ROSSO FIORENTINO, Featured Paintings in Detail

ROSSO FIORENTINO

Featured Paintings in Detail

ROSSO FIORENTINOMusician Angelc. 1520Tempera on wood, 38 x 47 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINOMusician Angel (detail)c. 1520Tempera on wood, 38 x 47 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINOA Young Man1517-18Oil on poplar, 82 x 60 cmStaatliche Museen, Berlin

ROSSO FIORENTINOA Young Man (detail)1517-18Oil on poplar, 82 x 60 cmStaatliche Museen, Berlin

ROSSO FIORENTINOBetrothal of the Virgin1523Oil on wood, 325 x 250 cmSan Lorenzo, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINOBetrothal of the Virgin (detail)1523Oil on wood, 325 x 250 cmSan Lorenzo, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINOMarriage of the Virgin (detail)1523Oil on canvasSan Lorenzo, Florence

The detail shows the kneeling figure of St Apollonia on the right side of the painting. As far as traditional representations of this theme are concerned, quite unusual is the presence among the onlookers in the foreground of St Apollonia who certainly could not have witnessed the event.

ROSSO FIORENTINOBetrothal of the Virgin (detail)1523Oil on wood, 325 x 250 cmSan Lorenzo, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINODeposition from the Cross1528Oil on canvas, 270 x 201 cmSan Lorenzo, Sansepolcro

ROSSO FIORENTINODeposition from the Cross (detail)1528Oil on canvas, 270 x 201 cmSan Lorenzo, Sansepolcro

ROSSO FIORENTINODeposition from the Cross (detail)1528Oil on canvasSan Lorenzo, Sansepolcro

Transferring to the Virgin, the iconography which from the 14th century in Italy was traditionally used to represent Mary Magdalene, Ross portrays the mother of Christ with her arms splayed and held up, as if she herself was reliving the moment of crucifixion; the expression of the crucified Jesus seems in fact to be impressed upon the face of Mary, who is now prostrate with grief. Behind her, the horrible animal-like figure directing his squint-eyed gaze away from the scene probably takes up the theme of the bodyguard, the symbol of the treachery and wickedness that determined the killing of Christ.

ROSSO FIORENTINODeposition from the Cross (detail)1528Oil on canvas, 270 x 201 cmSan Lorenzo, Sansepolcro

ROSSO FIORENTINODescent from the Cross1521Oil on wood, 375 x 196 cmCathedral, Volterra

ROSSO FIORENTINODescent from the Cross (detail)1521Oil on wood, 375 x 196 cmCathedral, Volterra

ROSSO FIORENTINODescent from the Cross (detail)1521Oil on woodCathedral, Volterra

Rosso too acknowledges, as the Pontormo Deposition does, Michelangelo's Roman Pietà (the body of Christ is clearly inspired by the Vatican Pietà), but the Christ of the Deposition is far more closely connected with a drawing for a Pietà which Michelangelo made about 1519-20, and which haunted Rosso to the end of his life.


In addition to his pictorial originality, Rosso also had considerable technical skill as is demonstrated in this detail. By this time the Florentines were using oil paint effectively, but their approach depended upona thinner, highly fluid application of the paint rather than the thick impastos used by their Venetian contemporaries.


Validating the theory that Rosso spent some time in Rome, presumably between 1518 and 1521, are clear references to the frescoes of the Sistine ceiling. One of the references is the use of the gesture of Eve expelled from the Paradise for the posture of the figure of St John. This red-haired young man, who buries his hands in an expression of intense anguish, has been interpreted as a "self-portrait denied" of Rosso, who by including this figure in the painting is thus personally involved in the event represented. Examples of this exist in more or less contemporary northern figurative art, in Dürer particularly, who has been identified as one of the most probable sources of inspiration for the painting and to whom some facial characterizations are referable.

ROSSO FIORENTINODescent from the Cross (detail)1521Oil on wood, 375 x 196 cmCathedral, Volterra

ROSSO FIORENTINOMoses Defending the Daughters of Jethro1523-24Oil on canvas, 160 x 117 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINOMoses Defending the Daughters of Jethro (detail)1523-24Oil on canvas, 160 x 117 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINOMoses Defending the Daughters of Jethro (detail)1523-24Oil on canvasGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

The detail shows Zipporah, one of the daughters of Jethro.This painting is one of the principal works of the maturity of the painter. The obvious inspiration from Michelangelo is surpassed by the intense compression of the various plastic planes which become shining planes of colour. In their brilliant chromatic polish and in the tangle of the masses in violent "contrapposto" there is an unreal smoothness which tends towards a visionary effect.The painting was restored in 1995.

ROSSO FIORENTINOPietà1537-40Oil on wood transferred to canvas, 125 x 159 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

ROSSO FIORENTINOPietà (detail)1537-40Oil on wood transferred to canvas, 125 x 159 cmMusée du Louvre, Paris

ROSSO FIORENTINOThe Death of Cleopatra1525-1527 Oil on panel, 88 x 75cm Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

ROSSO FIORENTINOThe Death of Cleopatra (detail)1525-1527 Oil on panel, 88 x 75cm Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

ROSSO FIORENTINOMadonna Enthroned with Four Saints1518Oil on wood, 172 x 141 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINOMadonna Enthroned with Four Saints (detail)1518Oil on wood, 172 x 141 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

ROSSO FIORENTINO, Featured Paintings in Detail

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ROSSO FIORENTINOMadonna Enthroned with Four Saints

This is the first altarpiece painted by Rosso Fiorentino. Commissioned by the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, the board ended in a Mugello church of hospital property. The painting depicts the Virgin Mary holding her child intent on a conversation with a group of saints: St. John the Baptist, St. Anthony Abbot, St. Jerome and St. Benedict. Rosso

Fiorentino, differing from the tradition of the '400, did not paint the Madonna as ruling on the saints but on the same floor, in the middle of the group.

A neurotic, even deformed stylisation that at times verges on the grotesque is the most immediate characteristic of Rosso Fiorentino's paintings, and can be glimpsed in this painting (the Ognissanti Altarpiece), executed for the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova in Florence.

Most notably, the restlessness of the whole work contradicts a High Renaissance ideal: that of serene majesty. This accentuates the expressive dynamism of his compositions, whose colours and tones seem burnt or lividly overstated. The almost infernal aspect of some of his characters has given rise to a number of sometimes wild hypotheses about the

painter's far-from-happy psychology. (He committed suicide.)

The altarpiece portrays the Virgin and Child between St John the Baptist, St Antony Abbot, St Stephen and St Jerome. The faces of saints, darkened by heavy shading, are utterly devoid of that serenity which characterizes the figures in traditional altarpieces. In the figure of St Jerome, the sunken abdomen, the prominent sternum, ribs and collar-bone of the

chest area, and the skeletal thinness of the neck, arms and fingers, reveal unquestionable links with the studies of decomposing or flayed bodies that began to interest a great number of Tuscan artists from the 15th century.

ROSSO FIORENTINOMusician Angel

This little work belonging to the period of maturity of the artist, who was a pupil of Andrea del Sarto, together with Pontormo.In 1605 the picture was collocated in the Tribune beside the more precious masterworks Medici family had collected.

Recent studies revealed the panel to be a fragment of a larger painting including - such as other altarpieces by Rosso - the angel in the lower part of the scene. A sense of vitality and tenderness emanates from this little cherub playing a lute, the touches of red on the wings, on the cheeks and on the nose brighten the colors in the scene for the

rest pretty dark. Very special are the curly unruly hair of the angel: a whimsical touch of the painter.

Probably dating to the beginning of the third decade of 16th century.

ROSSO FIORENTINOA Young Man

This portrait of a young man is characteristic of the Mannerist phase of Florentine painting in the first third of the sixteenth century. The sitter's languid hands and relaxed coiffure have nothing to do with his sharp gaze, undiminished by a landscape background totally at odds with the sitter's decidedly urban toughness. Strips

later added all around diminish the sense of tension that is one of Rosso's hallmarks.

ROSSO FIORENTINOMarriage of the Virgin

The painting was executed on the commission of Carlo Ginori for the chapel dedicated to Mary and Joseph in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The name of the artist, "Rubeus Florentino", is included among the letters of the first line of the second paragraph of the text which the saint marks with her finger, and also clearly written, together

with the date of execution, on the step beneath the figure of the priest.

Like the Dei Altarpiece, this painting is another example of moderation compared to the formal boldness of the works belonging to the early Florentine period and the sojourn in Volterra. The composition takes up some figurative ideas from the frescoes of Pontormo and Franciabigio in the Chiostrino dei Voti in Santissima Annunziata.

ROSSO FIORENTINODeposition from the Cross

The painting was commissioned in 1527 by the Confraternity of Santa Croce, and was probably finished before 1 July 1528. Compared with the preceding Deposition in Volterra, to which the painting refers in the figure of the deposer on the left descending one of the three ladders resting against the cross, and in the curly-haired young St John, portrayed in the background burying his face in his hands, as in the Volterra altarpiece, the Deposition of Sansepolcro places a greater emphasis on the figure of Christ, who has been taken down from the cross and is now lying in

the Virgin's lap in the foreground.

A reference to the moulded characterization of Michelangelo's anatomies is visible in the bodies of Rosso's painting; observe, for example, the youth standing to the right of the Virgin bending slightly forward in the act of holding up Christ's back. The light which covers the foreground of the composition and contrasts with the dark background is brightest in the clothing of this figure, highlighting its refined golden-yellow floral motif, and produces the extraordinary changing colour effects of the dress of the bystander seated in the foreground to the left of Mary

Magdalene.More than for the reelaboration of elements associated with the art of Dürer and the great masters of classicism, the Sansepolcro Deposition is distinguished by a number of iconographical

peculiarities. The most striking is the complete nudity of the body of Jesus, a clear break with tradition, emphasis being given to the ample volume of its swollen rib-cage.

Transferring to the Virgin, the iconography which from the 14th century in Italy was traditionally used to represent Mary Magdalene, Ross portrays the mother of Christ with her arms splayed and held up, as if she herself was reliving the moment of crucifixion; the expression of the crucified Jesus seems in fact to be impressed upon the face of Mary, who is now prostrate with grief. Behind her, the horrible animal-like figure directing his squint-eyed gaze away from the scene probably takes up the theme of the bodyguard, the symbol of the treachery and wickedness that

determined the killing of Christ, and also present in the Volterra Deposition.

ROSSO FIORENTINODeposition from the Cross

The painting was commissioned in 1527 by the Confraternity of Santa Croce, and was probably finished before 1 July 1528. Compared with the preceding Deposition in Volterra, to which the painting refers in the figure of the deposer on the left descending one of the three ladders resting against the cross, and in the curly-haired young St

John, portrayed in the background burying his face in his hands, as in the Volterra altarpiece, the Deposition of Sansepolcro places a greater emphasis on the figure of Christ, who has been taken down from the cross and is now lying in the Virgin's lap in the foreground.

A reference to the moulded characterization of Michelangelo's anatomies is visible in the bodies of Rosso's painting; observe, for example, the youth standing to the right of the Virgin bending slightly forward in the act of holding up Christ's back. The light which covers the foreground of the composition and contrasts with the dark background is brightest in the clothing of this figure, highlighting its refined golden-yellow floral motif, and produces the extraordinary changing colour effects of the

dress of the bystander seated in the foreground to the left of Mary Magdalene.

More than for the reelaboration of elements associated with the art of Dürer and the great masters of classicism, the Sansepolcro Deposition is distinguished by a number of iconographical peculiarities. The most striking is the complete nudity of the body of Jesus, a clear break with tradition, emphasis being given to the ample

volume of its swollen rib-cage.

Transferring to the Virgin, the iconography which from the 14th century in Italy was traditionally used to represent Mary Magdalene, Ross portrays the mother of Christ with her arms splayed and held up, as if she herself was reliving the moment of crucifixion; the expression of the crucified Jesus seems in fact to be impressed upon the

face of Mary, who is now prostrate with grief. Behind her, the horrible animal-like figure directing his squint-eyed gaze away from the scene probably takes up the theme of the bodyguard, the symbol of the treachery and wickedness that determined the killing of Christ, and also present in the Volterra Deposition.

ROSSO FIORENTINOMoses Defending the Daughters of Jethro

This painting was created in 1523 and was one of Fiorentino's early works, completed in Florence while he was working in the workshop of Andrea del Sarto. At this time he was honing his unique style that would set him apart from other painters of the day.

Fiorentino's action-packed spectacle draws from the Old Testament story of Moses and his legendary decency in defending the daughters of Jethro, a priest and shepherd in the land of Midian.

While wandering in exile from Egypt, Moses happened to stumble upon Jethro's seven daughters attempting to draw water out of a well to water their father's sheep. Unfortunately, some shepherds were preventing them from doing their chores, blocking access to the well while they selfishly watered their own sheep. Moses defended the daughters, driving back the bothersome

shepherds and chivalrously watering the sheep himself. Out of gratitude, Jethro gave Moses his prettiest daughter in marriage.

While other artists treated this event with a temperate light, Fiorentino took the conflict and ran with it, turning it into an epic battle over the well.Moses is in the center giving a beating to the shepherds, with Zipporah, his future wife, looking on in the upper right hand corner. The canvas is a mass of writhing, muscular nudes.

ROSSO FIORENTINOPietà

Rosso addressed the theme of the dead Christ again towards the end of his artistic career when, after completing the decoration of the Gallery at Fontainebleau for François I, painted the Pietà. The painting once hung above the door of the chapel of the High Constable Anne de Montmorency in the castle of Ecouen. The painting, of all the works

executed by Rosso during his stay in France (1530-40), is the only surviving example that is certainly original.

The painting is a "close-up" of the body of Christ, which extends across the whole width of the composition, literally filling the pictorial space. Christ's body, having taken down from the cross, of which there is no trace in the composition, and from the maternal lap, is elegantly placed on a cushion lying on the ground. Behind the body of Jesus the Virgin opens her arms and collapses into the arms of one of the pious women. Light shines in the foreground of the composition, highlighting, compared with the dark background, the various shades of red in the clothing, which contrast with the white of the scarf surrounding the upper part of Mary's dress, and the delicate lace of Mary Magdalene's dress, in

which the golden yellow of the sleeve stands out.

ROSSO FIORENTINOThe Death of Cleopatra

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, committed suicide to avoid being taken prisoner by Octavius, who had conquered Anthony, Cleopatra's lover and Octavius' rival for supremacy in Rome. Plutarch reports that the Queen wished to die by a serpent's bite, for the ancient Egyptians believed that this death ensured immortality.

The artist has not chosen to portray the dramatic climax, nor the decision to commit suicide, nor even the snake bite itself, but the moment in which the tension begins to subside. The serpent has done its deadly work.

ROSSO FIORENTINO

Italian painter and decorator, (also called IL ROSSO, original name Giovanni Battista di Jacopo) an exponent of the expressive style that is often called early, or Florentine, Mannerism, and one of the founders of the Fontainebleau school.

Vasari says that he 'would not bind himself to any master' (a story that fits in with his individuality of temperament), but in his youth he learned most from Andrea del Sarto, and together with Andrea's pupil Pontormo (Rosso's friend and close contemporary)

he was one of the leading figures in the early development of Mannerism. The earliest works of Rosso and Pontormo combined influences from Michelangelo and from northern Gothic engravings in a novel style, which departed from the tenets of High

Renaissance art and was characterized by its highly charged emotionalism. Rosso's work was highly sophisticated and varied in mood, ranging from the Assumption (1517; fresco at SS. Annunziata, Florence) to the refined elegance of the Marriage of the

Virgin (S. Lorenzo, Florence, 1523), to the violent energy of Moses and the Daughters of Jethro (Uffizi, Florence, c.1523) and to the disquieting intensity of the Deposítion (Galleria Pittorica, Volterra, 1521).

At the end of 1523 Rosso moved to Rome, where his exposure to Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, the late art of Raphael, and the work of Parmigianino resulted in a radical realignment of his style. His Dead Christ with Angels (c. 1526) exemplifies this new style

with its feeling for rarefied beauty and subdued emotion. Fleeing from the Sack of the city in 1527, he worked briefly in several central Italian towns. In 1530, on the invitation of Francis I, he went to France (by way of Venice) and remained in the royal service

there until his death. Vasari, whose biography of Rosso also includes an entertaining story about his pet baboon, says that he killed himself in remorse after falsely accusing a friend of stealing money from him, but this may well be apocryphal.

Rosso's principal surviving work is the decoration of the Galerie François I at the palace of Fontainebleau (c. 1534-37), where, in collaboration with Francesco Primaticcio, he developed an ornamental style whose influence was felt throughout northern Europe. His numerous designs for engravings also exercised a wide influence on the decorative arts both in Italy and in northern Europe.

ROSSO FIORENTINO, Featured Paintings in Detail

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