Bronzino

Angolo di Cosimo usually known as Bronzino was an Italian Mannerist painter from Florence. His name "Bronzino" probably refers to his dark skin. Bronzino was the son of a butcher and according to other contemporary artists he was a first pupil of Rafaellino del Garbo, and then of Pontormo who was his teacher when he was approximately 14. Pontormo had a monumental influence on Bronzino's developing style and the two remained collaborators for the rest fo their lives.

Bronzino first received Medici patronage in 1539. He remained the official painter fo the Duke and his court. His portrait figures which were often read as static, elegant and stylish the course of European court portraiture for a century. Bronzino's Portrait of a Young Man exemplifies Mannerist portraiture. The subject is a proud youth, a man of books and intellectual society, rather than a lowly labororer or a merchant. His cool demeanor seems carefully affected, a calculated attitude of nonchalance towards the oberving world.

Likewise, Bronzino painted Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time as another one of his major artworks. In this artwork he depicted nudity and eroticism disguised under the pretext of moralizing allegory. This piece showed the mannerist fondness for loosely mythological and erotic subject matter.