Jacopo da Pontormo
1494 - 1557
One of the Greatest Painters Of All Time
1494-1557
Italian, Florentine, Mannerist Painter
Stylistically influenced by the following painters - Piero di Cosimo, Leonardo da Vinci, Mariotto Albertinelli, Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto
Cause of Death - Alcoholism
Biography
Jacopo da Pontormo was one of the greatest Italian painters of all time. Even after five hundred years his paintings amaze and mesmerize. His innovative style his sense of colour was entirely original and fresh. He was patronized and commissioned by the Church and nobility. The Medici not only commissioned the painter but invited him to state events and family gatherings.
In Jacopo da Pontormo's declining years he descended into madness and spent most of his time shut up in his studio chatting with angels that he claimed lived in a tree outside his window. Old friends tried to intervene and often left him baskets of food and coins on the doorstep. But he shunned his fellow artists and old friends believing they were in league with the devil. His final years were spent roaming the streets, wild and disheveled, a shell of his former self. He died a paupers death. According to Art Scholar, Bernhard Berenson "Pontormo, who had it in him to be a decorator and portrait-painter of the highest rank, was led astray by his awe-struck admiration for Michelangelo, and ended as an academic constructor of monstrous nudes. What he could do when expressing himself, we see in the lunette at Poggio a Caiano, as design, as colour, as fancy, the freshest, gayest, most appropriate mural decoration now remaining in Italy; what he could do as a portrait-painter, we see in his wonderfully decorative panel of Cosimo dei Medici at San Marco, or in his portrait of a “Lady with a Dog” (at Frankfort), perhaps the first portrait ever painted in which the sitter’s social position was insisted upon as much as the personal character. What Pontormo sank to, we see in such a riot of meaningless nudes, all caricatures of Michelangelo, as his “Martyrdom of Forty Saints.”
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 Rome and later widened to all of Europe. Mannerists paintings are characterized by elongated limbs, thin aquiline noses, overly stylized figures, undersized heads, electrifying, vibrant colors and elaborately mannered, theatrical compositions. The Mannerists in Italy worked on generous 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 said to hell with the money went off to Spain to pursue his own spectral vision.
Masters of The Mannerist Style
Require more facts and
information about
Pontormo? Poke
around every nook and
cranny of the known
universe for information
this subject.
Search Here
© HistoryofPainters.com If you like this page and wish to share it, you are welcome to link to it, with our thanks.
If you feel you have worthwhile information you would like to contribute we would love to hear from you. We collect essential biographical information and artist quotes from folks all over the globe and appreciate your participation. When submitting please, if possible, site the source and provide English translation. Email to millardmulch@gmail.com
copyright 2011 - historyofpainters.com
References:
Florentine
Painters of the
Renaissance, by
Bernhard Berenson