LUINI, BERNARDINO. - Lombard painter, born between 1480 and 1490, died in Milan in 1532; his typically Lombard training is evident in his early works, where one can gradually discern the influence of the styles of Foppa, Bergognone, and Civerchio (Deposition, in the church of the Passion in Milan; Annunciation, 1516, at the Brera). Later, and even more so, the influence of Bramantino becomes apparent (frescoes at the Pelucca, 1522; organ shutters, 1524, formerly in S. Eustorgio and now in the Parish Church of Paderno Milanese).
The attribution to L., still debated, of a panel signed "Bernardino Mediolanensis, 1507" and now in the Jacquemart-André Museum, would lead to the recognition of Venetian influences in the painter at a very early stage. These influences, later identifiable and mediated through Andrea Solario, appear in the Deposition (1516) in the chapel of the Sacrament in S. Giorgio al Palazzo in Milan. In the Madonna and Child with Angels, at Chiaravalle Milanese, dated 1512 and the first certain work by him, the various motifs converging in L.’s style are already fused with Leonardesque echoes, which the painter would always take into account, sometimes repeating the compositions of the master (St. Anne, at the Ambrosiana) or more often drawing freely from his models (Madonna with St. John, at the Brera; St. John, at the Ambrosiana; Salome, Louvre; Portrait of a Woman, Levy Collection, New York; Magdalene and Martha, Rothschild Collection, Paris).
Characteristic of L. were a gentle piety, a serene and human grace, which imbue his Madonnas (Madonna of the Roses, Brera; Madonna between St. Anthony and St. Barbara, 1521, at the Brera, formerly in the chapel of S. Maria di Brera; Madonna between St. Sebastian and St. Roch, Ringling Museum, Sarasota) and his scenes, always recomposed in peaceful rhythms and harmonious colors (St. Catherine Carried by Angels, 1522, fresco formerly at the Pelucca, now at the Brera; frescoes in the sanctuary of Saronno, ca. 1525).
His landscapes are likewise reposeful and serene, marked by a persistent Lombard archaicism (Fall of Manna, 1522, fresco formerly at the Pelucca, now at the Brera; predella, Benson Collection, London). A painter of large-scale fresco cycles, in addition to those mentioned in S. Giorgio al Palazzo (1516), at the Villa della Pelucca (1522, now mostly at the Brera), and in the sanctuary of Saronno (ca. 1525), one should recall the Crowning with Thorns in the Ambrosian Library (1521–22), the frescoes in S. Maurizio in Milan (1521–23), and in the Besozzi chapel near S. Maurizio (1530), in S. Maria degli Angeli in Lugano (1529–30), and those formerly in the church of the Pace in Milan, now at the Brera.