Jacopo Bassano: Founder of Landscape Style
Jacopo Bassano is the easily least known among the great Italian painters of sixteenth-century Venice. He was a prominent The Renaissance man. He often knew as Jacopo dal Ponte. He was born and also died in Bassano del Grappa (north Italy, near Venice) so he adopted his name Jacopo dal Ponte. He was the most celebrated member of artists family who took their name from the small town of Bassano. He mostly painted genre scenes and landscapes.
He was born in small town of Bassano del Grappa about in 1510; Bassano del Grappa is located about 40 mile (65 km) away from the Venice. His father, Francesco the Elder was a village painter and Jacopo always retained something of the peasant artist. By 1534 he had found his direction in the art of nearby Venice, learning as much from the chiaroscuro and luxurious color of Titian’s works as from his teachers. Jacopo was trained under Bonifazio Veronese (also known as Bonifazio de Pitati) in Venice in around 1530. He earned some prestige in Venice itself, due to this in mid 1500s he became one of the Veneto’s most influential painter. When he was in Venice he was in touch with the other famous Italian painter like il Pordenone, Titian, etc.
Even though most of his career was spent in small or middle sized towns on the mainland, he always remained alert to the latest developments in art, sometimes borrowing details from Lorenzo Lotto’s works in his portraits. A pioneer in genre scenes and landscape painting, engravings were critical in forming Jacopo’s style, particularly those by and after artists like Albrecht Durer, Raphael, and Parmigianino.
In 1539 his father Francesco il Vecchio died. And he came back in Bassano del Grappa permanently. He was married with a Elisabetta Merzari in 1546. He also had the ability to devise new ideas for compositions that possessed great force of expression. Jacopo Bassano’s early works starts from 1530s and onward. Bonifazio de Pitati’s influence clearly seen in his young pupil in early pieces work. Jacopo Bassano’s earliest paintings exhibit his lifelong obsession with brilliant colors, particularly in Jacopo Bassano ‘s Supper at Emmaus (1538); that he had seen in Titian’s beginning works. Bassano in almost all of his painting fills canvas with rich, luminous colors that help the distinguish the figures from their surrounding environment. These make different painting from any other painting. The person lady or gentleman that he painted in his painting they all are having unique in their dress. Instead of clothing his figures in the draping, shapeless fabrics many Renaissance artists equated with Classical Roman fashion, Bassano chose to feature figures in 16th-century clothing.
In Mannerism (European art period) Jacopo seceded from the local popular and virtuous tradition by studying prints by Raphael and developments. According to his early Mannerist paintings work we can say that he used elongated figures and brilliant colors. In 1540s he used his own painting technique with some fabulous new ideas and come with different type of paintings. In this phase proved crucial in the development by creating Supper at Emmaus, The Way to Calvary and Adoration of the Shepherds. Jacopo Bassano’s popular realism was underpinned by the lifelike quality of the people and details, especially the animals, in his pictures.
Over the years his handiwork became sharply dramatic and massive. After that in 1550s he started a series of altarpieces (in Bassano, Treviso, Padua, and Belluno). This series is continuing until the end of his life. He treated biblical themes in the manner of rustic genre scenes. Jacopo’s The Last Supper painting which he was created in 1542 shows his different interest in trend of Mannerism. After that from 1550s he experimented with light until 1570s. At that time Jacopo was one of the first artist who paint a “nocturne” or a painting in a nighttime landscape with some lighting. And also this type of painting was popular in local audiences. And Jacopo made many painting of this type.
Jacopo Bassano made many painting during his lifetime. The Supper at Emmaus (1538), Flight into Egypt (1542), Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, Baptism of Christ (1590) are his well-known work. From around 1560 his work showed a concern with novel effects of light. On 14 February 1592, Jacopo Bassano was died. Jacopo’s workshop was a minor industry in Bassano, and his four painter sons. They all are continued his style until the next century. They are Girolamo da Ponte (1566-1621), Francesco the Younger (1549-1592), Giovanni Battista da Ponte (1553-1613) and Leandro Bassano (1557-1622). Francesco the Younger had a prone to hypochondria. In mid 1592 he committed suicide by throwing himself out of a window. Leandro’s death in 1622 brought the artistic dynasty to an end. The work of the family is well represented in the Museo Civico at Bassano.