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Antonello da Messina

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Antonello da Messina
Portrait of a Man, possibly a self-portrait
Portrait of a Man, possibly a self-portrait
Born Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio
c. 1425–1430
Messina, Kingdom of Sicily
Died February 1479 (aged 48–49)
Messina, Kingdom of Sicily
Known for Painting
Movement Italian Renaissance

Antonello da Messina (Italian pronunciation: [antoˈnɛllo da (m)mesˈsiːna]; c. 1425–1430 – February 1479), properly Antonello di Giovanni di Antonio, but also called Antonello degli Antoni[1] and Anglicized as Anthony of Messina, was an Italian painter from Messina, active during the Italian Early Renaissance.

His work shows strong influences from Early Netherlandish painting, although there is no documentary evidence that he ever travelled beyond Italy.[2] Giorgio Vasari credited him with the introduction of oil painting into Italy,[3] although this is now regarded as wrong.[4] Unusually for a southern Italian artist of the Renaissance, his work proved influential on painters in northern Italy, especially in Venice.

Biography

Early life and training

Antonello was born at Messina around 1429–1431, to Garita (Margherita) and Giovanni de Antonio Mazonus, a sculptor who trained him early on. He and his family resided in the Sicofanti district of the city.[5]

Antonello is thought to have apprenticed in Rome before going to Naples,[5] where Netherlandish painting was then fashionable. According to a letter written in 1524 by the Neapolitan humanist Pietro Summonte, in about 1450 Antonello was a pupil of the painter Niccolò Colantonio in Naples.[6] This account of his training is accepted by most art historians.[7]

Early career

Antonello returned to Messina from Naples during the 1450s.[2] In around 1455, he painted the so-called Sibiu Crucifixion, inspired by Flemish treatments of the subject, which is now in the Muzeul de Artă in Bucharest. A Crucifixion in the Royal Museum of Antwerp dates from the same period. These early works show a marked Flemish influence, which is now understood to be inspired by his master Colantonio and by paintings by Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck that belonged to Colantonio's patron, Alfonso V of Aragon.

In his biography of the artist, Giorgio Vasari remarked that Antonello saw an oil painting by Van Eyck (the Lomellini Tryptych) belonging to King Alfonso V of Aragon at Naples and consequently introduced oil painting to Italy.[3] Recent evidence indicates that an "Antonello di Sicilia" (di Sicilia meaning 'from Sicily') was in contact with Van Eyck's most accomplished follower, Petrus Christus, in Milan in early 1456.[8] It appears likely that this was, in fact, Antonello da Messina, as this would explain why he was one of the first Italians to master Eyckian oil painting, and why Petrus Christus was the first Netherlandish painter to learn Italian linear perspective.[8] Antonello's paintings after that date show an observation of almost microscopic detail and of minute gradations of light on reflecting or light-absorbent objects that is very close to the style of the Netherlandish masters, suggesting that Antonello was personally instructed by Christus.[9] Also, the calmer expressions on human faces and calmness in the overall composition of Antonello's works appear to be owing to a Netherlandish influence.[8] He is believed to have shared Van Eyck's techniques with Gentile and Giovanni Bellini.[5]

Between the years of 1456 and 1457, Antonello proved himself to be a master painter in Messina. He also shared his home with Paolo di Ciacio, a student from Calabria.[10] The artist's earliest documented commission, in 1457, was for a banner for the Confraternità di San Michele dei Gerbini in Reggio Calabria, where he set up a workshop for the production of such banners and devotional images.[2] At this date, he was already married, and his son Jacobello had been born.

In 1460, his father is mentioned as leasing a brigantine to bring back Antonello and his family from Amantea in Calabria. In that year, Antonello painted the so-called Salting Madonna, in which standard iconography and Flemish style are combined with a greater attention to the volumetric proportions of the figures, probably indicating a knowledge of works by Piero della Francesca. Also from around 1460 are two small panels depicting Abraham Served by the Angels and St. Jerome Penitent now in the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria. In 1461, Antonello's younger brother Giordano entered his workshop, signing a three-year contract. In that year, Antonello painted a Madonna with Child, now lost, for the Messinese nobleman Giovanni Mirulla.

Historians believe that Antonello painted his first portraits in the late 1460s. They follow a Netherlandish model, the subject being shown bust-length, against a dark background, full face or in three-quarter view,[11] while most previous Italian painters had adopted the medal-style profile pose for individual portraits.[12] John Pope-Hennessy described Antonello as "the first Italian painter for whom the individual portrait was an art form in its own right".[13]

Although Antonello is mentioned in many documents between 1460 and 1465, establishing his presence in Messina in those years, a gap in the sources between 1465 and 1471 suggests that he may have spent these years on the mainland.[12] In 1474, he painted the Annunciation, now in Syracuse, and the St. Jerome in His Study also dates from around this time.[14]

Venice

Antonello went to Venice in 1475 and remained there until the fall of 1476. His works of this period begin to show a greater attention to the human figure, regarding both anatomy and expressivity, indicating the influence of Piero della Francesca and Giovanni Bellini. His most famous pictures from this period include the Condottiero (Louvre), the San Cassiano Altarpiece and the St. Sebastian. The San Cassiano Altarpiece was especially influential on Venetian painters, as it was one of the first of the large compositions in the sacra conversazione format, which was perfected by Giovanni Bellini (Antonello's surviving work in Vienna is only a fragment of a much larger original). It is also likely that Antonello passed on both the techniques of using oil paints[15] and the principles of calmness on subjects' faces and in the composition of paintings to Giovanni Bellini and other Venetian painters during that visit.[16] While in Venice, he was offered, but did not accept, the opportunity to become the court portrait painter to the Duke of Milan.[17]

Return to Messina and death

Antonello had returned to Sicily by September 1476.[11] Works from near the end of his life include the famous Virgin Annunciate, now in the Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo, and the San Gregorio Polyptych.

He died at Messina in 1479. His testament dates from February of that year, and he is documented as no longer alive two months later. Some of his last works remained unfinished, but were completed by his son Jacobello.

Style and legacy

Antonello's style is remarkable for its union of Italian simplicity with Flemish concern for detail. He exercised an enormous influence on Italian painting, not only by the introduction of the Flemish invention, but also by the transmission of Flemish tendencies.[18] However, no school of painting formed after his death, with the exception of the Sicilian Marco Costanzo.

Selected works

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Antonello da Messina — Born at Messina, about 1430; died 1497. After studying for some time in Sicily he crossed over to Naples, where, we are told, he became the pupil of an unknown artist, Antonio Colantonio. It was here, according to Vasari, that Messina, on seeing a painting of John Van Eyck, belonging to Alphonsus of Aragon, determined to devote himself to the study of the Flemish Masters. It would seem too that he set out for Bruges with this purpose; others, however, maintain that he need not have left Italy to ground himself in the new technic as several Flemish artists of renown had already, through the patronage of the princes René of Anjou and Alphonsus of Aragon, won for their pictures no slight reputation. The question will remain a debated point until the discovery of some authentic document shall decide definitively whether the Sicilian painter did or did not sail for Flanders. It is certain, however, that he mastered perfectly the methods followed by the disciples of Van Eyck in oil-painting methods that had eclipsed all the efforts made by the Italian school. On his return to Messina, Antonello evinced remarkable skill in handling oils in a triptych, unfortunately destroyed in the recent earthquake, representing the Blessed Virgin with St. Gregory and St. Benedict on either side and two angels holding a crown over Our Lady's head. Later, Messina went to Venice, where in 1473 he executed an altar screen, no longer extant, for the church of San Cassiano. By making known the secret of the Van Eycks, Antonello quickly won success; for the introduction of the new technic, singularly adapted to bring out brilliant colour effects and at the same time ensure their permanency, suited admirably the tastes of the Venetians "already so richly endowed with a feeling for the charm of colour", and "was destined to make Venice the most renowned school in Italy for the study of colouring" (Le Cicerone, II, 610). The new style was eagerly followed by Bartholomew and Louis Vivarini, John and Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio and Cima. Assailed by homesickness, Antonello returned to Messina to leave it no more until his death (cf. Lionello Venturi, loc. cit. infra).

Messina rivals the Flemings in transparency of colouring, though occasionally he may justly be censured for the use of "a dark brown in his flesh-tints" (Müntz, II, 778). If he imitates their careful execution of details, he surpasses them by the distinction and nobility of his figures, a trait in which one recognizes the Italian. He excels only as a portrait painter, and especially in his portraiture of men. Of his work in this department he has left us some masterpieces that evince in a striking degree truth to nature and strength of conception and execution: in the Academy of Venice, a half-length portrait of a man; in the Museum of Berlin, a head of a young man; in the house of the Marquis Trivulci at Milan, the head of a man in the prime of life; in the Civic Museum of Milan, an excellent bust-painting of a poet with flowing hair crowned by a wreath; above all the painting entitled "Condottiere" preserved in the Louvre. Not so successful in religious paintings, at Venice, he reproduced without conviction and almost slavishly Madonnas of the type of G. Bellini. In the National Gallery there is a half-length portrait of the year 1465 representing Christ with His hand raised in blessing. In conclusion let us call special attention to the large studies, entitled "St. Sebastian", "St. Jerome in his Study", "The Crucifixion". "St. Sebastian", in the Museum of Dresden, represents a beautiful young man, almost life-size, naked, of striking figure, and standing out against a background of a landscape brilliantly illuminated. In accordance with the Venetian or Paduan taste the painter has added a certain number of secondary motives, the better to set off the leading theme. This study in the nude is doubly shocking, since it is out of place in a devotional picture, and is nothing but a pretext for displaying his knowledge of anatomy. "St. Jerome", also preserved in the National Gallery, is a carefully executed picture, pleasing to the eye; the studio is vaulted, the window, set high up in the wall and lighting up the studio, has all the charm of a chapel window. On the side may be seen the outlines of a pleasant cloister; another opening discloses a vista of a distant landscape. The learned Doctor, seated in a wooden armchair on a platform slightly elevated, is absorbed in the reading of a book lying open on a desk before him; in the foreground, a beautiful peacock and a little bird. In "The Crucifixion" of the Museum of Antwerp, we are struck by certain realistic touches which Antonello learned from the Flemish school. Skulls are scattered along the ground; the two thieves, fastened not to crosses but to trees, are writhing in pain. The Italian is discernible in the nobility with which Messina invests the figures of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and St. John. Antonello has been praised for "a feeling, sometimes quite correct, for large strongly lighted landscapes", and the "Crucifixion" witnesses to the truth of this criticism, for the landscape which forms the setting of this pathetic scene on Calvary, in spite of the multiplicity of details, preserves a harmonious unity.

VASARI, Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, ed. MILANESI, II (Florence, 1878), 563-89; EASTLAKE, Materials for a History of Oil-painting (Paris, 1847); BLANC, Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles (Paris, 1865-77); CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE, History of Painting in North Italy, II, ii (London, 1871), 77-100; LÜBKE, Gesch. der italienischen Malerei, I (Stuttgart, 1878), 558 sq.; LAFENESTRE, La Peinture italienne jusqu'à la fin du XVe siècle (Paris, 1885), 283-84; MÜNTZ, Histoire de l'art pendant la Renaissance, II (Paris, 1891), 777-79; BURCKHARDT AND BODE, Le Cicerone, II, l'Art moderne, French tr. GÉRARD (Paris, 1892), 610; D'AMICO, Antonello d'Antonia, Le sue opere e l'invenzione della pittura al olio (Messina, 1906); VENTURI, Antonello da Messina in THIEME AND BECKER, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1907), 567 sq.

References

  1. Back to citation Memorie istorico-critiche di Antonello degli Antonj pittore Messinese by Tommaso Puccini, Florence 1809.
  2. Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Back to citation occurrence 2.2 Barbera 2005, p. 13.
  3. Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Barbera 2005, p. 14.
  4. Back to citation Campbell, Caroline. "Saint Jerome in his Study' in 10 minutes". YouTube. National Gallery. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  5. Back to citation occurrence 5.0 Back to citation occurrence 5.1 Back to citation occurrence 5.2 Lesberg, Sandy, ed. (1974) [1966]. "Glossary of Gothic Art". Gothic Art. New York: Peebles Press International. ISBN 0-85690-033-8. OCLC 2163980.
  6. Back to citation The letter to the Venetian Marcantonio Michiel, of 20 March 1524, reporting on the state of art in Naples, and works there by Netherlandish painters, dwells upon Colantonio and his Netherlandish technique, which one sees assimilated in the art of Antonello; it was published by Fausto Niccolini, L'arte napoletana del Rinascimento (Naples) 1925:161-63. It is translated in Carol M. Richardson, Kim Woods, and Michael W. Franklin, Renaissance Art Reconsidered: An Anthology of Primary Sources (2007:193-96).
  7. Back to citation Barbera 2005, p. 15.
  8. Back to citation occurrence 8.0 Back to citation occurrence 8.1 Back to citation occurrence 8.2 Raunch pg. 361
  9. Back to citation Hartt pg. 562
  10. Back to citation "Antonello da Messina". Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
  11. Back to citation occurrence 11.0 Back to citation occurrence 11.1 Barbera 2005, p. 23.
  12. Back to citation occurrence 12.0 Back to citation occurrence 12.1 Barbera 2005, p. 51.
  13. Back to citation Pope-Hennessy 1966, p. 60.
  14. Back to citation Barbera 2005, p. 22.
  15. Back to citation Hartt pg. 563
  16. Back to citation Hartt pg. 563; Raunch pg. 361
  17. Back to citation Barbera 2005, p. 29.
  18. Back to citation Chisholm 1911.

Bibliography

Sources

  • Barbera, Giocchino (2005). Antonello da Messina, Sicily's Renaissance Master (exhibition catalogue). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-11648-9 (online).
  • Christiansen, Keith. “Antonello da Messina (ca. 1430–1479).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (March 2010)
  • Pope-Hennessy, John (1966). The Portrait in the Renaissance. London: Phaidon.
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