Florentine Renaissance painter
Piero di Cosimo is the focus of a major exhibition at the Uffizi
Gallery showing until November 27.
The exhibition brings together numerous works by the
original and 'fairytale' artist who worked between the 15th and
16th centuries, including the famed 'A Satyr mourning over a
Nymph' from the National Gallery in London.
In total, 100 works are on show, including masterpieces by
Filippino Lippi, Fra' Bartolomeo and Lorenzo di Credi.
The exhibition, curated by Serena Padovani, Elena Capretti,
Anna Forlani Tempesti and Daniela Parenti, reconstructs Piero di
Cosimo's artistic development starting from his apprenticeship
to Cosimo Rosselli and his decisive encounters with the art of
Leonardo da Vinci and the Flemish masters, who inspired him to
observe the natural environment with spellbound wonder and
incorporate elements into his often religious paintings, where
they took on a symbolic meaning.
Renaissance biographer Giorgio Vasari describes him as a
solitary pianter, bordering on the misanthrope, unconventional
and eccentric with an untidy appearance.
Piero di Cosimo shared Leonardo's interest in nature and
representation of emotional states, as demonstrated by the
intensity of the smiling faces in his Madonna with child and
angels on show in the exhibition.
And, like Leonardo, he was an experimenter; and this, at a
time when artists were shifting from use of the traditional egg
tempera to oil paints, may explain why several of his works
appear damaged: for example, the true aspect of an altarpiece
featuring the Mystical marriage of St Catherine and saints -
rediscovered in a private collection in Florence - lay hidden
beneath subsequent overpainting.
Like other paintings on show, the work has been specially
restored for the occasion.
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