Andrea Meldolla ( hr, Andrija Medulić), also known as Andrea Schiavone or Andrea Lo Schiavone (c. 1510/15–1563) was an
Italian Renaissance painter
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political stat ...
and
etcher
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...
, born in present-day
Croatia, active mainly in the city of
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
. His style combined
Mannerist
Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...
elements, a relative rarity in Venice, with much influence from the mainstream of
Venetian painting
Venetian painting was a major force in Italian Renaissance painting and beyond. Beginning with the work of Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430–1516) and his brother Gentile Bellini (c. 1429–1507) and their workshops, the major artists of the Venetian ...
, especially
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian ( Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, ne ...
.
Biography
Meldolla was born in the Venetian-ruled city of Zara in
Dalmatia
Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, str ...
, now
Zadar
Zadar ( , ; historically known as Zara (from Venetian and Italian: ); see also other names), is the oldest continuously inhabited Croatian city. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar se ...
in
Croatia, the son of a garrison commander of a post nearby. His family was originally from the small town of
Meldola, close to the city of
Forlì
Forlì ( , ; rgn, Furlè ; la, Forum Livii) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and city in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. It is the central city of Romagna.
The city is situated along the Via E ...
in
Romagna
Romagna ( rgn, Rumâgna) is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna, North Italy. Traditionally, it is limited by the Apennines to the south-west, the Adriatic to t ...
.
He trained either in Zara or in Venice.
Gian Paolo Lomazzo
Gian Paolo Lomazzo (26 April 1538 – 27 January 1592; his first name is sometimes also given as "Giovan" or "Giovanni") was an Italian artist and writer on art. Praised as a painter, Lomazzo wrote about artistic practice and art theory aft ...
stated, in a book of 1584, that he was a pupil of
Parmigianino
Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (11 January 150324 August 1540), also known as Francesco Mazzola or, more commonly, as Parmigianino (, , ; "the little one from Parma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter and printmaker active in Florence, Rome, B ...
, but this has been doubted. There are unproven claims that he trained with
Bonifazio de Pitati. He worked in fresco, panel painting, and etching (teaching himself to etch by working initially from drawings by Parmigianino). By 1540, he was well enough established in Venice that
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work ''The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculpt ...
commissioned him a large battle picture (which the Florentine author mentions in his ''Lives''). Although initially much influenced by Parmigianino and Italian
Mannerism, "he was also a strikingly daring exponent of Venetian painting techniques", and ultimately combined both in his works, influencing
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian ( Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, ne ...
,
Tintoretto
Tintoretto ( , , ; born Jacopo Robusti; late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594) was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed wit ...
, and
Jacopo Bassano
Jacopo Bassano (c. 1510 – 14 February 1592), known also as Jacopo dal Ponte, was an Italian painter who was born and died in Bassano del Grappa near Venice, and took the village as his surname. Trained in the workshop of his father, Francesco ...
among others. His works "shocked some contemporaries and stimulated others". By the 1550s, he had achieved a new synthesis of
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...
and Titian's compositional elements with his own interest in atmosphere, effecting a "fusion of form with a dense atmosphere in a pictorial fabric whose elements tend to lose their separate indenties".
Sydney Joseph Freedberg
Sydney Joseph Freedberg (November 11, 1914 – May 6, 1997) was an American art historian and curator, mainly of Italian Renaissance painting.
Freedberg was born in Boston and attended the Boston Latin School. He graduated from Harvard College ...
describes Meldolla as well adapted to the Mannerist vocabulary, and says that while he was "able to invent a Venetian Maniera...he was strangely uncreative in the more ordinary workings of artistic invention." Later in the 1550s, "occasionally, the sensibility – too receptive, almost feminine – that inclined Schiavone towards imitation brought him to the verge of echo of the larger personality" (Titian).
[Freedberg, 534] Other works have attributions disputed between him and Tintoretto. Few of his paintings are documented; this may be because, as Vasari states, he mostly worked for private clients.
Richardson also insists on his importance as an etcher: "In
etching
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...
he was similarly innovative. His technique was unlike that of any contemporary: unsystematically he used dense webs of light, fine, multidirectional hatching to create a tonal continuum embracing form, light, shadow, and air. His etchings are the only real equivalent in
printmaking of later 16th-century Venetian painting modes, and his technical experiments were emulated by 17th-century etchers such as
Jacques Bellange,
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (baptized 23 March 16095 May 1664) was an Italian Baroque painter, printmaker and draftsman, of the Genoese school. He is best known now for his etchings, and as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monoty ...
and
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consi ...
".
Meldolla died in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
in 1553.
Notes
References
*
*
*
Further reading
* (see index; plates 56-57)
External links
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery - Biography of Andrea SchiavoneAndrea Schiavone, The J. Paul Getty Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schiavone, Andrea
1510s births
1563 deaths
People from Zadar
Dalmatian Italians
16th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
Italian Mannerist painters
Painters from Venice