Savoldo, Giovanni Girolamo

▪ Italian painter

also called  Girolamo da Brescia  

born c. 1480, Brescia, Republic of Venice

died c. 1548, Venice?

      painter of the Brescian school whose style is marked by a quiet lyricism. Scholars believe, because of his preoccupation with clearly defined shapes in light, that Savoldo was influenced by Cima da Conegliano, who also used light with quiet exactitude, or that he was influenced by Flemish painters. Savoldo was recorded in the guild at Florence in 1508, and little else is known of his personal life except that he may have left Venice, where he spent most of his life, to live in Milan for a few years and that he had a Dutch wife, through whom he may have made Northern contacts.

      Savoldo's use of deep, rich colour gives his paintings dramatic tonal values. The influence of Giorgione can be felt in the dreamy, poeticized treatment in such works as “Portrait of a Knight” (National Gallery, Washington, D.C.). Savoldo defined his luminous, meticulously detailed figures by setting them against darkened, twilit skies, a technique that culminated in “Saint Matthew” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) and “St. Mary Magdalene” (National Gallery, London). He liked to depict unusual effects of light, and paid particular attention to reflected or nocturnally lit scenes. His output was small, and he had little influence on the course of Venetian painting, from which he had always stood somewhat aloof.

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