Giambologna

Giambologna, born as Jean Boulogne, also known as Giovanni Da Bologna and Giovanni Bologna (1529 - August 13 1608), was a sculptor, known for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style.

Biography

Giambologna was born in Douai, Flanders (now in France). After youthful studies in Antwerp with the architect-sculptor Jacques du Broeucq, [R. Wellens, "Jacques du Broeucq, sculpteur et architecte de la renaissance" (Brussels) 1962] he moved to Italy in 1550, and studied in Rome. Giambologna made detailed study of the sculpture of classical antiquity. He was also much influenced by Michelangelo, but developed his own Mannerist style, with perhaps less emphasis on emotion and more emphasis on refined surfaces, cool elegance and beauty. Pope Pius IV gave Giambologna his first major commission, the colossal bronze Neptune and subsidiary figures for the Fountain of Neptune (the base designed by Tommaso Laureti, 1566) in Bologna. Giambologna spent his most productive years in Florence, where he had settled in 1553. He became the Medici court sculptor, and died in Florence at the age of 79. He was interred in a chapel he designed himself in the Santissima Annunziata.

Work

Giambologna became well known for a fine sense of action and movement, and a refined, differentiated surface finish. Among his most famous works are the " Mercury" (of which he did four versions), poised on one foot, supported by a zephyr. The god raises one arm to point heavenwards, in a gesture borrowed from the repertory of classical rhetoric [Compare the figure of Plato in Raphael's "School of Athens".] that is characteristic of Giambologna's "maniera".

Giambologna's several depictions of Venus established a canon of proportions and set models for the goddess's representation that were influential for two generations of sculptors, in Italy and in the North. He created allegories strongly promoting Medicean political propaganda, such as "Florence defeating Pisa" and, less overtly, "Samson Slaying a Philistine", for Francesco de' Medici (1562) [The marble figure for a Medici fountain, the only large marble group by Giambologna to have left Florence, was given to the Duke of Lerma, then to Charles, Prince of Wales at the time of negotiations for the Spanish Match; it was given by George III to Sir Thomas Worsley, at Hovingham Hall, Norfolk; it was purchased in 1953 for the Victoria and Albert Museum through the Art Fund ( [http://www.artfund.org/artwork/2814/samson-slaying-a-philistine] ; [http://www.goldingyoung.com/Monkeys/monkeys12.htm] ).] He delighted in solving the complex spatial problems of three intertwined figures in his famous "Rape of the Sabine Women" (1574-82). The subject was not finally determined until after it had been set up in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence's Piazza della Signoria. "Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus" (1599) is also a conscious tour de force. [A bronze variant is in the Rijksmuseum [http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/BK-16939?lang=en] .] It is also in the Loggia dei Lanzi.

The equestrian statue of Cosimo I de' Medici also in Florence, was completed by his studio assistant Pietro Tacca.

Giambologna provided as well as many sculptures for garden grottos and fountains in the Boboli Gardens of Florence and at Pratolino, and the bronze doors of the cathedral of Pisa. For the grotto of the Villa Medicea of Castello he sculpted a series of studies of individual animals, from life, which may now be viewed at the Bargello. Small bronze reductions of many of his sculptures were prized by connoisseurs at the time and ever since, for Giambologna's reputation has never suffered eclipse.

Giambologna was an important influence on later sculptors through his pupils Adriaen de Vries and Pietro Francavilla who left his atelier for Paris in 1601, as well as Pierre Puget who spread Giambologna's influence throughout Northern Europe, and in Italy on Pietro Tacca, who assumed Giambologna's workshop in Florence, and in Rome on Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Alessandro Algardi.

Notes

References

Gloria Fossi, et al, "Italian Art", Florence, Giunti Gruppo Editoriale, 2000, ISBN 88-09-01771-4

External links

* [http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/bio/g/giovanni/bologna/biograph.html Biography with a portrait on kfki.hu]
* [http://www.mega.it/eng/egui/pers/giamb.htm Giambologna on mega.it]
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/giambologna.html Giambologna on artcyclopedia.com]
* cite web |publisher= Victoria and Albert Museum
url= http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/9209-popup.html
title= Model of a River God
work=Sculpture
accessdate= 2007-09-22