Adoration of the Shepherds

religious

A painter and sculptor educated in the school of Costa and Francia, Aspertini was attracted by fanciful, bizarre forms, elements certainly drawn from North European engravings which were widespread at the time. In this Adoration of the Shepherds the fantastic construction concealing an apse enriched with various elaborate decorations, the figures twisting and darting vivaciously in the most unusual directions, and the tiny, unreal landscape, are enough to convince us that Aspertini was an extremely unusual artist with a decidedly individual and inimitable style.

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About the Artist

Amico Aspertini

1475 – 1552

Italian Mannerist painter from Bologna, where he was a pupil of Francia. Vasari describes him as having an eccentric personality and this comes out in his paintings, which are often bizarre in expression, like the Holy Family with Saints (St. Nicolas aux Champs, Paris). Aspetini was in Rome 1500-03 and his sketchbooks of Roman remains (British Museum, London) are important sources about contemporary knowledge of the antique.

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