"Bellini, Gentile" in books. Lives of Jacopo, Giovanni and Gentile Bellini by Venetian painters

1 - Gentile Bellini

Disassembled artists are creators artistic atmosphere, in which Giorgione, Palma and Titian developed. The transition from the still “young” art of the elder Giovanni Bellini to the already “mature” art of these three brilliant young men is quite consistent. The first paintings of Giorgione and Palma themselves are not without “Bellini” features. The situation is completely different with another group of artists, who trace their origins to Jacopo Bellini and find their leader in the person of Jacopo's eldest son, Gentile, and their best representatives in the person of Carpaccio and Mansueti 78 . What this group of artists have in common is that they have fewer “stylistic concerns”, that they are, as it were, chroniclers and illustrators of their time. It is not their picturesque merits that are of main interest, but their even, attentive, but dispassionate attitude towards surrounding life, to everyday life. Unfortunately, the works of this group have reached us in extremely meager quantities. Even about Gentile Bellini, the most famous master of his time, elevated by Caesar to the dignity of Count Palatine and invited to the court of the great Sultan Mohammed II, it is difficult to get a complete picture from his surviving reliable works 79 .

In his first works (1465), in the doors decorating the organ of the Cathedral of San Marco, Gentile was still a Paduan. Massive figures stand in the arcades or emaciated anchorites pray among stone desert. But then, in the sketches he brought from Turkey (where he spent 1479 and 1480), he becomes an ingenuous copyist of reality, and he is the same in all his subsequent paintings, portraits or those “street scenes” in which he narrates (without any dramatic talent) various miracles what happened to the relic of the Holy Cross (1496 and 1500). This is a dry and callous realist, rather even a “protocolist.” He cares little about colorful effects, but with the greatest zeal he notes all kinds of ranks participating in the processions, and with artisanal restraint he copies one (eternally profiled) portrait after another from dignitaries and prelates. At the same time, there is no psychology, no emotion.

"Procession in St. Mark's Square" (Venice Academy) should depict the miraculous healing of the son of the Brescan merchant Jacopo de Salis. However, with the greatest work You look for the kneeling figure of a father praying for his son among those participating in the procession. Hundreds of portraits are depicted in the “Miracle of the Cross Falling into the Water,” but on their faces is written complete indifference to the event, presented by Bellini in the most childish way. In the painting “The Healing of Pietro dei Ludovici” the characters, portraits in the foreground, do not even turn in the direction where the event is taking place. In the “Sermon of St. Mark” (Brera) the artist’s entire attention is drawn to the costumes of the Turks, to the cunning decoration in oriental style and to the portraits of Venetian senators, so that in terms of the impression produced by this painting, it is no different from the “plotless” painting of the “Gentile school” Bellini" in the Louvre.

But what a wealth of “documents” there are in costumes, in faces, in architecture. The latter plays almost the main role in the paintings of Gentile and his faithful follower Mansueti. But these Gentile settings have nothing in common with the poetic, musical backgrounds of his brother. Everything here is just appearance, and there is not even a shadow of poetry in them. At the same time, Bellini prefers to copy reality rather than invent.

We see St. Mark's Square depicted with perfect accuracy as it was in 1496, and we can even distinguish all Byzantine mosaics, which once adorned the facade and were subsequently replaced by products of Renaissance and Baroque masters. In the “Miracle of the Cross Falling into the Water,” the motif is apparently taken from the types that are sold in dozens in Venice: in the foreground is a temporary plank platform, similar to those built at the Redentore festival; on the left are lines of houses from the embankment, on the right are houses facing directly onto the water; in the depths there is a brick bridge with three arches spanning the canal. All this is conveyed sharply, clearly, without concern for the pleasantness of the colors, but very accurately. If the depicted place is not the Ponte della Paglia, as Vasari claims, then, in any case, it is an accurate photograph from life, a “study”. In the painting from the Layard collection, The Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Gentile, the landscape, spreading in all directions, has a more fantastic, Paduan character. But the attribution of this painting to Gentile can rest on the fact that here the landscape has no poetry - it is as motionless, deadened as the figures arranged on foreground compositions.

Gentile Bellini

The artists discussed are the creators of the artistic atmosphere in which Giorgione, Palma and Titian developed. The transition from the still “young” art of the elder Giovanni Bellini to the already “mature” art of these three brilliant young men is quite consistent. The first paintings of Giorgione and Palma themselves are not without “Bellini” features. The situation is completely different with another group of artists, originating from Jacopo Bellini and who found their leader in the person of Jacopo's eldest son, Gentile, and their best representatives in the person of Carpaccio and Mansueti. What this group of artists have in common is that they have fewer “stylistic concerns”, that they are, as it were, chroniclers and illustrators of their time. It is not their picturesque merits that are of main interest, but their even, attentive, but dispassionate attitude towards the life around them, towards everyday life. Unfortunately, the works of this group have reached us in extremely meager quantities. Even about Gentile Bellini, the most famous master of his time, elevated by Caesar to the dignity of Count Palatine and invited to the court of the great Sultan Mohammed II, it is difficult to get a complete picture of his surviving reliable works.

In his first works (1465), in the doors decorating the organ of the Cathedral of San Marco, Gentile was still a Paduan. Massive figures stand in the arcades or emaciated anchorites pray among the stone desert. But then, in the sketches he brought from Turkey (where he spent 1479 and 1480), he becomes an ingenuous copyist of reality, and he is the same in all his subsequent paintings, portraits or those “street scenes” in which he narrates (without any dramatic talent) various miracles that happened with the relic of the Holy Cross (1496 and 1500). This is a dry and callous realist, rather even a “protocolist.” He cares little about colorful effects, but with the greatest zeal he notes all kinds of ranks participating in the processions, and with artisanal restraint he copies one (eternally profiled) portrait after another from dignitaries and prelates. At the same time, there is no psychology, no emotion.

"Procession in St. Mark's Square"(Venice Academy) should depict the miraculous healing of the son of the Bresci merchant Jacopo de Salis. However, with the greatest difficulty you find among those participating in the procession the kneeling figure of a father praying for his son. Hundreds of portraits are depicted in the “Miracle of the Cross Falling into the Water,” but on their faces is written complete indifference to the event, presented by Bellini in the most childish way. In the painting “The Healing of Pietro dei Ludovici” the characters, portraits in the foreground, do not even turn in the direction where the event is taking place. In the “Sermon of St. Mark” (Brera) the artist’s entire attention is drawn to the costumes of the Turks, to the cunning decoration in oriental style and to the portraits of Venetian senators, so that in terms of the impression produced by this painting, it is no different from the “plotless” painting of the “Gentile school” Bellini" in the Louvre.

But what a wealth of “documents” there are in costumes, in faces, in architecture. The latter plays almost the main role in the paintings of Gentile and his faithful follower Mansueti. But these Gentile settings have nothing in common with the poetic, musical backgrounds of his brother. Everything here is just appearance, and there is not even a shadow of poetry in them. At the same time, Bellini prefers to copy reality rather than invent.

We see St. Mark's Square depicted with perfect accuracy as it was in 1496, and we can even distinguish all the Byzantine mosaics that once adorned the façade and were subsequently replaced by works of Renaissance and Baroque masters. In the “Miracle of the Cross Falling into the Water,” the motif is apparently taken from the types that are sold in dozens in Venice: in the foreground is a temporary plank platform, similar to those built at the Redentore festival; on the left are lines of houses from the embankment, on the right are houses facing directly onto the water; in the depths there is a brick bridge with three arches spanning the canal. All this is conveyed sharply, clearly, without concern for the pleasantness of the colors, but very accurately. If the depicted place is not the Ponte della Paglia, as Vasari claims, then, in any case, it is an accurate photograph from life, a “study”. In the painting from the Layard collection, The Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Gentile, the landscape, spreading in all directions, has a more fantastic, Paduan character. But the attribution of this painting to Gentile can rest on the fact that here, too, the landscape has no poetry - it is as motionless, deadened as the figures placed in the foreground of the composition.

Son-in-law of Andrea Mantegna. Being a famous and influential painter, he, according to experts at the London National Gallery, was noticeably inferior in talent to his younger brother Giovanni Bellini.

Biography

Bellini Gentile was born around 1429 in Venice. Information about youth and early stages the artist's work has not survived. In 1460, together with his father and brother, he created an altarpiece in the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua. In 1466 he completed the painting of Scuola San Marco, begun but not completed by his father. First known independent work- painting of the organ doors of the Cathedral of San Marco - dated 1465. In 1469 he was given the title of Count Palatine. In 1474, he began to create large monumental canvases to decorate the Doge's Palace, which, however, were destroyed by fire on December 20, 1577. In 1479, he was sent by Frederick III to Istanbul to Sultan Mehmed II, who had previously asked the German king for a good portrait painter. After staying there for two years as both a painter and a military adviser, Belline Gentile created a series of paintings in which he tried to combine the aesthetics of the Italian Renaissance with traditions oriental art(naive decorativism, flatness, frontality). A striking example serves as a portrait of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II Fatih. After returning to his homeland, the artist continued to create genre-historical paintings with views of Venice, including in collaboration with other masters of the Catholic Brotherhood of St. John the Evangelist.

Analysis of creativity and artistic influence

Benoit, reflecting on the followers of the school of Giovanni Bellini, names primarily the Italians Canaletto (Antonio Canal) and his nephew Bernardo Bellotto. At the same time, the paintings of the 15th-century master seem to him like the “youthful” works of these artists from the 18th century. There is a certain timidity in Bellini's use of colors and lighting. For example, the sun is always absent from his paintings, which can be explained by the painter’s simple inability to convey its radiance. It took more than a century and a half for the manners and traditions of creating cityscapes to be formed so that similar paintings found lightness, illuminated sun rays or were covered with the darkness of thunderclouds.

The modern Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, in his book “Other Colors,” gives the story of two works by Bellini from the “Istanbul” period. The first is an oil portrait of Sultan Mehmed II Fatih "The Conqueror". According to the author, in Turkey this portrait is known to everyone, as it is present in history textbooks, published in periodicals and calendars, on coins and in glossy magazines. He became the same collectively Ottoman padishah, eastern ruler, like famous photograph Che Guevara is a symbol of a revolutionary. The cult of this portrait has developed for a number of reasons. Firstly, Islam has long had a ban on depicting a person, and Turkish artists of that period, in principle, they could not draw anything like this. Secondly, the painter’s attempt to create a work both based on European views of the Renaissance and using the traditions of Ottoman-Iranian miniatures brought to life a creative masterpiece. The eldest son of Mehmed II, who poisoned him and took the throne, ordered the sale of his father’s portrait on a simple market. Orhan Pamuk is inclined to regard this gesture as a symbolic refusal of his country from artistic achievements The Renaissance as a missed opportunity to develop the national pictorial tradition of portraiture. The second work is a drawing in ink and gouache, which depicts a young clerk (according to Pamuk - an artist or calligrapher) in front of blank slate paper Some sources claim that the person posing is Sultan Cem, who was persecuted for many years by his brother Bayezid II in the struggle for power. The drawing was taken out of the country, probably as a diplomatic gift to the Safavid dynasty in Tabriz. Over many years of wandering through the collections of the rulers of the east, the painting was copied many times local artists. In an analysis of the drawing carried out by art historians at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), the current owner of the work, it could probably have been created and used as visual material for training artists in Turkey, a role model in drawing portraits, previously prohibited for religious reasons. For example, one of the many known copies is kept in the Freer Gallery of Art (Washington).

Notes

1. data.bnf.fr: open data platform - 2011.

Son-in-law of Andrea Mantegna. Being a famous and influential painter, he, according to experts at the London National Gallery, was noticeably inferior in talent to his younger brother Giovanni Bellini.

Biography

Bellini Gentile was born around 1429 in Venice. Information about the artist’s youth and early stages of creativity has not been preserved. In 1460, together with his father and brother, he created an altarpiece in the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua. In 1466 he completed the painting of the Scuola San Marco, begun but not completed by his father. His first known independent work - painting the organ doors of the Cathedral of San Marco - dates back to 1465. In 1469 he was given the title of Count Palatine. In 1474, he began to create large monumental canvases to decorate the Doge's Palace, which, however, were destroyed by fire on December 20, 1577. In 1479, he was sent by Frederick III to Istanbul to Sultan Mehmed II, who had previously asked the German king for a good portrait painter. Having stayed there for two years as both a painter and a military adviser, Belline Gentile created a series of paintings in which he tried to combine the aesthetics of the Italian Renaissance with the traditions of oriental art (naive decorativeism, flatness, frontality). A striking example is the portrait of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II Fatih. After returning to his homeland, the artist continued to create genre-historical paintings with views of Venice, including in collaboration with other masters of the Catholic Brotherhood of St. John the Evangelist.

Analysis of creativity and artistic influence

Benoit, reflecting on the followers of the school of Giovanni Bellini, names primarily the Italians Canaletto (Antonio Canal) and his nephew Bernardo Bellotto. At the same time, the paintings of the 15th century master seem to him like “youthful” works of these artists from the 18th century. There is a certain timidity in Bellini's use of colors and lighting. For example, the sun is always absent from his paintings, which can be explained by the painter’s simple inability to convey its radiance. It took more than a century and a half for the manners and traditions of creating city landscapes to be formed, for such paintings to gain lightness, illuminated by the sun's rays or covered with the darkness of thunderclouds.
Contemporary Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, in his book “Other Colors,” gives the story of two works by Bellini from the “Istanbul” period. The first is an oil portrait of Sultan Mehmed II Fatih "The Conqueror". According to the author, this portrait is known to everyone in Turkey, as it is present in history textbooks, published in periodicals and calendars, on coins and in glossy magazines. He became the same collective image of the Ottoman padishah, the eastern ruler, as the famous photograph of Che Guevara - a symbol of the revolutionary. The cult of this portrait has developed for a number of reasons. Firstly, Islam has long had a ban on depicting a person, and Turkish artists of that period, in principle, could not draw anything like that. Secondly, the painter’s attempt to create a work both based on European views of the Renaissance and using the traditions of Ottoman-Iranian miniatures brought to life a creative masterpiece. The eldest son of Mehmed II, who poisoned him and took the throne, ordered the sale of his father’s portrait on a simple market. Orhan Pamuk is inclined to regard this gesture as a symbolic refusal of his country from the artistic achievements of the Renaissance, as a missed opportunity to develop the national pictorial tradition of portraiture. The second work is an ink and gouache drawing, which depicts a young clerk (according to Pamuk - an artist or calligrapher) in front of a blank sheet of paper. Some sources claim that the person posing is Sultan Cem, who was persecuted for many years by his brother Bayezid II in the struggle for power. The drawing was taken out of the country, probably as a diplomatic gift to the Safavid dynasty in Tabriz. Over many years of wandering through the collections of the rulers of the east, the painting was copied many times by local artists. In an analysis of the drawing by art historians at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), the current owner of the work, it could likely have been created and used as a visual aid for training artists in Turkey, a role model for drawing portraits previously prohibited for religious reasons. For example, it is stored in the Freer Gallery of Art (Washington).

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Notes

Literature

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

Links

• on the website of the London National Gallery.

Excerpt characterizing Bellini, Gentile

From the time of this news until the end of the campaign, all of Kutuzov’s activities consisted only in using power, cunning, and requests to keep his troops from useless offensives, maneuvers and clashes with the dying enemy. Dokhturov goes to Maloyaroslavets, but Kutuzov hesitates with the entire army and gives orders to cleanse Kaluga, retreat beyond which seems very possible to him.
Kutuzov retreats everywhere, but the enemy, without waiting for his retreat, runs back in the opposite direction.
Historians of Napoleon describe to us his skillful maneuver at Tarutino and Maloyaroslavets and make assumptions about what would have happened if Napoleon had managed to penetrate the rich midday provinces.
But without saying that nothing prevented Napoleon from going to these midday provinces (since the Russian army gave him the way), historians forget that Napoleon’s army could not be saved by anything, because it already carried in itself the inevitable conditions death. Why is this army, which found abundant food in Moscow and could not hold it, but trampled it underfoot, this army, which, having come to Smolensk, did not sort out the food, but plundered it, why could this army recover in the Kaluga province, inhabited by those the same Russians as in Moscow, and with the same property of fire to burn what they light?
The army could not recover anywhere. From the Battle of Borodino and the sack of Moscow, she already carried within herself, as it were, chemical conditions decomposition.
People of this former army They fled with their leaders without knowing where, wanting (Napoleon and each soldier) only one thing: to personally extricate themselves as soon as possible from that hopeless situation, which, although unclear, they were all aware of.
Only for this reason, at the council in Maloyaroslavets, when, pretending that they, the generals, were conferring, submitting different opinions, last opinion the simple-minded soldier Mouton, who said what everyone thought, that it was only necessary to leave as soon as possible, closed all their mouths, and no one, not even Napoleon, could say anything against this universally recognized truth.
But although everyone knew that they had to leave, there was still the shame of knowing that they had to run. And an external push was needed that would overcome this shame. And this impulse came to right time. This was what the French called le Hourra de l'Empereur [imperial cheer].
The next day after the council, Napoleon, early in the morning, pretending that he wanted to inspect the troops and the field of the past and future battle, with a retinue of marshals and a convoy, rode along the middle of the line of troops. The Cossacks, snooping around the prey, came across the emperor himself and almost caught him. If the Cossacks did not catch Napoleon this time, then what saved him was the same thing that was destroying the French: the prey that the Cossacks rushed to, both in Tarutino and here, abandoning people. They, not paying attention to Napoleon, rushed to the prey, and Napoleon managed to escape.
When les enfants du Don [the sons of the Don] could catch the emperor himself in the middle of his army, it was clear that there was nothing more to do but to flee as quickly as possible along the nearest familiar road. Napoleon, with his forty-year-old belly, no longer feeling his former agility and courage, understood this hint. And under the influence of the fear that he gained from the Cossacks, he immediately agreed with Mouton and gave, as historians say, the order to retreat back to the Smolensk road.
The fact that Napoleon agreed with Mouton and that the troops went back does not prove that he ordered this, but that the forces that acted on the entire army, in the sense of directing it along the Mozhaisk road, simultaneously acted on Napoleon.

When a person is in motion, he always comes up with a goal for this movement. In order to walk a thousand miles, a person needs to think that there is something good beyond these thousand miles. You need an idea of ​​the promised land in order to have the strength to move.
The promised land during the French advance was Moscow; during the retreat it was the homeland. But the homeland was too far away, and for a person walking a thousand miles, he certainly needs to say to himself, forgetting about the final goal: “Today I will come forty miles to a place of rest and lodging for the night,” and on the first journey this place of rest obscures the final goal and concentrates on yourself all the desires and hopes. Those aspirations that are expressed in individual, always increase in the crowd.
For the French, who went back along the old Smolensk road, the final goal of their homeland was too distant, and the nearest goal, the one to which all desires and hopes strove, in enormous proportions intensifying in the crowd, was Smolensk. Not because people knew that there was a lot of provisions and fresh troops in Smolensk, not because they were told this (on the contrary, senior officials The armies and Napoleon himself knew that there was little food there), but because this alone could give them the strength to move and endure real hardships. They, both those who knew and those who did not know, equally deceiving themselves as to the promised land, strove for Smolensk.
Going out to high road, the French with amazing energy, with unheard-of speed, ran towards their imaginary goal. Besides this reason of common desire, which united the crowds of French into one whole and gave them some energy, there was another reason that bound them. The reason was their number. The sheer mass of them, as in physical law attraction, attracted individual atoms of people to itself. They moved with their hundred-thousand-strong mass as an entire state.
Each of them wanted only one thing - to be captured, to get rid of all horrors and misfortunes. But, on the one hand, the strength of the common desire for the goal of Smolensk carried each one in the same direction; on the other hand, it was impossible for the corps to surrender to the company as captivity, and, despite the fact that the French took every opportunity to get rid of each other and, at the slightest decent pretext, to surrender themselves into captivity, these pretexts did not always happen. Their very number and close, fast movement deprived them of this opportunity and made it not only difficult, but impossible for the Russians to stop this movement, towards which all the energy of the mass of the French was directed. Mechanical tearing of the body could not accelerate the decomposition process beyond a certain limit.

(Jacopo Bellini) (c. 1400–1470), leading representative of the Venetian school of painting of the first half of the 15th century; student of Gentile da Fabriano, a master who worked in the “international” Gothic style. In the 1420s, Jacopo worked in Florence with his teacher. This was the time of the emergence of a new Renaissance style in the works of Donatello, Ghiberti, Masaccio, Brunelleschi and others. Works of monumental painting created by Jacopo Bellini have not survived, but his easel works indicate that the artist combined in his painting elements of the Gothic and new Renaissance styles: decorativeness, abundance of details, sophistication and pretentiousness of late Gothic and interest in the realistic depiction of objects in space, characteristic for the Renaissance. Passion for problems visual perception noticeable in drawings from two albums kept in the Louvre and British Museum, the purpose and dating of which (possibly 1440–1450) remain controversial. They contain many sketches of a variety of scenes - mythological, biblical and fantastic. One can feel the master's interest in archeology, problems of perspective and other methods of organizing images. Most of the drawings are obviously finished works, especially since none of the famous paintings the artist is not directly connected with them. Among the drawings, for the first time, subjects of a special genre characteristic of the Venetians appear: scenes from festive and Everyday life cities. This genre was successfully continued in the works of Jacopo's sons, Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, as well as a number of other masters in subsequent years.

Gentile Bellini

(Gentile Bellini) (c. 1429–1507). The legacy of this master is colorful, detailed and documentary-accurate views of Venice at its most important events from the history of the city. His first works - large canvases begun in 1474 to decorate the Doge's Palace - burned down during the fire of 1577. However, one can get an idea of ​​this painting from other paintings written by Gentile for the scuola - Venetian religious brotherhoods, for example, from the composition Procession on the square of St. Brand(Venice, Accademia Gallery), part of a cycle of paintings created by him in 1496 together with other artists for the Brotherhood of St. John the Evangelist. And the view of the celebration on St. Square. The brand presented in the picture and the appearance of Venice, its architecture, the costumes of its inhabitants are intended to perpetuate the miracle - healing from a particle of the Holy Cross, the transfer of which is accompanied by a solemn procession.

Venice had close ties to the Middle East; in 1479–1480 Gentile Bellini served as an artist and military adviser at the court of the Sultan in Constantinople. The result of this trip were paintings in which he tried to combine the achievements Italian Renaissance with the flatness and decorativeness of oriental art, for example Portrait of the Sultan Mehmed II(c. 1480, London, National Gallery). Soon the artist returned to Venice and continued to paint genre-historical views hometown. After Gentile's death in 1507, Giovanni Bellini completed his older brother's unfinished works.

Giovanni Bellini

(Giovanni Bellini) (c. 1430–1516), younger brother Gentile, nicknamed Giambellino, an outstanding artist of the Renaissance, the founder of a new pictorial tradition in which the main role is given to color and light.

Despite the artist’s great fame, very little is known about his life. Few of his paintings are dated, and the fact that he often resorted to the help of students makes it difficult to attribute the works. Decisive role V creative formation Giovanni Bellini was influenced by his father as well as artistic environment Padua in the 1440s, where Jacopo was working at the time, and especially the Florentine sculptor Donatello. From the art of Donatello and Andrea Mantegna (the latter was almost the same age as Giovanni Bellini, and in 1453 he married his sister), the artist drew the rigidity and linearity of his early style, interest in linear perspective and archaeology.

This strict style distinguishes the works of the Paduan period of Giovanni Bellini's creativity; his typical example can serve as a picture Madonna Adoring the Christ Child(c. 1455, New York, Metropolitan). It is one of the first in a series of numerous works by the painter on this subject. The Mother of God prays to her sleeping Son. The parapet on which the Child is placed symbolizes the throne and the coffin, i.e. the future sacrifice of Christ on the cross. During this period of creativity, Giovanni Bellini's painting style was close to the style of Andrea Mantegna, with its emphasized sculptural forms and lack of interest in conveying the nuances of texture.

The appearance of the characters acquires tragic tension in the film Lamentation of Christ(c. 1470, Milan, Brera Gallery). The three figures placed behind the parapet are depicted as if they were very close to the surface of the painting; their deathly pale faces and muted colors of draperies are almost monochrome. The leaden sky serves as a backdrop for figures frozen in deep sorrow. The characters' facial expressions and gestures are ambiguous. The figurative power of the picture lies in the understatement - a technique characteristic of Giovanni Bellini.

Around the same time, Bellini and Mantegna painted Prayer for the Cup(apparently in the early 1460s; both are in the National Gallery in London). The works of both authors are based on a drawing from the album of Jacopo Bellini. The paintings are so similar that the question arises: was there some kind of artistic competition between their authors? In both compositions, Christ praying before being taken into custody is depicted against the backdrop of a landscape. There seems to be no air in Mantegna's painting; all surfaces are rigid, and the curves of the forms resemble tension metal strings. A host of angels, holding instruments of passion in their hands, hovers on an absolutely tangible cloud. In the work of Giovanni Bellini, all contours are softened by the warm glow of dawn. Instead of a ponderous host of angels, he has only one - a small translucent figure; the rising sun is also the halo of Christ.

Around 1480 Bellini wrote big picture St. Francis(New York, Frick Collection). The saint is depicted in front of a cave; nearby lies a peaceful, serene landscape with bucolic scenes in front of the walled city. On the left, a laurel tree flooded with light seems to be leaning towards St. Francis. Main character the painting is located within the landscape, and not against its background; nature is here evidence of the mystery of Divine Creation.

In 1475–1476 Antonello da Messina visited Venice, combining in his work the latest achievements of Italian and northern painting. He is considered to have had a decisive influence on Giovanni Bellini; under his influence the master turned to technology oil painting, which has much greater capabilities in transmitting color and light. However, Bellini's interest in color and lighting effects could have arisen earlier under the influence of Piero della Francesca and other masters. His experiments with mixed tempera and oil techniques date back to an even earlier time. It remains unclear what is the chronological relationship of the two altar images of the new type of sacra conversazione (holy interview - a composition in the center of which the Virgin and Child are depicted, and saints on the sides), one of which was painted by Giovanni Bellini for the church of San Giobbe, the other by Antonello da Messina for Church of San Cassiano (partially preserved).

It is difficult to say which of the two artists created an altar image of this type first; later compositions like sacra conversazione occupied central place in the works of Giovanni Bellini. The Altarpiece of San Giobbe (Venice, Galleria dell'Accademia) from the church of the same name in Venice dates from the late 1470s. The Madonna and Child sits on a throne placed in the apse of the church; On either side of her stand six saints, among whom stand out the half-naked figures of St. Job and St. Sebastian, defenders from the plague. At the foot of the throne three angels play musical instruments; the saints are immersed in prayer and pious meditation. The scene is presented from a slight perspective from bottom to top. The space of the painting illusorily continues real space interior - the effect produced by the illusionistically painted architecture of the background, which repeats the motifs of the ornament of the carved stone frame of the image, which is still preserved in the church itself. There is no action taking place in the film; its charm lies in the warm, soft light that connects and unites all parts of the work into an inextricable whole, into a kind of spiritual space.

In 1488 Bellini painted a small triptych sacra conversazione for the Franciscan church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. Behind the ornate architectural gilded frame is an apse and two adjoining rooms. The Mother of God sits on a high throne in front of a mosaic-lined apse; at the foot of the throne there are two angels playing music, on the sides there are two saints. The painting is dominated by a contemplative mood. This is one of Bellini's first works, painted only in oil.

The altar of San Zaccaria in the church of the same name in Venice dates from 1505 and is one of best works Bellini in this genre. The figures of saints, facing the viewer, are placed in a wide, free space; soft light falling from the upper left corner unites the interior and the landscape visible on both sides. Sfumato (light haze) envelops all surfaces, shading bearded faces saints; these two extreme images seem weighty and calm in contrast to the more slender figures young holy women, whose gaze is turned to the Mother of God and Child. Only the sounds of angelic music break the silence of this world, where “life is understood as a kind of listening,” as the famous art critic 19th century Walter Pater about the painting by Bellini's student Giorgione.

Along with large altar compositions intended to decorate churches, Giovanni Bellini, starting in the 1450s, painted images of the Virgin and Child for private orders. In the picture Madonna in the meadow(1505, London, National Gallery) the pose and deathly pallor of the sleeping Child are reminiscent of the iconography of the composition Mourning, in which the Mother of God holds on her knees dead christ. The perfect and orderly world is flooded with clear autumn light. The immutability and internal balance of this world is emphasized by the composition of the figures of the Mother of God and the Child. The landscape is constructed with parallel horizontal stripes extending towards the background. The balance of the composition anticipates the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, or rather Claude Lorrain, in whom the constructive logic of constructing space is softened by radiant light.

Throughout his career, Giovanni Bellini painted portraits. As a rule, these are images of young people. In general, Bellini's portraits can be called more likely a study of the structure of the face of the person depicted than a study of his psychology, which was quite consistent with the tastes of the Venetian patricians: too pronounced individuality seemed to them inappropriate for a person in public service. An example of work in this genre that is atypical for Bellini is Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredano(c. 1501, London, National Gallery). The Doge is depicted chest-length, behind a low parapet; his face seems to be squeezed into the narrow frames of an embroidered cap and cape. However, the warm tones make it seem almost alive. The parapet covers the hands of Leonardo Loredano and seems to exclude the possibility of direct contact between the model and the viewer.

Bellini was not only the author of compositions on religious subjects. From his father and brother-in-law he inherited an interest in literature and fine arts antiquity, as evidenced by the paintings of allegorical subjects and images of episodes from Roman history that came out of his workshop. One of the latest and most famous works artist - Feast of the Gods(1514, Washington, National Gallery). This is the first of the paintings on mythological story, created by order of Alfonso d'Este for the alabaster cabinet in his castle in Ferrara. The plot of the painting dates back to Metamorphoses Ovid. The Olympians feast among lush vegetation (the landscape was rewritten by Titian after Bellini's death). An octogenarian artist who wrote during his life great amount paintings on religious themes, knew the way and ancient world sensual pleasures, so brilliantly sung by two of his famous students -