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Historical Artist - Giovanni Bellini (1430 - 1516)
Giovanni Bellini painted in his father Jacopo’s workshop alongside his brother Gentile
until 1470. Five years later, Giovanni adopted the new oil painting technique, brought to Venice
by Antonello da Messina. His landscapes became softer, brighter, and more expressive. Around
this time, Giovanni also began incorporating figures into his scenes. Once Giovanni established
his own large workshop, the output included altarpieces, portraits, and Madonnas. He was an
influential teacher who not only encouraged his pupils, but learned new ideas from them, notably
the young Titian and Giorgione.
Both in the artistic and in the worldly sense, the career of Giovanni Bellini was, on the
whole, very prosperous. His long career began with Quattrocento styles but matured into the
progressive post-Giorgione Renaissance styles. He lived to see his own school far outshine that
of his rivals, the Vivarini of Murano; he embodied, with growing and maturing power, all the
devotional gravity and much also of the worldly splendour of the Venice of his time; and he saw
his influence propagated by a host of pupils, two of whom at least, Giorgione and Titian,
equalled or even surpassed their master. In the historical perspective, Bellini was essential to
the development of the Italian Renaissance for his incorporation of aesthetics from Northern
Europe.
Contemporary Italian Artists
Art Galleries in Italy
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