reading on below. Of course, this isn\u2019t a masterpiece of videography nor is it intended to let you see the works in high resolution \u2013 I hope you\u2019ll make it to see the works in person, but if you can\u2019t, I hope you can live vicariously through my reportage! [PS follow @arttrav on Instagram<\/a> for instant reports from my life and more videos like this!]\n