Italian 1494-1557 Jacopo Pontormo Galleries 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. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo, though he also drew on northern art, primarily the prints of Albrecht Derer.  Related Paintings of Jacopo Pontormo :. | Visitation | Madonna and Child with St Anne and Other Saints | St John the Evangelist | The Deposition | Noli me tangere. |
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Karoly Marko the Elder
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Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun
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Calvaert, Denys
Flemish, 1540-1619 Flemish painter and draughtsman, active in Italy. In 1556-7 he was inscribed in the registers of the painters' corporation in Antwerp as a pupil of the landscape painter Kerstiaen van Queboorn (1515-78). Calvaert went to Bologna c. 1560, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. There he came under the protection of the influential Bolognini family and entered the workshop of Prospero Fontana the elder. After about two years he left Fontana to work with Lorenzo Sabatini, with whom he collaborated on several pictures, including the Holy Family with the Archangel St Michael (Bologna, S Giacomo Maggiore) and an Assumption (Bologna, Pin. N.). Calvaert's oeuvre is composed almost exclusively of religious works, ranging in size from vast altarpieces to small devotional pictures on copper. This sets him apart from other Netherlandish painters, notably those of the school of Prague, for whom Classical mythology was a constant source of inspiration. His first signed and dated work was Vigilance (1568; Bologna, Pin. N.); thereafter he developed a more original style, as in the Noli me tangere (Bologna, Pin. N.).