Giuseppe Bernardino Bison
Itinerant Italian fresco and landscape painter
Giuseppe Bernardino Bison was an itinerant Italian painter of frescoes, landscapes, vedute, capriccios and some religious works. He was born in Palmanova. When he was still a boy, his family moved to Brescia, where he saw the works of Girolamo Romani and decided to become a painter. Later, his family moved again, to Venice, where he enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia and worked with Costantino Cedini. While there, he became friends with the architect Gian Antonio Selva, and went with him to Ferrara in 1787 to help decorate the Palazzo Bottoni. Shortly after, he was in Padua, working as a set designer for the Obizzi family and, in 1790, was commissioned to do decorations for the Castello del Catajo. Two years later, he did similar work at the Palazzo Maffetti-Manzoni, then moved to Treviso, where he did frescoes on the ceiling of the Church of Saint Andrew in Volpago del Montello, the oratory of the Villa Bragadin in Ceggia and secular decorations for several villas in Lancenigo [it] and Breda di Piave. From 1798 to 1800, he collaborated with Selva on decorations at the Palazzo Dolfin Manin in Venice. Moving on to Trieste, he collaborated with Matteo Pertsch and the sculptor Antonio Bosa (1780–1845) to provide decorations for the Palazzo Carciotti [it] and the stock exchange building. In 1811, he was in Zara, working at the Palazzo del Governatore. This was followed by decorative work (now lost) at the theaters in Vipacco and Gorizia. At this time, he began to take advantage of a growing market for paintings in the homes of well-to-do non-aristocrats and, working in conjunction with a local art dealer named Tosoni, produced a wide variety of landscapes, vedute and other genres to satisfy local tastes. His canvases were expensive, but also very large. In 1831, despite his successes in Trieste, he began wandering again, returning briefly to Brescia, then settling in Milan where he took some smaller commissions, but was not very successful and died poor.
Artworks by this artist
- Venice, View of San Lazzaro degli Armeni
- The Molo towards the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice
- La Tebaide
- The Molo, looking towards the Zecca with the column of Saint Teodoro, Venice
- Capriccio of a Port Scene
- The ‘Giovedi Grasso’ Festival before the Ducal Palace in Venice
- The flooding of the Tagliamento river
- Interior of churches with people praying
- Venice, View of Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Scuola Grande di San Marco
- The Molo, with the Palazzo della Zecca and the Biblioteca Marciana, the church of Santa Maria della Salute beyond
- Capriccio mit der Ansicht von Padua
- Interior of churches with people praying.
- The Virgin and Child Enthroned, Adored by Saints 1790s
- Mandlig halvfigur siddende i en stol med en fjerprydet hat og et kranie i sin venstre hånd
- Design for a Statue of Prudence with Sketches at Upper Left Corner
- An Architectural Capriccio with Figures
- Venice Canal Grande
- Coriolanus before the Women of Rome late 1780s
- The Molo by the Biblioteca Marciana facing the entrance of the Canal Grande, Venice
- Design for a Statue of Justice with Sketches at Left and Above