Painter
Antonello da Messina was the only major S. Italian painter of
the 15th century, and the only Italian decisively influenced by the minute
oil-technique associated with the van Eycks. He may have been a pupil of
the half-legendary Colantonio in Naples (where he could have seen Flemish
paintings) and there is no reason to suppose that he actually visited Flanders.
His mature style combines Flemish detail and technique with Italian breadth
of form. In 1475/6 he was in Venice, where he painted the S.
Cassiano altarpiece
(now known only from copies and fragments in Vienna); this was contemporary
with the altarpiece by Piero della Francesca (Milan, Brera) and the one (now
destroyed) by GiovanniBellini for SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. One of
these three was the first great sacra conversazione to treat the picture-space as a
continuation of the real space — like a chapel opening out of the church — so
that the spectator is drawn into the scene in active participation. Antonello's
virtuoso technique also influenced the Venetians, especially Giovanni Bellini's
portraits, which show traces of the Flemish type of design favoured by Antonello.
Apart from the Vienna fragments there are works in London (NG: Salvator
Mundi, 1465, his first dated work, and others); Paris (Louvre) and Antwerp,
which both have works dated 1475, presumably painted in Venice; Berlin,
Bucharest, Messina, Munich, New York, Philadelphia, Rome (Borghese) and
Washington.
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
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