EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Bronzino in Florence

The current show  of Bronzino’s paintings at Palzzo Strozzi in Florence is a marvel, beautifully organized and arranged. With 70 Bronzinos, a room-full of portraits and vast tapestries designed by the master, it is a sumptuous display of an artist who should be better known. The catalogue, on the other hand, is a disgrace.  Although there are many current attribution problems in Bronzino’s oeuvre, a catalogue intended for the educated viewer is not the place to discuss them in such painful and excruciating detail. One could, for instance, have explained what the art means, an interpretative approach of far more interest to the average reader and used here only in a few short essays. Elizabeth Cropper's on portraiture is one of the best. The rest of the 359-page catalogue is tedious and dull. Buy instead the Metropolitan Museum’s catalogue of Bronzino’s Drawings, published last year. They know who their audience is, and it is us.