Volume 53, Number 14 · September 21, 2006
The Heights of Pleasure
By Andrew Butterfield
Giambologna: Gods and Heroes: Genesis and Fortune of a European Style in Sculpture
Catalog of the exhibition edited by Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi and Dimitrios Zikos
an exhibition at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence,March 1, 2006–June 15, 2006.
Florence: Museo Nazionale del Bargello/Milan: Giunti, 383 pp., $48.00 (paper; in Italian only)
Giambologna: Triumph of the Body
Catalog of the exhibition edited by Wilfried Seipel
an exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, in collaboration with the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, June 27, 2006–September 17, 2006.
Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum/Milan: Skira, 311 pp., $49.90 (paper; in German only)
During the second half of the sixteenth century, one man dominated the making of sculpture in Europe. Known chiefly by his nickname, Giambologna, he was a Flemish artist who worked for the Medici court in Florence. A figure of remarkable creativity and unflagging industry, for nearly fifty years he ceaselessly produced sculpture in every medium, from wax and clay to marble and bronze, and on every scale, from the miniature to the gigantic. Although originally conceived to meet the needs of the Medici and the refined literati of their circle, Giambologna's sculptures soon had a degree of popularity without precedence in the history of post-classical art. Every king and connoisseur sought work by his hand and his bronzes were exported throughout Italy and the continent. Such was the appetite for his sculpture that his workshop remained open for business long after his death, and some of his models stayed in production for one hundred years or more. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
Review, 3594 words
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