Italian Mannerist Painter, 1494-ca.1556 Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter.   Related Paintings of Pontormo :. | The Virgin and Child with Four Saints and the Good Thief with (mk05) | Madonna and Child with St Anne and Other Saints | Christ before Pilate | St John the Evangelist | Sacra Conversazione |
Related Artists:
swabian school
the lovers 1470 the cleveland museum of art, delia and l.e. holden funds
Georg Pencz
Georg Pencz (c. 1500 probably in Westheim near Bad Windsheim/Franconia - 1550 in Liepzig) was a German engraver, painter and printmaker. Pencz travelled to Nuremberg in 1523 and joined Albrecht Dereres atelier. Like Derer, he visited Italy and was profoundly influenced by Venetian art and it is believed he worked with Marcantonio Raimondi. In 1525, he was imprisoned with the brothers Barthel Beham and Hans Sebald Beham, the so-called "godless painters", for spreading the radical views of Thomas Mentzer by asserting disbelief in baptism, Christ and transubstantiation. The three were pardoned shortly afterwards and became part of the group known as the "Little Masters" because of their tiny, intricate and influential prints. In Nuremberg, influenced by works he had seen in Italy, Pencz painted a number of trompe l'oeil ceilings in the houses of patrician families; one, for which a drawing survives, showed workmen raising building materials on a hoist, against an open sky, to create the illusion that the room was still under construction. Around 1539, Pencz briefly returned to Italy, visiting Rome for the first time, returning to Nuremberg in 1540, where he became the city painter and earned his greatest success as a portraitist. As an engraver, he ranks among the best of the German eLittle Masterse. Notable prints include Six Triumphs of Petrarch and Life of Christ (26 plates). The best of his paintings are portraits, such as Portrait of a Young Man , Portrait of Marshal Schirmer and Portrait of Erhard Schwetzer and his wife.
Johannes Adam Oertel
German, 1823-1909