5 November 2018 – 10 February 2019
“Lotto was the first Italian painter who was sensitive to the varying status of the human soul. Never before or since has anyone brought out on the face more of the inner life….” Bernard Berenson, art historian, 1895
In autumn 2018 the National Gallery will stage the first-ever exhibition of portraits by the Italian Renaissance artist Lorenzo Lotto.
Lorenzo Lotto Portraits will bring together many of Lotto’s best portraits spanning his entire career from collections around the world.
Lorenzo Lotto, 'Portrait of Marsilio Cassotti and his wife Faustina', 1523 © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
These include such masterpieces as the 'Bishop Bernardo de‘ Rossi' (1505) from the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples,
united with its striking allegorical cover from the National Gallery of Art, Washington;
and the monumental altarpiece of 'The Alms of Saint Antoninus of Florence' (1540–2) from the Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paulo in Venice coming to the UK for the first time. In this painting Lotto not only inserted portraits of members of the commissioning confraternity, but also, highly unusually, paid poor people to sit for him.
Working during a time of profound change in Europe, Lotto was remarkable for depicting a wide variety of middle-class sitters, including clerics, merchants, artisans, and humanists.
He portrayed men, women, and children in compositions rich with symbolism and great psychological depth. His works are characterised by expressive sensitivity and immediacy and are also known for their deeply saturated colours and luxuriant handling of paint.
Born in Venice, Lotto travelled extensively and worked in different parts of Italy, most notably Treviso, Bergamo, Venice, and the Italian Marches. He spent his final years as a lay member of the confraternity of the Holy House at Loreto (1549–56.) In today’s terms, his disposition in the later decades of his life would probably be described as clinically depressed. A melancholic empathy with his sitters is evident in his in late portraits.
Staged broadly chronologically the exhibition starts with Lotto’s earliest portraits before exploring the work from his most significant periods in Bergamo and Venice and ending with the late paintings. Unusually for a National Gallery exhibition objects related to those he depicted will also be displayed.
Room one explores Lotto’s work from his time in Treviso (1503–6) and includes the 'Allegory' (1505) from the National Gallery of Art, Washington (above)
and the spectacular 'Assumption of the Virgin with Saints Anthony Abbot and Louis of Toulouse' (1506) from the Chiesa Prepositurale e Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta, Asolo.
Focusing on his Bergamasque period (1513–25), Room two contains the cleverly symbolic 'Lucina Brembati' (about 1520–3)]
and 'The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with Niccolò Bonghi' (1523) both from Bergamo’s Accademia Carrara;
as well as the 'Portrait of a Married Couple' (1523–4) from the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, which has been cleaned on the occasion of the exhibition.
Room three is dedicated to works produced in Venice (1525–49)
such as the famous likeness of the Venetian collector 'Andrea Odoni' from the Royal Collection (1527),
the National Gallery’s own Portrait of a Woman inspired by Lucretia
and the 'Portrait of a Young Man with a Lizard' (1528–30) from the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.
The final room celebrates the late work and includes the remarkably well preserved and affecting 'Portrait of a Man with a Felt Hat' (1541?) from the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, as well as the altarpiece of 'The Alms of Saint Antoninus of Florence' (1540–2).
Objects relating to the portraits will show how the meaning of Lotto’s paintings extends from the sitter to their surroundings. Lotto painted these not so much to reflect a given sitter’s opulence and wealth, but to help tell their story and reflect their identity. Among items on display will be a carpet, sculpture, jewellery, clothing, and books.
Lorenzo Lotto, Portrait of a Young Man, about 1500 (detail). Oil on panel, 34.2 × 27.9 cm. Accademia Carrara, Bergamo © Fondazione Accademia Carrara, Bergamo.
Lotto’s reputation has consistently grown since the art historian Bernard Berenson published the first monograph on him in 1895. Writing during the emergence of Freudian psychoanalysis, Berenson saw Lotto as the first modern portraitist because of his interest in reflecting his sitters’ states of mind.
“He seems always to have been able to define his feelings, emotions and ideals, instead of being a mere highway for them,” said Berenson, “this makes him pre-eminently a psychologist…The portraits all have the interest of personal confessions.”
Matthias Wivel, Curator of 16th-century Italian Paintings at the National Gallery, and curator of Lorenzo Lotto Portraits, says:
“Lotto’s empathetic approach to his
sitters, his attention to detail and his willingness to explore new
formats and ways of composing portraits all contribute to a body of work
that is astonishingly varied and feels more direct, less filtered, than
those of his contemporaries notably Titian’s
more elevated, idealised portraiture. Lotto portrayed people from an
unusually wide variety of social backgrounds. His attention to clothes
and objects in his paintings helps acutely to define the sitter’s
identity, social status and aspirations; and the psychological interest
he brings to his portraits is of the highest order – no two subjects
appear similar and there is a sense of understanding what makes each
sitter tick.”
Director of the National Gallery, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, says:
“A contemporary of Titian, Lotto was one
of the most original portrait painters of the Renaissance. The scholars
and merchants, artisans and clerics and the family groups he depicted
are vibrant with personality and psychological depth. Five centuries on
they come alive before us in all their human complexity.”
'Lorenzo Lotto Portraits' is organised by the National Gallery and the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
'Lorenzo Lotto Portraits' is curated by Matthias Wivel, with Miguel Falomir of the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid and Enrico Maria dal Pozzolo.
