Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio entered art history with several masterpieces from different creative periods. Unlike many of his colleagues from Leonardo da Vinci's circle, his most important student distinguished himself not only through references to the great master, but also through his own style. This was not only appreciated by his contemporaries. Even today Boltraffio is one of the most prominent painters of the High Renaissance, whose works are displayed in the largest museums in the world.

Leonardo da Vinci was a magnet of flourishing artistic life in the Milan of the late 15th century. Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, born in 1467 into an aristocratic family, could not escape this attraction. For 1491 there is evidence of a Gian Antonio in Leonardo's workshop, whom Vasari and the artist's style identify as Boltraffio. When Leonardo left Milan, Boltraffio also embarked on a journey that took him first to Bologna and finally to Rome.

Boltraffio's style and composition clearly identify him as a student of Leonardo. The latter's famous sfumato, in which the mixture of colors achieves a special depth, testifies to the great influence that the Meiser had on the pupil. This remained a reference in Boltraffio's work throughout his life. But by 1498, Boltraffio had already established himself on the art market as an independent artist. In altarpieces, small-format devotional pictures and portraits, the reference to Leonardo is clearly recognizable. In contact with artists such as Bramantino and Francesco Francia, however, the dynamic composition and naturalism of his early years receded during his life in favor of a style of his own, which other students of Leonardo lacked.

A fine example of Antonio Boltraffio's early work is the "Resurrection with St. Lucia and St. Leonhard", painted as early as 1491-1494 in collaboration with Marco d`Oggiono, now in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin. As his undisputed masterpiece is considered the so-called "Casio Madonna", the altarpiece completed in 1500 for S. Maria della Misericordia in Bologna, today on display in the Louvre. Boltraffio's portraiture is also evident in this piece, in the portrait of the Bolognese artist Girolamo Casio, whom he not only portrayed here, but in return dedicated some sonnets to him. His later style is clearly evident in the "Saint Barbara" with its monumental composition and idealized face. With this work, commissioned in 1502 for Santa Maria presso San Satiro, we find Boltraffio back in Milan, where he died in 1516 at the age of 49 and was laid to rest in the cemetery of San Paolo in Compito.

His high reputation is immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci's monument in Piazza della Scala, which shows Boltraffio together with Marco d`Oggiono, Cesare da Sesto and Andrea Salaino.

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

Renaissance

Wikipedia: Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

His high reputation is immortalized by Leonardo da Vinci's monument in Piazza della Scala, which shows Boltraffio together with Marco d`Oggiono, Cesare da Sesto and Andrea Salaino.

Artworks by Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio

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43 artworks found