Gentile Bellini

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Gentile Bellini
Gentile Bellini, Self-portrait, 1496. Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 5170)
Bornc. 1429
Died23 February 1507
Resting placeBasilica di San Giovanni e Paolo
Known forPainter, noted for portraits and paintings of Middle Eastern scenes
Notable workSultan Mehmed II and others

Gentile Bellini (c. 1429 – 23 February 1507) was an Italian painter of the

confraternities that were very important in Venetian patrician social life.[1]

In 1479 he was sent to

portrait of the Sultan was also copied in paintings and prints and became known all over Europe.[1]

Biography

Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–7; oil on canvas; Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Gentile was born into the leading family of painters in Venice. His father Jacopo Bellini, was a Venetian pioneer in the use of oil paint as an artistic medium; his brother was Giovanni Bellini, and his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna. He was christened Gentile after Jacopo's master, Gentile da Fabriano.[2] Gentile was taught painting in the workshop of his father. Although today Gentile is often seen in the shadow of his more famous family members, in his own time he was considered among the greatest living painters in Venice and had no shortage of commissions; his talent as a portraitist revealed itself at an early age.

Paintings

Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, c. 1478; Tempera on panel; Museo Correr, Venice
Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco, 1496; tempera & oil on canvas; Accademia, Venice

Gentile's earliest signed work is The Blessed Lorenzo Giustinian (1445), one of the oldest surviving oil paintings in Venice (now at the Accademia Museum). During the 1450s Bellini worked on a commission for the Scuola Grande di San Marco and painted in conjunction with his brother, Giovanni Bellini. From 1454 he was also the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice,[3] (for example, see image of the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo at right).

Much of Gentile Bellini's surviving work consists of very large paintings for public buildings, including those for the

Miracle of the True Cross at the S. Lorenzo Bridge
, dating from 1500 and featuring Gentile's self-portrait and that of his brother Giovanni.

Bellini and the East

Venice was, at that time, a very important point in which cultures and trade bordered on the eastern Mediterranean Sea and provided gateways to Asia and Africa. As noted, in his lifetime, Gentile was the most prestigious painter in Venice. Therefore, in 1479, he was chosen by the government of Venice to work for Sultan Mehmed II in Constantinople. However, in addition to his work at the Ottoman Court, Gentile's work also responded to other aspects of the East, including the Byzantine Empire.

Istanbul

Virgin Mary, an example of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting
.

In September 1479 Gentile was sent by the Venetian Senate to the new

National Gallery, London, (but largely overpainted).[6]

Subsequently, an Oriental flavour appears in several of his paintings, including the portrait of a Turkish artist and St. Mark Preaching at Alexandria (above). The last was completed by his brother, Giovanni Bellini.[7]

According to Carlo Ridolfi (who was born 87 years after Bellini's death) in his 1648 history of the Venetian painters:

Bellini made a painting of the head of John the Baptist on a charger, the saint being revered by the Turks as a prophet. When the picture was brought before the Sultan, he praised the skill exhibited there, but drew Gentile's attention nonetheless to an error, which was that the neck stretched out too far from the head, and as it appeared to him that Gentile appeared unconvinced, to enable him to see the natural effect, he had a slave brought to him and had his head chopped off, demonstrating to him how, once separated from the chest, the neck contracted. Gentile, fearful at such barbarities, immediately tried in every way to be released from his contract in case one day he himself should be the victim of such a joke.

This anecdote is likely apocryphal, as a similar story had been told by Seneca of Parrhasius, as well as of Michelangelo via a dubious source.[8]

Greece

Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest

Gentile responded to other aspects of the East, including the Byzantine Greek Empire,

Caterina Cornaro of Cyprus (at right). This is counted as the second known portrait including the queen, which is now in the collection of the Szepmuveszeti Museum in Budapest.[5]

Retirement years and legacy

Bellini's most important paintings, the monumental canvases in the

Doge's Palace in Venice, were destroyed by fire in 1577. Only a few of his other works remain, namely the large narrative paintings The Procession in Piazza San Marco (above left) and The Preaching of Saint Mark in Alexandria (above right), produced in his final years. Little remains of Gentile's art from the 1470s and 1480s, except for the works made in Constantinople. Moreover, many workshop paintings and drawings have been assigned to Gentile Bellini. This has had the unfortunate consequence of confirming his reputation as an awkward artist, especially in comparison with his beloved brother Giovanni. Gentile's fall from popular favor seems to have begun shortly after his death; by 1557 Lodovico Dolce
made a rather acerbic comment about him as an early teacher of Titian:

Titian could not bear to follow the dry and labored manner of Gentile... Because of this, leaving this awkward Gentile, Titian attached himself to Giovanni Bellini: but his style did not entirely please him either, and he sought out Giorgione.[9]

He was interred in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, a traditional burial place of the doges.

In recent years, Gentile has once again generated interest, especially in a recent spate of scholarly publications and exhibitions on the subject of cross-cultural exchange between Europe and the Levant.[10]

Selected works

The Annunciation, Thyssen Bornemisza Museum.


Notes

  1. ^ a b Hartt, 397-398
  2. ^ "Italian Culture and History". Boglewood.com. Retrieved 2013-09-17.
  3. ^ MSN Encarta : Online Encyclopedia, Dictionary, Atlas, and Homework. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31.
  4. ^ tr:Resim:Sarayi Album 10a.jpg
  5. ^ a b c "Contemporary Art - Artist Portfolios - Art News". absolutearts.com. Retrieved 2013-09-17.
  6. ^ "The Sultan Mehmet II". Nationalgallery.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2007-08-26. Retrieved 2013-09-17.
  7. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bellini" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  8. ^ [1]Babinger, Franz. Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Princeton University Press
  9. ^ Dolce, quoted in Alan Chong, "Gentile Bellini in Istanbul: Myths and Misunderstandings," in Bellini and the East (London: National Gallery Company, 2005), p. 106.
  10. ^ See also Venice and the Islamic World (New York: Metropolitan Museum, 2007).
  11. William Beckford is in the Frick Collection
    , New York.
  12. ^ "The Annunciation". Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. Retrieved 2020-03-25.

References

See also

External links