Giulio Campagnola and the diffusion of the poetic landscape

This print represents a bucolic scene in which an old shepherd is lying on the ground resting while playing a kind of flute. A sheep and a goat stand behind him among bushes. In the background, a compact mass of buildings rises. At the upper-right corner appears the artist’s intertwined monogram. Thus, the composition is very simple with two horizontal planes and barely sense of three-dimensionality, demonstrating how Giulio was still a product of the Fifteenth-century artistic milieu, which conception of composition and, specially, of landscape was rather stiff in its formal structure.

Yet, the technique of numerous fine lines used by Giulio makes possible to get smooth transitions of chiaroscuro which imitate the blur effect typical of Giorgione’s oil paintings. Moreover, the old shepherd looks similar to the old figure in Giorgione’s Il tramonto and to other prints by Giulio such as the called The astrologer, stressing once again his contact with the Venetian painter and the new conception of landscape.

This kind of scenes became popular during the first to decades of the Sixteenth-century in Venice. They could serve as allegories to humanist circles or learned patrons in general or just as idyllic views with no further message. If this print has an allegorical nature, it could be influenced for the first eclogue from Virgil’s Bucolics in which an old shepherd called Tityrus is blessed by a powerful benefactor and is restored his lands and cattle being able to leave Rome where he was a mere servant. Then, the scene would show the general contrast between the serenity of an ideal country side or ‘Arcadia’ and the busy and frenzy cities such as Rome. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that could demonstrate this interpretation, so the print preferably remains ambiguous, as an idyllic view in which both figures and landscape are equal in importance.

Being dated around 1510-15, the print was made after Giorgione's death and then Giulio became an important representative of Giorgine's innovations both to the demanding intellectual circle of clients and to the next generations of painters such as his own step-son Domenico.

GIULIO CAMPAGNOLA:

Giulio Campagnola (1482-1515?) was a Paduan engraver mostly known for his versions and imitations of famous artist’s works of the period. He is said to have an exceptional education, knowing Latin, Greek and Hebrew fluently, skills at all usual in an artist at that time. More common, nevertheless, was the skill of playing musical instruments and Giulio was known for his dexterity with the lute and singing. His father, Girolamo Campagnola frequented the humanists circles of Padua, and so did Giulio.

Since his youth he was praised as an expert copyist of works by Giovanni Bellini and, specially, by Mantegna (1431-1506). Although the Neapolitan humanist Pomponio Gaurico (1482-1530) mentioned miniatures by his hand imitating Mantegna, nowadays there are not further evidences of works by Giulio beyond his prints.

He also worked in the near Ferrara under the patronage of Isabella d’Este (1474-1539) before moving to Venice at some point after 1500, most likely due to Giorgione’s influence. There, Giulio encountered one of the most active cities not only in visual arts matters but also in the production of printing books, collaborating with the most famous book printer of the time, Aldo Manuzio (1452-1515), and making contacts with important local poets such as Pietro Bembo (1470-1547). He can be considered the only and most likely the first exponent in the creation of landscape drawings and prints for its own sake in Venice and Italy in general, as Dürer, who also influenced greatly to the development of this subjects in the Italian peninsula, did in the North of Europe.

In 1512 Giulio adopted Domenico Campagnola (1500-1564) who became his talented apprentince and developed Giulio's style and subjects.

The last document we have about him is Manuzio’s will in 1515, in which Giulio is commissioned a typography work. He is supposed to die that very year.

Bibliography

Venturi, Lionello, Giorgione e il giorgionismo, Ulrico Hoepli Editori, Milan 1923, pp. 198-203.

REARICK, W. R, Il disegno veneziano del Cinquecento, Electa, Milan 2001.