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Franciabigio
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Franciabigio |
| Art Encyclopedia: Franciabigio |
(b Florence, 30 Jan 1484; d Florence, 14 Jan 1525). Italian painter. The son of a Milanese linen-weaver, he had completed his apprenticeship, in Florence, by 18 October 1504. His earliest documented works, for example a Piet? (1506) for S Pancrazio, Florence, have not survived. According to Vasari, Franciabigio trained with Mariotto Albertinelli, in whose last work, the signed and dated Crucifixion (1506; Florence, Certosa del Galluzzo, Pin.), he painted the angels (Shearman). In December 1508 the names of Franciabigio and Andrea del Sarto, who sometime between autumn 1506 and 1509 set up a joint workshop, were entered in the registration book of the Arte de' Medici e Speziali, to which painters were required to belong. The Portrait of a Young Man (Paris, Louvre) dates from this period. The work, which was later enlarged, shows the subject half-length, leaning pensively against a balustrade, with strong areas of shadow around the eyes. This is the first in a series of male portraits typical of Franciabigio: the subjects, each of whom wears a hat, are mostly placed in front of a landscape, with their gaze fixed meditatively or piercingly on the onlooker. The religious works from this period, such as the Virgin and Child (1509; Rome, Pal. Barberini), also show a movement away from the style of Albertinelli and Raffaellino del Garbo and begin to reveal instead the influence of Leonardo, Michelangelo and, especially, Raphael. Yet Franciabigio's connection with Andrea del Sarto was the determining factor in his career. When in 1509 it was del Sarto who received the commission to complete the fresco cycle in the atrium of SS Annunziata, Florence, their relationship altered significantly. They had been regarded as equals, but thereafter del Sarto developed into the more successful and also the more innovative painter, and Franciabigio, who had begun to absorb elements from del Sarto's style, remained in his shadow.
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| Wikipedia: Franciabigio |
Franciabigio (1482 – January 24, 1525), was an Italian painter of the Florentine Renaissance. His true name may have been Francesco di Cristofano, however he also is referred to as either Marcantonio Franciabigio or Francia Bigio.
He was born in Florence, and initially worked under Albertinelli until about 1506. In 1505 he befriended Andrea del Sarto; and by the next year, the two painters set up common shop in the Piazza del Grano. He was proficient in fresco and Vasari claimed that he surpassed all his contemporaries in this method. It however in his portraits, and not religious paintings and frescoes, that his painting gathers naturalistic power.
In 1513, in the cloister of the Annunziata he frescoed the Marriage of the Virgin, part of a larger series mainly directed by Andrea del Sarto, and overshadowed by the latter's masterpiece of Birth of the Virgin[1]. Other artists working under Sarto at the cloister included Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo, Francesco Indaco, and Baccio Bandinelli[2].
In 1514, he frescoed a Mategnesque Last Supper for the Convento della Calza in Florence[3]. In 1518-19, at the Convento della Salzo, in another series of frescoes on which Andrea was likewise employed, he executed the Departure of John the Baptist for the Desert, and the Meeting of the Baptist with Jesus.
In 1520-21, at the villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano he frescoed a turgid Triumph of Cicero on the walls of the salon, but again he is overshadowed by Potormo's naturalistic lunette of Vertumnus and Pomona. The array of figures appears distraught rather than celebratory, the antique details are a melange of quotations, and the architect a fancy of Quattrocento style[4]. He painted a St Job altarpiece (1516, Uffizi).
Various works which have been ascribed to Raphael are reasonably deemed to be by Franciabigio. Such as the Madonna del Pozzo, with its awkwardly muscular John the Baptist[5]; and some of his portraits, including the half figure of a Young Man (shown above). These two works show a close analogy in style to another in the Pitti gallery, avowedly by Franciabigio, a Youth at a Window, and to some others—which bear this painter's recognized monogram.
The series of portraits, taken collectively, placed beyond dispute the eminent and idiosyncratic genius of the master. Two other works of his, of some celebrity, are the Calumny of Apelles, in the Pitti Palace, and the Bath of Bathsheba (painted in 1523), in the Dresden gallery.
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Critical assessment and legacy
When compared to his younger contemporary colleague, del Sarto, Franciabigio appears more sculptural and less forward-looking. The Quattrocento monumentality (or stiffness) of posing is evident in figures. Franciabigio attends more to linearity and balance in fresco recalling Massacio, while the complexity and Sarto's paintings reflect an understanding of the dissipating velvety colorful fabric of molding that characterizes Venetian work, and the development of sway that will "mannerize" art in the decades to come.
References
- This article incorporates text from the article "Franciabigio" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Freedberg, Sydney J. (1993). Pelican History of Art. ed. Painting in Italy, 1500-1600. Penguin Books. pp. 96–97.
Footnotes
- ^ According to Vasari, the friars having uncovered this work before it was quite finished, Franciabigio was so incensed that, seizing a mason's hammer, he struck at the head of the Virgin, and some other heads; and the fresco, which would otherwise be his masterpiece in that method, remains thus mutilated
- ^ Betrothal of Virgin at Annunziata cloister.
- ^ Last Supper at Convento della Calza
- ^ Triumph of Cicero at Poggio a Caiano.
- ^ Madonna del Pozzo at the Uffizi Gallery.
External links
Media related to Franciabigio at Wikimedia Commons
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