LUINI, BERNARDINO. – Lombard painter, born between 1480 and 1490, died in Milan in 1532; his typically Lombard training is manifested in his early works, in which the reflections of the styles of Foppa, Bergognone, and Civerchio can be identified successively (Christ Deposed, in the church of the Passion in Milan; Annunciation, 1516, at Brera), followed, even more markedly, by those of Bramantino (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 disputed, of an altarpiece marked «Bernardino Mediolanensis, 1507» in the Jacquemart André Museum would lead to recognizing very early in the painter the Venetian influences later identifiable, through the mediation of Andrea Solario, in the Deposition (1516) of the Sacrament chapel in S. Giorgio al Palazzo in Milan. In the Madonna and Child with Angels, at Chiaravalle Milanese, dated 1512, the first certain dated work, the various motifs converging in L.’s manner already appear fused with Leonardesque echoes, which the painter would always take into account thereafter, sometimes repeating the master’s compositions (S. Anna, at the Ambrosiana) or, more often, drawing freely upon his models (Madonna with St. John the Baptist, at Brera; St. John the Baptist, at the Ambrosiana; Salome, Louvre; Portrait of a Woman, Levy collection, New York; Mary Magdalene and Martha, Rotschild collection, Paris).
Characteristic of L. were a gentle religiosity and a serene, human grace, with which his Madonnas appear endowed (Madonna of the Roses, Brera; Madonna between S. Anthony and S. Barbara, 1521, at Brera, formerly in the chapel of S. Maria di Brera; Madonna between S. Sebastian and S. Roch, Ringling Museum, Sarasota), as well as his scenes, always recomposed in tranquil rhythms and in quiet harmonies of color (S. Catherine Carried by Angels, 1522, fresco formerly at the Pelucca, now at Brera; frescoes in the sanctuary of Saronno, ca. 1525);
his landscapes, too, are restful and serene, marked by a persistent Lombard archaism (Fall of the Manna, 1522, fresco formerly at the Pelucca, now at Brera; predella, Benson collection in London). A painter of large fresco cycles, in addition to those mentioned at S. Giorgio al Palazzo (1516), in the villa of the Pelucca (1522, now for the most part at Brera), and in the sanctuary of Saronno (ca. 1525), the Crowning with Thorns in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (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 Peace in Milan, now at Brera, should also be recalled.