Research Entry 6:The Portrait of Cosimo I as Orpheus

 

Bronzino, Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici as Orpheus, Estimated Date 1537-39. 

The  portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici are a subject of particular interest. Bronzino’s portrait of Cosimo as Orpheus was likely not meant for public display- the classical with was imagery for the imperial court. It’s Ironic that Alessandro de’ Medici the sexual extravagant, was depicted by Pontormo as a disciplined draftsman, while Cosimo- the disciplined statesmen was captured by Bronzino as a sexually potent demigod- Hercules. There are several suggestions as to why Bronzino decided to paint Cosimo the way he did. Humor, Artistic experimentation, and there are also suggestions that Cosimo sought to teach a lesson to the King about the dangers of sex and the importance of procreation (Strehlke, 29).

 Detail of Above Image

Bronzino, like Cosimo covered an array of styles that carried into several interlocking social worlds. Each artist was able to decide how to portray their artistic portrayals with a sense of “dissimulation” (Strehlke, 30). Pontormo on the other hand, did not belong to the academy and never abandoned the inspiration for his earlier work; he showed no interest in subscribing to the manner of transforming heroic figures into demigods through forms of ancient scripture. Bronzino proved himself by meeting the needs of the new regime. Bronzino and Pontormo’s complex relationship as friend, brother, father and master meant that Bronzino would not distance himself too far, dispite their artistic differences. Bronzino wrote many poems, especially to honor the deaths of friends- at Pontormo’s passing, he wrote more than 14 (Strehlke, 30).

Research Entry 5: The Male Portrait.

The ages in Pontormo and Bronzino’s portraits are difficult to identify. In 1531, Bronzino painted a portrait of 18- year old Guidobaldo della Rovre as a mature man with armor, a thick beard and large codpiece- a sign of military and sexual potency (Strehlke24). Pontormo’s Francesco Guardi depicts a 16- year old, Beardless and obviously too young to fight as he guards the bastions of Florence. The author of the book, (Strehlke) suggests that these are signs of abstraction- that they are figures of youth, idealized and difficult to capture in the real world. In 1532 Bronzino began working on a collection of paintings of young men. The settings for them all literary in which painting was speaking silent poetry.

 

Bronzino, Guidobaldo della Rovre, 1531-32. 

 

 

Pontormo, Portrait of a Halberdier (Francesco Guardi), 1528-30. 

 

Pontormo’s portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici, 1534, captures a young man in the middle of a drawing- and in profile- as most female portraits are done. Alessandro would later gift it the painting to his mistress. Like the portrait of The Two Men, the depiction of Alessandro is structured around the viewer (Strehlke, 19). Pontormo also paid special attention to how Alessandro’s hands were positioned. The uncomfortable work captured the chaotic backdrop of Alessandro’s life that he had witnessed first hand- a man noble in spirit, but not as a man. Alessandro was later murdered by his cousin Lorenzino because he felt he was a tyrant who, “had taken away every civilia, vestige and name of the republic.” (Strehlke, 19).

Pontormo, Alessandro de' Medici, 1534.

Pontormo's Young Man with a Book, is dressed all in black surrounded by contemporary wooden furniture. The private architectural setting speaks to Florentines who seek style and a rime of living in disenfranchisement. “They sought to define what it is to be Florentine, by appealing to both a literary tradition based on the authority of Petrach and Dante and a parallel artistic tradition based on the authority of Michelangelo.” (Strehlke, 25). During the rule of Alessandro, there is a record- through poetry- of such Florentine men missing.

 

Pontormo, Portrait of a Young Man (with a book), 1535-40.

 1527 was marked by the sack of Rome and the summer of the plague. Several hundred Florentines died each day and by the end of the following summer, 30,000 Florentine lives had been claimed (Strehlke, 26).

Varchi’s poems evoke a political absence of the time. Bronzino’s, Lorenzio Lenzi celebrates the power of painting to render a presence (Strehlke, 27). At the same time, accompanied by contemporary sonnets, It suggests a lyric poetry that laments absence- creating a double negative. This idea goes way beyond the humanist model for portraiture. The language of art was universal; at this time so many had died or been cast out for political reasons, painting and sonnets was a way to bring the Tuscan community back together (Strehlke, 27).

 

Bronzino, Portrait of Lorenzio Lenzi, 1528.

Duke Alessandro was proceeded by Casimo I, who was 17 at the time. He was praised for being peaceful and loved by the people. He also showed immense skill at asserting continual commercial growth in Florence (Strehlke, 27).

Reaserch Entry 4: On Friendship

Pontormo, Portrait of Two Friends, 1524

 
Pontormo’s, Two Men with a passage from Cicero’s “On Friendship,” is closer in spirit to the paintings of the North, than it is to the contemporary court paintings in Europe. The man on the left holds a piece of paper with a passage in which Cicero talks of friendship as being important to life “because it embraces countless ends, is never untimely and is never in the way.” (Strehlke, 14). Vasari recognized this as being a portrait of two of Pontormo’s close friends- but being ever the Medici Courtier- he denied knowing the name of either man, saying, “it is enough that these portraits are by the hand of Pontormo.” (Strehlke, 17). Vasari also noticed the change in style in Pontormo’s paintings- but simply wrote about them as being stylistic changes (Again- he big his tongue for the Medici) (Strehlke, 12).

“Pontormo implies that these few lines from Cicero, which epitomize the values of true friendship- faithfulness, honor, honesty, love and indeed every republican virtue-- have been sent like a letter through without address or signature. The parallel between letters and portraits was particularly favored by humanists in discussions of the relative merits of the two forms of self representation between friends.” (Strehlke, 18).
Essential to the reform of Italy was the art of Literacy. By the end of the 15^th century, young Florentine men- nearly 30% were able to read and write and attended some sort of school (Strehlke, 15). Bronzino and Pontormo were both literate and shared an engagement in the reading writing and discussion of vernacular texts (Strehlke, 14). Their engagement in the literary art linked them to their contemporary, Michelangelo. A remarkable number of portraits are accompanied by texts which discuss clear reasons on how their portraits should be read (Strehlke, 14).

The role of poetry was enormous to Pontormo and Bronzino. As a writers methods evolve- so does a painters

Research Project Entry 3: The Beginings of Change

Italy was undergoing a transformation of language- in its style and imitation. There was a sizely debate on the powers of having a universal language- to be understood in value and usage. This was a particularly passionate subject for painters. They took great interest in this as the debate paralleled with the visual language in art. Language allowed artists to engage with a broader educated society (Strehlke, 9).



 When the Medici made their first return in 1512 the debate took an even greater significance. Pontormo’s, Vertumnus and Pomona, commissioned by Leo X, in a way help prepare the viewer to understand his later portraits and the relationship of natural appearance to dissimulation and the “assumption of style that is artfully artless.” (Strehlke, 9).



 Visari writes that Pontormo “overworked his brain in inventing figures for his fresco, Vertumnus and Pomona, but that labor is invisible to the viewer.” (Strehlke, 9). The complex array of peasant characters are nude or heavily draped in heavy folds of cloth. The overall arrangement of characters is calculated arrangement of contrapposto and a interplay in exploration of the courtly themes- ease and judgment; a balance of Machiavellian ethics and courtly mannerism. Each character relies on one another for complete understanding. The gaze of the seated figures look after us, but it is more that a simple outward stare. This is simply a start to such a complex idea in which a sense of communication is established. This is the beginning of a complex network of subjective associations that link the observer to the drawing. In the context of language, it is also important to take note that Pontormo avoided stylistic flattery by avoiding a direct reference- historical or contemporary (Strehlke, 9, 10).

Pontormo, Vertumnus and Pomona, 1521

 

 

Detail of above Image

The Supper of Emmaus, 1525, was painted during Pontormo’s retreat to the Certosa. At this time the Plague had come to Florence and Pontormo was given the opportunity to escape the city to paint frescoes in the new Cloister. He took Bronzino with him (Strehlke, 10). In the Supper of Emmaus, he created a life size depiction of Christ with two apostles and several brothers that Vasari knew- who he describes with admiration, “they could not be more alive, or more alert.” (Strehlke, 10). The inclusion of portraits in religious narratives had a long tradition in Florence. Typically these inclusions are difficult to decipher. In Pontormo’s painting however, the “mystical truth of Christ takes place eternally in the human presence”. The idea that human and divine are incarnate in a historical present poses the deepest questions about the status of portraiture for Pontormo in the 1520’s. At this time Pontormo took great interest in the study of Durer’s prints- especially the Large Passion and Small Passion Series. The floppy hat, rough stools and simplified table setting are evidence that Pontomo took direct reference from him (most specifically the Small Passions series).- a Northern style that took less of Classical approach that was flourishing in Italy (Strehlke, 10, 11).

 

 

Pontormo, The Supper of Emmaus, 1525.

 

Detail of above Image

  

 Pontormo began to rely in Durer and his compositional sketches for bases of his paintings. It is difficult for historians to decipher which drawings he did from life and which he did from recreations of Durer’s prints.

 

 

Durer, Examples from the Small Passions Series, Woodcuts, 1511.

 

Mannerism

Mannerism began to make its first appearance in Cinquecento paintings as a counter to the High Renaissance. According to Bellori, there was a decline, “artists, abandoning the study of nature, corrupted art with la maniera… on idea based on practice and not on the imitation of nature.” (22). The focus of nature slowly began to be replaced by a tendency to generalize and idealize (27).



In the 19^th century mannerism was known as a decline that began in Rome in approx. 1530. This decline was characterized by “unjustified habitual peculiarities, remote from nature”. This decline was considered inevitable and correlated with the status change in artists in Italy in which they transformed from journeymen to courtesans (24). The new aesthetic was a response and possibly even a rebellion to the high Renaissance.



Art in Italy was constantly in a transition, and there is no official distinction between the first Florentine generations that began experimenting in the mannerist styles (285). Vasari constructed a list of the attributes missing from paintings before 1500 and the contributions made to the trade during the 16^th century. He viewed art in the mid century as if it were at a peak, an “ultimate limit“. The main contribution he mentioned was what he called “a new unified sweetness in color.” (38). Another example of a change in the structure of art was figures in rest and motion - the principles of positioning figures. Armenini described it as, “whatever surface the flat light of maniera touches, this surface, flat or not, tends to look flat until one pauses to analyze it.” (39). Painters like Bronzino experimented greatly with three dimensional posing suggesting a link between flatness and the need of freedom and flexibility (41).



In the years that followed the religious and political turmoil in Italy, mannerism became a complex means of illustrating spiritual urgencies and repression. Artists responded sophistically by continually changing their stylistic renderings. Even the art of Mannerism has evolved and changed- even in views of the contemporary (286).



The concept of mannerism- and parts of the readings were difficult to grasp at first. At the end of the day, mannerism was a response to the Renaissance and it gained influence from other artists and a changing social status for artists. All great things must come to and end. The Renaissance, to many, was viewed as an apex for Italian art. The interdiction of change was received with mixed reviews- and the change that preceded the Renaissance was Mannerism. Also- it is important to note that Mannerism is still alive today, though it has transformed from its original forms. Even the second generation of mannerism painters in the mid 1500’s evolved from the first masters in the genre. I guess the point here being that it is the nature of art to continue to transform and it will continue to do so as it has in the past; and that each transformation will be met with an array of acceptance and opposition- which will inevitably fuel the next wave.


I apologize for their not being any photos. Is anyone else having troubles with them not loading to Blogger?

The Last Judgement

“Michelangelo followed the tradition of placing Christ at the center surrounded by the elect… Striding forward, he raises his arm and looks without emotion toward the damned; his gesture is not simply one of condemnation but of command… Rotating around the Apollonian Chris in his sun like radiance, the composition moves like the planets around the sun in the Copernican cosmology” (133, 134).  

 

In 1534 Michelangelo returned to Rome. It took him nearly five years from this time to complete the last judgment (132). The controversial altar piece was the artistic vision of Michelangelo himself, in which the reward and punishment after death was it main point- “an important tool of the Church to enforce obedience.” (132).  It is clear in his presentation that Michelangelo still loved for nude human form, but some forms of the painting are unique. There is no indication of the picture plane, bystanders are absent and there are even some who believe that the distorted Bartholomew is a self portrait of Michelangelo himself – since it is the only figure in which he signed his name underneath (135).

 

 The last judgment was not particularly popular upon its unveiling. From the beginning the nude forms were a source of cynicism. In 1545 Pietro Arentino wrote a letter to Michelangelo saying that the artist had made a spectacle of the scene. “The painter has made a spectacle of martyrs and virgins in improper attitudes, men dragged down by their genitals, things in front of which brothels would shut their eyes in order not to see them. Our souls need the tranquil emotions of piety more than the lively impressions of plastic art.” (189). Pope Paul had taken serious consideration into having the fresco destroyed- and had reportedly asked that Michelangelo “fix the nude forms.

        At this same time, Protestants declared that decoration of churches were of superfluous luxury and saw a better fit for money- towards the poor- instead of expensive art projects. The Catholics defended their images by relying on their importance to the illiterate.

       Michelangelo’s art was defended by Fabrini who justified the altar piece by saying that the Last Judgment, “embodies allegorical meanings of great profundity which few people arrive at understanding”. (192). If this understanding is true, it creates a paradox –to me- in the views of the Christian defense to the Protestant criticism.

 The article we read suggests that the last Judgment may be so controversial because of how copied it was. By printing- the work was able to reach a very broad audience who saw it outside of its original context. It was a constant source of inspiration for young artist- there were even 17 different versions made by the end of the century (192). It was probably the inappropriate responses that officially prompted the church to condemn and sensor the painting. Daniele was hired to remove the lewd portions of the painting by adding draperies, turning heads from their original position. Most of the nudes remained, however the overall tone of the piece moved a worshiper to laugh and shame- instead of devotion (192, 193).

 

 

The most interesting part of the reading to me was, Michelangelo's "Last Judgment" as Merciful Heresy. The article looked at the painting as being forwardly modern and de-Christianized. The artists and connoisseurs marveled at the foreshortened forms and technique, while the religious were nervous about the growing heresy in Europe (48). 

 

What I got from all the articles is this. The church hired Michelangelo anticipating the classical- idealized inspirations that drove the ceiling. However Michelangelo had aged, matured, and so did his ideas. He was becoming less concerned with a beauty that was fleeting and more so with our eternal selves- our souls. For a man who seemingly strived for perfection- this piece did not fit the bill for the time. It was used as an example of how to not do while painting sacred images. The over all intent of the message was also lost. The propaganda piece that the church thought they were commissioning seemed to loose its meaning as viewers were distracted by the figures and forms. However what I feel the piece did do was influence the future of art. The gestures, the figures the hidden meanings- it was just something that wasn't appreciated by the church at that time.

Reaserch Entry II- The Importance of the Medici Family

Politics, Politics, and More Politics… With Some History In-between…

 

Florence Italy. The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore.

(My attention grabber, as I am about to overwhelm you with names and dates) 

In 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in which their unimpeded pursuit took them through Naples- aided by modern cannonry. The results were devastating. Piero de’ Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificents’s heir as ruler of Florence, surrendered to the invasive force and as a result the Medici family was removed from Florence. With this the second Florentine Republic was established (6).
 

Italy in 1494, before the invasion by Charles VIII of France that year.

 

Dominican reformer, Fra Girolamo Savonarola saw this foreign invasion as a sign of God’s wrath against a corrupt people- an idea that fueled the most powerful political, moral and spiritual force in the city- the renewal. It aimed at transforming Florence back into a city of God. As part of the transformation- remnants of Renaissance Florence- portraits, books, poetry and finery were burned because they were considered vanity and worldly luxury. Eventually, after much civic revolt and Savonarola’s excommunication, he was burned at the stake in 1498. His ideas did not hold, but did continue to have an influence for nearly fifty years after his death (6).

 Although Florence had returned to a republican government, it was unable to protect itself against danger from abroad. In 1532 the city was forced to agree to the return of the Medici. The election of Pope Leo X (Lorenzo the Magnificent’s son, Giovanni), was a Medici dream, but a nightmare for the now Papacy-dependant Florence who was in turn exploited for its wealth (6, 7).

For 15 years 1512-1527 The major powers in Europe fought for posession of Florence.  In 1523, Giulio de’ Medici’s illegitimate son of Lorenzo’s murdered brother Giuliano, was elected Pope Clement VII. He ran Florence in a feudal manner and his disastrous policies eventually led to the sack of Rome by Emperor Charles V Clements. For the third time, the Medici family was expelled from Florence. With this, Pope and emperor found in each other a common cause. Charles wanted papal support against the English and German reformers- but he needed Florence’s riches for security (7). Meanwhile, Clement wanted Florence for the Medici- an act that could only be delivered by Charles. Charles promised to commit all of his resources to restore the popes family to Florence and did so by promising his 7 year old daughter, Margherita, to Clements nephew, Alessandro de’ Medici and placed a “deposit” of twenty thousand ducats on the proposition. (7)

 In 1527 the plague claimed 30,000 lives and nearly ¼ the population of Florence. In 1528, and marked by the beginning of the end of the plague and forfilling the desire of Savonarola, the Grand council voted Christ as the “sole and true lord and king.” (7).

 The battle for the third Republic faced civil strife and struggled against foreign powers. In 1529 the Florentines sent a declaration of defiance to the imperial troops set guard around their city. By this time in history, Florence had been now ravished by war, plague and hunger. 

 Ordained by Charles V, Alessandro de’ Medici then made his entry into Florence as “capo”- head of the city. From this point his power would be hereditary, the duchy- a territory over which a duke or duchess has jurisdiction- was established through a constitution in 1532. For the next decade Florentine exiles would cling to the ideals of the Republic and vent their hatred of the Medici from abroad. Many left Florence at this time, including Michelangelo, preferring to live under papal rule in Rome (8).  

Through the plague, revolutions and sieges, Bronzino and Pontormo remained in Florence. They became were of a civic culture based heavily on religious and political debate. “We need not revive old concept of Mannerism as a style of anxiety to understand that Pontormo and Bronzino’s representations of their own world would be neither conventional nor easy to understand.” (8). Florence’s politically stressed and reformed foundation is what defines a large portion of the artists evolution- and this is the essence and main subject of this research project.

 Holy moly that was a lot of information crammed in there, but it was all important for understanding Bronzino and Pontormo's artistic creations…. Up next, the beginning of Bronzino and Pontormo’s career under the Medici.