Amico Aspertini; A “Half-Insane Master”

Amico Aspertini - Nude Male Figure Seated on the Ground - ca. 1535-40 - Black chalk, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, on brown-washed paper - 9 3/4 x 14 5/16in. (24.8 x 36.4cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (click photo for larger image)Italian Mannerist Painter Amico Aspertini (ca. 1474-1552) was a forerunner of Mannerism from the Bolognese School of Painting. He was described by the biographer of the Italian Renaissance, Giorgio Vasari, “as a half-insane master who produced works rapidly in an eccentric style. Vasari had said he produced so quickly that Chiaroscuro, a bold contrast between light and dark, was spilt with chiaro (clear) in one hand and scuro (dark) in the other.” (Uffizi Gallery)

In the work featured here,“[t]he figure, posed on a shelf like projection ornamented with a scalloped valance, may be studied for one of the many monochrome façade decorations that Aspertini is said to have executed, above all in Bologna (Vasari 1568, vol. 5, pp. 179-180). The reeds or long grasses indicated in the background are possibly intended to identify the figure as a river god.” (Metropolitan Museum of Art)