Chains of Influence III - Late Renaissance

Jacopo Pontormo was a student of André del Sartos, whose classical yet expressive work led to the style known as Mannerism. He worked at the time of some of the giants of the Renaissance, even studying under Da Vinci and befriending Michelangelo. The drawback is that he was often outshadowed by their talent and fame. At the same time, however, they themselves admired his work. According to artist and art historian Vasari, Michelangelo was so impressed with Pontormo's paintings that he remarked, This young man, judging from what may be seen here, will become such that if he lives and perseveres, he will exalt this art to the heavens. Jacopo Corrucci, otherwise known as Pontormo, was born in the town of Pontorme, southwest of Florence, from where he got his nickname. His father had actually been a painter, but while he was still young, both his father and then his mother died, leaving him orphaned at the age of ten. He was known to be a sad and lonely youth, not surprising when you consider what happened. But his life would take an upward turn when he began apprenticing as a painter, first with Da Vinci, and finally with André del Sarto, with a few others in between. It was del Sarto who would have the biggest influence on his work. Pontormo was working independently by the year 1515. Slowly his work would veer away from the peaceful, quiet influence of Da Vinci and del Sarto, and increase in the level of emotion depicted in his figures, such as we see in this early painting, Madonna and Child with Saints. Somewhere around this time, Pontormo took on a young apprentice, Agnolo Bronzino, and in 1522, as we saw with prior artists, when another outbreak of the plague hit Florence, he and Bronzino fled the city in order to avoid the contagion. For about three years, he painted at the local monastery, where he created a series of frescoes, and then returned to Florence. Upon his return, he likely noticed the growing unrest within the city, and by the end of the 1520s, as we saw in the life of del Sarto, Florence was dealing with a serious upheaval and eventually an outright siege against the city. Pontormo was right in the middle of it. But interestingly, at the time when it was probably at its peak, around 1527-30, he produced some of his most unique and beautiful work, which I find fascinating. As an artist, I suspect that painting became a kind of psychological relief for him. Sometimes artists paint reflections of the chaos, and other times they reflect the exact opposite, which I believe we see here. One unique and beautiful painting created just before the siege is the Deposition from the Cross, created for the Caponi Chapel in Florence. Brunelleschi was originally hired to design the structure, around the same time that he was working on the Duomo. And about a hundred years later, Pontormo was hired to paint the interior, working with his assistant Bronzino. It took them a little over two years to complete, and throughout that time the work was done in absolute secrecy. Not even the patron was allowed to see it. This painting was revolutionary in style and color. It's clearly a religious work, but there's no cross, a highly unusual fact considering the focus of the scene. And there was no background setting. The flow of the composition was also innovative, so graceful and fluid. When finally revealed to the public, people seemed to either love it or hate it. I'm guessing it must have been both refreshingly different, but also a bit unsettling, the public having not seen something like this. Another painting from that time was the Visitation, an altarpiece with a similar color scheme and overall feeling. This painting depicts joy at the coming of Christ, and is strikingly modern, with its bold creative use of color, intricate detail, and strange but pleasing figure shapes. Notice the sense of motion, the fluttering fabrics, and the positioning of the feet. This piece was literally completed during the siege. Both of these stunning paintings have a unique color scheme for the time. It's almost shocking when you examine other art from the era. Pontormo mixes white into many of his colors, creating tints that could be described as pastel, and causing the paints to be a little more opaque, less transparent. This is something we see a lot of with the Impressionists in the mid-1800s, as one of the methods they used to communicate light. Also there isn't much heavy shading, and where we do see shadow, it looks like a chromatic version of the main color. This gives the painting some of its very unique feel. After his success with these two commissions, his popularity and therefore his patronage increased, especially from the Medici, enabling him to establish his own painting workshop in his house in Florence. He had already taken in and been working with Bronzino prior to the opening of his workshop. Now he would be able to add a few more students. Pontormo painted two paintings that may give a subtle peek into his political beliefs. In the piece seen here, he depicts two of his friends holding a piece of paper. And on that paper, if we look closely, are the writings of Cicero, from his treatise on friendship. It's almost like a cry for the return of virtue and morality, in my opinion. And at the same time that he's accepting various commissions from the Medici, he paints this powerful painting of one of the fighters on the opposite side of the conflict. So perhaps his perspective on the power struggle was somewhere in the middle. Pontormo's repertoire didn't just include religious-themed paintings. He was also a skilled portrait painter, differentiating his work with figures that are slightly elongated, a little more emotional, and saturated with color, even sometimes using conflicting colors to enhance the feeling of expression. The result is that they may appear a little bit less natural, but perhaps more charged. In preparing for his portraits or religious paintings, Pontormo is known to create multiple preparatory studies in chalk, as well as a formal drawing. Even in his drawing, he exhibits amazing ingenuity. For example, look at this sketch from 1525, possibly a self-portrait. It is shockingly modern in its composition. Who at that time would think of drawing themselves pointing at the viewer? It's amazingly modern in thought, and very well executed. His last major project was a set of frescoes that he worked on for over a decade in complete isolation. The project was commissioned by Cosimo I de' Medici for the decoration of the choir section of the Church of San Lorenzo. Pontormo was about 52 when he began the project, and his health was beginning to deteriorate, prompting him to start a health diary, which he kept during the final three years of life, until he was too ill to maintain it. Pontormo died before completing the commission. His devoted assistant Bronzino returned to complete it, and is said to have painted an image of his mentor into the work as part of the group ascending into heaven. Unfortunately, the frescoes were destroyed in the 1700s during an attempted restoration of the deteriorating wall. Pontormo's diary gives the impression of his being lonely and slightly obsessive. He notes every ache, everything he eats, changes in the weather. He hid when someone came to visit, and even rejected his treasured assistant Bronzino, who was like a son to him. Clearly he was suffering, physically and mentally, and would pass away a few months later. He died in 1557 of some form of illness. He may have led a sad life near the end, but his early work opened the door to innovative ideas and revealed a faith and love for God. He pushed the limits of mannerism in Italy, developing a very unique style loosely based on what he observed in the work of Sarto, Michelangelo, and even Albrecht Dürer. Like his mentor del Sarto, Pontormo's top student would go on to expand on his stylistic advancement and would end up exceeding him in his fame. Bronzino would become one of the most important artists of the late 1500s. Agnolo Bronzino, also known as Agnolo di Cosimo, was born in the town of Monticelli outside of Florence in 1503. He was said to have a wonderful sense of humor, and in addition to painting, he was a gifted poet, showing another side to his personality. It's suggested that his poetry friends may have been the ones to give him his nickname Bronzino, possibly referring to his skin tone. Although he had some initial artistic training with other artists, he would spend the bulk of his apprenticeship with Pontormo and would advance to the level of assistant by the early 1520s. In the decade after, he would begin to separate from Pontormo professionally and gradually establish his own style. His paintings were a little more emotionally detached than Pontormo's. His figures were more elegant and slightly more realistic. He smoothed his contours to a greater degree and presented paintings with a little more finish and a sense of style. Where Pontormo tried to capture the essence and emotion of his sitter, Bronzino thought of the face as a kind of mask, aiming to convey what the sitter wanted the public to see. For two years, beginning in 1530, Bronzino left Florence to work in Pizarro, for the Duke of Urbino, where he assisted with the painting of some of the rooms in one of the Duke's villas. This was a great experience for the young artist and would expose him to other regional masters. Eventually, however, Pontormo asked him to return to Florence to help him with a few new commissions, to include some for the Medici. But in 1537, things would change. That year, Alessandro de' Medici was assassinated. In his place came Cosimo I, and Bronzino was taken on as court painter, where he would serve both Cosimo and his soon-to-be wife, Eleonora, painting multiple portraits of each for decades to come. Bronzino would serve as court painter for the rest of his career, but throughout that time he also accepted outside commissions, such as these two religious-themed paintings. The Holy Family is especially breathtaking, with a really unique composition. Bronzino was a prolific artist and wasn't afraid to make changes as he proceeded through a piece. In fact, he was known to bring a painting to near-finish and then make drastic alterations. One of Bronzino's most remarkable commissions was the decoration of Eleonora's private chapel. He began the design of a series of faith-oriented frescoes that ended up taking him, working on and off, 20 years to complete. The result is this gorgeous 14 by 14 foot space that's covered with color-saturated frescoes, most painted by Bronzino himself. The subject matter was designed specifically around Eleonora's interests, so it became a very personal devotional space, and you can sense that. Around the same time that he started painting Eleonora's chapel, he also completed a portrait of her that many consider his best work, the portrait titled Eleonora di Toledo with her son Giovanni de' Medici. In addition to the frescoes and various panel paintings, Bronzino worked on a series of tapestry designs, a project that would take eight years to complete. The tapestries were intended to cover the walls of a room in the Palazzo Vecchio, and Bronzino would design 16 of the 20 works based on the story of Joseph. Because he spent most of his career as the official court painter for Cosimo I, some of his works were sent internationally as diplomatic gifts, which helped increase his fame as a painter. In 1557, when his mentor Pontormo passed away, Bronzino would take time out from his other obligations in order to complete his friend's commission for the Choir of San Lorenzo. Bronzino had a large number of students and had established a workshop, but eventually he would help found a different kind of learning environment, art academies. Cosimo founded the first such academy in Europe, the Academy of Drawing and Design in Florence, and Bronzino became one of its initial members and then consul. His presence offered the school prestige, and he would be involved in both the school's administration and the schedule of training. Today it's an art museum that houses Michelangelo's monumental Statue of David. Bronzino never married, but he adopted his own family, in a sense, early on. In 1540 he befriended Tofano Alori, a sword maker like his own father had been. When Tofano died a year later, Bronzino took on the responsibility for the man's family, to include his house and debts. In exchange, he had a large home to live in, a surrogate family, and enough space to begin training others, to include young Alessandro Alori, whom he would mentor as well as consider an adopted son. Bronzino died in 1572 at the age of 69, leaving his mark on Florentine painting. Some consider him among the greatest Italian artists in history, and he's said to bridge the gap into the formal decorative elegance of the Baroque period. After Bronzino died, his adopted family designed a monumental tomb, and Alessandro, who would himself go on to be a well-known artist, would attach the name Bronzino to his own, as a way to honor him. Alessandro Alori, foster son of Agnolo Bronzino. We just looked over two centuries of masters who taught future masters, who then taught yet another generation of masters. I call it a chain of influence because you can follow this interconnection like a chain from Brunelleschi in the beginning of the 1400s, all the way through Bronzino in the mid to late 1500s. With each link, we see a master's influence on the student, until that student branches out and works on their own, developing their own unique artistic voice. And then the process repeats, until 200 years have passed, and the art has transformed. This is the development of art style itself.