Domenico Campagnola

Engraver and painter (Venezia ? 1500 – Padova 1598)

Domenico Campagnola, adopted by Giulio Campagnola – from whom he takes his surname – showed great aptitude for drawing and graphics from an early age. He probably learnt his first artistic rudiments from Titian, who influenced his early works, so much so that it was difficult to distinguish the authorship of some drawings. In spite of Titian, however, Domenico is attracted to movement and actions of emotional impact, on which he pivots his protagonists. He is inspired by his adoptive father in the stippling tecnique (with a multitudes of tiny dots or dashes) that allows both of them to achieve refined three-dimensional effects unprecedented at the time.

He is credited with thirteen engravings produced in the brief period between 1517 and 1518, many of which are characterised by fast oblique marks that distinguish them from the panorama of the time and attest to his extraordinary compositional invention.