The main exhibition entrance in the BYU Museum of Art is overflowing with people who have come to hear a lecture with Dr. Steven Bule on the history, impact, and artistry of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise as they stare at the 18 foot tall replica the museum has recently acquired.
Dr. Steven Bule is a professor at Utah Valley University and has a B.A. in Art History and Italian from BYU and a PhD from Ohio University in Art History. Bule came as a guest of BYU to speak about the recently acquired replica of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise. Ghiberti created these massive doors for the East side of the Baptistry of St. John’s in Florence after he won a competition and successfully created similar doors on the North side of the same baptistry. Around 50 people attended this event, consisting of individuals of all ages including mothers with young children to elderly art enthusiasts. The purpose of this event was to bring awareness and appreciation for Ghiberti’s masterpiece and an understanding of the role that this piece played in the interpretation of art for centuries to come.
Michelangelo said that the doors were so beautiful that they could be the “gates of paradise” referring to the entrance into heaven. This name stuck and that is what these doors have been called ever since.
With less than a dozen replicas of these gates across the world, it was incredible that BYU was able to acquire and restore the panels with this process beginning 1984 at BYU Hawaii and then transitioning in 2016 to BYU Provo.
In the Medieval Age and the early Renaissance, the majority of artists did not sign their work. As a main focus of his lecture, Bule pointed out that Ghiberti was an exception to this, adding his artist’s signature right in the middle of the doors, “[Opus] Laurentii Cionis de Ghibertis mira[bile] arte fabricatum” meaning “This work was created by the admirable art of Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti”
Over the years Bule has come to see Ghiberti’s inscription as “an invitation not only to wonder at his art, but an invitation to celebrate the art of his generation.”
Bule’s insights were especially engaging to the students of John Adams College (JAC) as his talk focused on the process of restoring the replica and the detail oriented craftsmanship that makes Ghiberti’s doors such a masterpiece. Students at JAC have recently been studying the impact of Renaissance artists and how the transition from the practice of not signing a work of art to this eventually becoming the norm was a key indicator in the change from the Medieval period to the Renaissance age of enlightenment and discovery.
Gracie is a freshman at John Adams College. She loves flowers, libraries, dark chocolate, experiencing new cultures, and thinking deeply.
