Giambologna

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"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, known for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style.

Giambologna's La Archetectura in the Bargello, Florence.

1 Biography
2 Work
3 Notes
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

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, the colossal bronze Neptune and subsidiary figures for the Fountain of Neptune (the base designed by Tommaso Laureti, 1566) in Bologna. Giambologna spent his most productive years in Florence, where he had settled in 1553. 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 Santissima Annunziata.

[edit] Work

Giambologna became well known for the fine sense of action and movement. Among his most famous works are: the winged Mercury (of which he actually did multiple versions), poised on one foot, supported by a zephyr, several depictions of Venus, Florence defeating Pisa, the three intertwined figures of The Rape of the Sabine Women (1574-82) and Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus (1599),^[1] both 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. For the grotto of the Villa Medicea of Castello he sculpted a series of studies of individual animals, from life, which may now be viewed at the Bargello. Small bronze reductions of many of his sculptures were prized by connoisseurs at the time and ever since, for Giambologna's reputation has never suffered eclipse.

Hercules and Nessus, 1599

Giambologna was an important influence on later sculptors through his pupils Adriaen de Vries and Pietro Francavilla who left his atelier for Paris in 1601, as well as Pierre Puget who spread Giambologna's influence throughout Northern Europe, and in Italy on Pietro Tacca, who assumed Giambologna's workshop in Florence, and in Rome on Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Alessandro Algardi.