Art of the renaissance - Essay Example

I am trying to persuade one of my patrons to support these young men and so it was a fortunate coincidence that allowed me to come and view your works at the same time. I very much enjoyed my visit to that quaint little corner of the city behind the Cathedral of San Marco. It was most interesting to see the new works that Fra Angelico is doing for the monks there and I do believe that they will soon be finished. I don’t expect you will be permitted to view them, my dear, because the monks will hardly be prepared to open their doors to even one so beautiful as you, on the grounds that you are a women and hence forbidden to enter their hallowed rooms.

I do assure you, however, that Fra Angelico’s frescoes are magnificent and truly a masterpiece worthy of this fine city of ours. I happened to meet him when I was coming out of the tavern, and he says that there has never been a more glorious time or place for art than our beloved Florence at the present time. When I told him that I was coming to see your paintings, he was most intrigued and informed me that he had indeed spied one or two young women carrying easel and paints and setting out their wares for sale at the marketplace alongside the boys.

My how times have changed since my youth! I always have fond memories of your innocence and beauty since the days when I used to visit your father so many years ago. Your mama told me that one day you would be married to young Giovanni and live in that beautiful house by the lagoon. It is so very pleasing to see you all grown up and experimenting with art in your spare time now that you have settled down to married life. I expect that you have very little time for painting now, what with all your wifely duties, and so it is all the more fitting that you should have a chance to hang your paintings in public just for once before you have a family.

I must say that I found your paintings delightful in their naive and honest depiction of womanly habits. Your appreciation of the intricacies of female dress gave me a glimpse of the lady’s dressing room, and I am sure no man could have captured the mood of these scenes quite as well as you have managed it. Of course, there are some technical points that you have yet to learn, but I feel that I can excuse some such faults in your composition because you have not had the benefit of formal tuition in the way that my young Florentine apprentices have had.

They will one day astonish us all with their brilliance, because they can match the power of the imagination with the skill acquired through long training at the feet of master artists. But you, my dear, have studied your subject well, and your pictures will no doubt be very useful as gifts to your adoring friends and family who will adorn the walls of their private spaces with your little oeuvres. I was particularly impressed with your copies of the work of Michelangelo. I expect that he will one day be revered across the whole of Europe, because he captures the spirit of our age so perfectly.

You would do well to copy his work more in the future, if you have time to continue your hobby, because he will teach you so many wonderful things about space, and proportion and texture – things that you could have learned about if you had been a man. As it