Jacopo Carucci (Pontormo, near Empoli, May 24, 1494 - January 2, 1557),
usually known as Jacopo da Pontormo, Jacopo Pontormo or simply Pontormo,
was a Florentine Mannerist painter and portraitist. He trained with the
High Renaissance artist Andrea del Sarto. He painted only in and around
Florence, supported by Medici patronage. A foray to Rome, largely to see
Michelangelo's work, influenced his later style. Contorted poses,
distorted perspective and peculiar, jarring colors mirror his restless,
neurotic temperament.
Life
Vasari relates how the orphaned boy, "young, melancholy and
lonely," was shuttled around as a young apprentice:
"Jacopo had not been many months in Florence before Bernardo Vettori
sent him to stay with Leonardo da Vinci, and then with Mariotto
Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo, and finally, in 1512, with Andrea del Sarto,
with whom he did not remain long, for after he had done the cartoons for
the arch of the Servites, it does not seem that Andrea bore him any good
will, whatever the cause may have been."
Haunted faces and elongated bodies are characteristic of his work. An
example of Pontormo's early style is The Visitation of the Virgin and St
Anne, with its dancelike, balanced figures, painted from 1514 to 1516 for
the parish church of St. Michele in Carmignano, a few miles from Florence.
In 1519-20 Pontormo also took part in the fresco decoration of the salon
of the Medici country villa at Poggio a Caiano, not far from Florence.
There he painted frescoes in a pastoral genre style, very uncommon for
Florentine painters; their subject was the obscure classical myth of
Vertumnus and Pomona in a lunette.
In 1522, when the plague broke out in Florence, Pontormo left for the
Certosa di Galuzzo, a cloistered Carthusian monastery where the monks
followed vows of silence. He painted a series of frescoes, now quite
damaged, on the passion and resurrection of Christ.
Deposition from the Cross in Cappella Capponi at Santa Felicità, Florence
The large altarpiece canvas for the Brunelleschi-designed Cappella Capponi
in Santa Felicità in Florence is considered by many his surviving
masterpiece (1528). The decoration in the dome of the chapel is now lost,
but four roundels with the Evangelists still adorn the pendentives, worked
on by both Pontormo and Agnolo Bronzino. At the altar is Pontormo's
masterpiece Deposition from the Cross. The figures, with their sharply
modeled forms and bright, harsh colors are united in a stark and flattened
space. Those who are lowering Christ appear as anguished as the mourners.
This bleak and tumultuous oval of figures took three years for Pontormo to
complete. He collaborated on the rest of its decor so intimately with
Bronzino, his chief pupil, that specialists dispute which roundels each of
them painted. The Annunciation frescoed on adjacent columns resembles the
Visitation at Carmignano in both the style and swaying postures. The
nearby Uffizi gallery holds his mystical Supper at Emmaus as well as
portraits. Many of Pontormo's well known canvases, such as Joseph being
sold to Potiphar and the Martyrdom of St Maurice and the Theban Legion
(c.1531) depict crowds milling about in awkward contraposto of greatly
varied positions. His portraits, acutely characterized, show similarly
mannerist proportions.
Lost or Damaged Works
Many of Pontormo's works have been damaged, including the lunnettes for
the cloister in the Carthusian monastery of Galluzo. Most tragic is the
loss of the unfinished frescoes for the church of San Lorenzo which
consumed the last decade of his life. His frescoes depicted a judgement
day composed of an unsettling morass of writhing figures. The film of
Giovanni Fago, Pontormo, a heretical love evokes his lonely and ultimately
paranoid dedication to this project, which he often kept shielded from
unlookers. The remaining drawings, showing a bizarre and mystical
ribboning of bodies, had an almost hallucinatory effect. Florentine figure
painting had mainly stressed linear and upright sculptural figures. Jesus
in the Sistine Chapel wall is a massive painted block stern in his
judgement; by contrast, Pontormo's Jesus in the Last Judgment squirms
sinuously, as if rippling through the heavens in a final dance. Heaps of
liquified angels amass about him. In his Last Judgment Pontormo went
against pictorial and theological tradition by placing God the Father at
the feet of Christ, instead of above him, an idea Vasari found deeply
confusing:
But I have never been able to understand the doctrine of this scene
(though I know that Jacopo had a good mind himself and kept company with
learned and well-educated people), specifically what he meant to signify
in that part of the painting where Christ on high is bringing the dead
back to life, while below his feet is God the Father, creating Adam and
Eve.
Critical Assessment And Legacy
Vasari's Life of Pontormo, depicting him as withdrawn and steeped in
neurosis while at the center of the artists and patrons of his lifetime,
makes a fine introduction to the artistic life of the 16th century. A
diary of his last two years survives. His personality and idiosyncracies
gave Pontormo a style that few were able to imitate with the exception of
Bronzino. He shares some of the mannerism of Rosso Fiorentino and of
Parmigianino. In some ways he anticipated the Baroque as well as the
tensions of El Greco. His eccentricities also resulted in an original
sense of composition. At best, his compositions are cohesive. The figures
in the Deposition, for example, appear to sustain each other: removal of
any one of them would cause the edifice to collapse. In lesser works, as
in the Joseph canvases, the crowding makes for a confusing pictorial
melee. It is in the later drawings that we see a graceful fusion of bodies
in a composition which includes the oval frame of Jesus in the Last
Judgement.
Anthology of works
Early works (until 1521)
1512-1513: Leda and the Swan (uncertain attribution), 55x40 cm, [Uffizi
Gallery], Florence.
1514: Holy Conversation, fresco 223x196 cm, SS. Annunziata, S. Luca
Chapel, Florence.
1514: Episode of hospital life, fresco 91x150 cm, Galleria dell'Accademia,
Florence [1]
1515: Veronica and the image, fresco, S. Maria Novella, Florence, Pope Leo
X (Medici) Chapel.
1514-1516: Visitation, fresco 392x337 cm, Santa Annunziata, Florence. [2]
1516-1517: Lady with Basket of Spindles, 76x54, Uffizi, Florence (Andrea
del Sarto?)
Marriage Bedchamber Panels for Pier Francesco Borgherini. (Two other
panels by Bachiacca)
1515: Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, 35x142, National Gallery,
London.
1516-1517: Joseph sold to Potiphar, 58x50, National Gallery, London. [3]
1515: Joseph's Brothers beg for Help [4]
1516-1517: Pharaoh with his Butler and Baker, 58x50, National Gallery. [5]
1517-1518: Joseph in Egypt, 93x110, National Gallery. [6]
1517: St Quentin, 163x103, Pinacoteca comunale, Sansepolcro. Attributed to
Giovanmaria Pichi or Pontormo.
1517-1518: Portrait of Furrier, 69x50, Louvre, Paris. [7]
1518: Madonna con Child and Saints, oil on canvas 214x185, S. Michele
Visdomini, Florence.
1518-1519: Portrait of musician, 86x67, Uffizi. [8]
1518-1519: St Anthony Abbott, Uffizi. [9]
1518-1519: Portrait of Cosimo the Elder, 86x65 cm, Uffizi. [10]
1519 : John the Evangelist & The Archangel Gabriel from an altarpiece,
173x59 cm, Church of S. Michele, Empoli.
1519-1521: Adoration of the Magi, 85x190 cm, Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
1519-1521: Vertumnus & Pomona, fresco 461x990 cm. Villa Medici, Poggio
a Caiano. (see preliminary drawing [11])
Study of Mans head (drawing, Metropolitan Museum Art) [12]
(1522-1530)
1520-30: Mary and Child with Four saints (Metropolitan Museum)
1522 ca: Portrait of two friends, 95x97 cm, Cini Collection, Venezia
1522 ca: Madonna with Child & Two Saints, 72x60 cm, Uffizi.(Bronzino?)[13]
1522-1524: Holy Family with St John, 120x99 cm, Hermitage Museum, St
Petersburg,[14]
1523-1525: Madonna with Child and St John, 87x67, Uffizi. Attributed to
Rosso Fiorentino.
1523-1525: Pontormo retires to Carthusian Monastery of Galluzzo, near
Florence (see originals and copies by Empoli) [15] Fresco series
Prayer in Gesthemane, 300x290 cm.
Christ before Pilate, 300x292 cm.[16]
Walk to Calvary, 300x292 cm. [17]
Deposition, 300x292 cm.
Resurrection, 232x291cm cm.[18]
1525: Supper in Emmaus, 230x173 cm, Uffizi. [19]
1525: Study of a Carthusian Monk, Drawing, Uffizi.[20]
1525: Madonna and child and two angels (San Francisco Museum Art) [21]
1525-1526: Portrait of young man in Pink, 85x61, Communal gallery, Lucca.
1525-1526: Tabernacle of Boldrone, San Giuliano, 275x127, Crucifix with
Madonna and St. John, 307x175 and Sant'Agostino, 257x127 cm, Galleria dei
Disegni, Florence.
1526: Birth of St. John Baptist, Uffizi. [22]
1526-1527: Saint Jerome Penitent, 105x80 cm, Landesmuseum, Hannover.
1526-1528: Madonna with Child & St John, 52x40 cm, Galleria Corsini,
Florence. (Bronzino?)
1527-1528: Madonna with Child & St John, 89x73, Uffizi. [23]
1525-1526: Matthew, Luke, & John; 70 cm, St. Felicita, Capponi Chapel,
Florence. (Mark by Bronzino).
1526-1528: Deposition, 313x192 cm, St. Felicita, Capponi Chapel. [24]
1527-1528: Annunciation, 368x168 cm, fresco, Sta. Felicita, Capponi
Chapel.[25]
1528-1529: Visitation, 202x256, Church of S. Michele, Carmignano.[26]
1528-1529: Madonna with Child, Saint Anne and Four saints, 228x176, Louvre,
Paris. [27]
1529-1530: Eleven thousand martyrs, Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
Mature works (after 1530)
1531: Martyrdom of San Maurizio and the Theban Legions.(Pontormo &
Bronzino), 65x73, Uffizi.
1531: Noli me Tangere, Casa Buonarotti (Pontormo or Bronzino)[28]
1532-1533: Portrait of Lady in Red with puppy, 89x70, Städelsches
Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt (Bronzino?)
1532-1534: Venus and Cupid, 128x197 cm, Galleria dell'Accademia,
1534-1535 ca.: Portraits of Alessandro de' Medici,, 97x79, Philadelphia
Museum of Art, [29] and Art Instute of Chicago, [30]
1535: Adam and Eve, 43x31 cm, Uffizi.
1535 Study for the Three Graces, Drawing, Uffizzi. [31]
1537: Portrait of Halbadier, 52x40 cm, Paul Getty Museum, Malibu. [32]
1541-1544: Portrait of Niccolò Ardinghelli, 102x97, National Gallery,
Washington DC. [33]
1543-1545: Portrait of Maria Salviati, 87x71 , Uffizi. [34]
c1545: Sacrificial Scene, tempera cloth 85x148, Capodimonte Museum,
Naples.
1554-1556: My book (Pontormo's diary)), National Library of Florence.
Portrait of Pontormo by Bronzino [35]
Drawing of St. Francis (MFA, Boston) [36]
Drawings for San Lorenzo Fresco
This article is published under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Italian Renaissance".