Jacopo Carucci or Carrucci, usually known as Jacopo (da) Pontormo or simply Pontormo, was an Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School. His work represents a profound stylistic shift from the calm perspectival regularity that characterized the art of the Florentine Renaissance. He is famous for his use of twining poses, coupled with ambiguous perspective; his figures often seem to float in an uncertain environment, unhampered by the forces of gravity.
Paintings by Pontormo
Carmignano Visitation (1528)
The Carmignano Visitation is a c.1528-1530 oil on panel painting of the Visitation by Pontormo, now in the propositura dei Santi Michele e Francesco in Carmignano, west of Florence, Italy.
Unmentioned in Vasari's first version of the Lives of the Artists, Pontormo was included with named paintings in the second edition, but the list of masterpieces did not include this one, possibly because Vasari had never seen it. The painting was first documented in Giovanni Cinelli Calvoli's 1677 book Le bellezze della città di Firenze. Cinelli wrote that in the house of Senator Andrea Pitti there is 'a smaller modello of the Visitation of Pontormo, with extremely fine and meticulously painted drapery', and he believes the larger original is in the villa of the Pinadoria family in Camignano. In 1740 the painting was installed in its present location, somewhat unhappily with a large white with gold trim frame expansion to make it fit an existing altar that had its inscription rubbed off.
Portrait of a Halberdier (1529)
Portrait of a Halberdier, The Halberdier or Man with a Halberd is a 1529-1530 or 1537 oil painting by Pontormo, originally painted on panel and later transferred to canvas. It is now in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. A preparatory drawing now in Florence's Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe shows the figure in a more frontal and less contraposto pose.
It was long thought to show Francesco Guardi, a very young soldier of the Florentine Republic during the Siege of Florence, since Vasari's Lives of the Artists records a portrait of Guardi by Pontormo. Others have argued it shows a young Cosimo I de' Medici after his victory at the 1537 Battle of Montemurlo, based on a note in a historic inventory.
Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist (Pontormo) (1522)
Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist is a c.1522-1523 oil on panel painting by Pontormo, produced early in his career. It now hangs in the Hermitage Museum, which acquired it with countess E. I. Mordvinova's collection. A preparatory drawing survives in the Uffizi's Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe.
Joseph in Egypt (painting) (1518)
Joseph in Egypt is an oil painting on panel of c. 1518 by Pontormo, now in the National Gallery in London, which bought it in 1882. Like the same artist's Joseph's Brothers Beg for Help, Joseph Sold to Potiphar and Pharaoh with his Butler and Baker (all also in the National Gallery), it was originally part of the Marriage Chamber in the Palazzo Borgherini in Florence.
Vertumnus and Pomona (Pontormo) (1519)
Vertumnus and Pomona is a fresco decoration in the Medici country villa at Poggio a Caiano (near Montalbano), executed c. 1519–1521 by Jacopo Pontormo. The villa is set among orchards and gardens, and in summer, served as a retreat from the heat in Florence.
The fresco is contained within a lunette high in a barrel-vaulted central hall. The allegorical figures over the doors and the facing fresco depicting Julius Caesar, begun by Pontormo’s mentor, Andrea del Sarto, were completed decades later by Alessandro Allori. Pontormo initially received the commission from Ottaviano de' Medici and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the future Clement VII, and Giovanni de’ Medici (later pope as Leo X).
Supper at Emmaus (Pontormo) (1525)
Supper at Emmaus is a 1525 oil on canvas painting by Pontormo and now in the Uffizi in Florence. It is one of the smallest works signed and dated by the artist, in this case on the abandoned scroll in the foreground.
The work's chiaroscuro, high light-source, realism and freeze-frame composition proved an important precedent for Caravaggio, Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán.
The Deposition from the Cross (Pontormo) (1525)
The Deposition from the Cross is an altarpiece, completed in 1528, depicting the Deposition of Christ by the Italian Renaissance painter Jacopo Pontormo. It is broadly considered to be the artist's surviving masterpiece. Painted in tempera on wood, it is located above the altar of the Capponi Chapel of the church of Santa Felicita in Florence.
This painting suggests a whirling dance of the grief-stricken. They inhabit a flattened space, comprising a sculptural congregation of brightly demarcated colors. The vortex of the composition droops down towards the limp body of Jesus off center in the left. Those lowering Christ appear to demand our help in sustaining both the weight of his body (and the burden of sin Christ took on) and their grief. No cross is visible; the natural world itself also appears to have nearly vanished: a lonely cloud and a shadowed patch of ground with a crumpled sheet provide sky and stratum for the mourners. If the sky and earth have lost color, the mourners have not; bright swathes of pink and blue envelop the pallid, limp Christ.
Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Four Saints (1529)
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Four Saints is an oil painting on panel by Pontormo in the Louvre, Paris. References in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists are taken by some to date the work to 1528–1529, the years immediately after Pontormo painted the Capponi Chapel. More recent art historians argue that its style is close to works he produced between 1524 and 1526.
The work was produced for the monastery of Sant'Anna in Verzaia outside Florence's Porta San Frediano, hence the presence of Saint Anne. From left to right the other saints are Sebastian in green, Peter in saffron and blue, the Good Thief, and Benedict of Nursia in a monk's habit. Until 1370 the monastery's church was the halfway point of a procession on Saint Anne's feast day (26 July) to commemorate the city's "liberation" from the Duke of Athens. The medallion at the foot of the Madonna's throne shows a group of people from the procession, including an infantry captain (the work's commissioner), the heads of companies, trumpeters, pipers, dealers, "commanders" and "benchers".
Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist (Pontormo) (1529)
Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist is an oil on panel painting by Pontormo, now in the Uffizi, whose Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe also houses a preparatory drawing for the work. The two theories on its dating are 1534-1536 and Antonio Natali's theory of 1529–1530.
The figure and expression of John the Baptist draws on contemporary works by Michelangelo such as the Medici Madonna Vasari's Lives of the Artists states that Pontormo offered a work on a similar subject the bricklayer Rossino in payment for work on his home, begun in 1529 and only finished in 1534-1535 - this is thought to be the Uffizi work. It was then probably acquired by Alessandro di Ottaviano de' Medici, before being acquired by the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. It was rediscovered in Galleria's stores by Gamba and its attribution to Pontormo strengthened, with no substantial doubts remaining as to its autograph status.
Portrait of Cosimo the Elder (1510)
Portrait of Cosimo the Elder is an oil on panel painting by Pontormo, executed c. 1519–1520, now in the Uffizi, Florence.
Its subject Cosimo the Elder, founder of the House of Medici, had died over fifty years earlier. The work was commissioned by Goro Gheri, who from September 1519 onwards was responsible for the extraordinary administration of Florence, possibly at the instigation of Giovanni de' Medici, later to become pope Leo X. He had begun his career as secretary to Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, killed the previous May, thus extinguishing the "di Cafaggiolo" line, the main Medici line. Their fortunes revived that June when a new male heir was born to Giovanni delle Bande Nere (member of the "popolano" branch) and Maria Salviati (daughter of Lucrezia, the future pope's sister) – this heir would be named Cosimo after the dynasty's founder.
Venus and Cupid (Pontormo) (1533)
Venus and Cupid is an oil painting on panel of c. 1533 by Pontormo, from a lost drawing or cartoon by Michelangelo, in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. A preparatory study is in the British Museum and a copy by Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio is in the Palazzo Colonna in Rome. Other copies are in the Royal Collection at Kensington Palace, in Hildesheim, a small version in Geneva attributed to Michele Tosini and two in the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples (one attributed to Hendrick van den Broeck and the other an anonymous drawing). Giorgio Vasari made three copies for Ottaviano de' Medici.
Michelangelo's drawing was first recorded by the Anonimo Magliabechiano (1537–1542), who also noted that Pontormo's painting derived from it was produced for Bartolomeo Bettini, a friend of Michelangelo's. The drawing must have been produced between 1532 and 1533 and the painting in 1533, before Michelangelo left for Rome the following year. A drawing found in Naples was once thought to be Michelangelo's, but is now thought to be a copy.
Pucci Altarpiece (1518)
The Madonna and Child with Saints, also known as the Pucci Altarpiece (Italian: Pala Pucci), is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance painter Jacopo Pontormo, executed in 1516. It is housed in the church of San Michele Visdomini in Florence.
It portrays numerous figures. Saint Joseph, on the left, is holding the Christ Child (a role usually fulfilled by the Madonna). The presence of Saint Joseph is explained by the fact that the Gospel of James deals with Christ's childhood and praises Joseph's paternal cares. Saint Francis is connected to name of the commissioner and the devotion of his order towards Jesus.