Table of contents:
Video: How Father and Sons Created an Entire Age of Venetian Art: The Bellini Dynasty of Artists
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The Bellini dynasty (father Jacopo Bellini and his sons Gentile and Giovanni) laid the foundations for Renaissance art in Venice. The Bellini family is always remembered when it comes to the Venetian school of painting or the Early Renaissance. This is a dynasty of artists, each of whom developed in his own style, but all of them are united by a brilliant talent, a craving for beauty and a desire to reflect this on canvas.
Jacopo Bellini
Jacopo Bellini (1400-1470) - one of the oldest masters of Venice and a brilliant draftsman, was a student of Gentile da Fabriano, one of the leading painters of the early 15th century (Jacopo named his eldest son, Gentile in his honor). In addition, Jacopo was an avid traveler who took albums with him and captured the beauty of the places visited, saving sketches and drawings for future masterpieces. Jacopo Bellini's favorite subjects are animals, unique places, people in the town square, majestic staircases and palaces. In addition, Jacopo Bellini was perhaps the most significant master, in whose work the medieval manner of depiction gave way to a new view of the world - and this was the beginning of the Renaissance.
His two sons continued the dynasty of painters, this is how the Italian writer Giorgio Vasari wrote about Jacopo: two sons who possessed the greatest aptitude for art and a wonderful and excellent gift. One of them was called Giovanni and the other Gentile. When Jacopo retired from work, each of his sons separately continued to pursue their art. Jacopo's third child, daughter Nikolosia, married Andrea Mantegna, a representative of the Padua school of painting, who, in turn, influenced his wife's brothers. Jacopo, Giovanni and Gentile, with their talent, gave birth to the world's greatest golden age of Venetian art.
Gentile Bellini
Gentile Bellini (1429-1507), eldest son of Jacopo Bellini, became the founder of historical Venetian painting, best known for his portraits and scenes of Venice. Gentile took over his father's love of travel, and on one of his creative trips he managed to paint an excellent portrait of the Turkish Sultan. In 1479, the Duke of Venice sent him to Constantinople as an artist at the court of Sultan Mehmed II. The most important surviving work written there is the Portrait of Muhammad II (c. 1480).
At home, he also showed his talent for portrait painting, painted portraits of eminent Venetian citizens, doges and aristocrats. An excellent landscape painter, he found more and more beautiful shades of Venice and skillfully depicted the landscape. Small churches, rural farms and undulating hills are pretty to his artistic eye. In his portrait "The Seated Scribe" (1479–80), Gentile uses a flat ornament similar to the style of Turkish miniatures, which he inspired during his trip to Constantinople. This trip also influenced later works ("Portrait of the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo", "Portrait of Queen Catherine Cornaro"). Gentile's work "The Annunciation" (the scene in which the Archangel Gabriel delivers the holy news to Mary) is especially significant. The artist paid considerable attention to the detailed description of the architecture that surrounds the two main figures. On the right, Mary is kneeling, her hands are shown in a prayer position. It is located in a spacious portico, decorated on the outside with a decorative entablature with floral ornaments and slender columns. During his lifetime, Gentile was better known and popular for his painting talent than his brother, Giovanni. However, in modern times, everything has changed. Giovanni Bellini is recognized as one of the iconic figures of Venetian art.
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini (1430 - 1516). If his brother, Gentile, developed his talent in the direction of historical painting, then Giovanni Bellini was one of the first to breathe life and liveliness into his paintings - he tried not only to describe the place, but also to masterfully convey the mood and accompanying emotions. He lived and worked in Venice all his life, and his career as an artist lasted for 65 long years. Giovanni is known for his innovative portraits of natural light, delicate and graceful portraits of the Virgin and graceful altar figures. It is not for nothing that Albrecht Durer, being in Venice in 1506, wrote that Giovanni "is very old, and yet he is the best artist of all," and the leading British art critic Jonathan Jones even called the Venetian master a rival of Leonardo da Vinci himself.
Giovanni's early paintings were influenced by the graceful late Gothic style of his father Jacopo and the austere Padua school of his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna. However, Giovanni's works throughout his life demonstrate a pronounced evolution from a narrative religious theme to the transfer of detail, the attitude of each canvas. It is believed that it was he who revolutionized Venetian painting, giving it a more sensual and coloristic style. Bellini's successful experiments with oil gave his works a tenderness and radiance. With the help of oils, he sought and improved the most subtle gradations of colors. Through the use of transparent, slow-drying oil paints, Giovanni created deep, rich and detailed shades. His opulent palette of colors and flowing, atmospheric landscapes greatly influenced the Venetian school of painting, especially the work of his most successful students, Giorgione and Titian. Giovanni's complex paintings were the yardstick for judging the paintings of other artists in Venice. In both artistic and mundane senses, Bellini's life was generally very prosperous. His long career began with the Quattrocento styles, but grew into the progressive styles of the Late Renaissance. He lived to see his own school, far superior to the schools of his colleagues (for example, Vivarini from Murano). Giovanni, with constant self-improvement in painting, embodied much of the worldly splendor of Venice of his time, and he saw his influence spread by many students, two of whom, Giorgione and Titian, even surpassed their teacher. Among other students of the Bellini studio were Girolamo Galizzi da Santacroce, Vittore Belliniano, Rocco Marconi, Andrea Previtali. Giovanni Bellini became the most famous painter of the Bellini family.
Recommended:
Secrets of the Eremenko acting dynasty: How father and son played their own fates in the cinema
20 years ago, on May 27, 2001, the life of the famous actor and director Nikolai Eremenko Jr. ended. Just a year before that, his father, the movie star of the 1960s - 1970s, People's Artist of the USSR Nikolai Eremenko Sr., had passed away. When his father started filming in "Eternal Call", his son was just beginning his career in the acting profession, and when the last episodes of the epic came out, the name of Eremenko Jr. was already thundering all over the country after the films "Red and Black", "June 31", "Pirates of the 20th century". But special
How merchants, Old Believers and self-taught artists created a new genre in Russian art: Merchant portrait
There is a special genre in Russian painting, which is usually attributed to primitive art - a merchant portrait. Severe dumpy old men and strict young merchants, ruddy girls in kokoshniks embroidered with pearls and energetic old women in brocade sundresses … Even if the authors of these portraits did not receive an academic education, and their names are often unknown, the naive merchant portrait became a real encyclopedia of the life of the merchant class of the 18th century
Why the famous actor Strzhelchik did not communicate with illegitimate sons, and which of them continued the dynasty
Few know about this acting dynasty, because none of the sons of the famous actor Vladislav Strzhelchik bears his last name. Officially, he recognized only the daughter from his first marriage. In the second, he had no children, but at the same time the actor had three illegitimate sons. Not recognizing any of them and not giving them his last name, he passed on talent and acting charisma. And Evgeny Volkov, and Dmitry Isaev, and Ilya Kovrizhnykh achieved success on their own, without using the loud name of their father, whom he knew
Fyodor Bondarchuk - 54: For which the successor of the dynasty concealed a grudge against the famous father, and which he did not have time to prove to him
May 9 marks the 54th anniversary of the successor of the famous creative dynasty, the famous director, screenwriter, actor and producer Fyodor Bondarchuk. He has not been represented for a long time as the son of the legendary Sergei Bondarchuk, but in his youth he had to make a lot of efforts in order to prove his own creative competence. What seemed to many a gift of fate was a serious test for Fyodor Bondarchuk. Unfortunately, my father was not able to appreciate all the fruits of his independent creative
How the life of the sons of the legendary singer Joe Dassin, who did not know their father and lost their mother early
Last year, fans celebrated the 40th anniversary of the death of legendary French pop singer Joe Dassin - a romantic, white-suited chansonnier performing popular love hits like no other. During his lifetime, he was called a man of the world, and who knows what heights the singer would reach if he lived a full life. Joe died almost at 42, but after him there was not only a huge legacy of songs, videos, archival tapes, but also two already completely grown sons. How do they look and how well