FROM SEA SMOKE TEN TO A SMOKIN’ TEN GOD OF THE SEA
Portrait Andrea Doria, Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572)
Bronzino was a known homosexual with many inferences to his homosexuality in his erotically spiced paintings and homoerotic sonnets. His lovers were both his Master Tutor Pontormo (1494 – 1557) who was also the student and probable boy lover of great Leonardo Da Vinci and later, his own younger pupil, Alessandro Allori (1535 – 1607) whom he adopted as his own son, a rather common arrangement between aristocratic men in sexual relationships in Renaissance Florence.
His gorgeous portrait of the infamous Andrea Doria (1466 – 1560), the renown Genoese Soldier of Fortune and Admiral as the God of the Sea, Neptune was not only fitting to Doria’s prowess but also fed Bonzino’s lust for the strong masculine form in his erotic but emotionless paintings. Doria is yet an aged but powerful and muscularly virulent man juxtaposed against the sturdy wooden mast and thick shafted trident grasped in his ruling hand which the viewer cannot help but to compare with the equivalent shaft of his manhood.
Risqué has long admired this delicious piece of homo art and can’t help but wonder if Bonzino had just a little “Hot Daddy” lust going on as he painted the bigger than life… Andrea Doria???
