Pontormo: Melancholy and Introspective
Monday, January 13, 2020 at 9:00AM 
Jacopo Pontormo - Alessandro de' Medici - 1534-35 - Oil on panel - 101 x 82 cm - Museum of Art, Philadelphia (click photo for larger image)Jacopo Pontormo (1494-1557) was a Florentine painter (originally named Jacopo Carrucci), who broke away from High Renaissance classicism to create a more personal, anti-traditional style. He is among the most important figures of the first generation of Mannerists. “Mannerism launched a highly imaginative period in art following the climax of perfection that naturalistic painting had reached in Renaissance Italy. Artists in 16th century Florence and Rome started to veer from classical influences and move toward a more intellectual and expressive approach.” (The Art Story)
In the portrait featured here, Duke Alessandro de' Medici is shown making a drawing in metal point of a woman in profile. In the latter part of the fifteenth century artists such as Verrocchio (Leonardo’s teacher) and Leonardo began to draw idealized female heads, often in profile. Michelangelo continued this practice, Alessandro's drawing seems to relate to it. It’s possible that Pontormo was teaching the duke to draw.
The melancholy that saturates this portrait is characteristic of much of Pontormo's paintings.
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