VIVARINI, FAMILY. - Murano painters, active in Venice between c. 1440 and the early 1500s.
ANTONIO
Son of Michele, a glassmaker, he is mentioned in numerous Venetian documents from 1446 to '66; he died between 1476 and 1484. In his first period, the most important, he painted together with his brother-in-law Giovanni d'Alemagna (v.), producing numerous works in Venice and Padua, where he appears enrolled in the fraglia of painters in 1447: the polyptych of St. Jerome formerly in S. Stefano (1441, Museum of Vienna), that of St. Monica in the same church (five small stories of the Saint remain from it in the Museums of Murano and Detroit, in the Lee collections in Richmond and Keester in London, in the Carrara Gallery of Bergamo), the three altarpieces of the chapel of S. Tarasio at S. Zaccaria (1443-44), the Coronation of the Virgin at S. Pantaleone (1446), the solemn Madonna with Saints of the Scuola della Carità (1446, now at the Accademia), the polyptych formerly in S. Francesco in Padua, now at Konopište (1447). Scholars have sought to distinguish the two personalities of the authors without so far reaching convincing results, given that certain works by Alemagna are lacking, nor is the only painting signed by Antonio alone in this period, the polyptych of Parenzo, of modest quality in many of its parts (the reading of the last digit of the date is uncertain: 1440 or 42). Although the artistic unity of the works signed by the two partners is such as to make such research almost superfluous, there is now a tendency to assign to Antonio the preponderance in the collaboration, limiting the German's contribution to the more purely decorative parts. His style, which in these youthful years has a quite particular charm for the softness of its forms and the enchantment of its color, reveals the influence of Gentile da Fabriano and, to a stronger degree, that of Masolino, who perhaps stopped in Venice on his return from Hungary, in 1435-40.
To this period, which concludes with the decoration of the vault of the Ovetari chapel at the Eremitani in Padua, left unfinished at the death of Giovanni (1450), are still assigned: the Madonna in St. Thomas at Padua (perhaps two panels with saints in the London Gallery belong to the same altarpiece), the polyptych formerly at Praglia now at Brera, the Madonna of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum and that of Città di Castello, the St. Ursula and saints of the Seminary of Brescia. In the same year 1450 begins, with the important polyptych now in the picture gallery of Bologna, the collaboration of Antonio with his brother Bartolomeo and his approach to the latter's Mantegnesque-Paduan manners. To this period belong the Cagnola triptych (1452) and the polyptychs of Arbe (1458), of Osimo and of Corridonia (ca. 1462). Paduan characteristics are also presented by the late works of Antonio alone, such as the feeble polyptych of the Vatican Picture Gallery (1464) and the saints of the Museum of Bari (1467).
BARTOLOMEO
Born in Murano around 1432, died around 1499; his works are dated from 1448 to 1491. He was probably a pupil of his brother Antonio, with whom he collaborated for more than a decade (v. above), yet establishing himself from the outset with a highly personal style of his own, inspired by Mantegna and the Paduan school. After the youthful
Madonna of the Lane collection (1448) and the works produced in collaboration with Antonio, he went on for about twenty years, beginning in 1459 (the date of the St. John of Capistrano in the Louvre and of a Madonna in the Museum of Murano), to produce numerous works that represent the best period of his activity: the polyptych 615 of the Accademia in Venice (1464), the Madonna enthroned in the Pinacoteca of Naples (1465), the triptych of S. Maria Formosa (1473), the polyptych of SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1473), of which there remain a St. Augustine and two other Saints that must be counted among his most sober and monumental works, the triptych of S. Marco at the Frari, the polyptych of S. Ambrogio at the Accademia (1477), the Madonna and saints of S. Giovanni in Bragora (1478), etc. After these years Bartolomeo's art falls into an often empty and weary repetition of motifs that had become the common property of the large workshop, which spread his works even to distant centers, especially along the Adriatic coasts and in southern Italy.
ALVISE
Son of Antonio, born in Venice around 1445-1446, died between 1503 and 1505. Educated in the family's painting milieu, he followed above all the Paduan school and his uncle Bartolomeo, whose petrified forms he echoes in the polyptych of Montefiorentino in the Marche (1475, his first dated work) and in the one with the Pentecost and Saints in the Berlin Museum, both constructed according to traditional Gothic schemes, which Alvise later abandons for a freer composition in the Madonna and Saints of the Venice Gallery, of 1480. In this and in the subsequent works (St. Clare and St. Martyr at the Accademia; triptych of the Naples Museum, 1485; altarpiece with the Madonna and Saints in Berlin) the influence of Antonello da Messina is clear, of whom Alvise became one of the most faithful interpreters in Venice. Influences of Giovanni Bellini are noticeable in the Madonna with the Sleeping Child of the church of the Redentore and in those of S. Giovanni in Bragora in Venice and of the Capodistria Museum. In the late works (Risen Christ in S. Giovanni in Bragora; altarpiece of S. Ambrogio at the Frari, finished by Marco Basaiti) the crudeness of the forms is notably softened. Still to be remembered, besides some portraits (one of a Gentleman at the National Gallery in London, of 1497), are the youthful St. Matthew and the Baptist of the Accademia, the admirable bust of St. Anthony of the Correr Museum, a St. Jerome of the Kress collection in New York and a Christ Carrying the Cross at SS. Giovanni e Paolo, recently restored. The importance of Alvise, although notable, was overvalued for a certain period by assigning him numerous works, later returned to Giovanni Bellini. - See pl. CLIII.
Bibliography18 works
Nolfo di Carpegna