Giulio Bonasone (c. 1498 – after 1574) (or Giulio de Antonio Buonasone or Julio Bonoso) was an Italian painter and engraver born in Bologna. He possibly studied painting under Lorenzo Sabbatini, and painted a Purgatory for the church of San Stefano, but all his paintings have been lost. He is better known as an engraver and is believed to have trained with Marcantonio Raimondi. He worked mainly in Mantua, Rome and Venice and with great success, producing etchings and engravings after the old masters and his own designs. He signed his plates B., I.B., Julio Bonaso, Julio Bonasone, Juli Bonasonis, Julio Bolognese Bonahso.
He has been regarded an engraver with extraordinary skills in reproducing, as he could accurately convey the sources' compositions, colours, and essence. He expressed his understanding about the controversies about religion and culture in his time through his prints.
Life
There are debates about the birth date of Giulio Bonasone due to the lack of documentation. Since he was active during 1531 to 1571, his birthday could be placed around 1513 or earlier if engraving was a part of his formal education. One reason to believe that he was still a student in 1531 is that the work dated to 1531 lacks craftsmanship and familiarity with anatomy.
Giulio Bonasone's work does not appear in published collections of documents nor in the state archives of Bologna. In one document, Bonasone is related to Compagnia dello Quattro Arte and is mentioned to be an auditor of the Guild. Nonetheless, no first name was given and his name was not found in the very few extant name lists of the Compagnia.
Art
Giulio Bonasone produced both engravings and etchings, and frequently a combination of both in a single work. His works include religious, secular as well as erotic content. A total of 357 prints are attributed to Bonasone, approximately 200 of which can be dated with some certainty. Bonasone's prints include 9 Old Testament Scenes, 35 New Testament Scenes, 25 about the Virgin, 8 concerning the Saints, 5 regarding historical events, 150 about parables, 85 dealing with mythology, 5 fantasies, 6 portraits and 6 about architecture. His prints usually come as series. For instance, he dedicated 22 to Loves of the Gods, 26 recounting the Life of Juno and a series of 22 prints about the Passion of Christ.
Originality According to Giulio Bonasone's own claim, more than 114 prints, not counting the ones he produced for Bocchi, are his original works. In fact, many of the 150 illustrative prints for Bocchi are his own designs as well. His own creations are usually labelled with "Giulio Bonasone Inventore" or something similar. His engravings after other artists' designs can be categorized into two groups: those that closely replicate the original work, such as the Creation of Eve after Michelangelo, and those incorporating changes at Bonasone's will, such as Clelia Crossing the Tiber after Polidoro. The latter were often labelled by him as "imitations".
Selectivity Bonasone was quite selective in choosing the artists after whom to work. He favoured the great masters of the sixteenth century. He made eighteen prints for the works of Raphael and his school, eleven prints for Michelangelo, fourteen for Giulio Romano and ten for Parmigianino. Primaticcio and Jacopino del Conte inspired one engraving work, Perino del Vaga inspired five, Poliodoro da Caravaggio was the source of two and Titian was the source for more than five. Antique sculpture, especially reliefs, was also a great source of inspiration for him. He modelled sixteen prints after classical sources and specific models can be found for at least five.
Artistic development
Early period (1530s) It seems that Bonasone started his career during the 1530s, when the earliest of his engravings can be dated. Among them is the St Cecilia (1531), which is a rough attempt in reproducing Raphael's work.
The pervasive use of straight hatching lines, an indication of his awkward technique, is the evidence for it being an early work. Another work of Bonasone, Adam and Eve Toiling, also demonstrates a clumsiness.
The Triumph of Bacchus was executed at a slightly later time. This etching presents more advanced skills and clearer lines, but the presence of straight hatching lines is still a major problem in Bonasone's technique. This absence of contouring lines leads to a lack of depth in figures and makes the figures less real. In the Triumph of Bacchus, contrasting tones resemble the use of light and shade in painting. This later became an identifying feature of Bonasone's prints.
At about the same time of the Triumph of Bucchus, Bonasone produced seven prints after Giulio Romano, which are: The Birth and Apotheosis of Caesar, The Wreath, Saturn and His Three Sons, The Division of the Universe, Neptune Takes Possession of the Sea, Pluto Takes Possession of Hell, and Jupiter and Juno Take Possession of Heaven. The last four were probably created as a series of works of similar subjects and themes. These seven prints show a greater consistency in the artist's skills and his recognition of what engraving, as a medium, could and could not achieve. In fact, Bonasone's technique of tight systems of lines precisely captured both the forms and the contrast in light in Romano's work. While Bonasone's early technique fitted Romano's work particularly well, he stopped using Romano's work after he developed more gentle ways of building up tonal contrast.
These paintings display uniform, short, curved, hatching marks employed to delineate human bodies. The lines are closely arranged and connected to short flicks and dots. However, the muscles are not carefully depicted and muscles at different body parts or under different motion are treated indistinguishably. A similar technique is observed in Marcantonio Raimondi's prints. It is possible that Bonasone was influenced by Raimondi.
At the same time, this technique may also imply a connection between Bonasone and Giovanni Battista Scultori. Similar skills and forms are found in Bonasone's and Scultori's engravings after Giulio Romano. Since Scultori was engraving in Mantua in the early 1540s and most of his prints date from around 1543, it is likely that Bonasone paid a trip to Mantua and learnt from Scultori. The short distance between Bologna and Mantua, one of the most important art centers in Italy, added to the likelihood of this trip. Another important evidence is that seven prints done during this period were done after designs by Ramano, who was in Mantua at that time. Nonetheless, no documentation about such a trip has been found. It is possible that Bonasone learnt of designs of Romano through prints and drawings instead of going to Mantua. The particular technique shared by Bonasone and Scultori could also be developed by each of the two artists independently, since this technique is obtained by formalizing the innovations in Marcantonio Raimondi's prints.
Roman period (1540s) Many of Bonasone's works during the 1540s are reproductive works of Roman frescos. Those works could not be possibly created without Bonasone's close observation to the originals. Given the accuracy of his works in translating the paintings, one could reasonably guess that Bonasone moved to Rome for an extended period of time instead of paying short visits occasionally. This was the period that witnessed great increase in Bonasone's display of draftsmanship.
Many of his prints from the 1540s are dated and the techniques were somewhat similar. Bonasone started to create longer curved hatching lines and arrange the curved hatching lines so closely that, with the vertical cross-hatchings, the lines look like patches of black. Such dark patches form a contrast with areas of white and display a painting-like quality of great strength. Prints that illustrate this technique mostly clearly are those done after Michelangelo, such as the Creation of Eve, Judith and Holofernes, and Clelia Crossing the Tiber after Polidoro da Caravaggio.
When Bonasone produced prints after Roman frescos, he demonstrated astonishing capabilities to understand and represent the colour and the taste of masterpieces. As a result, Cumberland suggested that Bonasone used different skills for different artworks. In fact, Bonasone's technique was consistent during the 1540s; what changed was not technique, but the way in which Bonasone dealt with light and form. His engravings, viewed from a distance, are like black-and-white paintings. By executing his engravings in such a painterly manner, Bonasone excelled as a reproductive engraver. His engravings resembled the masterpieces to a superb degree without the common problem of triteness.
The prints during this period may lead viewers to conclude that the draftsmanship of Bonasone was limited by that of the art pieces he was referring to. He seems to inherit the excellences of Michelangelo, Raphael or Parmigianio but also the defects of the archaic works. When he was making original designs, his forms became distinguishably awkward with rare exceptions. The Elysium of Lovers, created in 1545, was marked as his own invention. The ungainly draftsmanship displayed in this work should not be relegated as the effect to be achieved by a mannerist. Instead, it is a prime example of a mannerist attempting come up with some original ideas after being trained to model after other people's works. In contrast, the forms in the Couple Embracing by the Seashore are significantly more elegant. To produce this painting, Bonasone probably drew inspiration from different models.
In summary, the 1540s was a particularly productive period for Bonasone. The prints were too many to be chronologically catalogued. Nonetheless, his technique did not undergo rapid growth and there is fluctuation in the quality of his engravings.
The Bologna period and the new technique (1550s–1560s) In 1555, Achiliuls Bocchi first published a book of symbols in Bologna. Bonasone made small engravings to 150 of the verses in this book. Although the engravings vary in quality, it is likely that composing and executing these engravings required a few years' work in the 1550s. Moreover, there was no work dated to the 1550s that had Roman styles. This further reinforces the theory that Bonasone spent at least part of the decade working in Bologna to produce the illustrations for Bocchi and a couple of other works at the same time.
The small size of these engravings constrains the amount of detail and the room for innovation. The lines and hatchings are usually systemized and cursory. It appears that Bonasone believed the nature of his project to be illustrative and prioritized the clarity of iconography over the style.
Bonasone's The Passion of Christ has been dated by some art historians at the fledging stage of Bonasone's career. Nevertheless, the crudeness in skill might be explained by the limitations imposed by the small size of the print. In fact, the brightness and colour scheme are more similar to Bonasone's works of the 1560s than those of the 1530s or 1540s, and the composition is more advanced than what the artist was capable of during his early stage. Moreover, Bonasone did not attempt original prints such as this during the 1530s. Hence, the Passion of Christ was probably conceived and executed when Bonasone resided in Bologna during the 1560s.