Getty Museum
Study of an Apostle
Creator
Bernardino GattiItalian Artist · 1495–1575
All works by this person →In the early years of his career, Bernardino Gatti surely studied Correggio's art in Parma. Throughout his career, he consistently imitated Correggio's tonal softness and monumental figures. Gatti's surviving paintings are primarily decorative religious commissions. By 1543 he was working in Piacenza, where he completed Pordenone's frescoes in the dome of a church. He moved to Cremona six years la
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1560–1570
- Medium
- Brush with gray-black ink and gray wash over black chalk with red chalk, heightened with opaque white watercolor, squared in red chalk, on light brown paper
- Culture
- Italian
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Bernardino Gatti probably used a live model for this study of a monumental figure of one of Christ's apostles. To model the heavy folds of fabric that envelop the body, he applied a combination of hatched and cross-hatched lines. He indicated both the lighting and the volume of the cloth simply by varying the length and curve of the same strokes of hatching, then added a heavy layer of white and deep gray wash to give further depth to the rich draperies. Although the sheet is squared, which suggests that it was ready to be copied to another medium, several *pentimenti* still remain. Gatti drew the apostle's exposed foot in two positions, moving his toes to the right to create a more balanced stance. He also experimented with the location of the figure's arms, lifting the raised one higher and changing the angle of the right arm and shoulder.
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