lamentation

Salviati's Lamentation of 1540, held at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, is an early treatment of the subject that would recur throughout his career — the mourning over Christ's dead body before entombment. The 1540 date places this at the beginning of Salviati's mature independent career, when he had recently returned from Rome and was absorbing the influence of Michelangelo's sculptural Pietàs, Rosso Fiorentino's raw emotional intensity, and the polished elegance of Raphael's late figure style. The Brera's holdings of Florentine Mannerism make this a natural repository for such a work. Salviati's Mannerist Lamentation differs from earlier Renaissance treatments in its greater formal complexity, its more self-conscious compositional arrangement, and its tendency to balance emotional expressiveness with formal beauty.

Canvas in oil, this early work shows Salviati establishing the compositional principles he would develop throughout his career: strong figure groups organized around the horizontal of Christ's body, careful management of grief-expressing figures without descending into uncontrolled expressionism, and cool Florentine color. The polished surface and precise drawing reflect his rigorous training.