Dosso Dossi
Encyclopedia
Dosso Dossi real name Giovanni di Niccolò de Luteri, was an Italian Renaissance
painter who belonged to the Ferrara School of Painting
.
a village
in the province
of Mantua
. His early training and life is not well documented; his father, originally of Trento
, was a bursar (spenditore or fattore) for the Dukes of Ferrara
. He may have had training locally with Lorenzo Costa
or in Mantua
, where he is known to have been in 1512. By 1514, he would begin three decades of service for dukes Alfonso I
and Ercole II d'Este
, becoming principal court artist. Dosso worked frequently with his brother Battista Dossi
, who had trained in the Roman workshop of Raphael
. The works he produced for the dukes included the ephemeral decorations of furniture and theater sets. He is known to have worked alongside il Garofalo in the Costabili polyptych
. One of his pupils was Giovanni Francesco Surchi
(il Dielai).
Dosso Dossi is known less for his naturalism or attention to design, and more for cryptic allegorical conceits in paintings around mythological themes, a favored subject for the humanist Ferrarese court (see also Cosimo Tura
and the decoration of the Palazzo Schifanoia
). Freedburg uses the term sprezzatura
to refer to Dossi's caricature-like, primitivist, and eccentric distortions of proportion. Dossi is also known for the atypical choices of bright pigment for his cabinet pieces. Some of his works, such as the Deposition have lambent qualities that suggest some of Correggio
's works. Most of his works feature Christian and Ancient Greek themes and use oil painting as a medium.
The painting Aeneas in the Elysian Fields was part of the Camerino d'Alabstro of Alfonso I
in the Este Castle, decorated with canvases depicting bacchanalia
and erotic subjects including Feast of the Gods by Giovanni Bellini
and Venus Worship by Titian
. The frieze paintings were based on the Aeneid
; this scene by Dossi is book 6, lines 635-709, wherein Aeneas
is guided over the bridge into the Elysian Fields
by the Cumaean Sibyl
. Orpheus
with the lyre flits in the forest; in the background are the ghostly horses of dead warriors.
In Hercules and the Pygmies, Hercules
has fallen asleep after defeating Antaeus
, and is set upon by an army of thumb-size pygmies, whom he defeats. He gathers them in his lion skin. Paintings depicting a powerful Hercules were commonly made for the then-ruler Duke Ercole II d'Este
. The subjects of the Mythological Scene and Tubalcain are unknown.
Recently, "Portrait of a Youth" at the National Gallery of Victoria, the mysterious portrait of an unknown subject by an unknown painter, has been identified as a portrait of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia
by Dosso Dossi.
In Ferrara, among his pupils were Gabriele Capellini
, Jacopo Panicciati, and Giovanni Francesco Surchi
.
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
painter who belonged to the Ferrara School of Painting
School of Ferrara (painting)
The School of Ferrara was a group of painters which flourished in the Duchy of Ferrara during the Renaissance. Ferrara was ruled by the Este family, well known for its patronage of the arts. Patronage was extended with the ascent of Ercole d'Este I in 1470, and the family continued in power till...
.
Biography
Dossi was born in San Giovanni del DossoSan Giovanni del Dosso
San Giovanni del Dosso is a comune in the Province of Mantua in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 160 km southeast of Milan and about 30 km southeast of Mantua....
a village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
in the province
Province
A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Etymology:The English word "province" is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French "province," which itself comes from the Latin word "provincia," which referred to...
of Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
. His early training and life is not well documented; his father, originally of Trento
Trento
Trento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino...
, was a bursar (spenditore or fattore) for the Dukes of Ferrara
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
. He may have had training locally with Lorenzo Costa
Lorenzo Costa
Lorenzo Costa was an Italian painter of the Renaissance.-Biography:He was born at Ferrara, but moved to Bologna by the his early twenties, and would be more influential to the Bolognese school of painting. However, many artists worked in both nearby cities, and thus others consider him a product...
or in Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
, where he is known to have been in 1512. By 1514, he would begin three decades of service for dukes Alfonso I
Alfonso I d'Este
Alfonso d'Este was Duke of Ferrara during the time of the War of the League of Cambrai.-Biography:He was the son of Ercole I d'Este and Leonora of Naples....
and Ercole II d'Este
Ercole II d'Este
Ercole II d'Este was Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio from 1534 to 1559. He was a member of the house of Este and the eldest son of Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia....
, becoming principal court artist. Dosso worked frequently with his brother Battista Dossi
Battista Dossi
Battista Dossi , also known as Battista de Luteri, was an Italian painter who belonged to the Ferrara School of Painting. He spent nearly his entire career in service of the Court of Ferrara, where he worked with his older brother Dosso Dossi . It is believed that Battista worked in the Rome...
, who had trained in the Roman workshop of Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
. The works he produced for the dukes included the ephemeral decorations of furniture and theater sets. He is known to have worked alongside il Garofalo in the Costabili polyptych
Polyptych
A polyptych generally refers to a painting which is divided into sections, or panels. The terminology that follows is in relevance to the number of panels integrated into a particular piece of work: "diptych" describes a two-part work of art; "triptych" describes a three-part work; "tetraptych"...
. One of his pupils was Giovanni Francesco Surchi
Giovanni Francesco Surchi
Giovanni Francesco Surchi was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance period, active in Ferrara. He was also calle il Dielai....
(il Dielai).
Dosso Dossi is known less for his naturalism or attention to design, and more for cryptic allegorical conceits in paintings around mythological themes, a favored subject for the humanist Ferrarese court (see also Cosimo Tura
Cosimo Tura
Cosimo Tura , also known as Il Cosmè or Cosmè Tura, was an Italian early-Renaissance painter and considered one of the founders of the School of Ferrara....
and the decoration of the Palazzo Schifanoia
Palazzo Schifanoia
Palazzo Schifanoia is a Renaissance palace in Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna built for the Este family. The name "Schifanoia" is thought to originate from "schivar la noia" meaning literally to "escape from boredom" which describes accurately the original intention of the palazzo and the other villas...
). Freedburg uses the term sprezzatura
Sprezzatura
Sprezzatura is an Italian word originating from Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.” It is...
to refer to Dossi's caricature-like, primitivist, and eccentric distortions of proportion. Dossi is also known for the atypical choices of bright pigment for his cabinet pieces. Some of his works, such as the Deposition have lambent qualities that suggest some of Correggio
Antonio da Correggio
Antonio Allegri da Correggio , usually known as Correggio, was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century...
's works. Most of his works feature Christian and Ancient Greek themes and use oil painting as a medium.
The painting Aeneas in the Elysian Fields was part of the Camerino d'Alabstro of Alfonso I
Alfonso I d'Este
Alfonso d'Este was Duke of Ferrara during the time of the War of the League of Cambrai.-Biography:He was the son of Ercole I d'Este and Leonora of Naples....
in the Este Castle, decorated with canvases depicting bacchanalia
Bacchanalia
The bacchanalia were wild and mystic festivals of the Greco-Roman god Bacchus , the wine god. The term has since come to describe any form of drunken revelry.-History:...
and erotic subjects including Feast of the Gods by Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
and Venus Worship by Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
. The frieze paintings were based on the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
; this scene by Dossi is book 6, lines 635-709, wherein Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...
is guided over the bridge into the Elysian Fields
Elysian Fields
-General use:* Elysium, in Greek mythology, the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous- Places :* Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey, site of the first organized baseball game* Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans* Elysian Fields, Texas...
by the Cumaean Sibyl
Cumaean Sibyl
The ageless Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony located near Naples, Italy.The word sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. There were many Sibyls in different locations throughout the ancient world...
. Orpheus
Orpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
with the lyre flits in the forest; in the background are the ghostly horses of dead warriors.
In Hercules and the Pygmies, Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
has fallen asleep after defeating Antaeus
Antaeus
Antaeus in Greek and Berber mythology was a half-giant, the son of Poseidon and Gaia, whose wife was Tinjis. Antaeus had a daughter named Alceis or Barce.-Mythology:...
, and is set upon by an army of thumb-size pygmies, whom he defeats. He gathers them in his lion skin. Paintings depicting a powerful Hercules were commonly made for the then-ruler Duke Ercole II d'Este
Ercole II d'Este
Ercole II d'Este was Duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio from 1534 to 1559. He was a member of the house of Este and the eldest son of Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia....
. The subjects of the Mythological Scene and Tubalcain are unknown.
Recently, "Portrait of a Youth" at the National Gallery of Victoria, the mysterious portrait of an unknown subject by an unknown painter, has been identified as a portrait of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
by Dosso Dossi.
In Ferrara, among his pupils were Gabriele Capellini
Gabriele Capellini
Gabriele Capellini was an Italian painter of the Renaissance.He was also called il Caligarino or il Calzolaretto , from his having first pursued that trade. He born in Ferrara, and there trained under Dosso Dossi, he was active c. 1520. For the church of San Francesco at Ferrara St. Peter and St...
, Jacopo Panicciati, and Giovanni Francesco Surchi
Giovanni Francesco Surchi
Giovanni Francesco Surchi was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance period, active in Ferrara. He was also calle il Dielai....
.
Selected works
- Holy Family with Donors (1514, Philadelphia Museum of ArtPhiladelphia Museum of ArtThe Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
) - Aeneas in the Elysian Fields, (1518–1521, National Gallery of CanadaNational Gallery of CanadaThe National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
, OttawaOttawaOttawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
) - The Virgin Appearing to Sts John the Baptist and John the Evangelist (1520s, UffiziUffiziThe Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
Gallery, FlorenceFlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
) - Jupiter, Mercury and the Virtue, (1524, Wawel CastleWawel CastleThe Gothic Wawel Castle in Kraków in Poland was built at the behest of Casimir III the Great and consists of a number of structures situated around the central courtyard. In the 14th century it was rebuilt by Jogaila and Jadwiga of Poland. Their reign saw the addition of the tower called the Hen's...
, KrakówKrakówKraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
) - Mythological Scene, c.1524; oil on canvas, 164 x 145 cm, J. Paul Getty MuseumJ. Paul Getty MuseumThe J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...
, Los Angeles - Allegory of Fortune, c.1530; oil on canvas, 178 x 216.5 cm, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
- Three Ages of Man or Rustic Idyll; 77.5 x 11.8 cm, Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of ArtThe Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
- Aeneas, Barber Institute, Birmingham
- Hercules and the Pygmies Alte Galerie am Landesmuseum Johanneum Graz
- Tubalcain (Allegory of Music) Museo Horne Florence
- Witchraft Stregoneria (Choice of Hercules between Vice and Virtue) Galleria degli Uffizi
- Saint Michael (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden)
- Saint George and the Dragon (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden)
- Portrait of a Warrior, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
- Portrait of a Youth, portrait of Lucrezia BorgiaLucrezia BorgiaLucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
, National Gallery of VictoriaNational Gallery of VictoriaThe National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...
External links
- Short biography and pictures at the J. Paul Getty Museum
- Images of some paintings
- Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
- Works by Dosso Dossi at Census of Ferrarese Paintings and Drawings