Giovanni Bellini was an Italian painter, one of the most famous artists of the Renaissance; in his works he has been able to mix various influences, from the Byzantine tradition to Andrea Mantegna, from the lessons of Piero della Francesca, Antonello da Messina and Albrecht Durer, to Giorgione’s tonalism but without ever betraying the link with his own tradition, ferrying Venetian painting towards new shores
MILAN – Today the art world remembers the death of Giovanni Bellini, which took place on November 26, 1516 in Venice, where he was born. Bellini worked continuously for sixty years, continuing to evolve his style and combining the plasticism of Piero della Francesca and the human realism of Antonello da Messina (not the exasperated one of the Flemings) with the chromatic depth typical of the Venetians, paving the way for the so-called ‘tonalism’. Among Bellini’s favorite subjects are the Madonnas with Child and the Pieta series, strongly influenced by the style of his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna. But which are the (perhaps) most famous works by Bellini.
Here we offer you 5. PALA DI PESARO– Giovanni’s mature style probably reaches its peak already in the seventies, with the Pesaro Altarpiece, now in the Pesaro Civic Museums , of Renaissance setting with the rectangular shape, originally crowned by a cymatium in which a Pieta was depicted, today preserved in the Vatican Pinacoteca . The main panel shows the Coronation of the Virgin, between Saints Paul, Peter, Jerome and Francis. The stylistic influences of this painting come from Piero della Francesca (use of light) and Antonello da Messina (with the use of oil color and the union of the Flemish love for detail linked to the sense of form and unitary composition Italian). PALA DI SAN GIOBBE– With the Pala di San Giobbe Bellini mature and offer a complete response to the innovations introduced by the Sicilian in Venice, immediately creating one of his most renowned works. The altarpiece, which was made around 1480-87, was originally located on the second altar to the right of the church of San Giobbe in Venice, where with its painted spatiality it illusively completed the real one of the altar (especially as regards the large vaulted ceiling coffered drawers and the typically Venetian golden mosaic cap). Today the altarpiece is kept in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. The subject of the canvas is a Sacred Conversation: around the high marble throne of Mary with the Child, at whose feet there are three musician angels, six saints are symmetrically arranged, three on each side: on the left St. Francis, John the Baptist and Job, at right San Domenico, Sebastiano and Ludovico di Tolosa. THE TRIPTYCH OF THE FRARI – In 1488 Bellini signed and gave the Frari Triptych, for the basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. In this work the illusionistic experiments of the Pala di San Giobbe are further developed, with the frame that ‘supports’ the ceiling painted in the three compartments, so illuminated as to seem real. The work is a triptych, made up of three compartments: in the center the Madonna enthroned with the Child and two musician angels, on the left the Saints Niccolo and Pietro and on the right Marco and Benedetto. Despite the rather archaic division into compartments, perhaps derived from an explicit request from the clients, Bellini solved the problem by creating an extraordinary spatial continuity between the paintings, highlighted by the drawn frame, which recreates the architectural elements of the altarpiece itself. PALA BARBARIGO – Also in the same year (1488) and signed the Pala Barbarigo, preserved in thechurch of San Pietro Martire in Murano , one of the few chronologically certain episodes in the artist’s career, thanks to the mention also in the will of the doge Agostino Barbarigo. In the painting St. Mark, protector of Venice and therefore of the dogato, presents the devotee (Agostino Barbarigo) kneeling to the Virgin with an affectionate gesture. Among other things, it is one of the first experiments in tonal painting. THE FEAST OF THE GODS– As we have seen, there are numerous works with a sacred theme, although in Bellini’s production there are also those with a profane theme such as the Festino degli Dei, which Giovanni signed in 1514 and which inaugurates the series of paintings in the alabaster dressing room by Alfonso I d ‘Este. The work, later retouched by Titian and Dosso Dossi to adapt the landscape to the other paintings in the series, deals with an erotic subject, which the painter resolves with an altogether chaste and measured approach, typical of his poetics. Today the canvas is kept at the National Gallery of Art in Washington . November 26, 2014
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