Madonna and Child with Two Angels

Bramantino painted strange, still and highly geometric pictures. His figures stand like statues, their faces calm and distant, in spaces built from strict perspective, bare architecture and odd, dreamlike landscapes. The mood is serious and a little mysterious. His real name was Bartolomeo Suardi, and he was born in Milan around 1456. He took his nickname from the architect and painter Bramante, with whom he studied, and he also looked closely at Piero della Francesca and Leonardo. He worked in Rome in 1508 on the decoration of the Vatican rooms, returned to Milan, and in 1525 became court architect to Duke Francesco II Sforza, also advising on the rebuilding of Milan Cathedral. His Adoration of the Magi, from the late 1490s, is in the National Gallery, London, with a cut-away building opening onto a fantastic mountain view. He died around 1530. His Crucifixion, now in the Brera in Milan, is his other key work.