LUI'NI, or LOVFNI, BERNARDINO, the most celebrated of the scholars and imitators of Lionardo da Vinci, was born at Luino on the Lego Maggiore, about the middle of the 15th century. Luini's reputation is comparatively recent, which is owing to Vasari's silence regarding him, though he evidently alludes to Luini where he speaks of the paintings of Bernardino da Lupine in the church of the Madonna at Saronno. Luini painted much in the style of Lionardo da Vinci, and his works are in many instances, iu the opinion of several judges, attributed to Da Vinci; this, according to Waagen and others, is the case with the 'Christ disputing with the Doctors,' in the National Gallery. Fortunately many of Luini's beat and greatest works, in oil and in fresco, are still in a good state of preservation, namely, the Magdalen,' and' 'St. John with the Lamb,' in the Ambrosian Library at Milan ; the Enthroned Madonna,' painted in 1521, the 'Drunken ness of Noah,' and other works in the gallery of the Brera at Milan; the frescoes of the Monastero Maggiore, or San Maurizio, in the same city, from which however the ultramarine and gold have been scraped off ; those already noticed at Saronno; and other extensive and equally good works in the Franciscan convent Degli Angeli at Lugano, on the lake of that name, which were painted subsequently to those at Saronno, and are among the last of Luioi's works, but their colours have somewhat anffered. There are also many easel pictures in oil by Luini, both in and out of Italy, in public and private collections.
Luini's style is something between that of Mautegna and Raffaelle, his earlier works approaching nearer to the style of Mantegna, and his later to that of Raffaelle ; they arc elaborately finished, beautifully coloured, mid forcibly shaded, yet they want the exquisite tone, the fullness of style, and the greatness of character of the works of Da Vinci; iu expression however they approximate very nearly to the works of that great master. Luini excelled chiefly in painting women and the more delicate qualities of human character. Several of hie best works have been engraved in a superior style, by various masters.
The paintings at Lugano are described in the Kunstblatt' for 1822.
Luinl was still living in 1530, hut the date of his death is not known. He had two sons, Evangelista and Aurelio, who aro both praised by Lomazzo, their contemporary. Aurelio assisted his father in the frescoes at Lugano. After Da Vinci, the founder or Caposeuola' of the Militarise school of painting, Gaudenzio Ferrari and Luini are the principal masters of the school, the distinguishing characteristics of which, as a school, are simplicity of subject and composition, expres sion, force of colour and tone, and minute perspective.
In the gallery of the Brera at Milan there are several frescoes by Luini, and one by his son Aurelio, which have been removed from the walls, and transferred to panel or canvass. Luini was one of the most masterly of the old Italian fresco-painters, and there is a marked differ ence between the execution of his works of this class and his oil pictures ; they are painted with much more freedom. He must have painted iu fresco with remarkable rapidity. According to tho obser vation of Mr. Wilson, who was sent by the English government to Italy to examine the state of the early Italian fresco.paintings, Luini must have executed more than an entire figure of the size of life in a single day : his colouring is warm and transparent, the lights of his draperies being merely thinly glazed, with the colour of the drapery mixed with a little white ; the shadows are the pure colour, laid on thickly ; the outlines are often strongly indicated in some dark warm colour. Ile does not appear to have worked from cartoons ; in his faces the features are merely indicated by straight lines, yet many of his female heads, painted upon such slight preparation, are among the most beautiful of the Italian frescoes.
(Lomazzo, Trattato della P ittura ; Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, &c.; \V sage°, Kunstwerke and Kiinstler in England, dc.; Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts, 1843, Appendix.)