Los referentes de Ferrer y Arnau Bassa en la pintura Italiana: hipótesis sobre sus viajes de formación

Abstract

Ferrer Bassa’s journey to Italian territory for artistic training is an aspect of his biography that one finds most consolidated in literature dedicated to the painter, despite the lack of documentary references to such a trip. The review of some previously held hypotheses and the reconsideration of the artist’s possible passage through the Papal States, where some authors have attributed preserved work to the painter (Urbino, Mombaroccio), leads us to construct a new route, alternative to that describing his arrival in Genoa. The conflict between Catalans and the Genoese, in progress during the period in which the journey of Ferrer Bassa is most feasible, the third decade of the XIV century, does not support this route and inclines us to prefer a southern itinerary, with first stop in Naples. For the same reason, the painter must have returned via the same route, after having visited some of the main centers of Italian art of the Trecento. In the configuration of the trip made, we give priority to the stylistic formation of Ferrer Bassa, although the iconographic references may also be indicative. The case of Arnau Bassa is different from that of Ferrer, and although the consideration of a sojourn of Arnau in Avignon is very suggestive, to understand his work one can not ignore the context created by his father’s workshop.