Bronzino's and Pontormo's Deposition

It is interesting to see the student's, Il Bronzino's, Deposition next to the other Deposition which caused an uproar in Florence, the one by the master, Pontormo.

We shall study these two works, which are of the same size, approximately four meters high, of the same subject and from the same era.

Two fundamentally different visions of the same theme.

Il Bronzino's Deposition is practically a Pietà. Christ lies in the arms of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by characters who have taken part in the story and angels.
A painting in which Il Bronzino shows his taste for very strict composition; a magnificent line snakes through the whole work, to the very top, and a counterstroke endows this composition with balance and serenity.
The details are very beautiful. In particular, one of the three Marys with this extraordinary jeweled gorget which resembles a shackle.
The most beautiful, Mary Magdalene, with an extravagant hairdo and a face of nearly sculptural purity of line, an impression due to the coldness of the skin tones.
The strangest character is the Angel of Passion, who is holding the blood collected from Christ's wound in his chalice; take note of the brilliance of the eyes, so characteristic of Bronzino, or his curls, which are treated as a piece of gold jewelry. One can feel the need to use impasto to present the reality of a theme in a very curious manner.
This is a very immediate, earthy painting. The characters have existence, volume, weight and space.

It is fascinating to imagine the conversations which must have taken place between the young Il Bronzino, so close to the subject matter, and Pontormo, more mature, so far from the subject matter but so close to the spirit, and to wonder how they challenged each other to create such diametrically opposed works on the same theme.

JACOPO CARRUCI, known as DA PONTORMO - Empoli 1494 - Florence 1556.

This deposition is in Florence, in the Santa Felicità church, in the Caponi chapel, where the work is surrounded by the four tondi by his student, Il Bronzino.

Pontormo was the painter of the ethereal. Christ's body weighs nothing, the persons supporting him are only standing on one toe. All the drapes were created in order to further increase this visual impression.

Pontormo was a visionary, while Il Bronzino was a pragmatic witness of his era. What is a bodily presence for Il Bronzino is, for Pontormo, an absence, a shadow.

We shall delve into this work, as the more closely one looks at it, the more one is convinced that Pontormo is one of the strangest painters of his time and one of the most captivating. Christ's face is completely devoid of existence, of any presence. The Virgin's face is washed out by her liquid veil; the veil and the dress are one and the same. The ambiguity has so transformed her into a stream of pain, that one can no longer make out where the dress starts and the flesh ends.
Mary Magdalene is more present, but her gaze has an uneasy look to it. Christ's bearers: the one on the far right, in olive and red, the one on the bottom, the only one looking at us; very strangely, he is staring straight at the spectator; the face of the last one, the one holding Christ's right arm, brings that of Christ to mind, younger and again painted with this same feeling of a washed-out brush.