A Dirty Mind is a Joy Forever; Bronzino’s Portrait of Cosimo I as Orpheus studied in the light of the Artist’s Burlesque Poetry
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2019-02-26
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en
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Bronzino’s representation of Cosimo I de’ Medici as Orpheus is in many ways a peculiar painting. Art historians have put forward several interpretations of the work. None of them is however completely convincing. In an attempt to gain a better understanding of the portrait, this study looks beyond traditional art-historical methods and procedures and tries to reconstruct the ways in which sixteenth-century viewers would have reacted to the painting. In this light, a broad investigation of both the painter's social and cultural environment as well as the period’s literary context ‒ focused on the immensely popular genre of burlesque poetry ‒ is carried out. As it turns out, such interdisciplinary research may be very helpful in gaining insight in the most enigmatic of pictures.
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Faculteit der Letteren