Giovanni Bellini (Italian, c.1430-1516)
From a long line of artists, the Bellini family was largely responsible for giving a Renaissance character to Venetian art. Giovanni Bellini’s father, Jacopo Bellini, was a contemporary of Antionio Vivarini and began moving from Gothic to Renaissance style art in his later years. Giovanni was a versatile artist, mastering many genres of painting including those popular in Venice as well as mythological and allegorical forms. Giovanni Bellini’s workshop was one of the epicenters of Venetian talent during his years and was the starting point for many of the new generation of painters. Bellini’s openness to outside artistic influence is evidenced by his abandonment of the Italian form of painting using egg tempura in favor of a style of application popular in the Netherlands. Peter Humfrey writing for the Oxford Art Encyclopedia notes that Giovanni Bellini was essential in turning Venetian painting from a form of local significance to a form internationally respected.
Works cited:
Humfrey, Peter. “Bellini,” in Oxford Art Online
http://www.oxfordartonline.com.flagship.luc.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T007643?q=bellini&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit
Humfrey, Peter. “Bellini: (3) Giovanni Bellini,” in Oxford Art Online
http://www.oxfordartonline.com.flagship.luc.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T007643pg3#T007665
Image from Wikimedia/Frick Collection
