Domenico Campagnola
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
painter and printmaker in engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
and woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
of the Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, but whose most influential works were his drawings of landscapes.
Life and work
Born probably in VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, he was the pupil of his father, the leading engraver and painter Giulio Campagnola
Giulio Campagnola
Giulio Campagnola was an Italian engraver and painter, whose few, rare, prints translated the rich Venetian Renaissance style of oil paintings of Giorgione and the early Titian into the medium of engraving; to further his exercises in gradations of tone, he also invented the stipple technique...
. He appears to have been adopted by his father as a young boy, and was German in origin. His grand father, Girolamo Campagnola was a famous humanist and painter in Padua (end XVth c.). He was presumably trained initially by his father, and may also have been a pupil of 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...
, with whose workshop he was clearly associated. Much of his early painting may be of landscape backgrounds in Titians. He is mainly remembered for his prints and his drawings, especially of landscapes. In his lifetime he was a successful painter, mostly in Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
(Giulio's home town), where he was mainly based from the early 1520s onwards, until his death there in 1564. Mostly he painted on walls, including decorative schemes, but portraits and landscapes are also attributed to him. His works as a painter are not highly regarded by modern art historians though some landscapes are of high quality.
Prints and drawings
His engravings, fourteen of which are known, were produced in a short burst in 1517-18, when he was still in his teens; most are dated 1517. On some his name appears in full, on others, abbreviated "Do.Cap" or "Do.Camp." (for "Domenico Campagnola"). He appears to have cut his own blocks for his woodcuts, using a very different style from the professional cutters most artists employed. Like his father he was a versatile and experimental artist. His landscape drawings were produced as finished products for sale; he was one of the first artists to do this. He may have included etchingEtching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
on some plates, including the Old soldier and shepherd.
His most successful prints include his Old soldier and shepherd http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/mahg/musee/cde/acqucampagnola2.html , his Battle of naked men, and his Assumption.
One engraving appears to have been begun by his father and completed by Domenico, perhaps after his father died. He fell out seriously with Titian, perhaps as a result of the sharp practice which Peter Dreyer has discovered in recent years; it is thought to be Domenico who took very faint counter-proof impressions of some Titian woodcuts, which were then worked over in ink and passed off as Titian's preliminary drawings.
This may well have played a part in bringing to an end Titian's first period of serious interest in making prints based on his work; it was to be some decades before he began collaborating with Cornelius Cort in producing engravings. None of Campagnola's engravings are direct renderings of paintings by Titian, but many are similar in composition, though very different in handling, even allowing for the difference in medium.
Many drawings long considered by Titian are now thought to be by Domenico, and attribution of many is still disputed, as some earlier drawings are disputed between his father Giulio, Titian, and Giorgione
Giorgione
Giorgione was a Venetian painter of the High Renaissance in Venice, whose career was cut off by his death at a little over thirty. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are acknowledged for certain to be his work...
. Drawings have also been reattributed from Domenico to Giulio Campagnola. He began by closely following the style of his father and Titian in producing landscapes with figures, but produced larger numbers, and made them directly for sale, so that it is largely through him that this influential typology became widely known. According to James Byam Shaw:"In later drawings, Campagnola debased this style of landscape into a kind of facile mannerism; nevertheless he furnished inspiration for Italian draughtsmen for generations to come, including ... Agostino and Annibale Carracci, and Domenichino and Grimaldi later still."
Surviving paintings
Most of his paintings have been destroyed. FrescoFresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
paintings are to be seen in the Scuola del Santo at Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
and in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, marked by fresh animated colour and easy brilliant technique. A fine panel picture by him representing Adam and Eve is in the Pitti Palace, Florence
Florence
Florence 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....
.