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 achieving in his delicate images the plastic modelling of the latter.
To the first period of his activity, characterized by cold and grey tones, belong among other works the Virgin in Majesty with Saints from the Ambrosiana Gallery, the decorations of the Certosa of Pavia and the Virgin of the Veil at Brera; to the second period, in which the figures take on animation and sweetness of expression perhaps under the influence of Perugino and the colours become warmer and more pastose, we recall the Baptism of Melegnano (1496) and the polyptych of the church of S. Spirito in Bergamo, the Assumption at Brera, the fresco of the Incoronata at S. Simpliciano in Milan. B. felt in a wholly extrinsic way the influence of Leonardo, striving to render with a smoky chiaroscuro the characteristic “sfumato” of Leonardo (Mary and Saints at S. Celso); and in general, because of his inability to assimilate new contributions of taste and art, he repeated to the point of weariness his sweet figures with weary features, conventional poses, never neglecting traditional attributes and often representing in the backgrounds, with a realism sometimes picturesque, the misty Lombard region. More than in monumental works, he finds coherence in small compositions of lesser scope such as the very numerous Madonna and Child. — See Plate LXXXIV.