G.A.L.E. Italia: Andrea del Sarto

Andrea del Sarto
Biographical
The son of a tailor, he received training with the painter Piero di Cosimo, teaches respecting the tradition of the last quarter of the sixteenth century. By studying the works of Michelangelo, Raffaello and Leonardo, around 1505 he developed a personal style that made him a leading member of the High Renaissance painting in Florence. Since 1517 Andrea began to break the previous conventions, moving toward mannerism. Exerted a strong influence on pupils Rosso Fiorentino and Pontorno which conditioned his latest production.
Madonna of the Harpies
Madonna of the Harpies 1517
Andrea del Sarto, (1486-1530) Florentine painter
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Oil on wood 208 x 178 cm (81.89 x 70.08 in.)
Perhaps the most famous work of Andrea del Sarto is the altarpiece painted for the nuns of San Francesco dei Macci. The work is dated 1517, and shows St John the Evangelist and St Francis on either side of the Madonna and Child on a high polygonal pedestal. The latter is decorated at the corners with monster-like figures (the so-called Harpies), while in the centre, beneath the artist's signature, are the opening words of a hymn to Our Lady of the Assumption. The figure of the Madonna, wrought into a composed chiasmus in order to balance the weight of the Child (who on the other hand is lively, smiling, and as ambiguous as Rosso's putti), lights up the centre of the picture with the intense rose-color of her robe tempered by harmony with the pale blue of her mantle, and with the brilliant yellow of the light fabric draped over her shoulders beneath the beautiful drapery of the white veil covering her head. On her left is the sculptural St John (painted from a terracotta model by Sansovino) swathed in a cinnabar red mantle linked to the lilac of his robe by means of a highly refined drapery, while on the other side the figure of St Francis strikes a clear note that emerges by subtle varieties of tone from the architectural motif of the background; while in the background one can once more see "the smoke of transparent clouds veiling the architecture and the figures, that appear to move" (Vasari): a warm, mysterious halo, made of colors and of shadows, that behind and around the figures impels an atmosphere that implies the rich spiritual message brought to us by this painting.
Lady with a basket of spindles
The look of the woman is made of intense restlessness in the eye with deep orbits, and that tone interior, masterfully given to it in the face by a rich chromatic variations, shows a "do not know that" mysterious. Depicting the lady with the basket on (probably essential means of his work) around which puts the casual hands, located in the lower area of the board, manages to give the whole picture a nice harmony and a strong dynamic.