著者
瀬戸 はるか
出版者
美学会
雑誌
美学 (ISSN:05200962)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.71, no.1, pp.109-120, 2020 (Released:2022-02-16)

This paper discusses how the painting style of Agnolo Bronzino (1503-72), the sixteenth century Florentine artist, relates to the art and art theory of contemporary Northern Italy, through an analysis of the Portrait of Cosimo I in Armour (1543, Gallerie degli Uffizi). Since Bronzino’s style has primarily been analyzed in relation to the work of Michelangelo, his most skilled contemporary, earlier interpretations have tended to obscure Bronzino’s individual characteristics, including his characteristic use of colours in lifelike representations of clothing and accessories. Although rarely acknowledged in modern research, this trait was already remarked upon by the Venetian painter and art writer Paolo Pino, who considered Bronzino one of the best colourists of his day. I argue that Bronzino developed his style, which also characterises the Portrait, not in slavish imitation of Michelangelo, but in conscious response to the North Italian painterly tradition, where colour was very important. This argument is supported through an examination of the two different debates of the so-called Paragone, and related works of art of the sixteenth century: in Florence, participants (including Bronzino) argued that the superiority of painting and sculpture derived from disegno, whereas in Northern Italy colorito, was considered to be superior to disegno.