Antonello da Messina

Antonello da Messina (ca. 1430-1479) was one of the first Italian painters to master the oil-paint technique. His further significance stems from his relationship to Flemish painting and his influence on Venetian painters of the late 15th century.

Giorgio Vasari, the 16th-century biographer, said that Antonello da Messina learned oil painting from Jan van Eyck, whom he had visited in Flanders. This is improbable as Jan van Eyck died when Antonello was 11 years old. Nevertheless, critics have continued to postulate a visit to Flanders to explain the Flemish qualities in Antonello's art as well as his mastery of oil painting. A different viewpoint, which has evolved recently, sees his apprenticeship to the painter Colantonio in Naples and his contact with Petrus Christus, a Flemish follower of Jan van Eyck, as the crucial factors in Antonello's early development.

Antonello was born in Messina, Sicily. Nothing is known of his early years. He was apprenticed to Colantonio probably about 1450. The court in Naples at that time was cosmopolitan, with French, Provençal, Spanish, Burgundian, and Flemish elements present. The youthful Antonello would have had opportunities to study Flemish painting there. By 1456 he was established as an independent master in Messina. In the same year his name appeared on the payroll of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Milan along with the name of Christus. Whatever Antonello had learned of Flemish art while in Naples would have been reinforced by the presence in Milan of Christus. In 1460 Antonello traveled abroad, though where is not known. From 1460 to 1465 he was in Messina. His whereabouts between 1465 and 1473 is unknown, though he was probably in Messina part of the time. In 1473-1474 he was again in Messina. In 1475-1476 he was in Venice, where, according to Vasari, he had gone to enjoy the licentious pleasures of the city. By September 1476 he was in Messina again. He dictated his will on Feb. 14, 1479, and died in Messina sometime before Feb. 25, the date of a document that speaks of him as dead.

The Works

Antonello's early works reflect a knowledge of Flemish painting. Among them the small Crucifixion in Sibiu, Romania, the Three Angels and the small panel Penitent St. Jerome, both in Reggio Calabria, and the Portrait of a Man in Cefalù are noteworthy. The Portrait of a Man is characteristic of Antonello's portrait art. The subject is posed at an angle rather than parallel to the picture plane, as was common among Italian profile portraits. This three-quarter view, characteristic of Flemish portraits, was Antonello's most conspicuous borrowing from the North.

Two panels of the Virgin Annunciate in Munich and Palermo are among Antonello's most ingratiating works. The closeup, bust-length pose gives the panels an appealing sense of intimacy. The picture in Palermo is especially fine with its strong geometric pattern and sense of crystalline space.

The altarpiece of St. Gregory in Messina is signed and dated 1473. In it Antonello shows an awareness of the art of Piero della Francesca in the emphatic fullness of the figures, their positions in space, and their rather dour and impassive expressions. There is, however, a certain softness resulting from Antonello's use of light which is his own.

The dismembered altarpiece for the church of S. Cassiano in Venice was Antonello's most influential painting in that city. The central panel, much cut down, is now in Vienna. The altarpiece is a sacra conversazione (a type of Madonna and Child painting) set beneath a soaring dome, which forecasts similar compositions by Giovanni Bellini and other Venetian masters of the 16th century. It has the same luminosity and sense of atmosphere so common in Venetian painting.

Further Reading

Two sound monographs on Antonello in English are Giorgio Vigni, All the Paintings of Antonello da Messina (1952); trans. 1963), and Stefano Bottari, Antonello da Messina (1955). For general background see Cecil Gould, An Introduction to Italian Renaissance Painting (1957), and Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art (1970). □

Antonello da Messina (b Messina, c.1430; d Messina, 14/25 Feb. 1479). Italian painter, mainly active at Messina in Sicily, the most famous artist to come from the island. He was one of the major pioneers of oil painting in Italy. According to Vasari, he learnt the technique from Jan van Eyck, but there is no evidence that he ever visited northern Europe and he was in any case still probably a boy when Jan died in 1441. It is more likely that he acquired his knowledge of northern techniques in Naples, then artistically dominated by the Netherlands; an early 16th-century source indicates that he studied there under Niccolò Colantonio (?c.1420–?c.1460), probably the leading Neapolitan painter of his time. He made at least two extensive visits to the Italian mainland, and in 1475–6 he was in Venice, where he painted a large altarpiece for the church of S. Cassiano, of which only three fragments remain (KH Mus., Vienna). Vasari says that Antonello brought the ‘secret’ of oil painting to Venice, and while this is an exaggeration, his altarpiece and other works he painted there did have ‘a far-reaching influence…during the decade or two succeeding his visit’ ( Johannes Wilde, Venetian Art from Bellini to Titian, 1974). He showed how oils could be used to create previously unknown atmospheric and colouristic effects, and Giovanni Bellini, most notably, was greatly impressed by the lucidity and spaciousness of his work.

Antonello's bust portraits—in three-quarter view, of Netherlandish type—also enjoyed a notable vogue in Venice: their expressions were more lively than in the portraits by Memlinc then being imported and, like Antonello's religious works, they show a remarkable ability to combine northern particularity of detail with the Italian tradition of grandeur and clarity of form. Examples of Antonello's portraits are in the National Gallery, London (this one is often considered a self-portrait), and the Louvre, Paris.

Antonello da Messina (c.1430–79). Italian painter, born and mainly active at Messina in Sicily, the most famous artist to come from the island. He was one of the major pioneers of oil painting in Italy. According to Vasari he learnt the technique from Jan van Eyck, but there is no evidence that he ever visited northern Europe and he was in any case still probably a boy when Jan died in 1441. It is more likely that he acquired his knowledge of northern techniques in Naples, then artistically dominated by the Netherlands. He made at least two extensive visits to the Italian mainland, and in 1475–6 he was in Venice, where he painted a large altarpiece for the church of S. Cassiano, of which only three fragments remain (KH Mus., Vienna). Vasari says that Antonello brought the ‘secret’ of oil painting to Venice, and while this is an exaggeration, his altarpiece and other works he painted there did have ‘a far-reaching influence…during the decade or two succeeding his visit’ (Johannes Wilde, Venetian Art from Bellini to Titian, 1974). He showed how the medium could be used to create previously unknown atmospheric and colouristic effects, and Giovanni Bellini, most notably, was greatly impressed by the lucidity and spaciousness of his work. Antonello's bust portraits—in three-quarter view, of Netherlandish type—also enjoyed a notable vogue in Venice: their expressions were more lively than in the portraits by Memlinc then being imported and, like Antonello's religious works, they show a remarkable ability to combine northern particularity of detail with the Italian tradition of grandeur and clarity of form. Good examples of Antonello's portraits are in the National Gallery, London (this one is often considered a self-portrait), and in the Louvre, Paris.

Antonello da Messina , c.1430-79, Sicilian painter, b. Messina. Antonello appears to have had early contact with Flemish art. In his deft handling of the oil medium—his rendering of transparent surfaces and minute landscape details—a strong Northern influence can be seen. About 1475 he went to Venice. There in 1476 he painted the San Cassiano Altarpiece (Kunsthistorisches Mus., Vienna), of which only fragments now exist (Vienna). Created in this period is the work generally regarded as his signature painting, the vibrantly alive yet mysterious Virgin of the Annunciation (c.1475-76, National Gallery of Sicily, Palermo). Antonello's style affected the art of Bellini and other Venetians. He was also an excellent portrait painter, his subjects, often in three-quarters view, reflecting a broad range of emotional expressions, e.g. the roguish gentleman depicted in Portrait of a Man (1460s, Mus. della Fondazione Culturale Mandralisca, Cefalù). Other examples of his portraiture are in such collections as the Metropolitan Museum, Philadelphia Museum, and the Louvre. Other extant paintings include Ecce Homo (c.1470, Metropolitan Mus.); Madonna and Child (National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.); Pietà (Venice); and Crucifixion (c.1475-76, Royal Museum, Antwerp).

Bibliography: See G. Barbera, Metropolitan Mus. of Art catalog (2006).

Antonello da Messina (1430–79) Sicilian artist. A pioneer of oil painting in Italy, he spent much of his working life in Milan, Naples, Venice, and Rome. He probably learned the oil technique in Naples, a centre for Dutch artists. His work married Netherlandish taste for detail with Italian clarity. Apart from religious paintings, such as Salvator Mundi (1465) and Ecce Homo (1470), he produced some remarkable male portraits. His knowledge of oil glazes had a great influence on Venetian painters, notably Giovanni Bellini.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/collection/default.htm; http://www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm