Artists
In the second half of the quattrocento artists, destined to noticeably change the figurative culture through the more “modern” forms of the Renaissance, emerge in Siena: in Sculpture Donatello’s presence is very important; he is the artist who clearly caused the emergence of individual masters such as Vecchietta, Francesco di Giorgio, Giovanni di Stefano, Giacomo Cozzarelli.These artists drew from the Florentine master the ability of shaping the matter with subtle plastic vibrations and at the same time gave to the represented figures the intensity of emotions rendered with dramatic participation. In Painting, thanks to the works of Vecchietta, Matteo di Giovanni and above all Francesco di Giorgio and his assistants Neroccio and Pietro Orioli, we see a transition from the abstract values of formal elegance to the more conscious search for spatial and chromatic standards.
The figures are coherently placed within the settings with spatial accuracy and rigorous perspective. Beccafumi’s initial acceptance of Michelangelo’s classicism turned itself, already by the 1520s, into a more visionary and eccentric way of painting which allowed the artist to become one of the main figures of the Italian mannerism.
