Dal Pontormo al Bronzino

Abstract

Pontormo's writings and his artistic activity as commented on by Vasari, reveal Skepticism: endless empirical experimentation, rejection of abstract knowledge and norms of expression (typical features of Skepticism as dealt with by Sextus Empiricus) may account for the great number of study drawings Pontormo did of himself, and the anomalies in proportions, perspective and chromatics. Bronzino's writings, on the other hand, reveal Epicureanism, and in accord with the Epicurean concept of pleasure, we may come to understand the contingency of his composition, of the light, and of the angles the clay or wax models, he most certainly used, are seen from. From Pontormo to Bronzino thus there developed a rejection of abstract knowledge.