ANTONELLO

Londra - National Gallery 

Presumed self-portrait

Large and immortal it is its painting, unfortunately only about fifty of pictures are sure autograph according to the opinion of critics and historians of the art, 20% of the production of the great master are assumed hardly. There is from to wonder what adjectives we would have to use if of Antonello there was everything know, works and give to you biographical, rather than wrapped all in the mystery. The figure of Antonello, just because of the sparsity of news works how much, comes long underrated from the Vasari in the '500 and underestimated until to the end of the 1800's when Bernard Berenson and other researchers tear the dusty veil of the forgetfulness with the light of the knowledge and the intellect. Antonello is the typical representative of the Homo Novus of the Rinascimento, a phenomenon all Italian from the Sicily to Venice. E' the symbol of that century, the 1400's, in which the man it resumes conscience of himself after the centuries oxen of the Middle Ages until crossing the immense Ocean in order to discover the New World. Antonello, in juvenile age exceeds the Strait in order to catch up the " continent nearly" that this was a geographic entity of all the various one beyond that separated. It catches up Naples and it finds Renato the Bond, duca of Angiò and conte of Provenza, king of Naples, Sicily and Gerusalemme. A compound of sicialian, son of Luigi II king of Sicily, from the international experience. The monarch, lover of the art, preferred of painting and are themselves admirer of Jan Van Eyck and Van der Weyden, artists who have sent to its court their important works. Antonello, while it learns the art to the bottega of Colantonio, breathes the air of a cultural atmosphere much lively one in which the Iberian and provenzali infuences are interlaced with those flemings. The master can therefore set off to one painting that integral the various after the Italian fashion and he does again experiences in particular to that one fleming of Van Eyck: this interlace of suggestions is concrete in the "Saint Gerolamo in the study" (National Gallery of London).

It's this a small, precious rich particular painting tiny described with a clarity spaces them all Italian. The probable travel to Rome puts it in contact directed with the works of Piero of the Francesca and consolidates the tendency to simple and calibrated architectures spaces them. The suggestion of the painting of Piero Della Francesca Antonello door to the conquest of a space generated from the same figures, and to organize the particular, always observes to you with acute sense of the preciosity of the various matters in widths and serene perspectively blocked compositions in which the shapes, thanks to the brightness of the color, assume the cleanest prominence.

From beginning, however, Antonello are same himself, artist most personal and son of its earth.   In one of its first paintings of 1455,  the Crocifissione, conserved to the Muzeul de Artà of Bucharest, transports the action in an imaginary but true sicialian atmosphere. Famous like Crocifissione di Sibiu , from the name of the locality in Transilvania where it was placed until 1948, in the museum founded in 1817 in order to accommodate the collection of the baron Samuel von Brukenthal di Hermannstadt, the small table has provoked a great interest in the critic, for the singular iconographic webbing and the relationships of style that this translate. The landscape reveals an obvious one, unknown homage of Antonello to its city born them , and also one of the most ancient images than Messina: the background proposes, in fact, the natural scythe of the Association of Bologna port with in the basilian monastery of the Salvatore and the Rocca Guelfonia , while beyond hills the artist not renunciation to the arbitrary insertion of the Aeolian Islands.

The base of three crosses is longest: Christ turns out pushed up, seems in procinto returning in that infinite blue sky from which he had come down in order to save the humanity sinner, while the two robbers to flank are hung for arms, hang towards the bottom, towards the world land to which they belong. The faces of the paintings of Antonello have all the same sembianze, are the faces that the artist meets in its Island: popolani or noble fairs or peasants "whom truly they know of chiostro and of ovile" second the effective image of Leonardo Sciascia. In this painting some characteristics show oneself already that which will be vital for its future painting the ariosità of with, the particularitity of the reference to the Sicily, the transparency of a painting that I still found myself on colors smorti and that only later on they will acquire the lucentezza of the precious stone. The veneziana parenthesis is carried out therefore. Antonello is called from patrizio Peter Bon in order to execute the "Shovel of Saint Cassiano" for the homonym church , work that will be broken, ritagliata and mails in the museums of several cities (Vienna, Barcelona, Budapest).

The plaza of scene, of atrocious indifference to the martyrdom of St. Sebastiano, (Dresda - Staatliche Gemaldegalerie) some is not able each other to say that is recognizable as Sicilian in the architecture; Antonello has wanted to invent her/it on elements of varied origin in the search of a relationship between architectures and figures that it is then one of the most perfect whom has been ever achieved in the pittura.  But in the woman that is leaned out by a scene with his/her/their child in arm, in the figures that are leaned out to the balconies, in the grastes and in the grilles, in that suspended water bottle to side to the finestra  alta, there is an air of house, in the afternoon messinese.

This work to the inauguration "literally explodes" like one atomic bomb of the art. The messinese master has carried on the lagoon, with to the new rinascimentali conceptions, the compact and crystalline color of the Nordic painting. The series of the veneziane works of the great sicialian master is of extreme importance for the infuence that these will exercise on the painting of the Most serene one and mainly on that one of Giovanni Bellini. The passage from one to the other it is to indicate that Antonello door yes to Venice the experience of Piero of the Francesca but it renews same he to contact with the poetica of Giovanni Bellini. It reaches in short that complete resolution of the shapes in architecture and the architecture in color-light, for which the Shovel of Saint Cassiano it is placed as the point of arrival of all the previous searches and as the point of departure of the ulterior experiences is of Bellini is of its students and follows to us. The flemish inflexions of other works realized here from the master of Messina do not remain without echo and find reply also in the works of the Carpaccio. In the painting the Mercy with three angels conserved to the Museum Correr of Venice, like in the Mercy with an angel (Prado di Madrid),

with to references to the City of Messina (apses Church of S. Francisco) a species of "putting to final point" of the art of Antonello is found that provokes one skillful correction of route in the within of the greatest veneziana painting. Ferments and forces that are influenced vicendevolmente, with mutual advantage. Antonello would not be what it is if had not watched the flemings and the Piero of the Francesca, or if before maturing it had completely not seen also Venice and the veneziani painters. These last ones, the masters of the Most serene one, must to he the opening towards the renaissance dimension so as to not to remain extirpated from the appeared general phenomenon in the rest of Italy, from the Tuscany to the Sicily. Salvator Mundi (London, National Gallery) to how much is known is before the work from signed and dated he, 1465

Famous a repentance in the benedictory hand. This repentance is emerged the thinnest veil of the painting to oil and extension like, at first, the fingers in the gesture of the blessing were in one various position, parallel to the surface of the picture. Antonello has intentional to pierce the space, to get hold of in depth: from here the audacious end of the fingers who seem to exit from the surface of the water and coming ahead towards the spectator. Christ has the small eyes, emerging and to almond, the iride he seems luminous to the stregua of a burnt topaz. There is in its features some drawn Mongolian such to make to suppose a connection with the characteristic personages of Petrus Christus, the spiritual heir of Van Eyck, with which an encounter directed to Milan has happened perhaps. In the splendid Announced Virgin (National Museum of Palermo), the up hand of the Madonna is not shortened exactly, rather like is storpiata. The blue mantle turns instead in the space like if it were in one niche: from the impression of the sculpture. To find that the leggio, over which the Vergine has opened the book, it is still in gotico style

Equally poetically new, the assumed young ace therefore to an expression of astonishment but also of mystery, is the Announced Virgin of Monaco (Bayerisches Staatsgemaldesammlungen) of 1473, that it also has a book opened.

Ecce Homo conserved to Piacenza (Civic Museum), but also that one of Genoa (Spinola Gallery) and Vienna: the painful expression turns out scandita from the volumetric module that, cylindrical or conical, it is reflected in the tears that furrow the ace and in the drops of blood that strains, multiplying in the observer the feelings of one great inexpressibile suffering. The Spanish espressionismo and the minuzia fiamminga of the particular come exceed from one total vision to you of classic power and from the exquisitely rinascimentale breath.

Antonello, than is not only painter of gonfaloni and of banners like it was considered before the revaluation is exposed to as much authority in thematic various: in the ritrattistica, sacred and profane, a deep attention to one is always perceptible knits scultorea formulation and in some works of the first maturity as as an example in the Madonna Salting (London - National Gallery) seems nearly to see transferred on one flat surface intriguers and perfect three-dimensional geometries.

A dismembered Polittico whose cuspids were represented from " the Doctors of the Church " is conserved to Palermo in the Regional Gallery of the Sicily. Saint Gerolamo of profile and Saint side Gregorio lightly were place to you on the left while San' Augustin it was placed to the skillful extreme next, probably, to a Sant' gone Ambrogio dispersed and with to the center, are assumed, the figure of the Redentore. The acknowledgment of the attribution of such work to the messinese master must to the meticulous study of the Prof. Giuseppe Apples.

The Trivulzio (Civic Museum of Turin) or its probable self-portrait as it would indicate the oblique look; Ritratto of Man of 1470 conserved to Cefalù (Mandralisca Museum) is the ace of a sicialian personality, a baron perhaps, than it was met then but that it can be met today also; Ritratto of Rome (Bourgeois Gallery) from the seraphic nevertheless equally clever air; the Condottiero of Paris (Museum of the Louvre) that species of Colleoni from the strong features is one.

It's the spiritual light that pervade the entire work of Antonello; In the Polittico di San Gregorio it is evidenced in the beautifulst one Announced the authentic glare of such spiritualità.

Us it can be asked as never it has intentional to leave in its paintings the tangible test of its messinità with the vision of its sea, hills, of the houses, for the places of its city. Antonello has made fortune just. From good sicialian, but, it returns to die in its earth, to house its. Antonello paints the house sea its, the Strait, because here it is its secret. Because the splendor of its art connects all the ports of the been involved regions: Genoa, Barcelona, Naples, Messina, Venice. The contribution of all these rich and fertile atmospheres has nourished its art: Its great stature comes just from here. A stature that is large as the mystery remained around its life, as the bad luck that has pulled down on many its works ended buried under the ruins of the earthquake and the history. Before dying, 14 February 1479 said testament to the Eating notary public Antonio, declaring itself I make ill to bed but, for grace of God, healthy of mind... "Ego, magister Antonellus de Antonej pictor, licet infirmus jacens in lecto, sanus tamen for Dey Graciam mind et in own mea racione compos existens, divinum timens iudicium repentinum of strongly sub silencio vitam meam finirem et decederem intestatus..." and designating to its only heir the Jacobello son, usufructuary the wife Giovanna; they follow you vary legacies to the Finia daughter, to the father and to the mother, to the Orlanda sister, finally it arranges "quod cadaver to meum seppelliatur in conventu Sancte Marie de Jesu cum habitu dicti conventus...", that is to come buried, with the observing dress of smaller friar of Saint Francisco, in the convent of Saint Maria of the Jesus, fact to erect in the 1418 from the blessed soul Matteo de' Girgenti on the torrent of Saint Michele, then called the Withdrawal (still today); the cemetary disapperead with the flood of 1863 and it the empty ones of this great son of Messina.

The Museums of Italy in Sicily