Giovanni Bracelli: early modern Cubist?

Giovanni Battista Bracelli was, by all accounts, an Italian engraver and artist based in Florence in the early part of the seventeenth century. It was during this time that he compiled his little-known work Bizzarie di Varie Figure, which was published in 1624. It contains what are certainly some of the most highly inventive drawings of human-like figures of the period, which were sadly lost to the world until the re-discovery of the text in, or around, 1950.

As Sue Welsh Reed indicates, the Bizzarie shows characteristics of the artistic style called Mannerism,
which originated in Italy in the sixteenth century: 'the term derives from the Italian word maniera, meaning style. It is applied to a way of working that was developed to oppose the idealized naturalism of the Renaissance as practiced by Raphael and others'.

Below I have shared three of my favourite engravings from Bracelli's work. As several other scholars working on Bracelli have indicated, the figures in the Bizzarie certainly seem to be a kind of prescient for the modern artistic trend of Cubism.

Stumbling across these wonderful drawings were a welcome break from the rather gory reading that I've been doing this week, and certainly gives me a different slant on considering the early modern body!

References:
1. I owe the origin of these images from the Bizzarie (which are sadly not available on EEBO), to this article on Bracelli that was written in 2005: http://www.spamula.net/blog/2005/08/bracelli.html
2. For a more detailed commentary on Bracelli and his work, as well as a more comprehensive biography, see this pdf file: http://mail.nysoclib.org/Braccelli_Bizzarie_di_varie_figure/BCLBZR.PDF

© Jenna Townend 2013