Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/122

 LUCATELLI—LUINL 01 The son and pupil, probably, of Pietro liUcatelli, a scholar of Giro Ferri. He was a landscape, genre, and architectural, painter : his landscapes resemble those of Van Blcemen, called Orrizzonte ; he painted in conjunction with Paolo Anesi, at Borne. He was the principal Italian landscape-painter of his time, and excelled in his pictures of ruins. Examples in the Doria Gallery, at Borne; and in the Dresden Gallery; and, according to Lanzi, in the Archi- episcopal Gallery, at Milan. liXJINI, or LOVINI, Bernabdino, 5. at Luino, on the Lago Maggiore, about 1460, living in 1530. Lombard School. The most eminent of all the followers of Leonardo da Vinci, whether he was ever his actual scholar is not known; Lanzi supposes that he was. He had, however, appropriated so much of the manner of Leonardo, that seve- ral works attributed to that painter are now considered the productions of Lnini's later years — as the " Dispute," in the National Gallery, and "Vanity and Modesty," in the Sciarra Palace, at Borne. That want of freedom which characterises Luini's oil pictures is supplied in a most remarkable manner in his frescoes; in which branch of painting he appears to have been one of the most masterly among the great- est of that class of Italian painters. His method appears to have been very expeditious; his shadows are simply the pure colour laid on thickly, and his lights the same colours driven thinly with a little white. An exquisite grace and beauty, however, make up for the want of freedom in his oil pictures. He excelled in painting wo- men, and in representing the more delicate qualities of human character; even in his rapidly-executed frescoes, his women are beautiful. In these he closely resembles Leonardo, as he does in his oil pictures generally, though he wants his exquisite tone, and grandeur of style. In his frescoes his style borders more on that of Mantegna in his earlier works, and on that of Baphael in his later. His colouring is generally rich, and his light and shade very forcible. Owing to the silence of Vasari with regard to Luini, his name has been long comparatively obscure; Lanzi has vindicated him his proper place. Luini was also a great deco- rator; the Gertosa di Pavia still con- tains some magnificent work by him, of this description. In his celebrated frescoes of the History of the Virgin, at Saronno, life is represented in its most cheerful aspect, and yet with dig- nity. The Adoration of the Kings is especially rich in invention, and noble in style. In the Brera, also, in some of his easel pictures, in oil, are single figures, of a small size, of exquisite beauty. Bernardino's son, Aurelio Luini, who died 1593, was also an able painter of the Lombard School. He assisted his father in his frescoes at Saronno. Evangelista, another son, was a good ornamental painter. Works. Milan, Ambrosian libraiy, St John playing with the Lamb ; and the Magdalen. Brera, the Madonna Enthroned, with Saints (1521); the Drunkenness of Noah ; and the Virgin and Saints : also many frescoes, which have been removed from their original walls, and transferred to canvas or panel. Gasa Silva, frescoes from Ovid's Metamorphoses: Gasa Brocca, Last Supper : Palazzo Litta, Marriage of St. Gatberine: the Monastero Maggiore, or San Maurizio, the altar wall in the inner church and chapel, capital fres- coes from the Life of Ghrist ; over the door of the refectory, in a lunette, a Madonna; in the refectory, a Jjast Supper: Sant' Ambrogio, Ecce Homo: San Giorgio, in Palazzo: Sta. Maria del Garmine, &c Saronno, church of the Madonna and of the Virgin, the History of Ghrist ; the Marriage of the