It is not difficult, while visiting Florence, to come across works by Pontormo and fall in love with it instantly. It is found in the church of Santa Felicita, along via Guicciardini (it is the road that connects Ponte Vecchio to Piazza Pitti) entering the first chapel on the right. Here the Deposition surprises us with its unusual construction and colors, out of any tradition. There is Pontormo at the Uffizi, at the Accademia Gallery, in the sanctuary of the Santissima Annunziata. Moreover, in the first half of the sixteenth century this was one of the artists of Cosimo I dei Medici. The works of Florentine Red, who was active in other places in Tuscany and Rome until in 1530 he moved to France where he became a court artist.
But Florence is now close to the opening of the exhibition Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, divergent ways of the "manner" which will be held at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence from 8 March to 20 July and that will allow to fully grasp the great expressive abilities of these two great artists.
The exhibition brings in the spotlight two talented and never too popular painters, two "mannerists" often remembered together, trained in late Renaissance Florence with Andrea del Sarto but who traveled in a different and personal way an expressive way that had to be compared with the peaks reached by the "greatest", Michelangelo and Leonardo.
Nonconformist and unscrupulous, Jacopo Carucci (the real name of Pontormo who was born in a hamlet, a handful of houses near Empoli which is called Pontorme) was a melancholic artist with a difficult character. Giovanni Battista di Iacopo de 'Rossi, known as Rosso Fiorentino, was born in Florence but went a long way, until he reached Fontainebleau by Francesco I of France. The Palazzo Strozzi exhibition will show us the respective paths, showing 80 works by the two artists including paintings, frescoes, drawings and tapestries, exhibited according to a chronological criterion and which also come from foreign museums (from Germany, England and the United States) and from private collections.
The real star of the show is certainly the splendid Visitation di Pontormo which is usually found in the anonymous Propositura dei Santi Michele e Francesco in Carmignano, a hill town between Prato and Florence. Always placed on an altar in the Capponi Chapel, it is being restored and will be exhibited in its splendor in the halls of Palazzo Strozzi. Only the sight of this painting is worth a visit to the exhibition, for the intensity of the encounter between Mary and her cousin Elisabetta, for the movement and the crazy colors of their clothes, for the originality of the scene. So if you don't know it yet, you can compare it with the actualization made by one of the most interesting contemporary artists, Bill Viola. In 1995 Viola presented at the Venice Biennale The Greeting, a reinterpretation in video form of this extraordinarily effective painting which highlights its modernity.
Rosso Fiorentino expressed himself in a more classical way, especially when he became a court artist, but his are for example some fascinating drawings that can be seen in the exhibition. As is customary for the exhibition activity of Palazzo Strozzi, the exhibition leaves the walls and spreads throughout the city and throughout the Region, in fact, illustrative materials have been created that allow you to discover the works of Rosso Fiorentino and Pontormo in Florence and in all of Tuscany.
As is customary for all the exhibitions at Palazzo Strozzi, this will also include a "reading" of the exhibition aimed exclusively at children, with captions dedicated to them. And as with any exhibition there will be visits reserved for families, with organized activities to make the visit itinerary in an original way and come into more direct contact with the works of these two great artists.
The exhibition is open from 8 March to 20 July 2014 every day from 9 to 20, Thursdays until 23. The full ticket costs 10 euros, there are various forms of reduction. See more information on the Palazzo Strozzi website.
