ALESSANDRO BONVICINO, known as IL MORETTTO. Painter, born in Brescia in 1498, died there on 22 Dec. 1554.
Between 1515 and 1518 he painted the organ shutters for the Old Cathedral of Brescia, now in Lecco, with Ferramola; but in the part assigned to him (the two knight saints on the inner panels) he shows himself to have far surpassed the backward style of that mediocre Brescian painter, and instead to approach the older fellow-countryman Romanino, with whom he soon collaborated (1521–23) in the paintings of the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament in S. Giovanni Evangelista. The influence of Romanino, that of Savoldo, who suggested to him more vigorous contrasts of light and shade (evident, e.g., in the altarpiece with the Assumption in the Old Cathedral, of 1526, and in the altarpiece with the Virgin and saints in the Fabbriceria of Manerbio), that of Lotto, from whom he derived the romantic intentions of some portraits (Portrait of a Gentleman in the National Gallery, London, of 1526), never struck deep roots in M.’s art, which he clarified within his placid provincial nature. In his maturity the artist produced several masterpieces: the altarpiece with St Margaret and Two Saints in S. Francesco, Brescia (1530), the famous Madonna of the sanctuary of Paitone (1533), St Justina in the Picture Gallery, Vienna, the altarpiece with St Nicholas presenting Three Boys to the Virgin in the Picture Gallery of Brescia (1539), of more directly Titianesque inspiration, and the organ shutters of the church of the Holy Body of Christ in the same city, so singularly anticipating developments in 17th-century painting. In this work the formal elements drawn from Raphael and Giulio Romano are evident; in some compositions, such as the Fall of Manna and the Slaughter of the Innocents in S. Giovanni Evangelista, these push towards a neoclassical frigidity; but in others, such as the Nativity in the Picture Gallery of Brescia, M. skilfully balances and reabsorbs them into Lombard style, giving the scene a strict compositional unity. The composition is even more tightly knit and coherent in the Supper in the House of the Pharisee in S. Maria in Calchera. Though Venetian and of Roman Mannerism in his later maturity (his last dated work is the Deposition in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, of 1554), he introduced no change of direction into M.’s art, which remained consistently within his closed provincial taste.