Art in CONTEXT

Local tradition holds that Pier Francesco Bissolo was born in Treviso, a town located to the northwest of Venice. He is documented in Venice in 1492 when he was employed as a gilder. Later as a student of painting, he rose among the ranks to become one of the better pupils of Giovanni Bellini, the greatest master of the High Renaissance in Venice. Bellini exerted a great force upon Bissolo's generation of painters. By the 1520s, Bissolo had skillfully assimilated many lessons from Bellini, but his work also shows the further influence of Palma Vecchio, another respected Venetian painter. This painting, probably dating to this period, demonstrates Bissolo's soft and sensitive style filtered through the lessons learned from his teachers.

Painted for an as-yet unidentified donor, kneeling with hands folded in adoration in front of the Madonna and Child, this work is characteristic of the Italian High Renaissance in its careful realism, its harmony of composition and color, and in its attention to real human emotion. Mary's poignant, almost apprehensive gaze at her son, the infant Jesus, seems to foreshadow her later inconsolable grief at Christ's Crucifixion. The Christ Child, as the literal focal point of this work, seems alert and confident as if to reassure his mother. Joseph, the ever-dutiful husband, stands respectfully to the right ready to assist in whatever way possible. The fact that the Holy Family is depicted in the out-of-doors would seem to indicate the popular story of the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt." The cool-blue mountainous landscape in the background is characteristic of northern Italy and helps to bring this religious moment into the concrete reality and "present" of the 16th century.

The creation of religious pictures such as this during the Renaissance was an important livelihood for many painters, who often apprenticed to a given master or succession of mentors. Bissolo's reputation grew during the 1520s and 1530s, and he received commissions from the Bishop of Padua and an important printer and canon of the cathedral of Treviso. Although his style evolved as evidence of his awareness of the work of younger contemporaries, essentially Bissolo remained true to the general form and demeanor of Giovanni Bellini.

Dominique H. Vasseur

SUGGESTED READINGS:

Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School. Vol.1, The Phaidon Press, 1957.

Crowe, J.A. and G.B. Cavalcaselle. A History of Painting in North Italy. London:1871.

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