On 24th September 2010 it will be opened in Palazzo Strozzi in Florence the first monograph exhibition dedicated to Agnolo di Cosimo (1503-1572) also known as Bronzino.
The exhibition promoted and organized by the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, from the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, and from the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, from the Soprintendenza PSAE and from the Polo Museale of the city of Florence, is curated by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali.
The city of Florence is particularly suitable to host the works of art by this master, representative of the “modern manner” because right in the Medicean city is preserved the most part of his oeuvre, scattered between museums and churches. For the occasion there will be exposed works of art coming from world wide museums, such as for example the Allegory of Venus (1550) from the Szépművészeti Múzeum of Budapest, The portrait of a young man with a book (1536-1539) from the Metropolitan of New York and the Holy Families in the versions coming from the Louvre of Paris (1550) and of the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna (1545 – 1546), and other paintings restored in occasion of this exhibition.
The exhibition in Palazzo Strozzi can be considered as the most noble conclusion of an entire year dedicated to Bronzino, started with his drawings exposed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art di New York (January - April 2010).
The oeuvre of this great artist inserts itself into a theoretical debate to him contemporary, centered on the nature of the arts and on the question regarding which of the arts was superior to the others.
This exhibition promises to give a complete portrait of this artist, who was not only a painter but also a poet. His poetry will be part of the exhibition as well.
The restored works of art constitute fundamental elements to understand Bronzino's artistic production. One in particular is the symptom of his active participation in the contemporary debate on the superiority of arts: the Double portrait of the Morgante Dwarf. Realized before 1553, as reported by Vasari, «ritrasse poi Bronzino al duca Cosimo Morgante nano ignudo tutto intero, et in due modi, cioè da un lato del quadro il dinanzi e dall’altro il di dietro, con quella stravaganza di membra mostruose che ha quel nano, la qual pittura in quel genere è bella e maravigliosa» [Bronzino portrayed the Duke Cosimo as a Morgante dwarf, naked and with a monstrous dwarf body in two ways, meaning on two sides, so extravagantly with a masterly technique].
It is a double portrait of Cosimo de' Medici as a satyr, one on one side preparing to go hunting and one on the other side, portrayed after the hunt. A double portrait intended to be exposed in the center of a room on a pedestal, as a sculpture. But declaratively in contrast with what had been theorized by the Varchi regarding the superiority of sculpture among the arts, because it permits a visualization and a therefore a total fruition of the work of art. The Bronzino's painting allows not only a complete visualization of the subject represented, but also the perception of the same subject in two different moments in time: before and after the hunt. Without leaving aside the fact that the represented subject, even though with mythological resemblance, thanks to a virtuoso realization in trompe l'oeil, gives the illusion to be real, three-dimensional.
In the Eighteenth century the painting was hung in the Poggio Imperiale villa, but because of a common moral tending to demureness, the vulgar satyr was transformed into a placid Bacchus.
Thanks to the restoring today it can be restored the original playful character of the composition.
The exhibition at the Strozzi allows the visitor to have the necessary space to compare Bronzino with his contemporaries, starting with his second and great master, the Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci 1494 – 1557) and his colleague Alessandro Allori (1535 – 1607).
Agnolo di Cosimo, unless he came from a humble family – his father was a butcher – he had the luck to live in a city as creative as Florence was, where the fertile cultural life was made possible thanks to the patronage of the Medici family.
During the first half of the Cinquecento, though, the star of this lineage was more than once obscured by some historical issues involving the central part of Italy: from the so called “second expulsion” of the Medici from the city in 1492 after the death of Lawrence the Magnificent (the first expulsion took place under the regency of Cosimo the Elder in 1433), at their coming back in town in 1512, and then again some political issues during the sack of Rome in 1527, until the definitive coming back in Florence under the illuminated regency of Cosimo I from 1537.
After a short period by Raffaellino del Garbo, Bronzino became disciple of the Pontormo, with whom he cooperated in the realization of the frescoes in the Medicean villas in Poggio a Caiano and in Careggi. In spite of the character of Pontormo, defined by the same Vasari as “selvatico e strano” [wild and strange], the relationship of deep friendship between maestro and pupil will last for long time, with natural reflexes and influences in the artistic production of the young Bronzino.
From 1523 to 1525, the something more than twenty years old Agnolo was working at the Certosa of Galluzzo at the flank of his master realizing the Pietà and the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, frescoes inserted in the two lunettes upon the door that introduces to the room of the chapter-house. This happened while outside the walls of the Certosa, in Florence, the plague was raging.
From the '30s of the Cinquecento, in occasion of the commission of the Pietà with the Magdalene in the Florentine church of Santa Trinita for the chapel of Lorenzo Cambi, in the register of the payments the artist puts his signature as Bronzino, pseudonym given probably to the reddish color of his hair.
After the election of Cosimo I as regent of the city of Florence from 1537, the Bronzino was selected, among the other painters, to decorate the chapel of Eleonora from Toledo, wife of Cosimo from 1539, in Palazzo Vecchio, with a cycle of five frescoes that had to reproduce the episodes of the Stories of Moses, and a great altar piece with the Deposition of Christ.
The beautiful paintings aren't lacking in allegories, all devoted to homage the new Medici dinasty and to the young and fertile Eleonora that ensured a great descent of eight kids to Cosimo. Right in the cycle of frescoes of the stories of Moses there's a clear allusion to Eleonora, waiting for the third son, in the pregnant woman in a red dress, on the right in the scene of the Passage of the Red Sea and investiture of Josh.
The years between in 1540 and 1550 are really intense for Bronzino who, in addition to the painting activity he dedicate himself to the setting up of theatrical shows and to the predisposition of the cartoons for tapestries.
The abundant oeuvre of Bronzino is dominated by portraits, in which he expressed the clear precision of his own style in the close to life representations of the portrayed personages, as for example in the case of the Portrait of Guidobaldo II from Urbino (1532, Florence, Pitti Palace); the Portraits of Bartolomeo and Lucrezia Panciatichi (1540), the Portrait of Cosimo I, the famous and precious Portrait of Eleonora from Toledo with the son Giovanni (Florence, Uffizi), in which the artist in order to realize that incredible blue used a mixture of lapislazuli and ultramarine and for the golden inserts he used a golden spinning until today perfectly preserved. Of a great effect is the Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune (1550-1555), preserved in Milan at the Museum of the Brera Academy.
The Portrait of young man with lute (1530 – 1532) is one of the first portraits by Bronzino; the identity of the guy represented is as mysterious as his facial expression.
What is interesting to underline is the attitude assumed by the portrayed, which is very similar to the personages in paintings by Michelangelo, in the position of the hand with very opened fingers in order to show all the nerves under the skin. A pose that is repeated in all the other upper-class portraits.
The michelagiolesque shape recurs with emphasis in the representations of the Madonnas, executed in the period between 1540 and 1550, clearly revealing the passage from Classicism and the Mannerism. Powerful, characterized by geometrical and three-dimensional volumes, by vivid colors, but of a unstrained beauty, the Bronzino's Madonna presented in the exhibition express deep sweetness in the gazes and in the maternal hugs.
Always looking at Michelangelo, Bronzino paints the diaphanous Venuses, accompanied by playful cupids. The Venus and Cupid from the National Gallery of London (1540-1545) was a painting destined to the private contemplation of the King of France, Francesco I, known for his talent of seducer of women. Venus, delicate and pure, kisses Cupid and behind the protagonists there's a crowd of symbolic personages to enrich the allegory: the two lovers, the Time (represented with a white beard, wings and a hourglass), the Game (with the resemblance of a smiling and happy kid), Fraud (who with the Time is holding a cloth, creating an alcove for the two lovers), the Pleasure (personified by a female child with the body of a snake), the Jealousy (with hands in its hair) and so on; the entire composition becomes in this way a warning to be aware of the threats of love and vice.
From 1545 and for the following eight years Bronzino dedicates himself to the realization of the cartoons for the immense tapestry intended to decorate the Salone dei Dugento in Palazzo Vecchio. He was charged to finish the cartoon, sixteen on twenty, relating to the Stories of Joseph, woven by the Flemish masters of the spool as Jan Rost and Nicolas Karcher. The subject of the tapestries was intended to enhance the Duke Cosimo as regent of Tuscany – the betrayal of Joseph conduced by his brothers and his restoration on the throne of Egypt were the perfect metaphor of the expulsion and the coming back of the Medici in Florence. Unfortunately the original cartoons did not survive the passing of time, but in the New York exhibition it was possible to put on show the drawings realized by Bronzino for the study of some postures of the represented personages.
In the half of the fifties Bronzino was slowly substituted by Vasari as court artist: the taste and the canon had already changed, the michelagiolesque manner was no longer required and therefore the artist was forced to retire, even if he had tried to modify his style.
In 1569 he ended a big fresco that had occupied him for five years: the Martyrdom of St Lawrence in the homonym church in Florence, his real “spiritual testament”, always in a michelangiolesque style, honoring the great artist. Right because of this retroactive sight, this great work of art was criticized by his contemporaries shadowing by consequence the sense of the message that Bronzino intended to transmit to the posterity: the importance of the great manieristic Tuscan tradition and that of the fresco technique to be considered in the same tradition. He will die a few years later, in 1572, never tired of his painting activity.
Bronzino, among his numerous activities was founding member, advisor, reformer and director of the Compagnia ed Accademia Disegno that was formally grounded in Florence on 31st of January 1563. At that time he was already sixty and he had many difficulties in making his ideas prevail on the light and mutating creativity of the younger students.
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Link: http://www.palazzostrozzi.org/Sezione.jsp?idSezione=145