Italian Mannerist Painter, 1494-ca.1556 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.   Related Paintings of Pontormo :. | Profilportrat eines Mannes | Madonna and Child with the Young St.John | Joseph | The Deposition | Holy War |
Related Artists:
Felipe Ramirez
Spanish painter (documented 1628-1631 in Toledo).
Francesco Cairo
(1607-1665) was an Italian painter active in Baroque Lombardy and Piedmont. He was born and died in Milan. It is not known where he obtained his early training though he is strongly influenced by the circle of il Morazzone, in works such as the Saint Teresa altarpiece in the Certosa di Pavia. In 1633, Cairo moved to Turin to work as a court painter, including portraits, to Vittorio Amedeo I of the House of Savoy. Between 1637-1638, Cairo travelled to Rome, where he encounters the works of Pietro da Cortona, Guido Reni and of the Caravaggisti. He returns to Lombardy to complete altarpieces for the Certosa of Pavia and a church at Casalpusterlengo. He painted a St. Theresa for San Carlo in Venice. Between 1646-1649, he returns to Turin, and paints an altarpiece for Savigliano and the church of San Salvario. He is also known as Il Cavaliere del Cairo, because in Turin, he received the order of SS. Lazarus and Maurice in recognition of his merit. Many of his works are eccentric depictions of religious ecstasies; the saints appear liquefied and contorted by piety. He often caps them with exuberant, oriental turbans.
Parrocel, Joseph
French, 1646-1704 He studied with his father Barthelemy Parrocel (1595-1660) and then with his elder brother Louis Parrocel (1634-94). He went to Paris for four years to perfect his work and then, c. 1667, to Rome, where he became the pupil of the battle painter Jacques Courtois and was influenced by Salvator Rosa. He remained in Italy for eight years and stayed for a time in Venice, before returning to settle in Paris in 1675. He was approved (agree) by the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in February 1676 and received as a full member in November of the same year, presenting the Siege of Maastricht (Draguignan, Mus. Mun.). His painted oeuvre consists principally of military scenes, particularly battles, and he received numerous royal commissions. In the period 1685-8 he executed 11 paintings for the Salle du Grand Couvert at the cheteau of Versailles (nine in situ; one in Tours, Mus. B.-A.; one in Dijon, Mus. B.-A.); in 1699 he painted the Crossing of the Rhine (Paris, Louvre.) for the cheteau of Marly, Yvelines, and in 1700 he executed the Fair at Bezons (Tours, Mus. B.-A.), anticipating the fetes galantes of Antoine Watteau. He was also the author of a number of hunting scenes . His most important religious paintings were the May of Notre-Dame de Paris of 1694, St John the Baptist Preaching (Arras, Mus. B.-A.) and St Augustin Succouring the Sick (c. 1703; Nantes, Mus. B.-A.), which was intended for the monastery in the Place des Victoires in Paris. He also contributed battle scenes to the backgrounds of portraits by Hyacinthe Rigaud and by Gabriel Blanchard. His technique was highly original in the context of his time; he employed a very free style of execution and used thick impasto and intense colours. He was also a prolific engraver, producing around 100 plates,