Page:Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, 1887, vol 1.djvu/195

 BELLINI Venice about 14GO, but no picture of Iris is known earlier than 1464, when lie painted the doors of the great organ of San Marco. In 1465 be finished the apotheosis of Lorenzo Giustiui- ani, now in the lum- ber room of the Venice Academy. From this time his career is obscure until 1474, when he was appointed to re- store the pictures in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, Venice. His works were highly praised by his contem- poraries, and accepted as masterpieces by the government. In 147!) he was sent with two assistants, at the expense of the state, to Constantinople, where he painted the por- trait of Mehemet II., now owned by Sir H. A. Layard. He also brought back a picture, now in the Louvre, representing the recep- tion of a Venetian Embassy by the Grand Vizier. On his return to Venice he resumed Iris labours in the Council Hall, in conjunc- tion with his brother Giovanni, and painted four great canvases in oil illustrative of the legend of Barbarossa, and other pictures of events connected with Venetian history, which were for the most part destroyed in the fire of 1577. But it was not until the close of the century that Gentile rose to a lofty position. His Miracle of the Cure was painted about 1494. He appears at his best in the Procession and Miracle of the Crosx (1496 and 1500), Venice Academy, and in the Sermon of St. Mark, at Alexan- dria, Brera, Milan. The last picture, which was finished by Giovanni Bellini after his brother's death, is fine in composition and full of power, showing that he had consider- ably advanced beyond his father. Other works : Glorification of first Patriarch of Venice (1465), Academy, Venice ; Portrait of a Doge, Museo Civico, ib. ; do. of Caterina Comaro, Pesth Museum ; Madonna, Berlin Museum. C. & C., N. Italy, L 117 ; Ch. Blanc, rxlo vonitienne ; Vasari, ed. Mil., iii. 149, 175; Meyer, KOnat Lex., ill 391; OPV5 GENT1LIS' BELLINVJ. Labke, Gesch. itaL Mai., i. 534 ; ZeiUchr. f. b. K., xiii. 341. BELLINI, GIOVANNI, born in Padua, or Venice, about 1428, died there, Nov. 29, 1516. Venetian school ; younger brother of Gentile Belli- ni, mid with him pupil and assist- ant of his father, Jacopo, in Pad- ua. While there he was brought into contact with Mantegna, his future brother-in-law, then a pupil of Squarcione, and adopted many of his peculiarities, combining them with those of his father. This is shown in the Paduau character of his Christ's Agony in the Garden, National Gallery, London, a picture long ascribed to Muntegna. The same mingling of the Venetian and Paduau styles appears in Iris PieU in the Lochis- Carrara Gallery, Bergamo, which is full of Mantegnesque grimness. His 1'iettl in the Brera, Milan, is less rigid. A third Pieti (1472) is in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice. About this time he produced his vast tem- pera of the Madonna with Saints, burned in S. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, a noble work which proved that he was capable of grand composition and loftiness of style. In 1473 Antouello da Messina introduced at Venice the use of oil, and Giovanni, recognizing its advantages, laboured earnestly to enlarge the practice of the new medium. Constant improvement rewarded his efforts, until he at last painted his grand altarpiece, the '/ donna with Stunts, Venice Academy, which established his fame. After this he was chiefly employed until his death in painting in the Sala del Gran Cousiglio in the Pa- 131