Helsinki,
Son of a painter and the leading figure of an extensive family of artists that we know as the Bassano Because of his birthplace (Bassano del Grappa, in Veneto), Jacopo Bassano maintained a very close working relationship with his sons (four: Francesco, Girolamo, Leandro and Giambattista) in his workshop, which gave rise to a pictorial style of lineage and very characteristic, both in themes and techniques. This style would achieve significant diffusion in Europe during a good part of the 17th century (Jacopo died, in the same town where he was born, in 1592).
In his early days, this artist produced religious compositions. Although he was initially a follower of Titian, he soon tended more and more towards mannerism and his good knowledge of Tintoretto’s work would have a great influence on him: in the approach to his figures, but especially in terms of techniques and lighting effects. In his mature period, he specialised in the execution of paintings of a biblical-pastoral nature, in which the humble, everyday life of a rural setting dominates the canvases and the scene that was fundamental in theory (the biblical one) takes a backseat, being the pretext to show, with a pretended objectivity, a village panorama very far from the heroics of the great Venetian painting. Given the large number of farm animals and household items that we see in his works accompanying servants or peasants engaged in their work, we can think that he cultivated genre painting, appreciated at that time in bourgeois and popular circles, which included the regular clients of Jacopo and his workshop (readers of texts such as the Arcadia of Sannazzaro or the Rhymes of Francesco Berni, who in turn distanced themselves from the historicist and mythological literature that inspired the great masters around Venice). For these reasons, the Bassano have been considered precursors of Baroque naturalism.
The first solo exhibition of the family head outside Italy will be open from 12 September at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum in Helsinki and will house some of the works that made him very popular in his time, praised by his most cultured contemporaries and in demand by the market: the pieces that will be part of this exhibition, just over thirty, will date from between 1550 and 1570 and among them we will see very original chalk sketches in extremely rare colours from the Louvre and the Uffizi; other lenders will be the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Museo Civico di Bassano del Grappa and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Many of the compositions collected, in any case, will be the aforementioned recreations of biblical episodes in idyllic landscapes, with animals and shepherds going about their daily tasks as central elements, in which it is not unusual to see Monte Grappa in the background, a familiar presence for those who shared the area with the Bassano. As the years passed (we will distinguish it above all in the scenes from the 1570s) the representations of details of daily life became so prominent in the paintings that it is difficult to identify the biblical theme in them. For Kirsi Eskelinen, curator of this project together with Claudia Caramanna, the animals particularly exemplify Jacopo’s virtuoso skills as a painter and can even be interpreted as his signature.
We know that in the Bassano workshop this type of work was increasingly successful, which made it necessary to strictly organize production to meet this high demand: for some compositions, fabrics were reused and it was not unusual to find similar types and postures between figures. The formats most requested by clients were also maintained, who in terms of themes, as well as religious-pastoral themes, tended to opt for series of the four seasons.
Jacopo Bassano, and later his sons, worked in a workshop that had already been founded by the former’s father, Francesco il Vecchio (ca. 1470/1475–1539), in the town of Bassano itself. In addition to paintings on traditional supports, they produced frescoes, altarpieces, portraits and decorative pieces; precisely the fact that their workshop was located far from the artistic epicentre of Venice allowed this diversification of their work (the masters who worked in the city of canals focused exclusively on painting). One of the four accounting books of the workshop of this lineage, the Second bookhas been preserved to this day, so the production and clientele of the workshop are well documented, as are the dates of many compositions.
As for Jacopo’s four sons, who will also be represented in the Finnish production, they first copied their father meticulously and reproduced his most popular motifs in different versions; it is not usually easy to distinguish the authorship of one or the other from the paternal one, and there is no such intention in the family either: rather, they all aspired to achieve a uniform style. It is also quite possible that Jacopo tried to promote the careers of his offspring by giving them their first important commissions, even if he did not encourage their independence; according to Eskelinen, while his signature was a guarantee of quality for the clients, Francesco, Girolamo, Leandro and Giambattista became continuators of his work (and of that talent).
The Bassano name also became known abroad, including in the European courts: the workshop’s clientele included both nobility and commoners and it operated uninterruptedly until the death of Jacopo’s grandson and successor, Jacopo Apollonio, in 1654.
The starting point for this exhibition were the two paintings by Patriarch Bassano that are part of the Sinebrychoff’s own collection: The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Anthony the Abbot (circa 1561-1562) and Saint John the Baptist picking flowers for his parents (ca. 1559-1560); after studying them in depth, museum curator Suvi Kervinen has decided to keep the first one, considered to be the best Italian Renaissance painting in Finland, on display. It passed through the hands of the Bourbon dynasty of France, as evidenced by the coat of arms on the frame.
The absence of the second piece is not due to reasons of attribution, but to a discovery: the brown colouring that has been modifying the appearance of this composition is due to the degradation and loss of a blue originally used, derived from cobalt glass, which was very common in the 16th century. This is an important discovery, since the blue pigments used by Jacopo had not been previously studied in this way, and this modification, practically missing, of this hue can also be seen in three other pieces in the exhibition.
Those who wish to delve deeper into this technical analysis will be able to do so through a video at the exhibition, which will also feature a digital reconstruction of John the Baptist by photographer Aleks Talve, in which the blue has been made visible to match the results of the study of the material.
“Jacopo Bassano – Venetian Renaissance Master”
SINEBRYCHOFF ART MUSEUM
Boulevard 40
Helsinki
From September 12, 2024 to January 12, 2025
