Fra Bartolommeo
Fra Bartolommeo or
Fra Bartolomeo (
March 28,
1472 in
Florence, Italy –
October 31,
1517 in
Florence, Italy), born
Baccio della Porta, was a
Florentine Renaissance painter of religious subjects.
He likely apprenticed under
Cosimo Rosselli. In the late
1490s Baccio became aware of the teachings of
Fra Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola denounced what he viewed at the corruption of contemporary art and instead argued that it should serve as a visual stand-in for the
Bible for the education of the illiterate. In
1498 Baccio took holy orders as a
Dominican friar and took the name Fra Bartolommeo. He gave up painting for several years, not resuming until
1504 when he became the head of the monastery workshop in obedience to his superior.
He had not long resumed it when
Raphael came to Florence and formed a close friendship with him. Bartolommeo learned from the younger artist the rules of perspective, in which he was so skilled, while Raphael owes to the improvement in his colouring and handling of drapery, which was noticeable in the works he produced after their meeting. In the early
1500s his work was influenced by the return to Florence of
Leonardo da Vinci and
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Their influence on Bartolommeo's paintings is evident in the contrasts between his earlier works and works from this period in their composition, figure presentation and dress. With Raphael, he remained on the most friendly terms, and when he departed from Rome, left in his hands two unfinished pictures which Raphael completed.
Fra Bartolommeo's figures had generally been small and draped. These qualities were alleged against him as defects, and to prove that his style was not the result of want of power, he painted the magnificent figure of
St Mark (his masterpiece, at Florence), and the undraped figure of
St Sebastian. The latter was so well designed, so naturally and beautifully coloured, and so strongly expressive of suffering and agony, that it was found necessary to remove it from the place where it had been exhibited in the chapel of a convent. The majority of Bartolommeo's compositions are altar-pieces. They are remarkable for skill in the massing of light and shade, richness and delicacy of colouring, and for the admirable style in which the drapery of the figures is handled, Bartolommeo having been the first to introduce and use the lay-figure with joints.
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Biography from Artist-Biography.info*
