Sacra Conversazione (after Pontormo)
oil on board
35.5 x 27.2 cm
size in frame: 39 x 30.6 x 3.2 cm
Frame hand-made and painted by me in my Norfolk studio
This is an oil sketch copy of a work by Italian painter Jacopo Carucci [1494 - 1557] (or Carrucci, usually known as Jacopo Pontormo). Sacra Conversazione was a fresco painted in 1514. Originally painted on a wall of the church of San Ruffillo, at the beginning of the 19th century it was transferred to the chapel of the painters at the Annunziata, where it can be found today.
For this painting, we can see Pontormo using models from Fra Bartolomeo and Andrea del Sarto, however, he departed decisively from these, presenting a personal reworking of the figurative material they contained by dissolving all the harmonious union of forms arranged in a rationally defined and measurable space, a characteristic of the compositions of the two masters. Pontormo reduced the depth and width of space producing an effect of compression, the figures being arranged in contrasting poses (standing and kneeling, facing forwards and backwards), and characterised by a marked twisting of the bodies, especially in the Virgin and the Child.
The expressions are also anti-classical: the fixed gaze outside the painting of St Lucia, the sigh of ecstasy, almost a grimace, that emanates from the presumed figure of St Agnes and expresses all the intensity of an entirely exclusive experience, the petulant and contrary reaction of the Child at the approach of the aged St Zacharias, and lastly the unprecedentedly languid and passionate gaze that the archangel Michael directs toward the Virgin Mary.
In my work, I am heavily inspired by the work of Pontormo. Every time I begin a new work I go back and study his paintings. This oil sketch was made when I was in the research phase of my current project Miniature.
oil on board
35.5 x 27.2 cm
size in frame: 39 x 30.6 x 3.2 cm
Frame hand-made and painted by me in my Norfolk studio
This is an oil sketch copy of a work by Italian painter Jacopo Carucci [1494 - 1557] (or Carrucci, usually known as Jacopo Pontormo). Sacra Conversazione was a fresco painted in 1514. Originally painted on a wall of the church of San Ruffillo, at the beginning of the 19th century it was transferred to the chapel of the painters at the Annunziata, where it can be found today.
For this painting, we can see Pontormo using models from Fra Bartolomeo and Andrea del Sarto, however, he departed decisively from these, presenting a personal reworking of the figurative material they contained by dissolving all the harmonious union of forms arranged in a rationally defined and measurable space, a characteristic of the compositions of the two masters. Pontormo reduced the depth and width of space producing an effect of compression, the figures being arranged in contrasting poses (standing and kneeling, facing forwards and backwards), and characterised by a marked twisting of the bodies, especially in the Virgin and the Child.
The expressions are also anti-classical: the fixed gaze outside the painting of St Lucia, the sigh of ecstasy, almost a grimace, that emanates from the presumed figure of St Agnes and expresses all the intensity of an entirely exclusive experience, the petulant and contrary reaction of the Child at the approach of the aged St Zacharias, and lastly the unprecedentedly languid and passionate gaze that the archangel Michael directs toward the Virgin Mary.
In my work, I am heavily inspired by the work of Pontormo. Every time I begin a new work I go back and study his paintings. This oil sketch was made when I was in the research phase of my current project Miniature.
oil on board
35.5 x 27.2 cm
size in frame: 39 x 30.6 x 3.2 cm
Frame hand-made and painted by me in my Norfolk studio
This is an oil sketch copy of a work by Italian painter Jacopo Carucci [1494 - 1557] (or Carrucci, usually known as Jacopo Pontormo). Sacra Conversazione was a fresco painted in 1514. Originally painted on a wall of the church of San Ruffillo, at the beginning of the 19th century it was transferred to the chapel of the painters at the Annunziata, where it can be found today.
For this painting, we can see Pontormo using models from Fra Bartolomeo and Andrea del Sarto, however, he departed decisively from these, presenting a personal reworking of the figurative material they contained by dissolving all the harmonious union of forms arranged in a rationally defined and measurable space, a characteristic of the compositions of the two masters. Pontormo reduced the depth and width of space producing an effect of compression, the figures being arranged in contrasting poses (standing and kneeling, facing forwards and backwards), and characterised by a marked twisting of the bodies, especially in the Virgin and the Child.
The expressions are also anti-classical: the fixed gaze outside the painting of St Lucia, the sigh of ecstasy, almost a grimace, that emanates from the presumed figure of St Agnes and expresses all the intensity of an entirely exclusive experience, the petulant and contrary reaction of the Child at the approach of the aged St Zacharias, and lastly the unprecedentedly languid and passionate gaze that the archangel Michael directs toward the Virgin Mary.
In my work, I am heavily inspired by the work of Pontormo. Every time I begin a new work I go back and study his paintings. This oil sketch was made when I was in the research phase of my current project Miniature.
