Background
Bartolomeo was born in Prato, Toscana, Italy, on March 28, 1472.
Portrait of Fra Bartolomeo.
Bartolomeo was born in Prato, Toscana, Italy, on March 28, 1472.
By recommendation of Benedetto da Maiano, Fra Bartolomeo apprenticed in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli starting from 1483 or 1484.
Bartolomeo entered into a collaboration with Mariotto Albertinelli. In 1490 the two young painters opened a studio together in Florence. They both were substantially influenced by Raphael.
Bartolomeo's early artworks, including the Annunciation (1497), were influenced by the balanced compositions of the Umbrian painter Perugino and by the sfumato (smoky effect of light and shade) of Leonardo da Vinci. By the late 1490s, Bartolomeo became dedicated to the religious reformation movement lead by the Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarloa. Savonarloa condemned much of the Renaissance and this made Bartolomeo abandon painting for several years. However, he did paint from time to time while following Savonarola, finishing a well-known portrait of the priest in 1498.
In 1499 Fra Bartolommeo was commissioned to paint a large-scale fresco, The Last Judgment, for one of the cemetery chapels in Santa Maria Nuova. Bartolomeo left the work incomplete and became fully dedicated as a Dominican friar in 1500.
The artist resumed painting in 1504, producing devotional artworks mostly at the service of his order. His Vision of St. Bernard (completed in 1507) showed him achieving the transition from the subtle grace of late Quattrocento painting to the monumentality of the High Renaissance style. When in the church, his work appeared amongst other artists such as Filippino Lippi and later work from Il Bronzino, among others.
In the year 1508, Fra Bartolommeo relocated to Venice, where he assimilated the Venetian painters’ use of richer colour harmonies. Back in Florence, he created a number of calm and simple religious paintings in which monumental figures are grouped in balanced compositions and portrayed with a dense and shadowy atmospheric treatment. Among such works were his God the Father with SS. Catherine of Siena and Mary Magdalene (1509) and also the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine (1512).
He worked in the Lucca Cathedral, painting the Madonna and Child with Saints altarpiece and also went on to paint in the Sala del Consiglio in Florence and then for the Besançon Cathedral.
Bartolommeo visited Rome in 1514, where he saw Raphael’s mature works and Michelangelo’s frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Bartolommeo was impressed by what he saw and, as a result, his art took on a greater power of dramatic expression. When he returned to Florence, the artist opened a studio in San Marco. His large frescoes of St. Mark and St. Sebastian were produced on the wall at San Marco in Florence. The St. Sebastian was later purchased by King Henry I of France. Despite Fra Bartolommeo’s assimilation of the progressive currents of his time, his art was restrained, conservative, and somewhat severe, and he painted religious subjects almost exclusively.
His last complete work in Florence was the Noli me Tangere fresco, but also left a series of drawings behind for planned works.
The Marriage of St Catherine of Siena
The Holy Family with John the Baptist
Vision of St Bernard with Sts Benedict and John the Evangelist
Woman Kneeling in Prayer, Seen from Behind (study for the Figure of St Catherine)
Prophet Job
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt with St. John the Baptist
Holy Family
Prophet Isaiah
Adoration of the Child
Portrait of Girolamo Savonarola
Madonna and Child with Saint Anne and the patron saints of Florence
The Scene of Christ in the Temple
Christ with the Four Evangelists
Virgin and Child with Saints
The Nativity
Pietà
Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalene (also known as 'Noli Me Tangere')
Composition drawing for the lower part of the 'Carondelet Madonna'
Drapery Study of Two Kneeling Figures
Holy Family
The Incarnation of Christ
The Lying in State and Ascencion of Saint Anthonius
The Madonna and Child
Madonna and Child
The Madonna and Child in a Landscape with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist
Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist
Minerva
Penitent Saint Jerome
Study of a Kneeling Woman