Pordenone

Active during the Renaissance, Pordenone painted mostly altarpieces and large fresco cycles, so easel pictures, especially of secular subjects, are extremely rare among his extant works. Assimilating Roman artistic ideas—especially those of Michelangelo—in profound ways, Pordenone achieved breadth of form, the depiction of complex anatomy under stress, and ferocity of expression. It was probably those aspects of Pordenone’s art, inspired by central Italian ideas and developed during one or more trips to Rome, that particularly impressed the Venetians and resulted in his becoming the most important early carrier of the ideals of Roman High Renaissance art to northern Italy. He worked on commissions in the Palazzo Ducale and for the political leader Andrea Doria (1466-1560) in Genoa, and he painted numerous house facades, almost all of which have been destroyed. Upon his death in Ferrara in 1539, Pordenone left no important followers, but he nevertheless impressed and influenced numerous artists, from the Venetian artist Titian (ca. 1488-1576)—with whom Pordenone had an almost legendary rivalry—to the 17th-century Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).