ANDREA del SARTO (ANDREA VANNUCCHI; ANDREA D'AGNOLO). - Painter, b. in Florence on 16 July 1486, d. there on 22 Jan. 1531. First a pupil of Giovanni or Andrea Barile, then of Piero di Cosimo, he came under the very strong influence of Leonardo da Vinci, and later, to a lesser degree, that of Michelangelo, which was harmful to him, because it was contrary to the gentleness of his nature. Nor were Bartolomeo della Porta, for the theatricality of his poses, and Raphael, for the eurhythmy of his composition, foreign to him. A.'s activity was carried on for the most part in Florence; in 1518, invited by Francis I, he was for a short time in France.
A.'s first work, the Noli me tangere of the Uffizi, reveals rather than a pupil of Piero di Cosimo, as Vasari would have it, a formation analogous to that of Franciabigio (v.); very soon, however, in the execution of the frescoes with stories of St. Philip Benizzi in the cloister of the Annunziata in Florence, his manner becomes freer and the composition balances itself according to rhythms akin to those of Fra Bartolomeo. The taste for colored shadows and for atmospheric sfumato is manifested in the Annunciation in the Pitti and in the Pietà of the Vienna Gallery; the planes are faceted in order to obtain a moved vibration of light. Indeed, in the Procession of the Magi at the Annunziata the images achieve a perfect fusion with the atmosphere. From this period is the admirable Female Portrait of the Prado. Before the journey to France, A. began the frescoes in the little cloister of the Scalzi, in which the first Michelangelesque touches appear. In the monochromes the harshness of the lights exalts the plastic vision of the detail, but in the insistent faceting of the planes and in the overall effect A.'s pictorialism finds the way to assert itself with originality. The Madonna of the Harpies (1517), composed on the models of Fra Bartolomeo, but entirely wrapped in a soft colored atmosphere, is an authentic masterpiece. There follow several works on sacred subjects, such as the Disputation of the Trinity in the Pitti, the Madonna of the Hermitage in Leningrad, the Deposition, also in the Pitti, and various portraits. Then again the so-called Madonna of the Sack in the cloister of the Annunziata in Florence offers, in its measured perspectival calculation and subtle chromatic qualities, the measure of the painter's maturity. In the Assumption of the Pitti Gallery the composition becomes cumbersome; and in other paintings, often, the work of collaborators diminishes its quality. The Holy Family of the Pitti, the Madonna of Berlin, the Sacrifice of Abraham in Dresden, already fall within a mannerist conception, and the color in these works becomes garish, while the softness of the sfumato is attenuated.
While in the Florentine school, wholly given over to drawing, the formal conception dominates, A.'s painting, deriving from Leonardo's sfumato the subtlety of chiaroscuro and the blending of tints, presents itself as essentially coloristic. - See Pl. CV.
Bibliography4 works
Vincenzo Golzio.