Jacopo da Pontormo

Pontormo, Jacopo da

Pontormo, Jacopo da (yäˈkōpō dä pōntôrˈmō), 1494–1556, Florentine painter, one of the creators of mannerism. His real name was Jacopo Carrucci. He studied with Andrea del Sarto, Leonardo da Vinci, Mariotto Albertinelli, and Piero di Cosimo. While studying with Sarto, Pontormo met Il Rosso, who became his main rival. Among his earliest religious works were the altarpieces for the churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Annunziata, Florence. His altar for the church of San Michele Visdomini, Florence, is considered by many to be the first mannerist work in recorded history. Pontormo was also a talented portraitist; he made full use of his abilities in his Passion Cycle (1522–25) for the Florentine Certosa family, in which he gave animation and presence to several mythological scenes. His Lady with a Lap Dog is one of the first mannerist portraits. It is said that Pontormo was influenced by Michelangelo and Dürer as his work matured. For much of his life, Pontormo was a recluse. He painted several frescoes from 1546 to 1556, but these have since been lost. He is remembered mainly for his drawings from this period. Examples of his art are in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Fogg Museum, Cambridge; and the Yale Univ. Art Gallery. Pontormo also kept a diary in which he chronicled his neurotic obsessions.

Bibliography

See J. Cox-Rearick, The Drawings of Pontormo (2 vol., 1981).

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Pontormo, Jacopo da

 

(real name, Jacopo Carrucci). Born May 24, 1494, in Pontormo, Tuscany; buried Jan. 2, 1557, in Florence. Italian painter. Representative of the Florentine school.

Pontormo studied with M. Albertinelli and Piero di Cosimo between 1507 and 1512. He was influenced by Michelangelo, especially beginning in the 1530’s, and by A. Dürer. His early works were akin to the art of the High Renaissance masters, such as Andrea del Sarto, with whom he collaborated around 1512. In the 1520’s he became one of the founders of mannerism. Pontormo’s masterly, at times eccentric, compositional skill and sharp powers of observation are manifested with particular power in the frescoes of bucolic allegories in a villa at Poggio a Caiano (1520). Inherent in his later religious compositions, such as Deposition (1526–28, Church of Santa Felicità, Florence), are traits of inner anxiety and excited tension of color. This is also true of his portraits, such as Portrait of a Woman (c. 1543–45, Uffizi Gallery, Florence). Also noteworthy is Three Graces, a sanguine (c. 1535–36, Uffizi Gallery, Florence). Pontormo’s studies and sketches are remarkable for their unusual expressiveness of contour and flexibility and liveliness of line.

REFERENCES

Rearick, J. C. The Drawings of Pontormo, vols. 1–2. Cambridge, 1964.
Forster, K. W. Pontormo. [Munich, 1966.]

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.