Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Francesco Bassano the Younger (1549-1592) - Chiaroscuro

Francesco Bassano the Younger
St Jerome
before 1592
oil on canvas
private collection

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Virgin and Child in Glory
with St John the Baptist
and St Nicholas of Bari

1570
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Giacomo dall'Orio, Venice

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Preaching of St John the Baptist
1570
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Giacomo dall'Orio, Venice

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Battle Scene - Charles VIII receiving the crown of Napoli
before 1592
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Forge of Vulcan
before 1592
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Forge of Vulcan
ca. 1577
oil on canvas
private collection

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Christ stripped of his Garments
before 1592
oil on canvas
Museo Civico, Cremona

Francesco Bassano the Younger
The Flagellation
1583
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Abraham leaving Haran
before 1592
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Francesco Bassano the Younger
The Good Samaritan
ca. 1575
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Jacob and Rachel
ca. 1567
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Adoration of the Magi
ca. 1578
oil on canvas
Palazzo Pretorio, Prato

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Presentation of Christ in the Temple
before 1592
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Summer, with the Sacrifice of Isaac
ca. 1585-90
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Francesco Bassano the Younger
Peasant butchering a Pig
before 1592
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres, Montauban

"The shop that helped Jacopo Bassano to multiply his efforts, in his later years on a scale like that of a minor industry, was staffed most importantly by his own sons.  In order of age they were Francesco (named after his grandfather), born in 1549, who died a suicide in 1592, shortly after Jacopo's decease, Giovanni Battista (1553-1613), Leandro (1557-1622), and Gerolamo (1556-1621).  Of the lot, Francesco was the only painter of distinct talent.  He was formed in his father's mode of the 1560s and matured into Jacopo's less mannered, more veristic style of the seventies; he then began to work not only as a collaborator with Jacopo, signing pictures jointly with him, but independently as well.  In 1579 Francesco moved to Venice, where his career included official state commissions for the Palazzo Ducale as well as pictures in his father's vein.  He particularly pressed a development of chiaroscuro that Jacopo had made earlier, the painting of nocturnes – a much appreciated taste also elsewhere in North Italian painting of the time.  He exaggerated Jacopo's late manner in general towards more obvious effects and towards a rougher touch, and the verism that had been a tendency in his father's style at the time Francesco matured grew to be a still more positive inclination in the son."  

– S.J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy 1500-1600 in the Pelican History of Art series (1970)