Welcome to Verrocchio's Workshop, here in Firenze. I know this place very good, although to remember I have to go back nearly five and a half centuries, when I worked with Andrea (Verrocchio) at this painting:
I wasn't 25 years old, when I finished the angel on the left.
I would like to invite you to admire this, and of course many other paintings in the "Galleria degli Uffizi", in Firenze (and, until there, in this gallery).
...Let me remember who else helped us with this work... yes, sure, Sandro (Botticelli) was with us!
They say Andrea didn't touch a brush after seeing my angel finished. ...I don't believe it's completely true.
Some of the artists he taught in his workshop have had a reputation even greater than his. ...I suppose I'm one of them... . And some of them have subsequently opened their own workshops, like Perugino and Ghirlandaio, where later great artists like Raffaello and Michelangelo have learned their art.
The inspiration and education I had in Andrea's workshop has helped me a lot to become what I have been. Even if we are still present, our lives are in a distant past. I don't know in which measure the concept of beauty has changed in the meantime; surely it has been enriched with new facets, perhaps it has become even more individual.
But what really matters is one thing: that beauty has become a heritage accessible to everybody!
Unfortunately, you who are reading and I who am writing are almost exactly 500 years away, and I cannot be for you what Verrocchio has been for me. Not our voices, not our brushes, not our opinions may inspire you. Nevertheless, i decided to reopen the workshop after such a long time, so that our works may speak for us. As enigmatic as some may be... still so many centuries away and perhaps forever. But an important part of the inspiration also comes from this!
PS: can someone explain me what "followers" and "likes" are? Why have I never had any?
Leonardo da Vinci, Amboise
(by: Storyexpe)
