"Portrait of Giovanni Bologna" by Hendrick Goltzius
Giambologna, born as Jean Boulogne, also known as Giovanni Da Bologna and Giovanni Bologna (1529 - 1608) was a sculptor who best known for his marble statuary and works in bronze.
Giambologna was born in Douai, Flanders (now in France). After youthful studies in Antwerp with Jean Dubroeuq, he moved to Italy in 1550, and studied in Rome. Giambologna made detailed study of the sculpture of classical antiquity. He was also much influenced by Michelangelo, but developed his own Mannerist style, with perhaps less emphasis on emotion and more emphasis on refined surfaces, cool elegance and beauty. Pope Pius IV gave Giambologna his first major commission, for a colossal bronze Fountain of Neptune (1566) in Bologna. Giambologna spent his most productive years in Florence, where he had settled in 1553. His work was much patronized by the Medici family; he became the Medici court sculptor, and died in Florence at the age of 79. He was interred in a chapel he designed himself in the Church of Santissima Annunziata.
Giambologna's La Archetectura in the Bargelo, Florence
Giambologna became well known for the fine sense of action and movement suggested in his works. Perhaps his most famous work is the winged Mercury (of which he actually did multiple versions), poised on one foot, supported by a zephyr. Other especially notable works include several depictions of Venus, Florence defeating Pisa, the complicated three figures of The Rape of the Sabine Women (1574-82) in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, the equestrian statue of Cosimo I de' Medici also in Florence, as well as many sculptures for garden grottos and fountains in the Boboli Gardens of Florence and at Pratolino, and the bronze doors of the cathedral of Pisa. Small bronze reductions of many of his sculptures were collected by connoisseurs at the time and ever since, for Giambologna's reputation has never suffered eclipse.
Giambologna was an important influence on such later artists as Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
External links
Biography with a portrait on kfki.hu (http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/bio/g/giovanni/bologna/biograph.html)
Giambologna on mega.it (http://www.mega.it/eng/egui/pers/giamb.htm)
Giambologna was born Jean Bologne in Douai, Flanders, but spent most of his adult life in Florence, where he enjoyed the artistic patronage of the wealthy and powerful Medici family.
The sculpture is characteristic of Giambologna's style, which achieves a balance between the classical geometry of the Renaissance and the sense of spiralling movement associated with the mannerist art of which he was an early exponent.
From the point of view of composition and perspective, the scene is rigorously planned, with Christ tied to a central column and flanked by two guards on either side.
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