BERGOGNONE (AMBROGIO da FOSSANO). - Lombard painter, born probably between 1450 and 1460, mentioned between 1481 and 1522. He was a follower of Vincenzo Foppa, without attaining in his delicate images the latter’s plastic modelling.
Among other works, the Virgin enthroned with Saints in the Ambrosian picture gallery, the decorations of the Certosa of Pavia, and the Virgin of the Veil at Brera belong to the first period of his activity, characterized by cold, grey tones; of the second period, in which the figures acquire animation and sweetness of expression, perhaps under the influence of Perugino, and the colours become warmer and more richly textured, we may mention the Baptism at Melegnano (1496), the polyptych in the church of S. Spirito at Bergamo, the Assumption at Brera, and the fresco of the Coronata at S. Simpliciano in Milan. B. felt Leonardo’s influence in an entirely extrinsic manner, striving to render, through a smoky chiaroscuro, Vinci’s characteristic «sfumato» (Mary and Saints at S. Celso); and in general, because of his inability to assimilate new contributions from taste and art, he repeated to the point of weariness his gentle figures with weary features and conventional poses, never neglecting traditional attributes and often representing in the backgrounds, with a realism that is at times picturesque, the misty Lombard region. More than in monumental works, he finds a certain coherence in small-scale compositions of more modest scope, such as the very numerous Madonnas with Child. - Vedi Tav. LXXXIV.