Ghirlandaio (8) 도메니코 기를란다이오
Domenico Ghirlandaio 1449 – 1494
The Birth of John the Baptist
fresco (215 × 450 cm) — 1486-1490
This work is linked to Luke 1:57
Luke 1 - New Testament
The Gospel According to Saint Luke 1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, 2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and mi
www.artbible.info
At first sight this might be an everyday scene. A child is born, the mother is resting on the bed, a maid serves her a drink, two young women care for the child, and some neighbours pay a visit.
But the situation is more complex. Most striking is the high age of the mother. She is Elisabeth, the wife of the also aged priest Zacharias. Also, the visitors are not Elisabeth's contemporaries but 15th century members of the Florentine Tornabuoni family. They bring wine and fruit, which probably was not common in ancient Israel.
The fresco has a strong domestic atmosphere, emphasized by a number of still-life details: the fruit basket, the brass bowl on the left, and the pomegranates and vase above the bed. Ghirlandaio may have been influenced by Flemish painters, who often used such details.
This fresco is part of the series Ghirlandaio made in the Tornabuoni family chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. All works in this series are about the life of John the Baptist.