{"id":932,"date":"2021-06-28T09:40:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T01:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/?p=932"},"modified":"2021-06-28T09:40:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T01:40:08","slug":"how-the-medici-family-harnessed-the-political-power-of-portraiture-and-brought-renaissance-art-to-new-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/how-the-medici-family-harnessed-the-political-power-of-portraiture-and-brought-renaissance-art-to-new-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Medici Family Harnessed the Political Power of Portraiture\u2014and Brought Renaissance Art to New Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

The history of society\u2019s elite using art to solidify their power isn\u2019t short, but it\u2019s possible that members of the\u00a0Medici family<\/a>\u00a0are among the most innovative figures in that lineage. In 15th- and 16th-century Italy, during the height of the Renaissance, the Medici established themselves as the greatest art patrons of their day, setting a course for mega-collectors active now (think Fran\u00e7ois Pinault or Mitchell and Emily Rales). Members of the Medici family forged close relationships with artists like Michelangelo and\u00a0Jacopo da Pontormo<\/a>, and used their deep connections to commission major works that would signify their vast influence.<\/p>\n

In bringing on top artists to make paintings, sculptures, chapels, and more for them, the Medici weren\u2019t just flaunting their worldliness and their wealth. Anyone with even a vague knowledge of politics at the time would know that the Medici, who came to power because of a fortune accrued through the family\u2019s banking empire established at the end of the 14th century, had the means.\u00a0The work they had artists produce also had a political purpose\u2014acting as potent symbols of the family\u2019s dominion in virtually all\u00a0aspects of society in Florence and effectively boosting the city as an art center in the process.<\/p>\n

A new show at the\u00a0Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>\u00a0in New York proposes that one kind of art-making was particularly important in that regard: portraiture. Curated by Keith Christiansen and Carlo Falciani, \u201cThe Medici: Portraits and Politics 1512\u20131570\u201d focuses on the images of the family and its circle created by artists like\u00a0Raphael<\/a>,\u00a0Bronzino<\/a>, Benvenuto Cellini, and Francesco Salviati. With that show set to open on June 26, below is a look at the hidden politics of four portraits of the Medici.<\/p>\n

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Raphael,\u00a0Lorenzo de\u2019 Medici, Duke of Urbino<\/em>, 1518.<\/span>BRIDGEMAN IMAGES\/PRIVATE COLLECTION<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Depicting Political Ambitions<\/b><\/p>\n

For the Medici, rarely was a portrait ever just a picture of an individual\u2014it was an image also laced with political ambitions that could aid in one\u2019s diplomatic quests. That was certainly the case with Raphael\u2019s 1518 painting of Lorenzo de\u2019 Medici, who, in 1518, married Madeleine de la Tour d\u2019Auvergne, a member of the French king Francis I\u2019s family.<\/p>\n

Upon the marriage, Lorenzo sent a vast array of gifts to France\u2019s royalty, including three other Raphael paintings, among them a famed portrait of Pope Leo X<\/a>\u2014himself a member of the family\u2014that now resides at the Uffizi. Though this painting of Lorenzo wasn\u2019t a part of that cache, it was of a piece with it, since it was also intended to firm up relations with France. Fittingly, Lorenzo is shown wearing styles that were popular in France at the time. Raphael has paid careful attention to the puffy red linens of his sleeves, even allowing tufts of fur peeking out, indicating Paris\u2019s slightly colder climates.\u00a0<\/strong>Unlike later, more expressive portraits of the Medici, this one is fairly straightforward, emphasizing Lorenzo\u2019s hauteur.<\/p>\n

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Jacopo da Pontormo,\u00a0Alessandro de\u2019 Medici<\/em>, 1534\u201335.<\/span>PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Rehabilitating Perception<\/b><\/p>\n

The sedate, austere atmosphere of this portrait was intended to strengthen the perception of Alessandro de\u2019 Medici as a solid leader. He had good reason for trying to rehab his image: Alessandro was hated by Florentines. Jacopo da Pontormo, an artist with whom Alessandro was close, dignified him in this painting, in which Alessandro appears to be at work in a barely lit room. Everything about the painting is dark; he is shown wearing mourning attire. (Alessandro\u2019s skin is also dark because, according to popular lore, he was the son of a formerly enslaved woman in the Medici household. PBS has labeled him the \u201cfirst black head of state in modern Europe<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

On a barely visible table, Alessandro is shown to be sketching what appears to be a human form using a stylus. This is not just any drawing, however. The practice of drawing\u2014or\u00a0disegno<\/em>, as it was known in the Renaissance\u2014was seen at the time as a way of elevating craft and bringing artists closer to a superior intellectual state. Additionally, diplomat and author Baldassarre Castiglione theorized that, in order to obtain a princely mentality, rulers ought to draw. It\u2019s unclear what, exactly, Alessandro is scrawling, though Giorgio Vasari, who has been considered the first modern art historian, once wrote that the ruler is drawing a woman.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Bronzino,\u00a0Cosimo I de\u2019 Medici as Orpheus<\/em>, 1537\u201339.<\/span>COURTESY PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Mythological Connections<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we think of Renaissance portraits of the day\u2019s elite, we tend to imagine their subjects as they appeared at the time, in stately garb and contemporary settings. Periodically, however, artists resorted to more creative means to stake a claim for the power of the Medicis. In this portrait, Cosimo I is portrayed as Orpheus, a figure from Greek mythology who used his music to quell all living things. In Bronzino\u2019s hands, Cosimo is plunked right into this ancient tale\u2014he\u2019s pictured holding an instrument before a snarling multiheaded dog named Cerberus, who guards the gates of Hades. In the upper righthand corner, a fiery pit symbolizes the underworld where Orpheus\u2019s wife, Eurydice, resides.<\/p>\n

Bronzino\u2019s use of the Orpheus myth was meant to resonate with the current moment in Florence, even if ancient Greece and 16th-century Italy were millennia apart. In Orpheus, Bronzino saw parallels with Cosimo: like the ancient Greek character, Cosimo had to be good at carefully dodging a crisis by pacifying people. He had come to power as Duke of Florence at 17 in 1537, after a tumultuous period that saw political discontent of all kinds reach a head with the assassination of his cousin Alessandro. In the hope of promoting a return to stability, he needed images such as this one to prove he was fit for the job. It was hardly the last time Bronzino would depict a Medici through the lens of ancient tale\u2014a chapel commissioned by Eleonora di Toledo<\/a>, Cosimo\u2019s wife, includes a painting in which Moses acts as a stand-in for her husband, and in another work by the artist that\u2019s also in the Met show, Giovanni is recast as Saint John the Baptist.<\/p>\n

Cosimo de\u2019 Medici as Orpheus<\/em>, which now resides at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was the first portrait Bronzino, who had been a student of Pontormo, produced for Cosimo. It ended up being the start of a relationship that would make Bronzino the duke\u2019s\u00a0preferred portraitist. Art historian Sefy Hendler calls the work \u201cone of Bronzino\u2019s most ambitious portraits\u201d in the Met show\u2019s catalogue.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Bronzino,\u00a0Eleonora di Toledo and Francesco de\u2019 Medici<\/em>, ca. 1550.<\/span>\u00a9HALTADEFINIZIONE\u00ae IMAGE BANK BY PERMISSION OF THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL ACTIVITIES AND HERITAGE\u2014 POLO MUSEALE DELLA TOSCANA\/MUSEO NAZIONALE DI PALAZZO REALE, PISA<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Painting the Future<\/b><\/p>\n

In this richly detailed portrait, Eleonora appears alongside her son Francesco. The composition stresses the intensity of Bronzino\u2019s painterly skill\u2014Eleonora\u2019s blood-red dress elegantly contrasts the emerald-colored backdrop, making the painting both alluring and jarring in equal measure, and her garments are rendered in exacting detail. (Her brilliant petticoat, known as a\u00a0sottana<\/em>, is included in the Met show.)<\/p>\n

As with the portraits of male members of the Medici family, this painting contained its own political multitudes. It notably stresses Eleonora\u2019s fertility, drawing the eye from her toward her son, in a composition that alludes to a continuation of the Medici line. Her other hand is placed near her stomach, perhaps hinting at another child soon to be born. A similar 1545 portrait\u00a0by Bronzino\u00a0to this one may be the better-known image of Eleonora and Francesco, and though its color palette may differ vastly, the two pictures remain largely the same\u2014an attempt, art historian Elizabeth Pilliod argues, to construct a \u201c\u2018brand\u2019 image\u201d for Eleonora.<\/p>\n

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Source\uff1ahttps:\/\/www.artnews.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The history of society\u2019s elite using art to solidify their power isn\u2019t short, but it\u2019s possible that members of the\u00a0Medici family\u00a0are among the most innovative figures in that lineage. In 15th- and 16th-century Italy, during the height of the Renaissance, the Medici established themselves as the greatest art patrons of their day, setting a course […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,7,4,3],"tags":[167],"class_list":{"0":"post-932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist","8":"category-auction","9":"category-events","10":"category-gallery","11":"category-latest-news","12":"tag-medici-family"},"yoast_head":"\nHow the Medici Family Harnessed the Political Power of Portraiture\u2014and Brought Renaissance Art to New Heights - Investable Art Auctioneer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The history of society\u2019s elite using art to solidify their power isn\u2019t short, but it\u2019s possible that members of the\u00a0Medici family\u00a0are among the most innovative figures in that lineage.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/how-the-medici-family-harnessed-the-political-power-of-portraiture-and-brought-renaissance-art-to-new-heights\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How the Medici Family Harnessed the Political Power of Portraiture\u2014and Brought Renaissance Art to New Heights - 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