Pontormo

Pontormo (1494–1557), born Jacopo Carucci at Pontorme near Empoli, was orphaned young and apprenticed in Florence, where, according to Vasari, he passed through the workshops of Leonardo da Vinci, Mariotto Albertinelli and Piero di Cosimo before joining Andrea del Sarto in 1512. He spent almost his whole career in and around Florence, often with Medici patronage, and Bronzino was his closest pupil. He was a Mannerist painter of the Florentine School, known for twisting poses, elongated figures and an ambiguous space in which his figures seem to float free of gravity. The Deposition in the Capponi Chapel of Santa Felicita, finished in 1528, is generally considered his principal surviving work. His Visitation at Carmignano, painted about a decade after an earlier fresco of the same subject, shows how far he had moved from the balanced manner of his teacher. His last project, frescoes for the choir of San Lorenzo, occupied his final decade and is now lost. Two works here: Carmignano Visitation and Supper at Emmaus.