BELLINI, Giovanni (Attributed to)

BELLINI, Giovanni (Attributed to), b. Italy, ca. 1430 - 1516, and Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini (who was more highly regarded than Giovanni during his lifetime, although the reverse is true today), and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. Although the professional needs of his family background may have encouraged him to specialize at an early date in devotional painting, by the 1480s he had become a leading master in all types of painting practiced in 15th-century Venice. His religious works show him gradually throwing off the last restraints of the Quattrocento manner and delving into the perfect fusion of colors and atmospheric gradation of tones that characterizes the post-Giorgione, High Renaissance period. Mid-career, Giovanni seems to have switched his focus to the color technique (aka colorito), that is using the juxtaposition of contrasting colors to define a composition. As Bellini’s style changed so, too, did the focus of his subject matter: from religious devotional scenes to many more naturalistic mythologies. Giovanni showed an extraordinary capacity for absorbing a wide range of artistic influences, both from within Venetian tradition and from outside. He also oversaw a technical revolution in the art of painting, involving the gradual abandonment of the traditional Italian use of egg tempera in favour of the technique of oil painting pioneered in the Netherlands. Through the use of clear, slow-drying oil paints, Bellini created deep, rich tints and detailed shadings. This may reflect the influence of the celebrated oil painter Antonello da Mesina (c. 1430-1479 CE) following his stay in Venice between 1475 and 1476 CE. Messina had himself been in contact with the methods of Flemish oil painters who were pioneering in their realism and iconographic symbolism in art. Bellini was considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it towards a more sensuous and colouristic style that highlighted the emotions of his subjects. A master in the expressive rendering of light and color, it was Giovanni who, having absorbed the lessons of the central Italians, established the tradition in which his pupils Giorgione and Titian, as well as Tintoretto, and Veronese later flourished., “BELLINI, Giovanni (Attributed to),” UCSB ADA Museum Omeka, accessed April 25, 2024, http://art-collections.museum.ucsb.edu/items/show/3188.