Agnolo Bronzino Biography | Oil Paintings

Agnolo Bronzino was born Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano, he turned into the main court painter of the Florentine School in the mid-sixteenth century. He studied under Raffaellino del Garbo and Jacopo da Pontormo, working with the latter on religious frescoes, as well as being strongly influenced by Michelangelo.

Agnolo Bronzino spent his entire life working in Florence where he was a court painter to Cosmo l, Duke of Tuscany. Second, only to Andrea Del Sarto among Florentine portraitists, he also excelled as a painter of religious works. Numerous portraits of the Medicis exist in several forms with varying degrees of participation by Bronzino himself, as Cosimo was a pioneer of the reproduced portrait sent as a diplomatic gift. Bronzino's best-known works comprise a series of the duke and duchess, Cosimo and Eleonora, and figures of their court such as Bartolomeo Panciatichi and his wife Lucrezia. These paintings, especially those of Duchess Eleonora, are known for their minute attention to the detail of her costume, which almost takes on a personality of its own. The picture was repeated again and again by Bronzino and his shop, becoming one of the most iconic images of the duchess.

Agnolo Bronzino's talents extended to the written word, for he was also a notable poet and a member of the Florentine Academy. From Pontormo he developed a passion for light, resulting in the rich, brilliant colors that dominate his paintings. These are also striking on account of the fascination for the female nude, which conveys strong feelings of eroticism under the pretext of a moralizing allegory, without precedent or parallel up to that time.

Art Movement History: Mannerism.
Artists Influencing Agnolo Bronzino: Michaelangelo, Raffaellino del Garbo, Jacopo da Pontormo.
Painters Agnolo Bronzino Influenced: Cristofano Allori.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist.