Bronzino (Chaucer Library of Art)

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Few painters could be said to have shaped posterity’s image of a particular society against the historical and social background as did Bronzino. His portraits, religious subjects and mythological scenes seem to crystallize the urbanity, luxury, elegant erudition and cruelty of the Italian mid-sixteenth century mannerist style. In this lucid and carefully researched study, Charles McCorquodale succeeds in presenting this difficult artist and his relationship to contemporary art in Florence in a manner that simultaneously unravels and dispels many of the misunderstandings of Bronzino’s oeuvre. The author clearly shows that the artist’s own claim to have been the last great painter of the Florentine Renaissance is fundamentally true; as a portraitist he stands amongst Titian, Rubens and Ingres; as a colorist his palette of radiant hues and deep tonality places his work within a category of sophistication unprecedented during the Renaissance and scarcely equaled since.