Drawings of Bronzino @Met NYC (closes April 18 2010)
Source: metmuseum.org. Bronzino, Head of a Curly-Haired Child, ca. 1527. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
A guest post from my Mom, lucky duck went to New York!
This exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City closes April 18, 2010
A few weeks ago we visited Manhattan. Actually we stayed in New Jersey but went into town every day through the Lincoln Tunnel. My daughter told me about the Bronzino drawing exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum (organized in collaboration with the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi and the Polo Museale Fiorentino, Florence), and we devoted a fair bit of time to what was really a very interesting exhibit, even for someone who knows very little about the artist, or about the late Mannerist movement his drawings inspired.
The audio guide was very informative and a beautiful catalogue of the exhibit was also produced for those who wish to explore the subject in more depth than is possible during a few hours at an exhibition.
The exhibit is arranged chronologically in three distinct parts with Bronzino’s early drawings (1515-1540) being presented first. Here the viewer learns that Bronzino apprenticed with Jacopo Pontormo and many of his early drawings are virtually indistinguishable from those of his master. In fact, attribution between Bronzino and Pontormo is a tricky question in this period. Both Pontormo and Bronzino approached drawing in the same manner – as preparatory to finished works like frescoes or tapestries – so these drawings were never meant to stand alone and the fact that so many have survived is astonishing.
The second section, and I think the most interesting, shows Bronzino’s drawings during his most famous period, as court artist for Cosimo I de Medici and Eleonora di Toledo (1540-1553). All of the known preliminary drawings for the frescoes on the walls and ceilings of Eleonora di Toledo’s chapel in the Palazzo Vecchio, as well as those for the altarpiece, are on display. Some are fleeting studies with various attributes of life models drawn on both sides of the same drawing paper; others are presentation pieces and, as such, very complete and more reflective of Bronzino’s paintings.
photo: metmuseum.org. Bronzino, Joseph with Jacob and His Brothers, ca. 1546–48. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Something I found fascinating were Bronzino’s preparatory and demonstration drawings for a tapestry series, The Story of Joseph, commissioned for the Sala dei Duecento at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. They were produced by the Medici Tapestry manufactury and woven by Flemish weavers. The final cartoons for these tapestries are no longer extant so these drawings are the only clue to the instructions from which the weavers worked. The drawings are meticulous and detailed and the play of light and shadow is well delineated. The surviving tapestries are not all assembled in one collection so it is particularly interesting to see these eight drawings and modelli together and to muse upon the Joseph story’s meaning for Cosimo I during this particular time.
The last grouping is of Bronzino’s late works (1553-1572). Here you do not see drawings for huge commissions like those of his time as a favoured court artist. The wall panels indicate that two reasons for this were Cosimo’s preference for Vasari, who returned to Florence in 1554, and Eleonora’s death in 1562. My favourite drawing in this section was one of the demonstration drawings produced for the temporary festival decorations celebrating the marriage of Francesco de’Medici to Joanna of Austria in 1565 – the Virtues and Blessings of Matrimony Expelling the Vices and Ills. The drawing, reminiscent of many of Michelangelo’s studies, is very detailed and shows many meticulously drawn figures in a variety of interconnected poses. The exhibit also displays three preliminary studies for Bronzino’s late fresco at S. Lorenzo, The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (1565).
The last exhibit room displays the famous Bronzino painting Portrait of a Young Man (1530’s), from the Metropolitan Museum’s own collection. The wall panels show the underdrawing and changes made to this painting that were discovered through infrared reflectography and x-ray-radiography, engendering a fascinating discussion of what such technologies can add to an appreciation and understanding of art.
A related exhibition of Bronzino paintings is due to open at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence in September and I hope to be able to see this in a new light, having had the chance to see many of the preparatory drawings. [editor’s note: The exhibit in Florence is NOT the same one as the New York one but a complement to it. Bronzino: Pittore e poeta alla corte dei Medici is open September 24 2010 until January 23, 2011.]
