Bronzino, Il (ēl brōntsē`nō), 1503–72, Florentine painter, an important mannerist (see mannerism mannerism, a style in art and architecture (c.1520–1600), originating in Italy as a reaction against the equilibrium of form and proportions characteristic of the High Renaissance.
..... Click the link for more information. ), whose real name was Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano. Bronzino was a pupil and adopted son of Jacopo da Pontormo. Continuing the tradition of his master, he specialized and excelled in portraiture. He depicted many elegant and celebrated men and women of the time; his portraits included Cosimo I de' Medici and his wife Eleanor of Toledo (both: Uffizi); Lodovico Capponi (Frick Coll., New York City); and Portrait of a Young Man (Metropolitan Mus.). In 1540 he became court painter to Cosimo I. Bronzino's sophisticated portraits are cold, unemotionally analytical and painted in a superbly controlled technique. The long, chilly faces and postures of his aristocratic subjects express an undisguised arrogance popular in the mannerist period. Bronzino's work had an influence on court portraiture throughout Europe and extended even to Elizabethan England. His Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time (National Gall., London) conveys an eroticism beneath a moralizing allegory. Of his religious works, The Descent of Christ into Limbo (Uffizi) is the most famous.

Bibliography

See study by C. H. Smyth (1972).

Bronzino, Il

orig. Agnolo di Cosimo

(born Nov. 17, 1503, Monticelli, duchy of Milan—died Nov. 23, 1572, Florence) Italian painter active in Florence. He was the student and adopted son of Jacopo da Pontormo. He excelled as a portraitist and was court painter to Cosimo I for most of his career. His portraits were emotionally inexpressive, but in their elegance and decorative qualities they embodied the courtly ideal under the Medici dukes. His work influenced European court portraiture for the next century, while his polished, sophisticated religious and mythological paintings epitomized the Mannerist style of his time (see Mannerism). In 1563 he became a founding member of the Accademia del Disegno.