Agnolo Bronzino
1503 - 1571
Florentine Mannerist Painter
Influences: Jacopo da Pontormo, Titian and Leonardo da Vinci
Education - Studied under Jacopo da Pontormo
Cause of Death - Old Age
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Bronzino, Pontormo’s close
follower, had none of his master’s talent as a decorator, but
happily much of his power as a portrait-painter. Would he had never
attempted anything else! The nude without material or spiritual
significance, with no beauty of design or colour, the nude simply
because it was the nude, was Bronzino’s ideal in composition, and the
result is his “Christ in Limbo.” But as a portrait-painter, he took up
the note struck by his master and continued it, leaving behind him a
series of portraits which not only had their effect in determining the
character of Court painting all over Europe, but, what is more to the
point, a series of portraits most of which are works of art. As
painting, it is true, they are hard, and often timid; but their air of
distinction, their interpretive qualities, have not often been
surpassed. In his Uffizi portraits of Eleanora di Toledo, of Prince
Ferdinand, of the Princess Maria, we seem to see the prototypes of
Velasquez’ queens, princes, and princesses: and for a fine example of
dignified rendering of character, look in the Sala Baroccio of the
Uffizi at a bust of a young woman with a missal in her hand.
Description of the Mannerist Style
Originating in Italy, the term mannerism comes from the Italian 'maniera', which translates to 'style'. Mannerism is an artistic style that was born in the early 1500s. The style originated in Italy and later widened to all of Europe. Mannerists paintings are characterized by elongated limbs, thin aquiline noses, long tapering fingers, undersized heads, garish colors and elaborately mannered, contorted postures. The Mannerists in Italy worked on commission for a restricted audience of Vatican powerbrokers and royalty. The subjects they were allowed to portray was controlled and restricted to Biblical themes, portraits and occasionally mythology. El Greco spurned the sumptuous commissions in favor of artistic freedom went off to Spain and to pursue his own magnificent vision.
Principle Mannerist Painters
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