Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/giovannibelliniOOmeyn ■-.“i NEWNES'ART S LIBRARY® GIOVANNI BELLINI I ' . f 4 . ; ‘ y‘ Photo. ALin.ari MADONNA WITH THE SLEEPING CHILD from the painting by Giovanni Bellini GIOmNNl BELLINI LONDON:GEORGENEWNESLIMITED SOVTHAMPTON-STREET; STRAND -W-C NEWY0RK:FREDERICKWARNESC0-J6EAST-22‘!^SE The Bali.antyne Press Tavistock St. London CONTENTS Pa^c Introduction, by Everard Meynell ....... vii List of Principal Works in chronological order ...... xvii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Pl.it: Madoirna with the sleeping Child ..... /'> ontispiecc Pieta 1 Madonna and Child .......... 2 Doge Leonardo Loredano ......... 3 The Agony in the Garden ......... 4 The Blood of the Redeemer ......... 5 Madonna and Child .......... 6 The Infant Christ asleep in the lap of the Virgin. ..... 7 St. Dominic ............ 8 The Circumcision ........... 9 Death of St. Peter Martyr . . . . . . . . .10 St. Peter Martyr . . . . . . . . • . .11" Virgin and Child . . . . . - . . . . .12 Pieta . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Madonna and Child . . . . • . . . . .14 A Sacred Allegory. . . . . . . . . . .15 Portrait of the Artist . . . . . . . . . .16* Madonna and Child . . . • • ■ . . . .17 Pieta . . . . . . - • • . . . .18 Madonna and Child . . . . . • . . . .19 Pieta ............. 20 Doge Barbarigo kneeling to the Virgin (Altar-piece) . . . . .21 The Transfiguration . . . . . . . . . .22 The Transfiguration (Detail) ......... 23 Portrait of a Young Man ......... 24 Portrait of a Man . . . . . . . . . . .25* Coronation of the Virgin (Altar-piece) ....... 26 Conversion of St. Paul (Predella of Altar-piece) ..... 27 St. George and the Dragon (Predella of Altar-piece) ..... 28 Pieta ............. 29 V LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plate Madonna and Child .......... 30 Madonna and Child between St. Catherine and St. Mary Magdalen . . 31 .Madonna and Child between St. Catherine and St. Mary Magdalen (Detail) . 32 Madonna and Child between St. Catherine and St. Mary Magdalen (Detail) . 33 Virgin with the Child .......... 34 Altar-piece from the Church of San Giobbe: Madonna and Child with Saints ... ........ 35 Altar-piece from the Church of San Giobbe (Detail) .... 36 Altar-piece from the Church of San Giobbe (Detail) .... 37 Altar-piece from the Church of San Giobbe (Detail) .... 38 .Madonna and Child with Choir of Angels.39 Madonna and Child between St. Paul and St. George ..... 40 Madonna and Child . . • • . . . . . .41 Madonna and Child .......... 42 An Allegory: Barque of Love . , ...... 43 An Allegory: Prudence ......... 44 An Allegory: Luxury and Zeal ........ 45 An Allegory : Fate .......... 46 An Allegory: Evil .......... 47 'I'he Transfiguration .......... 48 The Crucifixion ........... 49 Dead Christ supported by Two Angels ....... 50 Pieta . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Altar-piece: Virgin and Child with Saints . .... 52 Altar-piece (Detail) . . . . . . . . . -53 Altar-piece (Detail) .......... 54 Altar-piece (Detail) . . . . . . . . . -55 Altar-piece (Detail) .......... 56 7\.ltar-piecc (Detail) . . . . . . . . . -57 Altar-piece: St. Jerome, St. John and St. Augustine .... 58 Virgin with the Child and Saints ........ 59 Altar-piece : Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints ..... 60 Altar-piece (Detail) .......... 6r Altar-piece (Detail) . ......... 62 The Presentation in the Temple ........ 63 Baptism of Christ. .......... 64 Those marked with the asterisk are “ ascribed ” to Giovanni Bellini. vi GIOVANNI BELLINI BY EVERARD MEYNELE G I0\"ANNI BELLINI was fortunate in his age, his century giving no less purpose to his art, tlian his art lustre to his century. The years spanned by his life spanned most significant years in the history of painting, and, riding as he did on the crest of the wave of change and development, his work is the illustration and commentary of sixtv pregnant years. It is one of the problems of criticism to say in how far such a man’s work moulds the style of his own and succeeding generations, and how far he is merelv the servant of his time, doing the bidding of its tendencies. To solve such a problem would be to solve the main mystery of history—the inter-relation of character and period and environment, with the strange trysting of men of geniiis, who, born within one rare decade, seem to have been produced because of the necessity of a time and a people to express themselves. Bellini was born into a century of simplicities, though he lived into one more complicated ; and, aided by the perspective of four hundred years, it is easy at least to trace the sequence of art in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Bellini painted with the unhesitating impulse of a child in shouting, or a maiden in blush¬ ing. It is the full purpose that gives the intense drama to his canvases. Did he paint the martyrdom of a saint, he by virtue of his time was able to comprehend and ex])ress both his saint’s saintliness and his murderer’s ferocity, the martyr’s fortitude and the dagger’s keen edge. Skies are as pure, trees as vivid now as then, but an extra zest was in the seeing of these—at least an extra drama was found in them. Poetry and sugges¬ tion, culture and beauty, these w'ere, from Corot and his time, in a new degree. But for Bellini in the quattrocento was the rich discovery of the romance of colour, and the perception that the intimate drama of the emotions was possible in paint. Fortunate also he was in his father Jaco})o Bellini, an artist of genius; for by him he was fathered too in his art and in the austerer feeling of the de¬ parting days. Fortunate also in the circumstance that divided his youtli between Venice and Padua, for each Italian city of those days was the centre of rather differing enthusiasms, and the journeying from the learned University town to the city of pomp and circumstance was surely an educative and restraining influence. The influence of Venice alone might have relaxed the love of austerity that is so precious in Bellini’s early work—a love still guiding him in his last years. This love makes Bellini an heroically interesting figure because, possessing the severity of the vil GIOVANNI BELLINI outgoing ages, he was the child of several centuries. Nor did he lose this spirit when he learnt of the more rich and sumptuous things of the six¬ teenth century. When he saw his city and her art adorning themselves with newly discovered splendours he did not go hastily into the fresh field of flowers but, remaining on the bare promising soil of his traditions, gathered such as he needed from the stores of the Renaissance. Giovanni’s birth is of uncertain date; the careful researches of various students, and even the valuable documents discovered by Signor Paoletti, do not help us to definite knowledge. From certain records of Gentile, his brother, it appears that Giovanni was not the elder, and, therefore, a will made by their mother Anna in 1429 evidently just before the advent of her first¬ born, and leaving to the expected child all her property, does not refer to Giovanni. Nor does a later will, dated 1471, benefit or even mention him. It is, then, with no little doubt that the year 1431 has been assigned to his birth : the more cautious critic is alwaj^s careful to write it circa 1431. One of the interesting uncertainties caused by the uncertain date is the relative age of Gentile and Giovanni. Also when we advance with the years and find the altar-piece in S. Giovanni Crisostomo painted in 1513, it is a matter for amazed speculation to decide how far advanced into the ninth decade of his life was the painter of this master-piece. Of his death, that secondary date, there is definite record, although writers have disagreed about it by three years. It is settled by an entry in the diary of Marino Sanuto under the day November 15, 1516 : “ We hear this morning that Zuan Belin, an excellent painter, is dead. His fame is known through the world, and, old as he is, he painted most admirably. He was buried at Zanzenopolo, in his own tomb, where was likewise buried Zentil Belin, his brother.” From Signor Paoletti’s Raccolta di Documenti Inediii, we understand that one of the dwellings of the youthful Bellini was in the cit}^ of St. Mark’s Cathedral. Here the family of painters lived when the inspira¬ tion of Venice was still young, even though its monuments were already old. Then the Cathedral of St. Mark had a living influence; and if the genius of the prejudiced son of a stern mother in Herne Hill was stirred by it, in the nineteenth century, what of the boy from Padua, whose un¬ fogged eye saw the colour, whose imbewildered ear was for the sounds, and w’hose heart felt the fervour of the Piazza and its Church, in the fifteenth ? For many years both Bellinis w'orked as the pupils and assistants of their father, receiving even as late as the year 1457 only a tithe of their parent’s ])ay. Their brushes helped to cover walls in Padua and Venice, Jacopo being a painter of official standing in both towns. The first documentary evidence of independent endeavour by either Giovanni or Gentile bears so late a date as 1566, but many of the canvases from the younger Bellini bearing a strong token of the unpaternal influence of Mantegna are acce])ted as being of earlier date. Mantegna, wdio became by marriage with Nicholosia Bellini, in 1453, Giovanni’s brother-in-law, was the main influence in his earlier years, vili GJ0\\\NN1 BELLINI a strange fact when we remember that Giovanni, though ne\'er himself to lose the characteristics of his brother-in-law's severity in style, was to be virtually the father of all that was most luxurious in painting—\'enetian art of the sixteenth centurv- Giorgione and Titian were to be his pupils. And they fnlhlled the progress that had animated all the periods of Giovanni’s life. It is right to say fnlhlled, though it would be unjust to suggest that Bellini’s career was not complete and perfect in itself. Lrom his point of view he went far enough on the way that led, in its in¬ evitable decline, to Veronese and after him to the fall. \Anice and Wnetian riches were justihed in her son Giovanni, for while Giorgione and Titian revelled in the pomp of beauty, he did not lack that splendid severity and that generous austerity which were the becpiest of the earlier centuries, those of the multitude of saints, when the lady Poverty held her gay but lowly court. His earlier work is without the serenity of assured power. It is strenuous and agitated in line. As angular as IMantegna’s, it remains more Gothic in character than the master Paduan’s because it did not show his fondesss for fantasy and conceits of classicalism. The religious fervour of his work is traditional, inheriting as it does so much from the art of the earlier ages. The illuminator, the carver in ivory and in wood, and the embroiderer, of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries were the undoubted ancestors of Giovanni Bellini. \'eniceis still the home of Giovanni, as it is there mainly that those who would know him well must go. The Correr IMuseum holds three of hi.s earlier works. Of these the Transfiguration is the most universally accepted, but for the authenticity of the others we have the valuable assurances of Hr. Roger Try, whose writing on Bellini must always be an extremely useful guide. They all bear the marked characteristics of his unmellow but intensely dramatic mood. The same feeling })ermeates the Agony in the Garden, in our own National Gallery. The Londoner may learn from this picture all there is to learn of i\Iantegna’s intlnence on Bellini, and of the strong sentiment of Bellini’s early works. It is one of the nation’s most fortunate possessions, for in an adjoining room hangs a picture by IMantegna of the same subject, wherein may be dis¬ covered extraordinary similarities of treatment. To the early sixties of the century, probably, belongs the splendidly dramatic Pietci in the Brera Gallery, IMilan. In this the conventions are of as early a period as the pictures already mentioned, but the realisation and expression of pathos are more definite. Other Pfafi'/s by Giovanni belong to the same period, this subject being such an one as appealed to Ins intensely devotional nature. The Maclonna and Child were his constant theme; indeed the Virgin, the Christ in infancy, and the Christ in agony, w^re the only subjects that he treated for many years. IMeanwhile his brother Gentile was engaged in painting the large decorations for the Scuola di San Marco, decorations full of that romance of the aspect of Venice which is more familiar and more grandly expressed IX GIOVANNI BELLINI in the work of Carpaccio. Giovanni also had commissions to fulfil in the same Scuola. We read in Malipiero’s “ Annali Veneti ” as follows : “ 1474 was begun the restoration of the painting of the battle between the Armada of the Signoria and that of Ferego Barbarossa, in the Hall of the Grand Council, because it was falling to the ground with the damp and old age, and those who have done the work are Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, brothers, who have promised that it shall remain two hundred years.” This records the beginning of Giovanni’s connection with the great hall of the Ducal Palace at which he was to work for nearly forty years, until Titian ousted him from State employment. The altar-piece in the Church of S. Francesco, Pesaro, is one of the greatest works of the early transition period of his career. As in the former works the aspect of the sky is fraught with the mood and meaning of the artist, but the whole scheme is softened into a new graciousness of line. This may be attributed to a time not far removed from the year 1478. In 1479 Constantinople craved the presence of Giovanni, but the Venetian Senate, with a charming care for their great artist, willed that Gentile should go in his stead ; an incident seeming to prove that Gentile was the younger and more hearty of the brothers. Vasari quaintly records Gentile’s welcome by the Grand Turk : He was received by him very willingly, and, being something new, was much caressed, more especially when he presented Sultan Mahomet with a charming picture which that monarch admired exceedingly, scarcely finding it possible to conceive that a mere mortal should have in himself so much of the divinitv as to be capable of reproducing natural objects so faithfully.” How much 'of divine power would that susceptible Grand Turk find in a Paris salon of to-day ! Giovanni met Gentile on his return, welcom¬ ing him as Vasari says : with the utmost gladness.” Religion being ever the chief motive of Giovanni’s work, he resented stoutly the taste of his patrons who insisted on the new-found romance and learning of the classical Renaissance. He was driven to partake at the board of antiquity, but his reluctance served as a bulwark against the hastiness of the greatest revolution in the history of art. Isabella d’Este, Ducliessof Mantua, was the most insistent among collectors in the wish for the denial of the traditional religious subject and the acceptance of the profane. It is her dealings (most carefully set forth by M. Charles Yriarte in his papers in the Gazette des Beaux Arts) with Bellini that afford us the clearest knowledge of his personality and his avowed attitude towards tlie tastes of the time. y\ prototype of the American millionairess, who buys her pictures with no small share of good taste, Isabella was an energetic patron of the arts, f(U'ming for hei'self while she was still a girl a collection famous throughout Italy. In the vehemence of tlie Renaissance she kept nothing of Christianity in her tastes, and her “ Grotta ” in the Corte AAcchia at xMantua was filled with mythological conceits. Mantegna, who in his genius combined an intense religious sincerity with a zeal for the classical X GIO\'ANNI BELLINI revival, did such glorious decorations as the Paniassus and Triiniipli of Virtue over Th'cc, now in the Louvre, for the persuasive Duchess. But when a Xativitv is all she can obtain from Giovanni, it is not admitted to her beloved Grotta,'’ but is banished into a bedroom. In the intimacv of that apartment she was doubtless a devout maiden. Isabella's agent began negotiations with Bellini in 1501 for a lecture of profane interest— istovia 0 fahula antiqna —to match IMantegna's alle¬ gories. Bellini humblv suggests that he cannot do such things to com¬ pare with IMantegna, and only after much discussion agrees to make the attempt. But here begin the tribulations of Isabella, for Giovanni is the most unpunctual of servants. Linally he asks for a delay of eighteen months because of ill-health ; and in this desire for delay we can guess at a lack of desire to begin the istovia 0 fahula antiqua, and when the ladv demurs at the delay he writes " that nothing can be done ” with such a subject, and suggests in its place a Circumcision or a Prcescpio. After a demand for a retnrn of moneys ach’anced for the commission, her agent writes thus to Isabella : “ Giovanni says that he will certainly do a lovely fantasv ; but he has not yet begun ; he is a delaying man ; and he excuses himself with a palace which he is to decorate, but professes that he will be able to satisfv ever3"body.” A year later the impatient Duchess receives another letter : He is not a man to treat fancy or fable ; he says he will do it, but never does. To make matters easier for him, 1 have had resource to a poet of my accpiaintance, a man of talent, and 1 have asked him to invent for me some theme easily executed.” He then relates that it is no easy matter to recover from the artist the gold paid in advance. “ Now that \mur Highness reclaims it he says that he will set to and paint a pretty fantasy at his pleasure, which is a rather lengthy pleasure.” At this point Bellini seems to have taken to himself some of the great store of \Anetian dignity, and to have declared that he will not paint to dictation. Isabella therefore accepts a Prcesepio, on the arrival of which she writes: ‘‘ We have decided to place this ])icture in a bedroom ”—a decision no more flattering to Giovanni than to IMeissonier was the action of an American collector who, weary of that ” painter in little,” banished her examples of his work to the pantry. Sloth was certainly no characteristic of the inner Bellini. His work is full of an intent and diligent attention, and of an active emotion. But to follow the correspondence between the years 1501 and 1504, with the excuses it contains for the unfinished work, is to become impatient with one of the greatest Venetians. In October 1503, he promises in a month the delivery of the picture, commissioned nearly three vears before ; a year later he asks for another si.x weeks because his paints have not dried ! Isabella becomes severe, and exerts her influence on magnates of Venice to compel Giovanni to return her money, or paint her picture, and Bellini, being pressed, at last gives the agent occasion to write on July 6, 1504, “ the picture is finished.” Still intent on collecting such pictures as are catalogued “ profane,” xi GIO\ ANNI BELLINI from the most prominent painters of the Italy of her time, she again hazards a commission to Bellini : this time with Cardinal Bembo as intermediary ; and in August 1505, he writes : " I have not forgotten that 1 promised your highness to do my utmost to persuade Bellini to accept the enterprise of a picture for the caincrino. We have fought hard, the castle is takene’ that castle representing Bellini’s stand against the invasion of classicalism. After many letters the stubborn \Anetian has recaptured his fortress, Bembo writing that he declines “ to be given numerous fixed points which are contrary to his accustomed spirit ; he says it is his habit to be made more at his ease in his works, and that he undertakes to please those who look at them.” Against this record of something taken for laziness let Ruskin’s descrip¬ tion of a sky painted by Bellini be written : “ Clear as crystal, though deep in tone, bright as the open air (it) is gradated to the horizon with a cautiousness and finish almost inconceivable.” ■' I became a gentleman at Venice,” wrote Albert Durer during his second visit to the city of courtesy and chivalry in 1505. Also he wrote from Bellini’s city : "Such crowds of Italians come to see me that I have to hide myself sometimes. All the nobles wish me well, but few of the painters.” That Durer was in Bellini’s \Tnice is clearly shown by the type of the central angel of the picture of the Glorification of the Virgin, which the stranger painted when in Italy. Again he wrote, to his friend Firkheimer: " 1 wish you were here in Venice; there are so many pleasant companions among the Italians, with whom I am becoming more and more intimate, so that it does one’s heart good. There are learned men among them, good lute-players, pipers, some having a knowledge of painting ” (delightful hit at the great company of Wnetian artists !), " right honest people who give me their friendship with the greatest kindness.” Of the painters, however, he was \'erv cautious, and he takes greeit pleasure in recounting their supposed jealousy of him, mentioning eyen that he has been warned of the danger of taking food from their hands. Against the gentle Oiovanni, however, he could bring no charge of einy, and this is the witness of his courtesy, written in a letter dated Februarv 7, 1506 : " But Giovanni Bellini has praised me highly before several nobles, and is very anxious to have something of mine. He even came himself to me and begged me to paint him some¬ thing, promising to ])ay well for it. And they tell me he is a very honest man, so that I am most favourably dis])Osed towards him. Though very old h(‘ is still the best painter here.” Full of \'alue is this foreign view. Ih)r here is the record of Bellini’s gracious interest in the stranger’s art. 'I'liat he was " a very honest man ” may be known without Diirer’s testi- moin' : lionesty is obxious in his peaceful painting. A story, which well satisfies tlu' claims of Durer’s \’anity and Bellini’s courtesy, tells us that the ^’enetian, wlien \isiting Diirer, asked him to giye him as a mark of affection one of his pa.int-brushes. Durer offered him a handful of ordin¬ ary bruslies. but GioN'anni explained that he desired one of the special XU (tIOVANNI BELLINI brushes which enabled Diirer to paint hair with that linish for which he was famous, whereupon Diirer to prove that his hand was more cuimiug than his tools, painted a lock of hair with an ordinary brush before his visitor, who flatteringly declared that, had he not seen this wonder with his own eve. he had scarcelv believed it. The anecdote is probably Durer's. ('liovanni was old, his brother-indaw IMantegna already dead, and the new spirit of the sixteenth centur\' still alien to him, when the death of his brother (leutile left him lonelv in \Tuice. This must have been a period which made many calls u]X)n the vitality of (hovanni. With the loss of his brother he h)St a link with the century of his birth and the centurv of his real life and feelings. As a man he was essentially of the quattrocento, though as an artist his development was concurrent with the vears, so that in the hfteen years he lived m the sixteenth century the newlv achieved richness of colour and composition found a full, though austere, expression in his work : even while the oncoming luxuriousness of manner found no welcome in him. It would mean much to these sincere and great Italians to have thus lived and worked and grown old together in those days of vivid interests and passionate feelings. We may well understand the pathos of \k\sari’s account of the bereaved Bellini: “Thus deprived of his brother whom he had most tenderly loved. Giovanni, though very old, still continued to work a little, the better to pass his time.” And he must certainly have found good comfort in his work, for to this j^eriod belongs most of his portraiture—the portraiture that was to help other great Venetians to be great portrait-painters. To the researches of 1 \ 1 . Rene de IMas-Latrie we are indebted feu' the interesting publication of (lentile’s will, from which we quote : ” I wish and I order and I ask my brother Giovanni to finish the work begun by me in the School of St. Mark ; and, when lie has done this, I give him and leave him the volume of drawings which belonged to our dejiarted father, besides the remuneration which he will receive from the said School.” Lrom the cautious terms of this we see that with his brother as well as with his patrons Giovanni was suspected to be uncertain in the accomplishment of his commissions. In this case his task was done, he “passed his time” and he earned the book of drawings. The altar-piece in the Sta. Torona at Vicenza was the most important work of the next few years. But the output of an octogenarian could not be prolific, and it is not until some years later that there is record of another important work—the masterpiece in the Church of S. Giovanni Crisostomo, Wnice. Now was to cornea year or two of disquiet to Bellini, and then death. While Diirer had been only suspicious of Bellini, imagining a rival in \one in whom afterwards he admitted a great friendliness, a real and keen rivalry had been kindled in Venice. Bellini and Titian—both be¬ nevolent in paint, and both publishing upon their canvases greatness of Xlll GIOVANNI BELLINI heart—these were the squabblers. When we remember that xLlbert Diirer, engraver of the glorious Melancholia, was eager, in his vanity of imagined rivalship, to believe that it was dangerous for him to take food at the tables of Venetian artists; when we remember that Benvenuto, most delicate-handed in the chasing of silver, broke iMichael Angelo’s nose with a blow’ of his fist; and that Goya fought the bull ; when w^e remember with what imvcholesome joy our modern master, Whistler of the gentler brush, aimed his poisoned jibes, we must believe that great artists are born also great fighters. But Bellini’s fighting spirit w^e do not readily credit. It is especially difficult to believe that he who painted the sky of the Transfiguration was not, or at least had not the wall to be, at peace with men. But it is true that a great storm of competition w^as abroad in 1512, wdien Titian returned to Venice. To the onlooker of to-day who sees the royal kinship of Venetian paintings, and wdro is only conscious of a noble family of genius, it is curious to learn of feud and strife within the house¬ hold. Bellini w-as magnificent in his rival, as he had been in his pupils. To resist the oncoming genius of Titian proved too great a task for the aged and enfeebled Giovanni; but the nobility of the assailant, of his position as master-painter of his city, was in itself great honour. To hand over the keys of one’s citadel to such a one as Titian must be no less courtly and stately a surrender than that of General Justino de Nassau to his con¬ queror in Velasquez’s The Lances. The youthful Giorgione being dead, the whole task of representing the younger phase of painting fell on the capable shoulders of Titian. He was deft and strong in his assault upon the official position held by the Bellini School ; for he painted in the strong belief of a discoverer. At the time of the development in the styles, the transition from one stage to another was deemed to be a revolution, whereas the perspective of years shows us only a steady evolution in the history of the Schools. It w’as this lack of a proper comprehension of affinity that made such men as Bellini and Titian a vSohrab and Rustum of the studios. In 1512 Giovanni was about eighty-one years of age and secure, seemingly, in his office of painter to the Venetian Senate. Old and wdth the satisfaction of much service done to the fame of Venetian art he rested, doing just so much as to justify the lenient demands of his masters. He rested indeed more in the State’s service than as a painter of outside commissions, for while his work in the Ducal Palace advanced hardly at all, he was painting great occasional pictures. To the followdng year, indeed, may be ascribed the crowning work of his career, the altar-piece in the Church of S. Giovanni Crisostomo, Venice, a composition full of the peacefulness of spirit which it is good to find hoarded in one who was the mark of Titian’s antagonism. For nearly thirty years Giovanni had been tlie servant of the State : while to aid him in the fulfilling of the com¬ mission to decorate the Hall of the Great Council he w’as provided with two assistants, and all colours and accessories, and other privileges. xiv (zIOVANNT BELLINI Titian petitioned the Council for equal concessions, and as his promises concerning his work were attractive, his services were accepted. Thus the untroubled field of Giovanni’s labours, wherein he planted as he pleased, was now intruded upon. We have seen that he was slow in the fulfilling of commissions, and slow even to the exasperation of his patrons ; here, in the Ducal Palace, he had worked with no competitor to jog liis elbow or fluster his quiet days since Ahvarini had gone. When Carpaccio had been called in to assist, it was to labour always under the master eye of Bellini. But now Titian was installed, a glorious rival. The whole body of Bellini’s friends rose up in protest, and in 1514 Giovanni had his triumph : the Council revoked its decree in Titian’s favour. But this decision was energetically appealed against, and Titian again received favours, only slightly modified. His strength thus renewed, the younger man again sought to assail Giovanni’s position ; it seems most probable that he was the instigator of the inquiry held to examine into the ex¬ penditure for the decoration of the Hall. This inquiry revealed the extreme impimctnality of Bellini in the completion of works, even when he had received fees in advance. Another petition from Titian followed on the exposure, if the official publication of a state of things long known and tolerated can be so called. The result was that on Titian’s head were placed the honours which Bellini had made so honourable. To be Bellini’s successor was as royal a title as to be the servant of the A’enetian State. In 1314 Bellini was to meet, and receive a commission from, Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara, eager in collecting as in soldiering. There is record that in that year Bellini was paid eighty-five ducats by the Duke, and the supposition is that it was for The Bacchanals, a picture now at Alnwick Castle. This picture presents no little difficulty to the catalogue of Bellini’s works, for while there is evidence that he was its author, and while it bears his signature, it is not easy to reconcile the subject with the principles that had guided him so consistently in his range. His was the religious views His doges w^ere never less than priests m aspect, as well as statesmen ; the emotion of his landscape and his skies was the emotion that well explained the drama of a Cntcifixion or a Transfiguration. And wdten he painted wdiat to him was fantasy, his meanings were always holy. Look how- strangely to our eyes do the scattered figures of saints have place in the “x 411 egory” in the L-ffizi, Florence. It is strange, then, to think of this man wdio had already lived his life, at the last conceding to the more Pagan feeling that was springing up about him. Doubtless xAlfonso, Duke of Ferrara, was warlike in his insistence for a Bacchanals, but w^e doubt not Giovanni resisted him even as he had resisted the similar claims for Paganism in art made by Isabella d’Este, Duchess of Alantua, tw^elve years before. But if not actually from his brush (and on this point I only conjecture for I have not seen the picture in question) The Bacchanals w'as certainly from the studio of the master. Tw'O years later, in 1316, Giovanni Bellini, son of Jacopo, brother of XV /> GIOVANNI BELLINI Gentile, friend of Doges, of Albert Durer, of Carpaccio, and teacher of Titian and Giorgione; brother-in-law of IMantegna, master of the Venetian School, died at the age of eighty-five, or thereabouts. He had been twice Sling by poets, by Ariosto in “ Orlando Furioso ” : “ E quei che fiiro a nostri di, o son ora Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna. Gian Bcllino,” and by Pietro Bembo, in one of whose poems Giovanni is called “ Mio Beilin.” This clipjiing of a syllable was not a jioetical licence used for the convenience of metre, but was a form of the Venetian dialect’s render¬ ing of the august name of Giovanni Bellini, which on more intimate lips sounded like ” Zan Belin ” : Durer’s alien ears doubtless found it difficult to catch the words, and his writing of it in his letters is “ Sanbellinus.” Though sung by Ariosto it was not until Ruskin’s inspired enthusiasm for Italian art found words that Giovanni was fitly written of. His ardour of admiration went out to “ Zan Belin.” We find fine sentences of exposition of Bellini’s character and characteristics throughout “ Modern Painters.” For the natural excellences Ruskin does not hesitate to place the more austere painter above the grand eloquent Tintoret and the sumptuous Titian : but the system of comparisons is not what is most interesting in Ruskin, and we will leave speculation on relative qualities, to recall such words as those describing the landscape in the altar-piece of S. Crisostomo, the work let us remember of a hand that might have trembled with its burden of eighty years, but that painted with exquisite precision ; “ Tlie landscape is as perfect and beautiful as any background may legitimately be. ... It is remarkable for the absolute truth of its sky, whose blue, clear as crystal, and, though deep in tone, bright as the open air. is gradated to the horizon with a cautious¬ ness and finish almost inconceivable.” “ The dignity and heavenliness of the figures ” are worthy words, also. And again our master of the letters of art places Giovanni in a small company of ” serious and loving men ” who worked with “ a divine finish.” And let us end with a sentence in which the very tense is a symbol of Giovanni’s immortality: “Giovanni Bellini knows the earth well, paints it to the full, and to the smallest fig-leaf and falling flower,—blue hill and white-walled city, glittering robe and golden hair ; to each he will give its lustre and loveliness; and then, so far as with his poor human li])s lie may declare it, far beyond all these, he declares that ‘ heaven is bright.’ ” XVI IJST OP GIOVANNI HELLINPS PRINCIPAL WORKS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDKR Except in the few cases in which the paintings of this artist bear authentic dated signatures, the exact year of })roduction must l)e doubtful. Therefore this list, containing only his undoubted works, is not the result of precise knowledge, but is made from the evidence of Bellini’s constantly changing and developing style. Corker Museum, Venice THE CRUCIFIXION THE TRANSFIGURATION National Gallery, London THE BLOOD OF THE REDEEMER THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN Frizzoni Collection, Milan MADONNA AND CHILD Lochis Carrara Gallery, Bergamo PIETA Dr. Ludwig Mond’s Collection PIETA Rrera Gallery, Milan PIETA Davis Collection, Newport, U.S.A. MADONNA AND CHILD xvii rjOVANNI BELLINI Ducal Palace, Venice PIETA The foregoing pictures illustrate the intimate relationship in the styles of Bellini and Mantegna. They were probably painted while the artist was between the ages of twenty and thirty. On the frame of the Ducal Palace “ Pieta ” is written “ IMDLXl Renovatum ” ; the repainting is sufficient to seriously detract from the importance of this early example. Rrera Gallery, Milan MADONNA AND CHILD Museum, Naples THE TRANSFIGURATION Sta. Maria Dell’ Orto, Venice MADONNA CoMMUNAi, Gallery, Rimini, PIETA Royal Gallery, Berlin PIETA These works are still angular in IMantegna’s manner, but they show signs of the change in style that was to make Bellini the father of the great Venetian School. Accademia, Venice MADONNA BETWEEN ST. PAUL AND ST. GEORGE Church oe S. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice ALTAR-PIECE This important altar-piece was destroyed by fire in 1867. National Gallery, London .MADONNA Church of San Francesco, Pesaro ALTAR-PIECE : CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN c. 1485. PREDELLA TO CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN xviii (tIOVANNI BELLINI Accademia, Venice MADONNA AND CHILD Dated 1487. Morelli Gallery, Bergamo MADONNA Church of the Frari, Venice ALTAR-PIECE Triptych dated 1488. The maturity of this splendid altar- piece suggests that the date upon it refers to the commissioning of the triptych rather than to its completion. Accademia, Venice ALTAR-PIECE FROM THE CHLM / a, w w j :z:. in < O Ph H S ^ > E 11 O H H h C. § -< l-l I-P W B ffi X H H >\\TIONAL GALLERY, LONDON \ .: -r ■./i 8 rhoto, Mansell NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON ST. DOMINIC < i :V I i • \ •'. «rv ■>-Xi • V — ^ ■ /- ■’ -r-i 9 Photo, Mansell THE CIRCUMCISION NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON r 10 I Q s O § i-J w c o o H so}L LOCHIS CARRARA GALLERY, BERGAMO PIETA ■ Photo, Alitiari LOCHIS CARRARA GALLERY, BERGAMO MADONNA AND CHILD I A SACRED ALLEGORY LEFIZI (iALLERY, FLORENCE Photo, AliJiari UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST I MADONNA AND CHILD PJioto, Bro^i BRER A C.ALLERY, MILAN A i8 mm Photo, Brogi BRERA GALLERY, MILAN PIETA 19 Photo, Dubray MADONNA AND CHILD FRIZZONI COLLECTION, MILAN 20 Photo, Mo7itabone POLDI PEZZOLI MUSEUM, MILAN PIETA 2 1 Photo, .hiih'r'-ofi ALTAR-PIECE : DOGE BARBARIGO KNEELING TO THE VIRGIN CHURCH OF SAN PIETRO MARTI RE, MURANO i'l"' Vifc 22 Photo, THE TRANSFIGURATION MUSEUM, NAPLES Photo, Anderson THE TRANSFIGURATION (DETAIL) MUSEUM. NAPLES 2 + PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN Photo, Brogi MUSEUM, NAPLES 2 5 Photo, Bro^ i MUSEUM. NAPLES PORTRAIT OF A MAN 26 Photo, A}tcicrso7t ALTAR-PIECE; CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO, PESARO Photo, Anderson PREDELLA OF ALTAR-PIECE : CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO, PESARO 28 Photot Anderson PREDELLA OF ALTAR-PIECE : ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO, PESARO 29 PIETA Photo, Alniari COMMUNAL GALLERY, RIMINI 3 ° Photo, Anderson PINACOTECA, TURIN MADONNA AND CHILD 31 MADONNA AND CHILD BETWEEN ST. CATHERINE AND ST, MARY MAGDALEN ACADEMY, VENICE -• ' T" 32 Photo, Naya MADONNA AND CHILD BETWEEN ST. CATHERINE AND ST. MARY MAGDALEN (DETAIL) ACADEMY, VENICE r ' - ■ . . - :: - ■ 33 PhotOy A7idcrsoK MADONNA AND CHILD BETWEEN ST. CATHERINE AND ST. MARY MAGDALEN (DETAIL) ACADEMY, VENICE 34 VIRGIN WITH THE CHILD Photo, Anderson ACADEMY, VENICE 35 Photo, Anderson ALTAR-PIECE FROM THE CHURCH OF SAX CjlOBBE; MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS ACADEMY, VENICE Photo, A)ide}'Son ALTAR-PIECE FROM THE CHURCH OF SAN GIOBBE (DETAIL) ACADEMY, VENICE r: -r *-L '■ 37 Photo, ^IndersoH ALTAR-PIECE FROM THE CHURCH OF SAN GIOBBE (DETAIL) ACADEMY, VENICE 38 PhotOy A ndcrscn ACADEMY, VENICE ALTAR-PIECE FROM THE CHURCH OF SAN GIOBBE (DETAIL) / \ 39 Photo, A>iderso7i MADONNA AND CHILD WITH CHOIR OF ANGELS ACADEMY, VENICE 40 PJioto, Naya' MADONNA AND CHILD BETWEEN ST. PAUL AND ST. GEORGE ACADEMY, VENICE - • MADONNA AND CHILD rJioior,Aiidcrso)t. ACADEMY, VENICE 42 MADONNA AND CHILD Phofo, Xaya ACADEMY, VENICE 43 Photo A7ideyso7i AN ALLEGORY ; THE BARQUE OF LOVE ACADEMY, VENICE 0 ii lb 4 + Photo, Naya AN ALLEGORY : PRUDENCE ACADEMY, VENICE 45 Photot Anderson AN ALLEGORY: LUXURY AND ZEAL ACADEMY, VENICE AN ALLEGORY : FATE Photo, A)iderso}t ACADEMY, VENICE - V"' 47 AN ALLEGORY : EVIL Photo, Anderson ACADEMY, VENICE 48 Photo, Ali}iari THE TRANSFIGURATION CORRER MUSEUM, VENICE y 49 Photo^ A }tdcyso}z CORKER MUSEUM, VENICE THE CRUCIFIXION 5 ° 'PJioto, Andoson DEAD CHRIST SUPPORTED BY TWO ANGELS CORRER MUSEUM, VENICE I / PIETA DUCAL PALACE, VENICE 5 2 [Pho/o, ^Jicferson ALTAR-PIECE : VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH SAINTS CHURCH OF S. MARIA DEI FRARI, VENICE 50 Photo, Afidorsoii ALTAR-PIECE : ^DETAIL) CHURCH OF S. MARIA DEI FRARI, VENICE 54 ALTAR-PIECE : (DETAIL) Photo, Nay a CHURCH OF S. MARIA DEI FRARI, VENICE 55 Photo, h'aya f CHURCH OF S. MARIA DEI FRARI, VENICE ALTAR-PIECE: (DETAIL) ,6 Photo, fidersoti ALTAR-PIECE : (DETAIL) CHURCH OF S. MARIA DEI FRARI, VENICE I •- ■ • . • • •^■- 'j> ■ :-W \ I -- M PJtotOy A udersoJi ALTAK-PIECE idcrso)i BAPTISM OF CHRIST CHURCH OF THE SANTA CORONA, VICENZA •- ■ ‘ ■ V: .- -v ■: '-' '' "r. ' "■ GETTY CENTER LIBRARY lllllllil ll|