page_title: Marco Basaiti
section_title: Early period (1495–1510)
hierarchical_section_title: Marco Basaiti / Early period (1495–1510)
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of a Young Man // NG London
context_page_description: Marco Basaiti was a Renaissance painter who worked mainly in Venice and was a contemporary of Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano. He has been referred to by several names including Marco Baxaiti, Marcus Basitus, and Marcus Baxiti. There is little documentation on Marco Basaiti besides his painting signatures and a guild's ledger of 1530 ithat records him as a painter of figures.
  His works are mainly portraits and often focused on religious themes. There is no known painting attributed to Marco Basaiti with a mythological theme. Although trained in the quattrocento style, Basaiti's career began right at the beginning of the cinquecento style which forced him to attempt to adapt his style to stay current.
context_section_description: More than half of Basaiti's known works come from this first period in his painting career. This period comes right after his training and is marked by a constantly changing style as Basaiti experiments with his art to find his own personal style. This era is marked by the Portrait of a Young Man (1495) which represents his first finished piece as an independent painter.
  Stylistically there are strong influences from his two proposed mentors in the composition of his paintings, with Bartolomeo specifically influencing his figure design. Notable features of the Antonellian include strong geometric forms and sharp contrast in lighting. Furthermore, in accordance with the style of his proposed masters, Basaiti’s paintings often feature brightly colored clothing and cool skin tones. Indeed, Basaiti’s early works are very like some of Alvise’s established disciples such as Jacopo da Valenza which further confirms the link between Basaiti and Alvise.
  Around 1500, the influence of the Antonellian school becomes less distinct. Basaiti’s backgrounds become more developed demonstrating the influence of Giovanni Bellini and Northern artists. This development can be seen in paintings such as in Portrait of a Young Man (1505), where, in contrast to his first Portrait of a Young Man (1495), the screen behind the figure has been completely removed and the landscape given more importance. In addition to developing a more complex landscape composition, Basaiti appears to become more concerned with spatial consistency after 1500.
  This change to more expressive landscapes coincided with Albrecht Dürer's stay in Venice during 1505–1506. It has been suggested that the landscape style Basaiti adopted is more influenced by Netherlandish paintings than by Bellini.
  As Basaiti continued to mix the styles of Alvise and Bellini his paintings become comparable to Cima da Conegliano. However, Basaiti arrived at this mix of styles after Cima and he was never able to exert  the same influence.
caption: Portrait of a Young Man, 1495
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