Jacopo Bassano (born Jacopo dal Ponte; – 14 February 1592) was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. He was born and died in Bassano del Grappa, and took the village as his surname. Having trained in the workshop of his father, Francesco the Elder, he painted mostly religious paintings, landscapes, and genre scenes. Indeed, he often treated biblical themes in the manner of rural genre scenes, representing peasants, animals, and the agrarian landscape with great accuity.

Bassano's pictures were very popular in Venice and, eventually, throughout Europe. His four sonsFrancesco Bassano the Younger, Giovanni Battista da Ponte, Leandro Bassano, and Girolamo da Pontealso became artists and followed him closely in style and subject matter. His skill in these more practical disciplines helps to explain why the representation of the dynamic landscape of the Veneto would come to occupy such an important role in some many of his paintings. Bassano eventually made his way to Venice in the 1530s, where he may have studied under Bonifazio de Pitati (also known as Bonifazio Veronese) and certainly was exposed to the works of artists as Titian and il Pordenone. After his father's death in 1539 he returned to Bassano del Grappa and permanently set up residence there, even marrying a local woman, Elisabetta Merzari, in 1546. He took over the management of his family workshop, which would eventually come to include his four sons, Leandro Bassano, Francesco Bassano the Younger, Giovanni Battista da Ponte, and Girolamo da Ponte. After his death in 1592, his sons continued to produce numerous works in his style, making it difficult for later art historians to establish which pieces were created by Jacopo himself and which works were created at the hands of his progeny.

Works

thumbnail|The Way to Calvary

Bassano's ability to experiment and absorb stylistic qualities from other contemporary artists is evident in the four distinct periods seen in his artistic legacy. Each period shows the artist's work in reconciling his own aesthetics with the styles of his peers.

Early works

Bonifazio de Pitati imparted upon his young pupil a lasting appreciation of Titian's work, the influence of which is clearly seen in his early pieces. Bassano's earliest paintings exhibit his lifelong obsession with brilliant colours that he had seen in Titian's beginning works, particularly in Bassano's Supper at Emmaus (1538). In this commission for a local church, Bassano fills the canvas with rich, luminous colours that help distinguish the figures from their surrounding environment. He breaks away from the practices of his contemporaries by placing the figure of Christ towards the back of the scene and allowing the lay people around him to play a more significant part in the composition of the piece. They are also unique in their dress. Instead of clothing his figures in the draping, shapeless fabrics many Renaissance artists equated with Classical Roman fashion, Bassano chose to feature figures in 16th-century clothing. The details of this piece are the most often discussed aspect of it. To many art historians his inclusion of various food on the tables, a dog lying down and a cat slinking around the chairs, as well as numerous secondary characters is a testament to Bassano's practice of drawing from life instead of relying on stylistic conventions of the age.

Bassano's paintings from the 1530-50s betray a range of artistic influences, including Dürer, Parmigianino, Tintoretto, and Raphael, whose compositions he would have known through prints, of which he must have been an avid collector.

Bassano also experimented with the representation of light in his later works. In the final decades of his career, he became one of the first artists to paint a "nocturne", or a painting in a nighttime landscape with artificial lighting. This type of painting was extremely popular with local audiences and made Bassano paintings highly valued.

<gallery mode=packed-hover heights=154px caption=" Paintings">

Jacopo da Ponte - The Annunciation to the Shepherds - WGA01425.jpg|The Annunciation to the Shepherds (1533), Belvoir Castle

Bemberg Fondation Toulouse - La montée au calvaire - Jacopo Bassano - Inv.1002.jpg|The Way to Calvary (1535-1538), Fondation Bemberg

'The Supper at Emmaus', oil on canvas painting by Jacopo Bassano (Jacopo dal Ponte).jpg|Supper at Emmaus (1538), Kimbell Art Museum

File:Jacopo Bassano - The Procession to Calvary, 1540, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London.jpg|The Procession to Calvary (1540), The National Gallery

File:Jacopo Bassano Last Supper 1542.jpeg|The Last Supper, 1542, Galleria Borghese, Rome

File:Jacopo Bassano, il vecchio - Calvary - Google Art Project.jpg|Calvary

File:Portrait of a Bearded Man by Jacopo Bassano, Getty Center.JPG|Portrait of a Bearded Man

File:Jacopo da Ponte - Portrait of a Cardinal - WGA01432.jpg|Portrait of a Cardinal

File:JACOPO DA PONTE, CALLED BASSANO PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN.jpg|Portrait of a Gentleman

File:Jacopo Bassano (Jacopo dal Ponte) - The Adoration of the Kings - Google Art Project.jpg|The Adoration of the Kings, early 1540s

File:Jacopo Bassano - Altarpiece, 1545-50, originally painted for the Church at Tomo, canvas, Pinakothek at Munich.jpg|Altarpiece painted for the Church at Tomo, Pinakothek at Munich

File:Jacopo Bassano - Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist, 1570, oil on canvas, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.jpg|Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist (1570), Galleria degli Uffizi

File:The Baptism of Christ by Jacopo Bassano.jpg|The Baptism of Christ, 1592, private collection

File:Jacopo Bassano and workshop - The Purification of the Temple - Google Art Project.jpg|Jacopo Bassano and workshop - The Purification of the Temple

File:Jacopo Bassano, il vecchio - Adoration of the Magi - Google Art Project.jpg|Adoration of the Magi

File:Jacopo Bassano workshop - Animals boarding the Noah's Ark - Louvre.jpg|Animals boarding Noah's Ark

File:Miraculous Draught of Fishes-Bassano.jpg|Miraculous Draught of Fishes

File:Jacopo Bassano - The Purification of the Temple, The National Gallery, London.jpg|The Purification of the Temple, The National Gallery

</gallery>

References

thumb|Jacopo da Ponte monument, [[Bassano del Grappa]]

Further reading

  • Aikema, Bernard (1996), Jacopo Bassano and His Public: Moralizing Pictures in an Age of Reform, ca. 1535-1600 (translated by Andrew P. McCormick), Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
  • Pilgrim, James (2023), "Jacopo Bassano and the Flood of Feltre." The Art Bulletin 105:3 (2023): 115-137.
  • Pilgrim, James (2026), Pastoral's End: Art, Ecology, and Catastrophe in Renaissance Italy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Rearick, W. R. (1993), Jacopo Bassano, 1510-1592, Fort Worth, Texas: Kimbell Art Museum.
  • Jacopo Bassano in the Web Gallery of Art
  • Jacopo Bassano: Founder of Landscape Style