The lizard in the study: landscape and "otium" in Lorenzo Lotto's "Portrait of a young man" (c. 1530)

• Autores: April Oettinger
• Localización: Artibus et historiae: an art anthology, ISSN 0391-9064, Nº. 65, 2012, págs. 115-125
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This essay explores the landscape dimensions of one of Lorenzo Lotto�s most compelling and enigmatic portraits, The Young Man (c. 1530), now housed at the Gallerie dell�Accademia in Venice. As in other famous portraits from his principal period in Venice, including Andrea Odoni (1527) and Portrait of a Lady as Lucretia (c. 1533), Lotto�s still unidentified Young Man is set in an interior space, surrounded by objects that embellish his character. Scholarship has focused on constructing the man�s biography from a close reading of the contents in his room, yet the prominent role of the landscape beyond the window and its interplay with elements within the man�s studiolo � namely the green and blue fabrics on his table, the lizard, and the rose petals � still go unnoticed. Through a close examination of the nature metaphors in Lotto�s Young Man in light of contemporary paintings of St. Jerome and romances like the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice, 1499), the present paper aims to expand our understanding of landscape in Lotto�s painting; in particular, ways in which Lotto merged landscape metaphors with portraiture to allude to the gentlemanly ideal of otium and, more broadly, the cultural ethos of the studiolo.