Annunciation I (after Pontormo), 2015-21

oil, alkyd resin and linseed oil on canvas

46 x 44 x 2 inches / 117 x 112 x 5 cm 

$10,500.

I have written about how influential Michelangelo has been on my career as an artist, but in recent years I was re-acquainted with Jacopo Pontormo, who I feel is nearly of equal significance. It is not that I ever really forgot about Pontormo—he was a favorite studying art history at Otis—but after seeing a small exhibition at the Palazzo Pitti in May, 2018 that featured his well know Visitation altar piece, and then again at The Getty Center in the winter of 2019, I became obsessed by his work. Pontormo was profoundly influenced by Michelangelo. He traveled to Rome when he was 17, most likely visiting the Sistine Chapel while it was being painted, and he and Michelangelo were friends despite Pontormo being 20 years younger. Why wouldn’t they be? I have this fantasy of them having a love/hate relationship as two of the most gifted artists of the time—equally respectful and appreciative of each other’s genius, sharing ideas as master and informal apprentice, but vying for commissions in a competitive and rigid political/religious hierarchy on which they were dependent.  

Pontormo was a gifted draughtsman as well as a painter, infusing his figures with psychological poignance, emotional rhythm, flowing movement and exquisite color. There is a sublime energy and grace that emanates from his paintings, and like Michelangelo, he was driven by his faith. I sometimes find it difficult to understand how artists of Renaissance, while pushing the limits of pictorial space, invention, exploration and aesthetics, were simultaneously so utterly committed to the strict conservative dogma of the Catholic church, its politics and policies of propaganda. Did their faith drive their genius? It had to have, as I cannot see how else one could produce such powerfully moving work if one did not maintain such absolute conviction.

And at the same time, in my painterly quest of equal conviction, I question the validity of the narratives they choose to imbue with such potent believability. Perhaps my appropriations are a means of distilling down to their underlying premise the messages these artists choose to proclaim, thus eliminating the structure, dogma, exclusions and literality.      

—Lawrence Fodor