Un dipinto ritrovato del Bronzino e alcuni suoi pensieri sulla pittura e sulla scultura

The discovery of an autograph and signed painted by Agnolo Bronzino, a variant of the "Virgin and Chils with the Young Baptist and Saint Elizabeth" in the National Gallery, London, enables one to study the artist's habit of painting the same composition several times, varying the time of day, and therefore the lighting and colours in each scene. Two other works used for comparison are the "Holy Family" panels in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and in the Louvre. Bronzino also used different techniques of execution in these two pairs of paintings: glazes are used when the scene takes place in a nocturnal, whereas body colour is applied when the scene is set at dawn. Bronzino's choice is discussed in the context of the thoughts he and Pontormo expressed in letters to Benedetto Varchi in response to the debate about the relative priority of the arts. A number of years before the canvas with the "Portrait of the Dwarf Morgante" -the work usually connected with discussion of the "Paragone"- Agnolo thus expresses the same ideas about the pre-eminence of painting over sculpture, and about its ability to represent changeable phenomena. These notions of his also seem to be in dialogue with Michelangelo's choice of finishing his marble in different ways for the statues representing "Day" and "Night", and "Dusk" and "Dawn" in the New Sacristy.