Palma Vecchio is called Palma Vecchio in English and Palma il Vecchio in Italian to distinguish him from Palma il Giovane, his great-nephew, who was a painter.
11 Facts About Palma Vecchio
2.
Palma Vecchio was born at Serina Alta near Bergamo, a dependency of the Republic of Venice, but his recorded career all took place in or near Venice.
3.
Palma Vecchio is first recorded in Venice in 1510, but had probably already been there for some time.
4.
Palma Vecchio was perhaps apprenticed to Andrea Previtali, who came from Bergamo, and who returned there in 1511.
5.
Palma Vecchio's stock has been rising somewhat in recent decades, as more attributions are removed from Giorgione and Titian and given to him; his "sheer painterly capacity" in the handling of paint and color is extremely fine.
6.
Palma Vecchio painted the new pastoral mythologies and half-length portraits, often of idealized beauties who, then as now, were enticingly suspected of being portraits of Venice's famous courtesans.
7.
Palma Vecchio painted religious pieces, in particular developing the sacra conversazione in a horizontal form with a landscape background.
8.
Palma Vecchio painted traditional vertical altarpieces for churches inside Venice and around the Venetian territories on the mainland such as the Presentation of the Virgin Altarpiece now in Serina.
9.
Palma Vecchio was quick to absorb influences from other parts of Italy, sometimes copying poses from Michelangelo, and taking influence from Central Italy from about 1515 into the 1520's.
10.
Famous works by Palma Vecchio include a composition of six paintings in the Venetian church of Santa Maria Formosa, with St Barbara in the centre, under the dead Christ, and to right and left SS.
11.
Palma Vecchio overpainted two of the figures, and made changes to the background.