Page:Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, volume 1.djvu/179

 Mocenigo in the Correr Gallery at Venice, wliile Lady Layard besides the portrait of Mohamet II. possesses an Adoration of the JIagi in a 6tyle of composition recalHng Jacopo's drawings, but with Eastern costimies showing that it was executed after his return from Constantinople. The qualities of Gentile's art which won him the unqualified admiration of his contemporaries consist in the subtle perfection of his composition, which, ap- parently free and naturalistic, is really controlled by a delicate sense of balance and proportion, aud the exquisite harmony of his tones, while as a draughtsman he possessed a liner feeling for line than any other Venetian of the 15th century. R.E.F.

BELLINI, Cavaliere Giacinto, born at Bologna, in the early part of the 17th century, was a scholar of Francesco Albani. On leaving the school of that master, he was taken under the protection of the Count Odoardo Pepoli, by whom he was sent to Rome with Francesco Carracci, for the advantage of study. He was not long at Rome before he discovered an ability that recommended him to the patronage of Cardinal Tonti, who was so satisfied with his performances, that he pro- cured him the knighthood of the order of Loretto. He painted in the manner of Albani, and his pic- tures possess much of the graceful stj-le of that esteemed master. He was living in 1660.

BELLINI, Giovanni, was the son of Jacopo Bellini (q.v.). Of the date of his birth there is no certain evidence ; Vasari describes him as older than his brother Gentile, but other authorities of the same period make him younger. Undoubt- edly Gentile was regarded as the head of the family, and it is usual to assume, though the point must still be considered doubtful, that Giovanni was born a few years later, in the early thirties of the fifteenth century. He was brought up with his brother in his father's workshop and assisted him in his various undertakings, but, like Gentile, though to an even greater extent, he entered with enthusiasm into the new ideas of the Paduan school. Indeed, until 1460, when Mantegna left for Mantua, he kept close company with that aitist, advancing with him pari passu. The works of this period, ' Crucifixion,' 'Transfiguration ' and ' Pieli,' in the Correr Gallery, Venice; 'Blood of the Redeemer' and ' Agony in the Garden,' National Gallery, are executed in a manner which shows the influence of Mantegna and the study of Donatello's works at Padua, though the composition and grouping is derived from his father's style. After 1460 he began rapidly to divest himself of the rigid severity of the Padunn manner and to form his own essentially Venetian style. The earliest notice we have of him in Venice is of the year 1459, when he appears as a witness to a deed. Tiiat he devoted himself rather to small devotional pictures than to the great decorative designs which were the speciality of the Bellini family, accounts for the fact that, while we have far more of his works than of Jacopo's or Gentile's, his name occurs but rarely in contemporary documents. However, in 1470, he was engaged to paint a large design of the Deluge for the "school " of St. JIark's, where his brother had already been employed for some years. Towards the close of the seventies he must have journeyed to Pesaro, the home of his mother Anna, where he painted the great altar-piece of 'The Coronation of the Virgin' in the church of St. Francesco. ' The Transfiguration,' at Naples, was, we may suppose, another result of the same journey, since it contains a view of some of the notable buildings in Ravenna, which he would pass on his way to Pesaro. In 1479 he was back in Venice, and on his brother's departure for Constantinople, Giovanni was appointed to take his place in the redecoration of the Ditcal Palace, a post which he was to relinquish on Gentile's return, though the sinecure with which he was rewarded was to continue for life. The altar-piece at Pesaro marks a new departure in Bellini's career: hitherto the great altar-pieces had been the speciality of the rival Muranese school, but from this time on Giovanni Bellini was continually employed in works of this kind. The first in Venice was pro- bably ' The Madonna and Saints 'for St. Giovanni e Paolo, which was destroyed by fire in 1867. So far as we can judge from reproductions, the effect of this lost masterpiece on the treatment of such motives in later Venetian art was momentous. To the eighties belong a large number of Bellini's works, the Frari Triptych, dated 1488, but probably begun rather earlier. Madonnas of the National Gallery and the Morelli Gallery at Bergamo ; the Madonna between St. Catherine and Mary Magdalen, Academy', Venice. Then follows the celebrated ' Madonna aud Saints,' painted for St. Giobbe, c. 1486, now in the Academy at Venice. To 1487 belong the dated ' Madonna and Child ' and the 'Madouna between SS. George and Paul, 'both in the Academy ; while 1488 is the date of the ' Madonna and Doge Barbarigo ' at Murano. It is difiSeult to as.-iign with certainty any picture to the nineties, and we may assume that the artist's time was occupied in large decorative schemes in the Ducal Palace and at the school at St. Mark's. Never- theless the small 'Allegory' in the Uffizi and the series of allegories in the Venice Academy may be assigned to this period. Between 1601 and 1504 he was engaged in painting for Isabella d'Este a small panel, now lost, representing 'The Adoration of the Child by the Virgin and various Saints.' Isabella had tried in vain to get Bellini to illus- trate a subject from pagan mythology, a motive which Bellini declared to be too alien to his nature. To the year 1501 Agletti ascribes, though without adding authority, the great altar-piece represent- ing the Baptism in Sta. Corona at Vicenza. In- ternal evidence would lead us to place it nearly ten years later. In 1505 Bellini completed the great altar-piece in Sta. Zaccharia, in which he rivalled the new style which his own pupil Giorgione was already developing. In 1507 lie finished his brother's picture of ' St. Mark at Alexandria.' To 1510 belongs the 'Madonna and Child' in the Brera, while in 1513 he executed his last indisputable work, the altar-piece in St. Giovanni Chrysostomo in Venice. In 1514 he received payment from the Duke of Ferrara for the ' Bacchanals,' now at Alnwick Castle ; but though the invention may be his, the execution is certainly due to one of his pupils, probably Basaiti. The work was finally completed by Titian. He died in 1516. In the last twenty years of his life Bellini was surrounded by a number of pupils and imitators, of whom Busaiti and Catena were the most important. His greatest pupil Giorgione had already, by the beginning of the 16th century, taken an independent line, and the new ideas which he and Titian formulated were resisted by Bellini's less independent pupils, who enjoyed the oflicial recognition of the State until ousted by the superior