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).