Queer
Places:
Chiesa di San Cristoforo degli Adimari, Vicolo degli Adimari & Via dei Calzaiuoli, 50122 Firenze FI
.jpg)
Agnolo di Cosimo (Italian: [ˈaɲɲolo di ˈkɔːzimo]; 17 November 1503 – 23 November 1572), usually known as Bronzino (Italian: Il Bronzino [il bronˈdziːno]) or Agnolo Bronzino,[a] was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His sobriquet, Bronzino, may refer to his relatively dark skin[1] or reddish hair.[2]
He lived all his life in Florence, and from his late 30s was kept busy as the court painter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was mainly a portraitist but also painted many religious subjects, and a few allegorical subjects, which include what is probably his best-known work, Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, c. 1544–45, now in London. Many portraits of the Medicis exist in several versions with varying degrees of participation by Bronzino himself, as Cosimo was a pioneer of the copied portrait sent as a diplomatic gift.
He trained with Pontormo, the leading Florentine painter of the first generation of Mannerism, and his style was greatly influenced by him, but his elegant and somewhat elongated figures always appear calm and somewhat reserved, lacking the agitation and emotion of those by his teacher. They have often been found cold and artificial, and his reputation suffered from the general critical disfavour attached to Mannerism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Recent decades have been more appreciative of his art.
Bronzino softened and lengthened his master's brushstrokes, and in so doing he created a style unique to himself. Most scholars conclude, based on a series of sonnets Bronzino wrote upon Pontormo's death, that the two men enjoyed a more intimate relationship than that of master and pupil.
Bronzino's so-called "allegorical portraits", such as that of a Genoese admiral, Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune, are less typical but possibly even more fascinating owing to the peculiarity of placing a publicly recognized personality in the nude as a mythical figure.[7] Finally, in addition to being a painter, Bronzino was also a poet, and his most personal portraits are perhaps those of other literary figures such as that of his friend the poet Laura Battiferri.[8] The eroticized nature of these virile nude male portraits, as well as homoerotic references in his poetry, have led scholars to believe that Bronzino was homosexual.[2]
Bronzino's paintings intimate complex symbolism while being sumptuously enjoyable; his masterpiece, An Allegory with Venus And Cupid, in the National Gallery, baffles scholars, but no one can look at it without enjoying its sensuality.
His poems are full of references to the homosexual subculture of 16th-century Florence. The Victorian critic JA Symonds saw Bronzino's "inexpressibly chilly portraits" as marked by the artist's "personal corruption".
Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1550–55, London, National Gallery
The youth's identity of Portrait of a Young Man is uncertain. It has been argued that he may be Cosimo de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.
This is a sly, ambiguous painting, depicting youth as intense and foolish, innocent and lascivious. Bronzino gives his socially elevated model the opportunity to present himself to the world as sober, scholarly, thoughtful, yet by peeling back that pink curtain to reveal a statue of Bacchus, he suggests this young man's decorous pose is not the whole truth.
But what a pose. He stands with book open, the page blank - perhaps he dabbles in poetry, perhaps this is the unwritten book of his life. It rests on a green-covered table that serves as a kind of plinth for the sitter, who presents himself half-length, almost as a sculptural bust. His clothing has an elegant severity, yet his hair is roughly cropped. His face is porcelain-hard, yet he blushes slightly. This is a young man emerging into the adult world. But which adult world?
Later in his life, in 1552, Bronzino also adopted one of his own pupils,
Alessandro Allori, as his son. In XVI-century Florence, this type of arrangement often signaled a sexual relationship between two men; an older man adopting his younger lover was quite common. The two artists lived together until Bronzino's death in 1572. Bronzino died on 23 November 1572 in the house of his pupil Alessandro Allori and was buried in the church of San Cristoforo degli Adimari.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
