FEAST OF THE GODSIn painting Feast of the Gods (FIG.
22-34), Bellini drew from the work of one of his students, Giorgione
da Castelfranco (discussed next), who developed his master’s land-
scape backgrounds into poetic Arcadian reveries. Derived from Arca-
dia, a region in southern Greece, the term Arcadian referred, by the
time of the Renaissance, to an idyllic place of rural, rustic peace and
simplicity. After Giorgione’s premature death, Bellini embraced his
student’s interests and, in Feast of the Gods,developed a new kind of
mythological painting. The duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d’Este, commis-
sioned this work for a room in the Palazzo Ducale. Although Bellini
drew some of the figures from the standard repertoire of Greco-
Roman art—most notably, the nymph carrying a vase on her head
and the sleeping nymph in the lower right corner—the Olympian
gods appear as peasants enjoying a picnic in a shady glade. Bellini’s
source was Ovid’s Fasti,which describes a banquet of the gods. The
artist spread the figures across the foreground. Satyrs attend the gods,
nymphs bring jugs of wine, a child draws from a keg, couples engage
in love play, and the sleeping nymph with exposed breast receives
amorous attention. The mellow light of a long afternoon glows softly
around the gathering, caressing the surfaces of colorful fabrics,
smooth flesh, and polished metal. Here, Bellini communicated the
delight the Venetian school took in the beauty of texture revealed by
the full resources of gently and subtly harmonized color. Behind the
warm, lush tones of the figures, a background of cool green tree-filled
glades extends into the distance. At the right, a screen of trees creates
a verdant shelter. The atmosphere is idyllic, a lush countryside pro-
viding a setting for the never-ending pleasure of the immortal gods.
With Bellini, Venetian art became the great complement of the
schools of Florence and Rome. The Venetians’ instrument was color,
that of the Florentines and Romans sculpturesque form. Scholars of-
ten distill the contrast between these two approaches down to colorito
(colored or painted) versus disegno (drawing and design). Whereas
most central Italian artists emphasized careful design preparation
based on preliminary drawing (see “Renaissance Drawings,” page
581), Venetian artists focused on color and the process of paint appli-
cation. In addition, the general thematic focus of their work differed.
Venetian artists painted the poetry of the senses and delighted in na-
ture’s beauty and the pleasures of humanity. Artists in Florence and22-34Giovanni Bellini and Titian,Feast of the Gods,from the Camerino d’Alabastro, Palazzo Ducale, Ferrara, Italy, 1529.
Oil on canvas, 5 7 6 2 . National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Widener Collection).
In Feast of the Gods,based on Ovid’s Fasti,Bellini developed a new kind of mythological painting in which the Olympian
deities appear as peasants enjoying a picnic in the soft afternoon light.High and Late Renaissance 6051 ft.