Wikipedia

Piero di Cosimo

Not to be confused withPiero di Cosimo de' Medici.

Piero di Cosimo(2 January 1462[1]– 12 April 1522), also known asPiero di Lorenzo,was anItalian Renaissance painter,who continued to use an essentiallyEarly Renaissancestyle into the 16th century.

Piero di Cosimo
Presumed self-portrait at the right side of his paintingPerseus Freeing Andromeda
Born2 January 1462
Florence,Republic of Florence
Died12 April 1522(1522-04-12)(aged 60)
Florence,Republic of Florence
NationalityItalian
EducationCosimo Rosselli
Known forPainting
MovementHigh Renaissance
The Death of Procris,c. 1495
Perseus Freeing Andromeda,oil on canvas, 1510 or 1513,Uffizi
Tritons and Nereids(1500), oil on panel, 37 x158 cm, Milano, Altomani collection

He is most famous for the mythological and allegorical subjects he painted in the lateQuattrocento;he is said to have abandoned these to return to religious subjects under the influence ofSavonarola,the preacher who exercised a huge sway inFlorencein the 1490s, and had a similar effect onBotticelli.TheHigh Renaissancestyle of the new century had little influence on him, and he retained the straightforward realism of his figures, which combines with an often whimsical treatment of his subjects to create the distinctive mood of his works.

Vasarihas many stories of his eccentricity, and the mythological subjects have an individual and quirky fascination.[2]He trained underCosimo Rosselli,whose daughter he married, and assisted him in hisSistine Chapelfrescos.

He was also influenced byEarly Netherlandish painting,and busy landscapes feature in many works, often forests seen close at hand. Several of his most striking secular works are in the long "landscape" format used for paintings inset intocassonewedding chests orspallieraheadboards or panelling. He was apparently famous for designing the temporary decorations forCarnivaland other festivities.

Biography

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Young St John the Baptist,1490s

The son of a goldsmith, Lorenzo di Piero, Piero was born inFlorenceand apprenticed under the artistCosimo Rosseli,from whom he derived his popular name and whom he assisted in the painting of theSistine Chapelin 1481.

In the first phase of his career, Piero was influenced by the Netherlandish naturalism ofHugo van der Goes,whosePortinari Triptych(now at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence) helped to lead the whole of Florentine painting into new channels. From him, most probably, Cosimo acquired the love of landscape and the intimate knowledge of the growth of flowers and of animal life. The manner of Hugo van der Goes is especially apparent in theAdoration of the Shepherds,at theBerlin Museum.

He journeyed toRomein 1482 with his master, Rosselli. He proved himself a true child of theRenaissanceby depicting subjects of Classical mythology in such pictures asVenus, Mars, and Cupid,The Death of Procris,the Perseus and Andromeda series, at the Uffizi, and many others. Inspired to theVitruvius' account of the evolution of man, Piero's mythical compositions show the bizarre presence of hybrid forms of men and animals, or the man learning to use fire and tools. The multitudes of nudes in these works shows the influence ofLuca Signorellion Piero's art.

During his lifetime, Piero acquired a reputation for eccentricity—a reputation enhanced and exaggerated by later commentators such asGiorgio Vasari,who included a biography of Piero di Cosimo in hisLives of the Artists.[3]Reportedly, he was frightened of thunderstorms, and so pyrophobic that he rarely cooked his food; he lived on a diet of hard-boiled eggs,which he prepared 50 at a time while boiling glue for his artworks.[4][5][6]He also resisted any cleaning of his studio, or trimming of the fruit trees of his orchard; he lived, wrote Vasari, "more like a beast than a man".

If, as Vasari asserts, he spent the last years of his life in gloomy retirement, the change was probably due to preacherGirolamo Savonarola,under whose influence he turned his attention once more to religious art. The death of his master Roselli may also have affected Piero's morose elder years. TheImmaculate Conception with Saints,at theUffizi,and theHoly Family,atDresden,illustrate the religious fervour to which he was stimulated by Savonarola.

PROMULGATIO LEGIS SCRIPTE PER MOISEM–frescoby Cosimo Rosselli

With the exception of the landscape background in Rosselli's fresco of theSermon on the Mount,in the Sistine Chapel, there is no record of any fresco work from his brush. On the other hand, Piero enjoyed a great reputation as a portrait painter: the most famous of his work is in fact the portrait of aFlorentinenoblewoman,Simonetta Vespucci,mistress ofGiuliano de' Medici.According to Vasari, Piero excelled in designing pageants and triumphal processions for the pleasure-loving youths of Florence, and gives a vivid description of one such procession at the end of the carnival of 1507, which illustrated the triumph of death. Piero di Cosimo exercised considerable influence upon his fellow pupilsAlbertinelliandBartolomeo della Porta,and was the master ofAndrea del Sarto.

Vasari gave Piero's date of death as 1521, and this date is still repeated by many sources, including theEncyclopædia Britannica.[7]However, contemporary documents reveal that he died of plague on 12 April 1522.[8]He is featured inGeorge Eliot's novelRomola.

Selected works

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  • Madonna and Child Enthroned with Sts. Peter, John the Baptist, Dominic, and Nicholas of Bari(1481–85) tempera and oil on panel,St. Louis Art Museum,St. Louis, Missouri
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints
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References

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  1. ^After much uncertainty, Piero's birth date was identified in the parish records of San Lorenzo by Dennis Geronimus, "The Birth Date, Early Life, and Career of Piero di Cosimo",The Art Bulletin82.1 (March 2000:164–170); Geronimus was able to rely on the consistency of Lorenzo di Piero d'Antonio's reports of his children's ages at thecatastiof 1469 and 1480, and a new database of Florentine baptismal records.
  2. ^Hartt, 480–481
  3. ^Fermor, Sharon (1993).Piero di Cosimo: Fiction, Invention, and Fantasia.Reaktion Books.pp. 7–9 and ff.ISBN9780948462368.
  4. ^Griswold, William (5 August 2014)."Piero di Cosimo".Grove Art Online.Oxford Art Online.Retrieved24 July2019– viaOxford University Press.
  5. ^Fermor, Sharon; Cosimo, Piero Di. (1993).Piero Di Cosimo: Fiction, Invention, and Fantasìa.Reaktion Books. p. 16.ISBN0-948462-36-1"He ate only when he was hungry, and later in life reduced himself to living off hard-boiled eggs, which he cooked fifty at a time when boiling the size for his paintings, in order to save fuel."
  6. ^Blow, Douglas. (2009).In Your Face: Professional Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous in Sixteenth-Century Italy.Stanford University Press. p. 97.ISBN978-0804762168"The Tuscan painter Piero di Cosimo (1461–1521), for instance, ate only boiled eggs, cooking them by the bucketload and then consuming them one by one as he worked."
  7. ^"Piero Di Cosimo".Encyclopædia Britannica.Encyclopædia Britannica Online.2006.Retrieved28 October2006.
  8. ^Waldman, Louis Alexander (March 2000). "Fact, Fiction, Hearsay: Notes on Vasari's Life of Piero di Cosimo".The Art Bulletin.82(1): 171–9.doi:10.2307/3051370.JSTOR3051370.
  9. ^Dennis Geronimus,Piero Di Cosimo: Visions Beautiful and Strange,(Yale University Press), 2006 fig. 122
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