FASOLO, Giovanni Antonio

Italian painter. Of Lombard origin, he was initially a pupil of Paolo Veronese and subsequently had a short but successful career as a frescoGLOSSARYWall painting technique in which pigments are applied to wet (fresh) plaster (intonaco). The pigments bind with the drying plaster to form a very durable image. Only a small area can be painted in a day, and these areas, drying to a slightly different tint, can in time be seen. Small amounts of retouching and detail work could be carried out on the dry plaster, a technique known as a secco fresco. and portraitGLOSSARYThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). painter in and around Vicenza. In 1551-52 he collaborated with Gian Battista Zelotti and Veronese on frescoes for the CastelloGLOSSARY"castle", palace. Porto-Colleoni, Thiene. Scenes such as the Meeting of Sophonisba and Massinissa are executed in the style of Veronese, but with a noticeably harder and drier edge and lacking Veronese's rich luminosity and effortless control of space.

In 1555-56 Fasolo was employed as a minor assistant to Veronese at San Sebastiano, Venice, but emerged in his own right towards the end of the decade (1557-61), when he began producing stage designs for the Accademia Olimpica, Vicenza. In the 1560s he executed frescoes at several country villas: at the VillaGLOSSARYa residence in the country (in Italy); villas acquired palace-like characteristics from the Renaissance onwards. Roberto (Brugine, nr Padua; c. 1564-65), the Villa Campiglia (Albettone, nr Vicenza; c. 1565-67) and the Villa Caldogno (Caldogno, nr Vicenza; c. 1568-70). These last (e.g. the Stolen Embrace) are characterized by their contemporary air and informality, reproducing on a large scale the naturalistic tendencies - a possible Lombard inheritance - that underpin his style and become increasingly apparent in his portraiture.