Lorenzo Lotto

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lorenzo Lotto
Possible self-portrait, attributed to Lorenzo Lotto, 1540s, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum[1]
Born
Lorenzo Lotto

c. 1480
Venice, Italy
Died1556/57[2]
Loreto, Marche, Italy
NationalityItalian
Known forPainting
Notable workPolyptych of Saint Domenico
MovementHigh Renaissance
Signature

Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480 – 1556/57) was an Italian

Venetian school, though much of his career was spent in other north Italian cities. He painted mainly altarpieces, religious subjects and portraits. He was active during the High Renaissance and the first half of the Mannerist
period, but his work maintained a generally similar High Renaissance style throughout his career, although his nervous and eccentric posings and distortions represented a transitional stage to the Florentine and Roman Mannerists.

Overview

During his lifetime Lotto was a well-respected painter and certainly popular in Northern Italy; he is traditionally included in

idiosyncratic
style (although it fits within the parametres of High Renaissance painting), and, after his death, he gradually became neglected and then almost forgotten. This oblivion could be attributed to the fact that his works now remain in lesser known churches or in provincial museums.

Biography

Born in

Loreto
(1549–1556).

Apprenticeship

Little is known of his training. As a Venetian he was influenced by

National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh). However, in his portraits and in his early painting Allegory of Virtue and Vice (1505; National Gallery of Art, Washington), he shows the influence of Giorgione's Naturalism. As he grew older his style changed, perhaps evolving, from a detached Giorgionesque classicism, to a more vibrant dramatic setpiece, more reminiscent of his contemporary from Parma, Correggio
.

Madonna of the Rosary (1539), oil on canvas

Treviso (1503–1506)

Lotto soon left Venice, because there the competition for a young painter would have been too great, with established names such as

National Museum of Capodimonte in Naples), who had survived an assassination attempt. The painting St. Jerome in the Desert (1500 or 1506; Louvre, Paris) shows his youthful inexperience as a draughtsman, however the dramatic rocky landscape is accentuated by the red garment of the saint, while at the same time giving an early impression of his skill as a miniaturist. He painted his first altarpieces for the parish church San Cristina al Tiverone (1505) and the baptistery of the Cathedral of Asolo
(1506), both still on display in those churches.

Recanati (1506–1508) and Rome (1508–1510)

The Adoration of the Child, (c. 1508), oil on panel

In 1508 he began the

National Museum in Kraków with Catherine Cornaro
, Queen of Cyprus portraited as Saint Catherine, are paintings from this period. As he became a respected painter, he came to the attention of
Bramante, the papal architect, who was passing through Loreto (a pilgrimage site near Recanati). Lotto was invited to Rome to decorate the papal apartments, but nothing survives of this work, as it was destroyed a few years later. This was probably because he had imitated the style of Raphael, a rapidly rising star in the Papal court
; indeed he had done it before, in the Transfiguration of the Recanati polyptych.

The Marche (1511–1513) and Bergamo (1513–1525)

In 1511 he was at work for the confraternity of the Buon Gesù in

Bramante and Giorgione
. His next assignment was the decoration of the churches of S Bernardino and of Sant'Alessandro in Colonna, with frescoes and distemper paintings. He would finish five more altarpieces between 1521 and 1523. In 1523 he went for a brief stay in the Marche, obtaining there several commissions for altarpieces, which he would paint during his stay in Venice.

Martyrdom of St. Claire (1524), fresco

His next works are mostly wall paintings: in 1524 he painted a series of frescoes with the lives of saints (such as Saint Barbara) in the Suardi Chapel in Trescore (near Bergamo). In the details he depicts scenes of each saint's life, such as in the fresco Martyrdom of St. Claire. In the same fresco he portrays Christ with vines sprouting from his hands, illustrating the words of the New Testament: "I am the vine, you are the branches".[3] In 1524 he also painted cartoons with Old Testament stories, as models for the intarsia panels for the choir stalls of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo.

More than 20 private paintings date from the same period; they are mostly of religious and pious subjects, such as Madonnas or a Deposition, used for worship at home. Though he painted in the Classical tradition, Lotto adds a personal touch to the intense emotions. Using contrasting poses and opposing movement, he breaks the traditional symmetry of the Virgin surrounded by angels and saints.

Venice (1525–1532)

Portrait of a Young Man (1526)

In Venice, Lotto first resided at the Dominican monastery of

St. Nicholas of Bari in Glory
.

As Venice was a city of great wealth and as popularity increased, he received many orders for private paintings, including ten portraits, among them, Portrait of a Young Man (

Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). His portrait of Andrea Odoni (Royal Art Collection, Hampton Court) (1527) would later influence the portrait of Jacopo Strada by Titian
(1568) (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). But in Venice he was overshadowed by Titian, who dominated the artistic scene.

Venice, the Veneto and the Marche (1532–1556)

In this last period of his life, Lorenzo Lotto would frequently move from town to town, searching for patrons and commissions. In 1532 he went to Treviso. Next he spent about seven years in the Marche (Ancona, Macerata and Jesi), before returning to Venice in 1540. He moved again to Treviso in 1542 and back to Venice in 1545. Finally he went back to Ancona in 1549.

This was a productive period in his life, during which he painted several altarpieces and portraits.

At the end of his life, Lotto found it difficult to earn a living. Furthermore, in 1550, when he was about 70, one of his works had an unsuccessful auction in Ancona. As recorded in his personal account book, this deeply disillusioned him. As he had always been a deeply religious man, in 1552 he joined the Holy Sanctuary at Loreto, becoming a lay brother. During that time he decorated the basilica of Santa Maria and painted a Presentation in the Temple for the Palazzo Apostolico in Loreto. He died in 1556 and was buried, at his request, in a Dominican habit.

Giovanni Busi, and Ercole Ramazzani, born in Arcevia and active near Jesi.[4] Another pupil was Durante Nobili
.

Thanks to the work of the art historian Bernard Berenson, Lotto was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century. Since then, many monographs and several exhibitions have been dedicated to Lorenzo Lotto, such as the exhibition in Venice in 1953 and one in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA, in 1998.

Selected works

Portrait of Andrea Odoni (1527), Royal Collection
Venetian Woman in the Guise of Lucretia (1533)
Venus and Cupid, 1530, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Brother Gregorio Belo of Vicenza, 1547, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Intarsia of the choir of Santa Maria Maggiore, Bergamo, 1524–1531
Students from Duke University view Lotto's Allegory of Virtue and Vice at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

See also

  • Lotto carpet, a lacy patterned Turkish carpet named for him.

References

  1. ^ See article on the website of the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza
  2. ^ "Lorenzo Lotto". Nationalgallery.org.uk. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  3. John
    15:5
  4. ^ "Museo Diocesano". 2.chiesacattolica.it. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  5. ^ "Saint Joseph and the Virgin's Suitors". Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
  6. ^ "Marsilio Cassotti and his Wife Faustina - The Collection - Museo Nacional del Prado". www.museodelprado.es. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
  7. ^ "Search the Collection". Gallery.ca. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  8. ^ "Saint Jerome in Penitence - The Collection - Museo Nacional del Prado". www.museodelprado.es. Retrieved June 11, 2020.

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lorenzo Lotto.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lorenzo_Lotto&oldid=1204621702"