Antonello Da Messina - Early Career

Early Career

Antonello returned from Naples to Messina at some time in the 1450s. In around 1455 he painted the so-called Sibiu Crucifixion, which was inspired by the Flemish Calvaries and is housed in the Muzeul de Artǎ in Bucharest. Of the same years is the Crucifixion in the Royal Museum of Antwerp: his early works shows a marked Flemish influence, which it is now understood he derived from his master Colantonio and from works by Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck that belonged to Colantonio's patron, Alfonso V of Aragon; his biographer Vasari remarked that Antonello saw at Naples an oil painting by Jan Van Eyck (the "Lomellini Tryptych") belonging to King Alfonso V of Aragon; Vasari's further narrative, that being struck by the new method, set out for the Netherlands to acquire a knowledge of the process from Van Eyck's disciples is discredited today. Another theory, supported only by vague documentary evidence, suggests that in 1456 Antonello visited Milan, where he might have met Van Eyck's most accomplished follower, Petrus Christus. Since Antonello was one of the first Italians to master Eyckian oil painting, and Christus was the first Netherlandish painter to learn Italian linear perspective, their meeting is a tempting answer to both questions. But in fact, neither artist is known for certain to have been in Milan at the time.

His earliest documented commission, in 1457, was for a banner for the Confraternità di San Michele dei Gerbini in Reggio Calabria, where he set up a workshop for the production of such banners and devotional images. At this date, he was already married, and his son Jacobello had been born.

In 1460, his father is mentioned leasing a brigantine to bring back Antonello and his family from Amaltea in Calabria. In that year, Antonello painted the so-called Salting Madonna, in which standard iconography and Flemish style are combined with a greater attention in the volumetric proportions of the figures, probably indicating a knowledge of works by Piero della Francesca. Also from around 1460 are two small panels depicting Abraham Served by the Angels and St. Jerome Penitent now in the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria. In 1461 Antonello's younger brother Giordano entered his workshop, signing a three-year contract. Of that year is a Madonna with Child for the Messinese nobleman Giovanni Mirulla, now lost.

He probably painted his first portraits in the late 1460s. They follow a Netherlandish model, the subject being shown bust-length, against a dark background, full face or in three-quarter view, while most previous Italian painters had adopted the medal profile pose for individual portraits. John Pope-Hennessy described him as "the first Italian painter for whom the individual portrait was an art form in its own right".

Although Antonello is mentioned in many documents between 1460 and 1465, establishing his presence in Messina in those years, a gap in the sources between 1465 and 1471 suggests that he may have spent these years on the mainland. In 1474, he painted the Annunciation, now in Syracuse, and the St. Jerome in His Study also dates from around this time.