Relationship Between Brunelleschi And Ghiberti

I find it surprising that the in artistic culture of Early Renaissance Florence, the artist seems to seek prestige. Most of the paintings that are reviewed in class had a religious function or the symbolism functioned in a religious context. Even the bronze sculptures by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti still functioned in a religious context; the objects were telling the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac and serving as decoration for the Baptistery in Florence.
Art functioned in a society where religion was one of the highest authorities. With religion comes a reverence for a divine; while these images are not divine the narrative they tell is. I thought that because of the religious air that the subjects of art from this era usually contained, the artist would diminish his role and importance in favour of highlighting the divine story the art told- instead the artist self aggrandizes.
As these images were made for a contest, a matter of personal
Brunelleschi elevated himself above the divine. One may assume the divine was placed above the artist but the culture of Florence at the time placed the artist above the divine.
Even the works themselves show the relationship between the religious and earthly. The composition of a work shows the viewer what he or she should focus on. Ghiberti and Brunelleschi depict the value of the heavenly versus the earthy through their composition. Ghiberti’s image has excellent composition. The cliff leads the viewer's eye through the page. The cliff also leads the eye to Abraham's gesture through the gesture of Isaac. Brunelleschi’s image also has a flow, from the gesture of the angel to Abraham to the figure on the bottom right corner. Ghiberti highlighted the physical and earthly act of sacrifice while Brunelleschi highlighted the divine and holy act of