Story Of The Sacrifice Analysis

To Arte di Calimala, the finest guild in Florence, I understand that you have a difficult decision on your hands, picking which bronze panel depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac should be placed on the beautiful bronze doors of the Baptistery of Florence I have a proposal on which artist, Brunelleschi or Ghiberti, I think should be chosen; I heavily favor Filippo Brunelleschi’s master piece. The story of the Sacrifice of Isaac is about a man named Abraham. This man and his wife had a child at a very old age, and their son, Isaac, was very precious to them. Now, in the story Abraham is told by God that he must sacrifice is son. Abraham takes his son to be sacrificed but at the last minute was stopped by a holy being telling him not to sacrifice
However, I strongly think that Brunelleschi’s panel captures the whole story and shows the emotion that Abraham might have actually felt. “Brunelleschi’s work is by far the more dramatic and disturbing, all angles and movement and raw emotion (Walker 22).” In Brunelleschi’s you see this scared man who looks ridged and scared. You see Abraham holding his son, Isaac, by the neck. As he does this you can see the emotion of fear in his child’s eyes and you can see the sadness in Abraham’s. Abraham isn’t even looking at his child; he is looking straight into the angel’s face. As the angel grabs his hand you can almost feel the relief in Abraham’s face. You can see the that Abraham wants to obey God’s wishes but he loves his son. This panel you can almost feel how a real person would act in a situation like
It even shows the ram that is mentioned in the story as a big part of the piece. That ram is a huge symbol and part of the story. In Ghiberti’s piece the ram is hidden inside the rocks which makes its kind of hard to see what’s really going on. With the mountain of rocks that he added beside Abraham washes out what is really going on in that corner of the piece. I think that him adding those rocks was a huge design flaw is trying focus on the story. In this panel you really only see that Abraham is about to kill his son. The angel isn’t even near them, the angel is kind of off in the distance and you don’t understand why he’s there. Unlike in Brunelleschi’s, the angel is grabbing Abraham’s hand which indicates to the seer that he is stopping him from doing what he’s about to do. Brunelleschi’s panel is a clear winner because he did a beautiful job depicting the story. He shows us the emotion we want in a story. This panel gives us plenty to look at and pleases the eye. Picking this panel would be the smart choice if you want to truly tell the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac to anyone who looks upon these beautiful, giant bronze