Italian artist Antonello da Messina: biography, creativity and interesting facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

Antonello da Messina is a famous Italian artist. In the Early Renaissance, he represented the southern school of painting. He was the teacher of Girolamo Alibrandi, who was nicknamed the Messinian Raphael. To achieve the depth of color in sharp portraits and poetic paintings, he used the technique of oil painting. In the article, we will pay attention to a brief biography of the artist and dwell on his work in more detail.

Representative of the new direction

Many information about the life of Antonello da Messina is controversial, doubtful or lost. But it is quite obvious that it was he who demonstrated to the Venetian artists the luminous possibilities of oil painting. Thus, the Italian laid the foundation for one of the key areas of Western European art. Following the example of many other artists of that time, Antonello combined the Dutch tradition of optically accurate reproduction of image details with pictorial innovations. Italians.

Historians have found a record that in 1456 the hero of this article had a student. That is, most likely, the painter was born before 1430. The Neopolitan Colantonio was the first teacher of Antonello da Messina, whose works will be described below. This fact confirms the message of J. Vasari. Just at that time, Naples was under the cultural influence of the Iberian Peninsula, the Netherlands and France, rather than Northern Italy and Tuscany. Under the influence of the work of Van Eyck and his supporters, interest in painting increased every day. It was rumored that the hero of this article studied the technique of oil painting from him.

Portrait Master

By birth, Antonello da Messina was Italian, but by art education he was largely related to the pictorial traditions of northern Europe. He painted superb portraits, which make up almost thirty percent of his surviving works. Usually Antonello depicted the model bust and close-up. At the same time, the shoulders and head were placed against a dark background. Sometimes in the foreground the artist painted a parapet with a cartellino attached to it (a small piece of paper with an inscription). Illusory accuracy and graphicness in the transmission of these details indicate that they are of Dutch origin.

Portrait of a Man

This painting was painted by Antonello da Messina in 1474-1475. is one of his best works. The master's palette is limited to rich brown, black and separate strokes of flesh andwhite flowers. The exception is the red hat, complemented by a peeking dark red stripe of the lower dress. The inner world of the drawn model is practically not disclosed. But the face radiates intelligence and energy. Antonello very subtly modeled it with chiaroscuro. The sharp drawing of facial features, combined with the play of light, gives Antonello's work an almost sculptural expressiveness.

It's a man

Portraits of the Italian attract the viewer with a glossy, shiny surface and a chamber format. And when Messina transfers these qualities into religious painting (the painting “This is a Man”), then the sight of human suffering becomes terribly painful.

With tears on his face and a rope around his neck, the naked Christ stares at the viewer. His figure fills almost the entire field of the canvas. The interpretation of the plot is slightly different from the icon painting theme. The Italian sought to convey the psychological and physical image of Christ as realistically as possible. This is what makes the viewer focus on the meaning of Jesus' suffering.

Maria Annunziata by Antonello da Messina

This work, unlike the picture "This is a man", is completely different in mood. But from the viewer, it also requires an inner experience and emotional participation. As for "Maria Annunziata", Antonello seems to place the viewer in the place of the archangel in space. This gives a sense of mental complicity. The Virgin Mary, seated at the music stand, holds the blue veil thrown over her with her left hand, and raises her other hand. Femalecompletely calm and thoughtful, her evenly lit, sculpted head seems to radiate light against the dark background of the picture.

“Maria Annunziata” is not the only bust portrait of a woman painted by Antonello da Messina. “The Annunciation” is the name of another similar painting by the painter, which depicts the same Virgin Mary, only in a different position: she holds the blue veil with both hands.

In both paintings, the artist tried to express the feeling of a woman's spiritual connection with higher powers. Her facial expression, the posture of her hands and head, as well as her gaze tell the viewer that Mary is now far from the mortal world. And the black background of the paintings only emphasizes the detachment of the Virgin.

St. Jerome in the cell

In the pictures discussed above, there is not even a minimal interest in the problem of transferring the surrounding space. But in other works, the painter in this respect was significantly ahead of his time. In the painting St. Jerome in a Cell” depicts a saint reading at a music stand. His office is located inside a Gothic hall, on the back wall of which windows are cut in two floors. In the foreground, the image is framed by a border and an arch. They are perceived as proskenium (a technique common in the art of countries north of the Alps). The mustard color of the stone emphasizes the contrast of shadow and light inside the cave-like space. The details of the picture (landscape in the distance, birds, objects on the shelves) are conveyed with a very high degree of accuracy. This effect can be achieved only when applying oil paint with rather smallstrokes. But the most important advantage of painting yes Messina is still not in the reliable transfer of details, but in the stylistic unity of the air environment and light.

Monumental altar

In 1475-1476 the artist lived in Venice. There he painted a magnificent altarpiece for the church of San Cassiano. Unfortunately, only its central part has survived to this day, where the Madonna with the Child is depicted towering on the throne. On either side of it are saints. This altar belongs to the sacra conversione type. That is, the Madonna and Child and the saints are in the same space. And this is opposite in form to a polyptych divided into parts. The reconstruction of the monumental altar was based on the later works of Giovanni Bellini.

"Pieta" and "Crucifixion"

Antonello's oil painting, or rather, the ability to convey lighting with this technique, was very highly appreciated by his fellow artists. Since that time, Venetian colorism has been based solely on the development of the great potential of a new direction. Da Messina's works of the Venetian period follow the same conceptual trend as his earlier works. The heavily worn painting "Pieta", even in such a damaged state, fills the audience with a tense feeling of compassion. On the lid of the tomb, the dead body of Christ is held by three angels with pointed wings cutting through the air. The artist depicted the central figure close-up.

It is as if pressed against the surface of the canvas. Empathy with the depicted suffering - that's what, using the above technique, Antonello da Messina achieved. "Crucifixion" is another picture of the painter. It is similar in theme to Pieta. The canvas depicts Jesus crucified on the cross. To his right sits Mary, and to his left is the apostle John. Like Pieta, the painting aims to evoke empathy in the viewer.

Saint Sebastian

This painting is an example of how Antonello competed in heroic nudity and mastery of linear perspective with his northern Italian counterparts. Against the background of the stone-paved square, the body of the saint pierced by arrows acquires enormous dimensions. The space rushing into the depths, a fragment of a column in the foreground and a perspective with a very low vanishing point confirm that the painter used the principles of Euclidean geometry in building the composition.

Interesting facts

• Antonello da Messina, whose paintings were described above, usually depicted his heroes bust-length, close-up and against a dark background.
• According to G. Vasari, the Italian traveled to the Netherlands to learn the secret of a new painting technique. However, this fact has not been proven.
• It has not yet been reliably established who taught the hero of this article oil painting. It was rumored to be Van Eyck.