Deposition
Rosso Fiorentino
Giovanni Battista di Jacopo, known as Rosso Fiorentino, or Il Rosso, was an Italian Mannerist painter, in oil and fresco, belonging to the Florentine school.
Max Resolution:587×1024 PX
Title:Deposition
Artists:Rosso Fiorentino
Date:1521
Style:Mannerism
Genre:religious painting
Medium:oil,panel
Location:Pinacoteca e Museo Civico di Volterra, Volterra, Italy
Dimensions:196×375 cm
Copyright:Public domain
The Deposition from the Cross is an altarpiece, completed in 1521, depicting the Deposition of Christ by the Italian Renaissance painter Rosso Fiorentino. It is broadly considered to be the artist's masterpiece. Painted in oil on wood, the painting was previously located in the Duomo of Volterra, but has been moved to the town art gallery.
This painting has often been compared to the fellow Mannerist painter Pontormo's near contemporary (1528) treatment of the same subject in his Deposition canvas in Florence.
Unlike Pontormo's bright coloration and unitary collection of billowing figures, the Fiorentino depiction has two arenas: above is an Escher-like geometric struggle of laborers on ladders, mechanically removing the crucified Christ, while below, the women and men are subsumed in grief. Mary, pale and downcast, collapses in the arms of two women. Mary Magdalen in bright red, swoons to hug the Madonna's legs. A grief-stricken apostle turns his face away. The somber landscape is virtually barren. One reviewer describes the scene as "violent suffering ...rendered by extreme expression, the concatenation of angular bodies, and the dazzling light that sharply draws clear folds on the clothing." Another states that this is the prototype of early-Mannerism, with "no logical spatial connection between the figures, the cross and ladders; the size of the figures appears arbitrarily chosen, and their elongated bodies and small heads" distort classical proportions.
Rosso would go on to paint a second, darker and more crowded Deposition altarpiece for the church of San Lorenzo, Sansepolcro in Sansepolcro.
This painting has often been compared to the fellow Mannerist painter Pontormo's near contemporary (1528) treatment of the same subject in his Deposition canvas in Florence.
Unlike Pontormo's bright coloration and unitary collection of billowing figures, the Fiorentino depiction has two arenas: above is an Escher-like geometric struggle of laborers on ladders, mechanically removing the crucified Christ, while below, the women and men are subsumed in grief. Mary, pale and downcast, collapses in the arms of two women. Mary Magdalen in bright red, swoons to hug the Madonna's legs. A grief-stricken apostle turns his face away. The somber landscape is virtually barren. One reviewer describes the scene as "violent suffering ...rendered by extreme expression, the concatenation of angular bodies, and the dazzling light that sharply draws clear folds on the clothing." Another states that this is the prototype of early-Mannerism, with "no logical spatial connection between the figures, the cross and ladders; the size of the figures appears arbitrarily chosen, and their elongated bodies and small heads" distort classical proportions.
Rosso would go on to paint a second, darker and more crowded Deposition altarpiece for the church of San Lorenzo, Sansepolcro in Sansepolcro.