BASSANO (DA PONTE). - A family of painters commonly named after the town of Bassano rather than by the surname Da Ponte, active from the late 1400s to the early decades of the 1600s.
FRANCESCO IL VECCHIO (b. Bassano 1470, d. 1540 or 1411), founded the Bassano school, whose characteristic product was a painting of a popular nature that reduced sacred stories almost to genre scenes or otherwise immersed them in the everyday life of their own time. He was influenced by the Veronese school and by Montagna. Surviving works by him in Bassano include the Madonna in Majesty between Sts Bartholomew, John the Baptist, and the Virgin between Sts Peter and Paul.
IACOPO, his son (b. Bassano 1515 or 1616, d. Venice 13 Feb 1592), is the most famous of the family. Nothing is known of his early artistic training; from observation of his works we infer paternal instruction and can reasonably presume a Venetian formation. It is not always easy to distinguish his autograph works from those of collaborators because of the constant presence of assistants, which gives much of his output the character of a workshop. But this predominance of the workshop should not lead to undervaluing his art as if it were merely commercial; nor should Iacopo be appreciated only as the conventional painter of fairs, shepherds, flocks, and cauldron-makers, as many like to depict him. It is more accurate to say that, in the painting of 16th-century Venice, he occupies a unique place owing to the distinctive qualities of his spirituality and popular simplicity so happily combined.
A savory rustic art and genuine pastoral fragrance are found in his early works, such as the Flight into Egypt (Bassano, museum), the Supper at Emmaus (Cittadella, parish church), Christ and the Adulteress (Bassano, museum), and Nascuoco and the Three Young Men (ibid.).
Executed with naive popular sincerity is also the Madonna in Majesty with Matteo Soranzo (Bassano, museum), in which the last figure on the left is an effective portrait; and a splendid “piece of painting” can be seen in the little girl sitting at the foot of the stairs playing with a dog, alive and true in her little striped dress of faded green on red. The Last Supper in the Borghese Gallery recalls the young Velázquez. The Earthly Paradise in the Doria Gallery has been rightly considered a forerunner of Paul Brill and Bruegel de’ Velluti, but it also possesses a greater vitality in the animals and a more expressive quality even in inanimate things. In St Roch in the Brera Gallery, Iacopo already employs the technique of brushstrokes that he continues in St Jerome in the Venice Gallery. In St Valentine Baptizing Lucilla in the Bassano museum, the light that strikes everywhere brings magnificent prominence to the gleaming robe of the kneeling saint, the golden cross of the saint, and the vestments of the acolyte drawn with luminous threads. The brushwork is always rapid, highly effective, and plastic. Boschini, speaking of Venetian design, indeed says that the greatest master of relief-like paintings was Iacopo B. with the St Lucilla. This is the Venetian plasticity of Tintoretto or Veronese, achieved through color and light, a plasticity internal to the picture and not sculptural in the manner of a relief on an inert background.
FRANCESCO IL GIOVANE (b. Bassano Jan 1549, d. Venice 3 July 1592), pupil and imitator of his father Iacopo, was characterized by rapid brushwork and the sparkling of colors and lights.
Among his works are The Good Samaritan (Vienna, Hofmuseum); God Indicates the Way to the Promised Land (ibid.); The Last Supper (Madrid, Prado); The Journey of the Jews to the Promised Land (Vienna, Hofmuseum); The Journey of Tobias with the Angel (Dresden, State Gallery); The Adoration of the Magi (Rome, Borghese Gallery). In his later years F. followed Tintoretto in seeking plasticity and movement, as seen in The Martyrdom of St Catherine (Florence, Pitti Gallery), The Rape of the Sabine Women (Turin, Pinacoteca), and the ceiling paintings in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio (Venice, Doge’s Palace).
GIOVANNI BATTISTA (b. Bassano March 1553, d. 9 March 1613), second son of Iacopo, collaborated in his father’s workshop and painted in 1598 the Pala di Gallio now in the Bassano museum.
LEANDRO (b. Bassano June 1557, d. Venice 15 Apr 1622), like his brother Francesco, derived his painting from that of his father. Yet we do not find in him the coloristic and luministic gifts of Francesco, but rather a harshness of touch and heaviness of form.
His works include The Circumcision (Rosà, parish church), The Martyrdom of St Lucy (Venice, church of S. Giorgio), Dives and Lazarus (Vienna, Hofmuseum), The Adoration of the Magi (Borgo S. Sepolcro, gallery), and The Resurrection of Lazarus (Venice, Accademia). He too, like his brother, painted in the Doge’s Palace in Venice.
GIROLAMO (b. Bassano June 1566, d. Venice 8 Nov 1621), like his brother Giovanni Battista, crudely imitated Iacopo’s forms. His is the Madonna and Saints in the Bassano museum, a heavy and contrived work.