PORTLAND, OR.- The Portland Art Museum engages in a major international cultural exchange with the museums of Brescia, Italy and the international exhibition company Linea d'ombra, to present Great Painters in Brescia from the Renaissance to the 18th Century. The Portland Art Museum is the exclusive North American venue for this special exhibition, bringing for the first time treasures of Italian art from the 16th to 18th century to the city of Portland. The exhibition showcases 35 works from Brescia's museums, presented in a broad chronological survey that outlines the trajectory of the art of painting as it developed in this Italian city. Subjects ranging from awe-inspiring religious scenes to portraits of riveting psychological intensity introduce the viewer to the essence of Italy's finest artistic achievements. Great Painters in Brescia from the Renaissance to the 18th Century is on view until September 17, 2006.

"This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring the artistic legacy of a regional artistic center in Italy to a burgeoning cultural community in the Pacific Northwest," said Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, Curator of European Art at the Portland Art Museum. "It came about as part of an extended exchange where the Portland Art Museum lent three of its Impressionist paintings to Brescia for the 2005 exhibition Monet, the Seine and the Waterlillies, organized by Linea d'ombra. More than 440,000 visitors in Italy saw the hugely successful exhibition. Now, Linea d'ombra has made it possible for us to present masterpieces that we have selected from the holdings of the museums of Brescia to represent this city's special contribution to the development of Renaissance and Baroque painting."

The exhibition presents paintings by artists who worked in Brescia over a span of three centuries. It is divided by century with thematic sub-groupings.

I. The Renaissance - The Renaissance, and the intellectual and artistic development that characterized it, had its origins in northern Italy, beginning in the urban centers of Florence, and later, Venice. Brescia, located to the north and west of these two artistic poles, was part of the Venetian Republic from 1426 to 1797, but retained a large degree independence in the cultural sphere. The scope of Renaissance painting in Brescia is broad; ranging from life-like portraits of 16th-century Brescians, to frescoes, to works for private devotion, to monumental altarpieces.

Portraits - The artists Alessandro Bonvicino, known as Moretto, his pupil Giovanni Battista Moroni, and Giovanni Savoldo were among the earliest masters of realism, producing some of the most stunning portraits in the history of Italian art. Their portrayals of the citizens of 16th century Brescia are as arrestingly lifelike today as they were when first painted more than 450 years ago. The sitter in Moretto's Portrait of a Gentleman with Letter (c. 1535) fixes his steely gaze upon the viewer, holding a small folded letter in his outstretched hand, the fabric of his fiery jacket shimmering with photographic realism.

Frescoes from the private palaces of Brescia - Fresco decorations are an important aspect of Italian Renaissance painting, but are virtually unseen outside of Italy. Brescian artists such Ambito di Vincenzo Foppa, Floriano Ferramola, and Lattanzio Gambara were masters of the demanding technique. Ferramola's The Birth of Adonis (early 16th century) and Gambara's Apollo (c. 1557) explore the new mythological and secular themes of the Renaissance that were more suited to the decoration of private palaces than the religious subjects commissioned for the walls of the churches.

Private devotional paintings - Devotional paintings were commissioned to assist in private prayer. These works, though smaller in scale than altarpieces and frescoes, contain an undeniable radiant intensity. For example, with all the immediacy and power of a tightly cropped close-up, Moretto's Annunciation (c. 1535-40), is compressed into a composition measuring less than 16 x 22 inches.

Altarpieces - By the 16th century large-scale oil paintings were incorporated in architectural frames above altars in most churches. Three such monumental altarpieces will make the journey to the Portland Art Museum for this exhibition; Ferramola's seven-foot Madonna Enthroned with Child and Saints Gregory and John the Baptist (1522); Romanino's, Piet‡ with Saint Paolo, San Guiseppe and Devoted Women (c. 1545); and Moretto's, Pentecoste (1543-44), the largest work in the exhibition, measuring well over eight feet tall.