Rosso Fiorentino
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Rosso Fiorentino (or Il Rosso), whose given name was Giovan Battista di Jacopo (1494-1540), was an Italian Mannerist painter.
Biography
Born in Florence with red hair as his name states, Fiorentino first studied art at the studio of Andrea del Sarto alongside his contemporary, Pontormo.Fleeing Rome after the Sacking of 1527, Fiorentino eventually went to France where he secured a position in the court of Francis I in 1530. He remained there until his death. Together with Francesco Primaticcio he was one of the leading artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau (where he is grouped with the so-called "First School of Fontainebleau") spending much of his life there. Following Rosso's death (not suicide, as written by Vasari) in 1540, Francesco Primaticcio took control of the artistic direction at Fontainebleau.
Rosso's fortunes, along those of other stylized late Renaissance Florentines, has fallen out of favor in comparison to other more naturalistic and graceful contemporaries. In Rosso, the Saints often appears haggard and thin.[link]
Deposition altarpiece (Volterra)
His masterpiece is likely the Deposition or Descent from the Cross altarpiece in the Volterra cathedral. In contrast to the frozen grief in other depositions, this one appears more a hurried mechanical task of carpentry, while the base has simple and forceful expressions of quiet grief, succeeding not with a facial grimace but with the powerful expressions hinted by hidden faces. The sky is somber. The ladders and those deposing Christ appear fragile. Christ himself is sallow. Contrast this frenetic, windswept scene with the equally complex, but more restrained composition on the same theme by the near contemporary Florentine and Mannerist Pontormo.
External links
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