Jacopo Bassano [Jacapo da Ponte](Italian, 1510–1592)

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Jacopo Bassano [Jacapo da Ponte](Italian, 1510–1592)
Self-portrait (c. 1590)
Oil on canvas, 80 x 72 cm.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Even though he worked in a small town, Jacopo Bassano was one of the Veneto's most influential painters in the mid-1500s. A pioneer in genre scenes and landscape painting, Jacopo initially trained with his father in the town of Bassano. 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. He always stayed abreast of developments in Venetian painting, sometimes borrowing details from Lorenzo Lotto's works in his portraits. Engravings were critical in forming Jacopo's style, particularly those by and after artists like Albrecht Dürer, Raphael, and Parmigianino. Local taste required that art illustrate reality, and Jacopo drew inspiration from the simple human scenes, farm life, and changing aspects of nature he observed in his hometown. To Mannerism's energy, extreme movement, and tightly compressed space, he added realism and earthiness. A humble and subtle observer, his sitters may seem unaware of his presence. Increasingly, he used religious and philosophical subjects as pretexts for painting genre scenes and landscapes. Jacopo's workshop was a minor industry in Bassano, and his four sons continued his style into the next century.

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, c. 1515-1592)
Supper at Emmaus (c. 1538)
Oil on canvas, 235 x 250 cm.
Sacristy, Parish Church, Cittadella

Although undated, the painting is likely to go back to about 1538, a particularly felicitous period in Jacopo Bassano's art. Lorenzetti (1911) places it in the early part of the artist's stay in Bonifacio da Pitati's workshop and pointed out the obvious links with the latter's painting on the same theme, now to be seen in the Brera. There is a certain contrast between the solemn, hieratic figure of Christ and the rough and realistic close-up of the innkeeper on the one hand, and on the other, the little scene of the crouching dog being teased by the cat from a distance. The postures of the two disciples, the laboured perspective of the table, and some genre episodes were to recur in his later "Supper" version, now in the Borghese Gallery, Rome. The still-life in the centre of the work standing but against the linen tablecloth is a marvel of pictorial observation. A virtually lone harbinger of the main marks and elements of forthcoming Venetian painting (Tintoretto), Jacopo Bassano here sweeps the scene clear.

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, c. 1515-1592)
The Supper at Emmaus (c. 1538)
Oil on canvas, 100.6 x 128.6 cm.
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth TX

Jacopo Bassano was one of the most famous and influential masters of the late Renaissance in Italy, admired for his luminous color and sensitively observed incidents from everyday life. Trained by his father in the north Italian town of Bassano del Grappa, he worked in neighboring Venice in the early 1530s. His youthful works reflect the influence of Titian and other north Italian masters, along with artists ranging from Raphael to Dürer, whose compositions he knew through prints. Already by the late 1530s his powers of invention rivaled those of his contemporaries Tintoretto and Veronese. The Kimbell Supper at Emmaus depicts Christ’s miraculous appearance after the Resurrection (Luke 24:30–31). In the act of blessing and breaking bread at the inn, Christ reveals himself to two of his disciples, who failed to recognize him as they traveled on the road to Emmaus. Christ is seated beneath a splendid velvet green canopy that delimits the sacred space. The sacramental message is elucidated in the finely executed still life of bread, wine, and eggs –– the latter a traditional symbol of resurrection and immortality. Distinguished by their contemporary dress, the well-fed innkeeper with a large purse and the plumed serving boy –– along with their visual counterparts, a wary dog and menacing cat –– attend to mundane affairs, unaware of the divine mystery unfolding before them.

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, c. 1515-1592)
Detail of Dog and Cat: Supper at Emmaus (c. 1538)
Oil on canvas
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth TX

Reactions of the dog and cat as they face-off from opposite sides of the room.

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, c. 1515-1592)
The Way to Calvary (c. 1540)
Oil on canvas, 145 x 133 cm.
National Gallery, London

Much of the impact of the composition derives from its dynamic organisation along the main diagonals. We 'enter' the scene from the bottom right corner, where Saint Veronica in her Venetian gown strains forward to wipe the sweat and blood off Christ's face; follow the lines of the wooden upright of the cross, Christ's body collapsed under the weight, the tormentor's brutal blows, to the furthest point in the upper left, where the executioner pulls on the rope around Christ's waist, urging him on to Golgotha in the distance. His windblown cloak picks up the red of Veronica's dress. Alternatively, we can scan the picture from upper right, from the mounted officers pointing to and discussing the events below; follow the wooden lance shaft to where John's green cloak, seized by a soldier, seems to flow around the head-dresses and shoulders of the Maries into Veronica's out-thrust veil. The Virgin's dark mantle isolates her as she stands, becalmed in the jostling crowd, wiping the tears from her eyes.

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, 1510–1592)
The Adoration of the Kings (c. 1541-44)
Oil on canvas, 235 x 183 cm.
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

The Holy Family, at the left of Bassano's richly coloured work, acknowledges the visiting kings and their gifts. The central figure in the painting, however, is the king in the striped doublet. He may be identified as a portrait of the painting's patron, Jacopo Gisi. The two page-boys behind him may also be portraits of his sons. Bassano's interest in complex foreshortened poses is evident in the densely packed group, especially in the figures and animals seen from behind. Many details were based on his previous compositions and on his studies from nature, although the ruined architecture is adapted from a woodcut by Dürer.

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, c. 1515-1592)
The Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria (1544)
Oil on canvas, 160 x 130 cm.
Museo Biblioteca Archivio, Bassano del Grappa

In the course of his artistic development, Jacopo Bassano came into increasingly close contact with the culture of central Italy, which spread north following the Sack of Rome in 1527. The Martyrdom of St Catherine of Alexandria is one of the most distinctive works of this period of the painter. In this painting Bassano reached a level of abstraction where all traces of naturalism vanish and the colours become at once harsh in tone and richly ornate.

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, c. 1515-1592)
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (1545)
Oil on canvas, 143.5 x 243.7 cm.
National Gallery, Washington DC

This painting, which came to light in 1989, is a major addition to the work of Jacopo Bassano. One of the four leading mid-to-late sixteenth-century Venetian painters, Jacopo is less well-known than are his contemporaries Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto. Only with the exhibition of his work in his native town of Bassano del Grappa in 1992 did the artist finally get the recognition he deserves. Aside from the quality and variety of his production, Bassano had the most extraordinary development of any sixteenth-century Venetian master except Titian. After modest beginnings, Bassano's work exploded into greatness with a series of pictures dating from the 1540s, which demonstrated his true measure as an artist. He overcame his provincial isolation and kept abreast of artistic trends by studying prints by or after other masters such as Raphael. Bassano's mannerist compositions of the 1540s and 1550s, with their rich color and animated figures, gave way to the expressive lighting and more genre-like character of the works of the 1560s. Thereafter, Bassano's art increasingly emphasized figures of peasants and their animals. With their dark tonality, flickering brushwork, and somber mood, the best of his late pictures approach Rembrandt.

Jacopo Bassano (Italian, c. 1515-1592)
The Last Supper (c. 1546)
Oil on canvas, 168 x 270 cm.
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Jacopo Bassano's "Last Supper" is one of the masterpieces of 16th-century Italian painting. Instead of the elegant grouping of figures in Leonardo's painting, which inspired it, this dramatic scene features barefoot fishermen at the crucial moment when Christ asks who will betray him, and the light passing through a glass of wine stains the clean tablecloth red. Recent restoration has only now revealed the extraordinary original colours, which had been heavily painted over in the 19th century, when the emerald green and iridescent pinks and oranges were not in fashion.