Bartolome Bermejo

Background

Bartolome Bermejo was born circa 1440 in Cordoba, Spain.

Education

It is unclear where Bermejo received his training.

Career

Little is known of Bermejo’s early activity. By the late 1460s he was living in Valencia.

Bermejo’s professional career appears to have begun in Valencia in 1468. His earliest surviving work is an altarpiece painting of St. Michael commissioned for the parish church of Tous (1468).

Bermejo worked for three years, between 1474 and 1477, in Aragon, where he had been commissioned to paint the altarpiece of "Santo Domingo de Silos" for the church in Daroca. Although Bermejo’s contract stipulated that he would face excommunication if he did not complete the work on time, he arranged an appendix to the contract that would allow another artist to finish it for him. He then renegotiated the contract in 1477 and completed the work himself.

In the mid 1480s, Bermejo moved to Barcelona where he collaborated with Jaume Huguet, the principal master of Catalan Gothic painting. Here, he completed his masterwork for Canon Lluís Desplà i Oms' private chapel, the "Pietà" in 1490. This work demonstrates most clearly Bermejo’s mastery of Renaissance techniques.

Bermejo died circa 1501 near Barcelona, Spain.

Achievements

• Bermejo was a master of the oil glaze technique. Bermejo's distinctive style had a considerable influence, particularly in Aragon. No one at this time, however, could duplicate his landscapes.
  
  There are three surviving works that incorporate the artist's name within the compositions: "Saint Michael with Kneeling Donor", Antonio Juan; the "Triptych of the Virgin of Montserrat with Donor", Francesco della Chiesa; and the "Pietà" with Canon Desplà. The first two bear the artist's name on simulated parchment, and the last is found in an inscription on the frame. Indirect evidence also speaks of royal patronage, for an Epiphany now in the Royal Chapel of Granada was part of the personal collection of Isabella I of Castile.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Christ at the Tomb Supported by Two Angels

  • Resurrection and Descent of Christ to Limbo

  • The Flagellation of St Engracia

  • Christ Leading the Patriarchs to the Paradise

  • Pietà of Canon Luis Desplá (detail)

  • Crucifixion

  • Saint Augustine

  • Saint Michael Triumphs over the Devil

  • Pietà of Canon Luis Desplá

  • Death of the Virgin

  • St Dominic Enthroned in Glory

  • Saint Sebastian

  • Christ Leading the Patriarchs to the Paradise (detail)

Personality

Bermejo was peripatetic: he never settled in one place for more than a decade. Also, in a period and place where painting was a business, and work was generally negotiated by contract, there is both direct and indirect evidence that Bermejo was professionally unreliable, though apparently his outstanding talent made patrons willing to take the risk.

Connections

colleague:

Jaume Huguet

References

• Bartolome Barmejo: Great Hispano-Flemish Master