_Bartolommeo Vivarini_ (Venetian: painted 1450-1499).
Bartolommeo Vivarini of Murano was the younger brother of
Antonio (see 768), with whom he began to work in partnership in
1450--as is shown by the inscription on the great altar-piece
by the two brothers, now in the Pinacoteca of Bologna.
Bartolommeo appears to have studied at Padua, and the influence
of Squarcione is manifest in the painter's striving after
correctness of form. "The ornate character of his altar-pieces,
with gold heightening, garlands of fruit and flowers and
fluttering fillets, is also borrowed from the Paduans, and
lends festal pomp and solemnity to the whole."
Of Bartolommeo Vivarini it is recorded that he painted (in 1473) the
first oil picture that was exhibited in Venice. This one, however, is
in tempera. "The figures in Bartolommeo's pictures are still hard in
outline,--thin (except the Madonna's throat, which always in Venice, is
strong as a pillar), and much marked in sinew and bone (studied from
life, mind you, not by dissection); exquisitely delicate and careful
in pure colour;--in character portraits of holy men and women, such
as then were. There is no idealism here whatever. Monks and nuns had
indeed faces and mien like these saints, when they desired to have the
saints painted for them" (_Guide to the Venetian Academy_, p. 6).