Bartolomeo Veneto Biography | Oil Paintings.

Bartolomeo Veneto began as a painter of small, devotional paintings, working in the northern Italian regions of Veneto and Lombardy. Bartolomeo changed his subject matter to suit his patrons and as the interest in portraiture grew in Venice, his portraits became quite popular and fashionable.

While forty works of art are for the most part acknowledged to be by Bartolomeo Veneto, only nine are signed by him. A fourth of the works are devotional paintings, and most of his paintings are done on wood, and later in his career done on canvas.

Bartolomeo Veneto’s earliest work Madonna and Child is dated 1502 when he was nineteen years old, bears a signature important to the understanding of the painter’s developing style. The painting was sold at auction in 2013 for US$ 962,500. "Bartolamio mezo Venizian e mezo Cremonexe" (Bartolomeo half-Venetian and half-Cremonese). The inscription sheds light on Veneto’s citizenship, as well as a reference to his diverse stylistic influences, with his Venetian half, reflecting Gentile Bellini's influence, and the Cremonese half Giulio Campi's influence. Bartolomeo Veneto is very likely to have been "Bartolomeo da Venetia" who the Este court recorded as a craftsman in its service from 1505-1507.

Bartolomeo Veneto went to Padua in 1512 and Milan in 1520, Leonardo da Vinci had recently been to Milan, where he transformed the current boring portraiture style and revived portraiture there into one of intrigue and sfumato. Leonardo's impact is obvious in Bartolomeo's developing style when comparing Idealized Portrait Of A Courtesan As Flora and Lady Playing a Lute. Flora shows each strand of hair painted flatly, with much attention paid to the flowers and jewelry, and lack of shadows, On the other hand, Lady Playing a Lute has a more three-dimensional form with an emphasis on chiaroscuro, her hair, rather than separate strands, has some sense of being whole while still being separate, and the whole painting has more realistic shadows.

Art Movement: Renaissance Art.
Artists Influencing Bartolomeo Veneto: Gentile Bellini, Giulio Campi, Gentile Bellini, Leonardo da Vinci.
Artist Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.