Piero di
Cosimo

Italia • 1462−1521

He was born in 1462 in Florence. He was influenced by Filippino Lippi, Leonardo da Vinci and Hugo van der goes. In 1482-84, he worked in Rome, helping Rosselli in the execution of the frescoes of the Sistine chapel.

Piero di Cosimo paintings borrowed from Dutch masters. With an extremely accurately portrayed the world of plants and animals. In the early sixteenth century became interested in the mystical subjects, in which he expressed a great imagination.

Rarely spending time in official circles, the artist was not connected with the Medici court, but often fulfill individual orders. A pupil of Cosimo Rosselli, Piero was able to open the talent only at the end of a creative way, under the influence of Leonardo, fra Bartolomeo and Raphael young.

Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school of the Renaissance. Actually, the real name of the artist Piero di Lorenzo (Piero di Lorenzo). Born in Tuscany in the family of jeweler and goldsmith Lorenzo Cosimo. A Pupil Of Cosimo Rosselli. Together with the teacher, worked in Rome, where Rosselli was invited by Pope Sixtus to paint the papal chapel. Piero di Cosimo, executed in Rome many portraits of distinguished persons, and in particular, portraits, Virginio Orsino and Ruberto, Sanseverino, and wrote a portrait of the Duke Valentino, son of Pope Alexander VI.

In his works, the artist was influenced by the paintings of Filippino Lippi, Leonardo da Vinci, Hugo van der goes. After Rome Piero di Cosimo worked in Florence, creating an altar images and paintings in the Cathedral of San Spirito, the Church of San Michele, the chapel was the year of the Church of the brotherhood of Servicos.

The talent of Piero di Cosimo was very individual and distinctive. Inherent in Botticelli elements of daring to translate the motifs of ancient mythology put it even sharper. The style of Piero di Cosimo less "perfect" than the style of Botticelli, the more attention he pays to individual details of nature. Images of Piero di Cosimo poetic, but they are sometimes characteristic of some mental anguish to acute sorrow (“Death Prakriti”; London, national gallery). “Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci” (Chantilly, musée condé) reports soulfully sensual appearance before the deceased young girl, whose delicate profile stand out against the black storm clouds cut by the lightning, which symbolizes her imminent death.

A subtle feeling of poetic beauty in the world combined in the works of Piero di Cosimo with a refined styling and the atmosphere of fairy tales (“Death Prakriti”, national gallery, London; “the Legend of Prometheus”, 1500, Strasbourg's Museum; “Perseus and Andromeda”), expressive drawing. Close attention to nature and yet some mannerisms inherent in his portraits (“Simonetta Vespucci”, musée condé, Chantilly).

Pupils of Piero di Cosimo, Andrea del Sarto, Francesco da Sangallo and others. In his works, Piero di Cosimo often interpreted the stories in a fanciful manner, which gave rise to rumors about his eccentric behavior. Told me that for years, Piero di Cosimo lived in isolation, ate nothing but hard-boiled eggs, and all sorts of other improbable stories. Along with painting, the artist was also engaged in the device masquerades, festivals and triumphal processions. Later in the first decades of the 16th century in the works of Piero di Cosimo increasing pretentiousness and affectation. But artists of this type, the loss of spiritual wholeness, could not do at that time prominent position, and in Florence finally prevailed, the art of the great masters of the High Renaissance.

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