Gentile da Fabriano

Pseudo-Arabic script in the Virgin Mary's halo
(the script is further divided by rosettes like those on Mamluk dishes,executed in pastiglia)
detail of Adoration of the Magi
by Gentile da Fabriano (c. 1370 – 1427)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gentile_da_Fabriano_015.jpg)
no copyright infringement intended

Not only was Gentile da Fabriano Italy's outstanding representative of the International Gothic style (a phase of Gothic art which developed in Burgundy, Bohemia, France and northern Italy in the late 14th century and early 15th century), he also contributed to the advanced art that foreshadowed the birth of the Renaissance. Unfortunately, most of Gentile's influential fresco paintings have been destroyed. Gentile worked in Venice, Florence, Siena, Orvieto, and Rome... Gentile's most famous surviving works were made during a short but influential stay in Florence in the 1420s, where he probably encountered the austere realism of his younger contemporary Masaccio.

(http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=675)

Gentile made other contributions to Renaissance art: abandoning abstract backgrounds for real skies, introducing a light source into the picture, depicting cast shadows, and making the earliest known drawings after the antique.

(http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=675)

His lyrical atmosphere, elegant refinement, and attention to detail in rendering landscapes, animals, and costume typify the International Gothic style, originally developed in French and Burgundian courts and used especially in illuminated manuscripts.

(http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=675)

• Playing the Organ

(Old Masters)