PONTORMO. PAINTINGS AND FRESCOES

JACOPO PONTORMO (1494-1557)

Jacopo Carrucci, named Pontormo after his birthplace, was the main representative of Florentine Mannerism, the seventy-five-year period that links the High Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Following the success of Abrams' Pontormo Drawings, Pontormo Paintings and Frescoes presents in large format an overview of the artist's important works, most of which have been newly photographed for this volume. Influenced by Raphael's late works, Durer's graphics, and Michelangelo's monumental figural style, Pontormo's quest for new forms of expression resulted in some of his most spectacular and brilliantly executed paintings. His highly individual paintings are visions rather than representations of reality; his compositions often include exaggerated forms and unnatural colors. Salvatore S. Nigro, Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Catania, Sicily, has selected over seventy examples of Pontormo's paintings and frescoes. The book includes such masterpieces as the portrait of Cosimo I de Medici, the fresco cycle in the Santissima Annunziata, and the Deposition in Santa Felicita. Each work is presented in a full-page color reproduction, some with details, and is accompanied by a brief commentary. The introduction by Professor Nigro places Pontormo's work within the context of developments in art and literature, and is followed by biographical and bibliographical notes. This volume is particularly important to scholars and connoisseurs of sixteenth-century Italian art; together, the illustrations and text offer a fresh look at this Florentine master and will serve as a record for many years to come.

Nigro here assembles critical and literary references to the Mannerist artist who admired and was influenced by Michelangelo and was a pupil of Andrea del Sarto. The bulk of this book consists of beautiful color plates with dissonant commentaries. Although similar in style and format to Pontormo: Drawings (Abrams, 1992), it differs in offering a chronology based on Vasari's Lives instead of the artist's own diary and provides detailed bibliographic notes as well. Libraries that own Drawings should definitly purchase this compliment; both are suitable for Mannerist and other collections serving advanced studies in the period.-Ellen Bates, New York