Bernardino Luini was a North Italian
painterPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
from
Leonardo'sLeonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
circle. Both Luini and
Giovanni Antonio BoltraffioGiovanni Antonio Boltraffio was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance from Lombardy, who worked in the studio of Leonardo da Vinci. Boltraffio and Bernardino Luini are the strongest artistic personalities to emerge from Leonardo's studio...
were said to have worked with Leonardo directly; he was described to have taken "as much from Leonardo as his native roots enabled him to comprehend". Consequently many of his works were attributed to Leonardo. He was known especially for his graceful female figures with slightly squinted eyes, called Luinesque by
Vladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
.
Biography
Luini was born as
Bernardino de Scapis in Runo, a
frazioneA frazione , in Italy, is the name given in administrative law to a type of territorial subdivision of a comune; for other administrative divisions, see municipio, circoscrizione, quartiere...
of
DumenzaDumenza is a comune in the Province of Varese in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about northwest of Milan and about north of Varese, on the border with Switzerland....
, near
Lake MaggioreLake Maggiore is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest of Italy and largest of southern Switzerland. Lake Maggiore is the most westerly of the three great prealpine lakes of Italy, it extends for about 70 km between Locarno and Arona.The climate is mild...
. Details of his life are scant.
In 1500 he moved to
MilanMilan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
with his father. According to Lomazzo, he trained under Giovan Stefano Scotto, although for others he was a pupil of
Ambrogio BergognoneAmbrogio Borgognone Ambrogio Borgognone Ambrogio Borgognone (variously known as Ambrogio da Fossano, Ambrogio di Stefano da Fossano, Ambrogio Stefani da Fossano or as il Bergognone, c...
. In 1504-1507 he was probably in
TrevisoTreviso is a city and comune in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,854 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city...
, as attested by a
Madonna with Child signed
Bernardinus Mediolanensis faciebat which is however of disputed attribution. Also from this period would be one
Madonna with Child in the Christian Museum at
EsztergomEsztergom , is a city in northern Hungary, 46 km north-west of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom county, on the right bank of the river Danube, which forms the border with Slovakia there....
and
Lamentation of Christ350px|thumb|Lamentation by [[Giotto di Bondone]] in the [[Scrovegni Chapel]]The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends and family mourned over his body...
in the
Fine Arts Museum of BudapestThe Museum of Fine Arts is a museum in Heroes' Square, Budapest, Hungary, facing the Palace of Art.It was built by the plans of Albert Schickedanz and Fülöp Herzog in an eclectic-neoclassical style, between 1900 and 1906. The museum's collection is made up of international art , including all...
(c. 1506). His first fresco works are an
Adoration of the Magi in San Pietro of
LuinoLuino is a small town and comune near the border with Switzerland on the eastern shore of Lake Maggiore, in the Province of Varese ....
(c. 1505) and the attributed fresco in the presbytery of
Monza CathedralThe Duomo of Monza often known in English as Monza Cathedral is the main religious building of Monza, near Milan, in northern Italy...
with
St. Gerard of the Painters.
Luini returned in Milan in 1509, receiving a commission for a polyptych from which today remains a
St. Anthony of Padua in the
Museo Poldi PezzoliThe Museo Poldi Pezzoli is an art museum in Milan, Italy.The museum was originated in the 19th century as private collection of Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli and his mother, Rosa Trivulzio, of the family of the condottiero Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, and has a particularly broad collection of Northern...
, influenced by Bernardino Zenale's
Cantù Polyptych. In the 1510s he painted frescoes in the Oratory of Santa Maria Nuova in Pilastrello, a
Lamentation of the dead Christ in Santa Maria della Passione, a
Madonna with Child in the Abbey of Chiaravalle, frescoes in San Giorgio di Palazzo (1516) and in the
Certosa di PaviaThe Certosa di Pavia Gra-Car , Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Grace, is a monastery and complex in Lombardy, northern Italy, situated near a small town of the same name in the Province of Pavia, 8 km north of Pavia...
, and others.
From 1509~1514 his one of Luini's best known works, the frescoes for
Villa Pelucca in
Sesto San GiovanniSesto San Giovanni is a comune in the Milan metropolitan area, located in the province of Milan and region of Lombardy in Italy. Its railway station is the northernmost stop on the Milan Metro M1 line. The city is informally referred to as "Sesto"...
(now in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan), commissioned by Girolamo Rabia, for whom he also painted mythological scenes in the Palazzo Rabia (now in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie and the
National Gallery of ArtThe National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
,
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
).
In 1521 he travelled to Rome, where he was influenced by
RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
's style. This is evident in Luini's further frescoes in the Villa La Pelucca executed in 1520-1523, as well as in other works now at Brera. From 1523 is a beautiful polyptych in the Basilica of San Magno at
LegnanoLegnano is an Italian town and comune with 59.147 inhabitants in the province of Milan, about from Milan.It's crossed by the river Olona, and it's the 13th town for inhabitants in Lombardy....
.
Circa 1525 he completed a series of frescoes on the
life of the VirginThe Life of the Virgin, showing narrative scenes from the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a common subject for pictorial cycles in Christian art, often complementing, or forming part of, a cycle on the Life of Christ. In both cases the number of scenes shown varies greatly with the space...
and Christ for the sanctuary of
Santa Maria dei Miracoli in
SaronnoSaronno is a comune of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Varese. It received the honorary title of city with a presidential decree in 1960.The place is well known for its apricot kernel biscuits and is also a manufacturing town....
; to the same year is attributed the fresco in the counterfaçade of Sant'Abbondio in
ComoComo is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy.It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como....
. While at
SaronnoSaronno is a comune of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Varese. It received the honorary title of city with a presidential decree in 1960.The place is well known for its apricot kernel biscuits and is also a manufacturing town....
, he discovered
amarettoAmaretto is an Italian sweet almond-flavoured liqueur. It is made from a base of apricot or almond pits, sometimes both.-Etymology:The name is a diminutive of the Italian amaro, meaning "bitter," indicating the distinctive flavour lent by the mandorla amara--the bitter almond or the drupe kernel...
. Other works from his middle period include a
Holy Family in the
Museo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, two
Salome in the
Museum of Fine ArtsThe Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
in
BostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and the
UffiziThe Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
and a
Portrait of Lady in the National Gallery of Art. From 1526 is a
Virgin with Child and Saints in the Lee Fareham collection of Richmond.
In 1529 Luini completed one of his masterworks, the grand
Passion and Crucifixion fresco at Santa Maria degli Angeli in
LuganoLugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
, paired by other works in the same church. In 1531 he returned to the Saronno sanctuary to add other frescoes. In his later career Luini was increasingly influenced by Leonardo, as showed by the
St. Anne of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the
St. Catherine of the
HermitageThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
.
He died in Milan. His son
Aureliothumb|250px|Ol compà Digliagòr and Ol compà Braghetògn , two caricatures. [[Pinacoteca Ambrosiana]], [[Milan]].Aurelio Luini was an Italian painter and draughtsman from Milan, the fourth and last son of Bernardino Luini...
was also an accomplished painter.
Selected works
- Madonna with Sts Augustine and Margaret, Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris. Signed "Bernardino Milasnese", and dated 1507. "An index of the solidity of Luini's training in a veristic, rigid Quattrocento style" (Freedberg 1993:390), before the transforming, but superficial influence of Leonardo's style.
- Virgin, Child, and St. John (c. 1510), National Gallery, London. Another version in Fogg Art Museum, Boston.
- Madonna Enthroned, abbey of Chiaravalle (c. 1512)
- Christ among the Doctors (c. 1515-30), National Gallery, London
- Frescoes from the Cappella di S. Giuseppe, S. Maria della Pace, (1518–20) Detached, in the Brera Gallery.
- St. Catherine, National Gallery, London. (Another version in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg)
- Salome, Ball State Museum, Indiana
- Mary and Martha, oil on wood, private collection of Varina Howell Davis and on display at Beauvoir
Beauvoir can refer to any of the following:Buildings*Beauvoir , post-American Civil War home of Confederate States of America President Jefferson DavisPeople*Jean Beauvoir, American musician....
in Biloxi, MississippiBiloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the population as 44,054. Along with Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County....
- Conversion of Mary Magdalen, San Diego
- Fresco cycles for city and country houses of the Rabia family (1520–25) Now in the Brera, at Berlin, in Washington (National Gallery of Art Procris and Cephalus from Casa Rabia, Milan) and elsewhere. Several panel paintings also at the National Gallery, Washington DC.
- Madonna and Child with St. John, Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna.
- Frescoes of the Life of Christ and the Life of the Virgin. (1525) S. Maria dei Miracoli, Saronno.
- Portrait of a Lady (c. 1525) National Gallery of Art, Washington.
- Adoration of the Magi, detached fresco, 1520-25 (Musée du Louvre) Alluded to by Marcel Proust
- "Holy Family with the Infant St John", Museo del Prado, Madrid. Panel, 100 x 84 cm. Compare with da Vinci's "Madonna/Virgin of the Rocks" at Louvre and National Gallery London
Sources
External links