Giovanni Bellini
(1426-1516)
presented by Catie O'Connor
Giovanni Bellini
was born in Venice, Italy and not much is known about his family. His
father was a painter and pupil of one of the 15th century's leading Gothic
artists. Bellini founded the Venetian school of painting and raised Venice
to a center of Renaissance art that rivaled both Florence and Rome. He
brought to painting new realism, new subject matter and new form and color.
In his early works, Bellini worked with tempera, combining
a severe and rigid style with a depth of religious feeling and gentle humanity.
From the beginning he was a painter of natural light. In his earliest
pictures the sky is often reflected behind human figures in streaks of water
that make horizontal lines in narrow strips of landscape. Bellini's
St. Vincent Ferrer
altarpiece, which is still in the church of
Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, was painted in the mid-1470s. In his
later work Bellini achieved a unique religious and emotional unity of
expression. His method of using oil paint brought not only a greater
maturity but an individual style. He achieved a certain richness by
layering colors in new and varied ways. In 1479 Bellini took his brother's
place in continuing the painting of great historical scenes in the Hall of the
Great Council in Venice. During that year and the next he devoted his time
and energy to this project, painting six or seven new canvases. These, his
greatest works, were destroyed by fire in 1577. As his career continued,
Bellini became one of the greatest landscape painters. His ability to
portray outdoor light was so skillful that the viewer can tell not only the
season of the year but also almost the hour of the day. Bellini lived to
see his own school of painting achieve dominance and acclaim.
Christ's Blessing
The Virgin and Child with Two Saints
Lamentation over the Body of Christ
Madonna with Saints
The Feast of the Gods
For more information:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bellini/
