|
Piero di Cosimo Biography
Italian High Renaissance artist
born 1462 - died 1521
Teacher of:
Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530).
PIERO DI COSIMO (1462-1521), the name by
which the Florentine painter Pietro di
Lorenzo is generally known. The painter
was born in Florence about 1462, and worked
in the bottega of Cosimo Rosselli
[1439-1507] (from whom he
derived his popular name). |
|
Other influences that can be
traced in Piero di Cosimo painting are those of
Filippino
Lippi [c.1457-1504], Luca Signorelli
[c.1441-1523], and
Leonardo da Vinci
[1452-1519], and, as has been recently
suggested by Professor R. Muther, that
Hugo
van der Goes [c.1440-1482], whose Portinari
altar-piece (now at the Spedale of S. Maria
Novella in Florence) helped to lead the
whole of Florentine painting into new
channels. From him, most probably, Piero di
Cosimo acquired the love of landscape and
the intimate knowledge of the growth of
flowers and of animal life. The influence of
Hugo van der Goes is especially apparent in
the Adoration of the Shepherds, at the
Berlin Museum. Piero di Cosimo painter had the gift
of a fertile fantastic imagination, which,
as a result of a journey to Rome in 1482
with his master, Rosselli, became directed
towards the myths of classic antiquity.
Piero di Cosimo proves himself a true child
of the Renaissance in such pictures as the
Death of Procris, at the National Gallery,
the Mars and Venus, at the Berlin Gallery,
the Perseus and Andromeda series, at the
Uffizi in Florence, and the Hylas and the
Nymphs belonging to Mr Benson. If, as we are
told by Vasari [1511-1574], Piero di Cosimo
spent the last yeats of his life in gloomy
retirement, the change was probably due to
[Girolamo] Savonarola [1452-1498], under
whose influence Piero di Cosimo painter turned his
attention once more to religious art. The
Immaculate Conception, at the Uffizi, and
the Holy Family, at Dresden, best illustrate
the religious fervour to which Piero di
Cosimo was stimulated by the stern preacher. |
Toperfect Group