CAMPAGNOLA, Domenico

Italian painter and engraver of German origin. He was the son of a German artisan, but he probably learned from his adopted father, Giulio Campagnola, who instructed him in painting, drawing, engraving, and woodcutting. After his father’s death around 1516, Campagnola was Venice’s foremost printmaker. He innovated by cutting woodblocks himself rather than employing a professional woodcutter. His earliest prints and drawings show the influence of Albrecht Dürer. Campagnola’s lush, flowing style and religious subject matter may also indicate access to Titian’s workshop.

By around 1520 Campagnola moved to Padua, where he became its busiest and most praised painter. His best-known works are three frescoes in the Scuola del Carmine, Padua; Four Prophets (Academy, Venice); and Holy Family (Pitti Palace, Florence). His frescoes and easel paintings for churches and palaces betray his Venetian origins with their asymmetrical compositions and rich treatment of fabrics. Nevertheless, he remained most celebrated for his woodcuts and landscape drawings, which he sold as finished compositions. He drew raised foregrounds set against poetic vistas of paths, castles, bridges, and ruins, with jagged peaks of distant mountains.