_Cariani_ (Bergamese: about 1480-1541).
Of Giovanni Busi, called Cariani, no personal details are
known. He was born near Bergamo, and many works by this fine
colourist are in the galleries of that town. Others may
be seen at the Brera in Milan. Cariani, who seems to have
resided at Venice, is supposed to have been a pupil of his
fellow-countryman, Palma Vecchio. Morelli thus distinguishes
Cariani's style from that of Bonifazio Veronese (see 1202),
who was also a pupil of Palma: "The type of the Madonna in
Cariani is rustic, but more energetic and serious, less worldly
than in Bonifazio, whose holy virgins and female martyrs,
with their soft, sweet expression and gentle grace, often
border on the sentimental. These masters also differ in the
harmony of their colours: the Bergamese is pithy and powerful,
but often heavy and dull; the Veronese, clear, lovely, and
brilliant; Bonifazio's landscapes are the lightest among those
of the Venetians, those in Cariani's pictures are brownish,
and the lines far from beautiful" (_Italian Masters in German
Galleries_, 1883, p. 193).
Notice the rustic type of the Madonna; she is a daughter of the
mountains--the mountains above Bergamo, from which the painter came,
and which figure in the background. The picture is a characteristic
piece of provincial art; the expression of "a simple, sturdy, energetic
mountain-folk who do not always know how to unite refinement and grace
with their inbred strength and vigour" (Morelli, _ibid._ p. 4). The
picture is "interesting mainly," says Mr. Monkhouse, "for its costumes,
its light-heartedness and florid colour, and as another of those _Sante
Conversazioni_ of which his master, Palma, was the inventor, and
which took the place of the more holy 'Holy Families' of an earlier
art,--pictures in which the Virgin became a simple woman of a wholly
mundane beauty, and the saints but her friends in rich costumes,
enjoying themselves somewhat sadly in the open air" (_In the National
Gallery_, p. 248).