Portrait of Giovanni de Medidi c. 1549

Bronzino
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
September 24 2010 - January 23 2011
www.palazzostrozzi.org

By Emelie Ask

The following review aims at providing the readers of this contemporary art blog with a link to the Italian artistic heritage; in other words, to give a glimpse of the influence that many contemporary artists – as well as earlier ones, such as van Gogh – is producing art under today. As one of the renaissance’s most renowned painters, especially when it comes to portrait painting, Bronzino and his oeuvre have had a strong impact on many artists following his time, and up until this day.

In the beautiful and historical Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, the 16th century Florentine painter Bronzino is dedicated his first larger solo-show. The exhibition includes about 70 of the painter’s most famous works, most of them portraits of nobles from his city. Those works blend well into the surrounding space in Palazzo Strozzi, a Renaissance palace managed by the City of Florence and notably realized contemporarily to Bronzino’s artistic career. Since World War II, Palazzo Strozzi has been hosting exhibitions, and it is importantly the largest exhibition space in the city arranging three larger exhibitions annually, in addition to is permanent show of the palace’s history. This history of the building goes, as indicated, very well hand in hand with the works currently on show on its piano nobile, and accentuates their origins and functions to a certain extent.

Bronzino, whose real name was Agnolo di Cosimo, lived in Florence at a moment of artistic flourish and came to be the court painter for the important Medici family in 1439. Before this important step in his career, Bronzino had been active in Florence decorating churches and small chapels with frescoes and altar pieces - such as the renowned Pieta con la Maddalena in the Church of Santa Trinità. As an artist, he was highly influenced by Michelangelo, as evident for example in the Venus and Cupid painting in the current exhibition, realized from a sketch of Michelangelo’s. Bronzino developed a strong Mannerist style later in his career, for which he would remain particularly famous, after having always painted in Classical notions typical for the Renaissance. Bronzino passed away in his native Florence at an age of 69 years, and the larger part - 80% - of his impressive oeuvre is now on show in what is arguably the most suitable space of all.

The show is situated on the second floor of the palace and is arranged in nine separate rooms, with different themes though in a chronological order. Accordingly, the visitor first encounters a small number of lunettes, representing some of the artist’s earliest paintings. The second room is dedicated to paintings realized during Bronzino’s two year long stay in Pesaro, while the third and forth rooms are dedicated to Bronzino’s portraits of the de Medici family, as executed once back in Florence. This is where the famous portrait of Eleonora col figlio Giovanni is exhibited, in a clever juxtaposition to a number of sacred works that Bronzino painted for the lady’s private chapel in the Palazzo Vecchio, where the de Medici family lived. The remaining five rooms treat themes such as Bronzino and the arts - where the relationship between painting, poetry and sculpture is highlighted by the artist - sacred themes, portraits representative of Bronzino’s attention to detail in clothing and jewelry, and the final room points out the relationship between our painter and who would be called his successor, Alessandro Allori, who inherited strong features of his master’s style as a result of his studying and learning from Bronzino. In each room, the paintings are hung on a dark blue, elegant fabric serving as a discrete background, often complementing those of the paintings in color and tone. All information and details concerning each work are presented on the pages of an open book - cohering to the overall elegant and warm atmosphere of the exhibition - placed on a thin shelf underneath the painting. This fine curatorial detail adds to the notion that the visitor finds herself in a building that was once the home of an educated and noble family, where the fine arts were of highest priority.