Bellini, Giovanni ...............................
(ca. 1431–1516)
Considered the master of Venice Renais-
sance painting, Giovanni is the brother of
Gentile Bellini and the son of Jacopo
Bellini. He began painting in his father’s
workshop and was hired to work with his
brother at the School of San Marco.
Bellini was hired by the Doge of Ven-
ice to manage the artwork and decoration
of the ducal palace. He worked to preserve
and restore paintings within the palace and
painted an original series celebrating the
history of medieval wars between the Holy
Roman emperors and the popes. Bellini
also executed many famous, richly detailed
altarpieces in churches in Venice and Vice-
nza. Working in the new medium of oil
paints, he was able to infuse a wider range
of color and to shade one hue carefully
into the next. A master of landscape art,
Bellini added lush andbeautifully detailed
natural scenes as backgrounds to his sub-
jects, a talent that was widely copied in
the Venetian school and in particular by
the painters Titian and Giorgione.
Bellini, Jacopo ...................................
(ca. 1400–1470)
A painter of Venice, Bellini was the elder
of an important family of artists. His two
sons Gentile and Giovanni also emerged
as prominent artists; his nephew Leonardo
Bellini was a painter of manuscripts. His
daughter Nicolosia married Andrea Man-
tegna, one of Bellini’s pupils and a note-
worthy artist in his own right.
Jacopo Bellini was the son of a pew-
terer. He was born in Venice, where he
studied with Gentile da Fabriano, a famous
painter who had workshops in Venice and
Brescia. In about 1414, Bellini followed
Fabriano to Florence. While Bellini was
still a student, classical art was inspiring
several mature Florentine artists of the
time, including Masaccio, Donatello,
Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Paolo Uccello. This
new approach left a permanent mark on
Bellini and on the art and architecture of
Venice.
After his apprenticeship Bellini re-
turned to Venice, where by the late 1420s
he was master of his own workshop. He
swiftly established himself as the most re-
nowned painter in the city. He was com-
missioned by the city of Verona to paint a
largeCrucifixionfor the city’s cathedral, a
work that was later destroyed. In 1441, he
entered and won a competition with the
artist Antonio Pisanello to create a por-
trait of Leonello d’Este, the marquess of
Ferrara. He designed an altarpiece for the
funerary chapel of the Gattamalata family
in Padua and also did large-scale works
for two Venetian confraternities, San Gio-
vanni and San Marco. All of these works
greatly enhanced Bellini’s reputation and
all of them disappeared or were destroyed
after his death. Art historians believe that
his surviving paintingSts. Anthony Abbot
and Bernardino of Siena,whichisnow
housed in Washington’s National Gallery,
made up part of the Gattamalata altar-
piece.
Bellini’s works straddle the Late Gothic
and Early Renaissance styles. He painted
icons of the Madonna in the traditional
Byzantine style that was popular for cen-
turies in Venice. Although he held to this
older style in depicting figures and drap-
ery, and in the use of gilding, under the
influence of the Florentine artist Leon Bat-
tista Alberti, Bellini also introduced the
new technique of one-point perspective
into his works. He trained younger artists,
including Andrea Mantegna, in these newBellini, Jacopo