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.


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