The Mysterious Subject of Bronzino's Drawing in Budapest

• Autores: Todd Jerome Magreta
• Localización: Master drawings, ISSN 0025-5025, Vol. 49, Nº. 1, 2011, págs. 13-16
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The writer argues that the subject of Study of a Standing Male Nude Seen from Behind, a drawing by Agnolo Bronzino (1503–72) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, is Jesus. The figure depicted, which does not correspond to any figure in a known painting by the artist, shows a muscular, nude male, his head wrapped tightly in a cloth and holding an apparently separate bundle of cloth. Noting that the Gospel of St. John refers to a figure whose head and body were both wrapped separately—Jesus—the writer suggests that in this work Bronzino has filled the gap in the biblical burial narrative between the dead shrouded body and the two sets of cloth found in the empty tomb after the Resurrection. He contends that the drawing may simply be the innovation of a thoughtful and inventive artist who was not averse to pushing the limits of traditional iconography or exploring subject matter in learned ways.