Bernardino Fungai (1460– c. 1516) was an Italian painter whose work marks the transition from late Gothic painting to the early Renaissance in theSienese school.[1] He maintained a fairly archaic style in his works, which are mainly of a devotional nature.[2]
Fungai's real name was Bernardino Cristofano di Niccolò d'Antonio di Pietro da Fungaia. His family came originally from a village near Siena called Fungaia.[3] He is recorded as a pupil ofBenvenuto di Giovanni in 1482 while working on frescoes for the cupola in theSiena Cathedral.[4]
Fungai was commissioned in 1494 to decorate ceremonial banners with azure and gold. He also created an altarpiece in 1512 for a Sienese church.
A fairly sizeable oeuvre has been ascribed to Bernardino Fungai on the basis of a signed and dated altarpiece executed forSan Niccolò al Carmine in Siena depicting theVirgin and Child Enthroned with the Saints Sebastian, Jerome, Nicholas and Anthony of Padua (1512, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, Siena).
He is described as a retardataire follower ofSassetta andGiovanni di Paolo.[2] His paintings evince an influence from localSienese painters and contemporary artists such asPietro Perugino,Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli,Luca Signorelli andBernardino Pinturicchio.[4]
The many devotional paintings of Bernardino Fungai are rather conventional but his fewcassone paintings and the landscapes in his larger devotional compositions show his narrative gift.[3] The quality of his landscapes is already clear in Bernardino Fungai's earliest recorded work dated to 1495–97, aStigmatisation of St Catherine in the Santuario Cateriniano atFontebranda.[3] The composition reveals a panorama of graceful buildings, gentle hills and tall trees with an extensive sea in the back enlivened with small boats. The contrast in the composition between the solid, hard-edged andhieratic figures of the main scene and the small background andpredella figures with dancelike poses and freely moving drapery is also typical of his style.[4]
Media related toBernardino Fungai at Wikimedia Commons
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