Gentile Bellini - Misplaced Pages

Italian painter

Gentile Bellini
Gentile Bellini, Self-portrait, 1496. Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 5170)
Born	c. 1429 Venice, Republic of Venice, (now Veneto, Italy)
Died	23 February 1507 Venice, Republic of Venice, (now Veneto, Italy)
Resting place	Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo
Known for	Painter, noted for portraits and paintings of Middle Eastern scenes
Notable work	Sultan Mehmed II and others

Gentile Bellini (c. 1429 – 23 February 1507) was an Italian painter of the school of Venice. He came from Venice's leading family of painters, and at least in the early part of his career was more highly regarded than his younger brother Giovanni Bellini, the reverse of the case today. From 1474 he was the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice, and as well as his portraits he painted a number of very large subjects with multitudes of figures, especially for the Scuole Grandi of Venice, wealthy confraternities that were very important in Venetian patrician social life.

In 1479 he was sent to Constantinople by the Venetian government when the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II requested an artist; he returned the next year. Thereafter a number of his subjects were set in the East, and he is one of the founders of the Orientalist tradition in Western painting. His portrait of the Sultan was also copied in paintings and prints and became known all over Europe.

Biography

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. 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

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, (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 Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. Along with Lazzaro Bastiani, Vittore Carpaccio, Giovanni Mansueti and Benedetto Rusconi, Bellini was one of the artists of hired to paint the 10-painting narrative cycle known as The Miracles of the Relic of the Cross. The commission was intended to celebrate the relic of the Holy Cross which the confraternity had received in 1369. Gentile's contributions include the Procession of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco, which dates from 1496, and 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

In September 1479 Gentile was sent by the Venetian Senate to the new Ottoman capital Istanbul as part of the peace settlement between Venice and the Turks. His role was not only as a visiting painter but also as a cultural ambassador for Venice. This was important to Mehmed II, as he was particularly interested in the art and culture of Italy, and he attempted on several occasions to have himself portrayed by Italian artists. He finally reached his goal with Gentile, who is believed to have painted the portrait of Mehmed II now in the National Gallery, London, (but largely overpainted).

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.

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.

Greece

Gentile responded to other aspects of the East, including the Byzantine Greek Empire, as well as Venice's other trading partners in North Africa and Levant. Venice had a long-established relationship with the Eastern Mediterranean. Saint Mark, Venice's patron, was from the Egyptian city of Alexandria, and Venice's cultural and spiritual centre – the basilica of San Marco – was built in his honor (and as his mausoleum) in the Greek Byzantine style. Although Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Greek Byzantine world had a continuing impact upon Venetian art and culture as a number of Greek Christians fled Muslim rule. It was here that Gentile painted the portrait of Queen 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.

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.

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.

Selected works

Madonna Enthroned with Child (1475–1485) - National Gallery, London
Portrait of Doge Giovanni Mocenigo (1478–1485) - Museo Correr, Venice
Procession in St. Mark's Square (1496) - Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of S. Lorenzo (1500) - Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
Miracle of the Reliquary of the Cross (1500)
St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (1504–1507) - Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
Man with a Pair of Dividers
St. Dominic
Mehmet the Conqueror
Portrait of Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus - Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest
The Annunciation, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain.

Notes

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

References

Hartt, Frederick, History of Italian Renaissance Art, (2nd edn.)1987, Thames & Hudson (US Harry N Abrams), ISBN 0500235104

External links

v t e Gentile Bellini
Paintings	Portrait of Mehmet II (1480) Portrait of the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo (c. 1478–1485) Procession in St. Mark's Square (c. 1496) Miracle of the Cross at the Bridge of S. Lorenzo (c. 1500) Portrait of Catherine Cornaro (c. 1500) St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (1504–1507) (with Giovanni Bellini)
Related	Jacopo Bellini (father and master) Giovanni Bellini (brother) Andrea Mantegna (brother-in-law) Orientalism Venetian painting

v t e Giovanni Bellini
List of works
Paintings	St. Jerome in the Desert (Birmingham) Madonna and Child (Pavia) Transfiguration (Venice) Pietà (Bergamo) Crucifixion Pietà (Milan) Agony in the Garden Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels Presentation at the Temple Christ Blessing (Paris) Frizzoni Madonna Madonna and Child Blessing The Blood of the Redeemer Madonna and Child (Milan, 1460–1465) Greek Madonna Nativity Triptych Saint Vincent Ferrer Altarpiece San Lorenzo Triptych San Sebastiano Triptych Triptych of the Madonna The Head of St John the Baptist Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels (Berlin) Dead Christ Supported by Angels (Rimini) The Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist Lehman Madonna Pesaro Altarpiece Portrait of Georg Fugger Lochis Madonna Madonna and Child (Verona) Enthroned Madonna Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child Madonna and Child (Venice, 1475) Madonna Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child St. Francis in Ecstasy Contarini Madonna Resurrection of Christ Portrait of a Humanist Transfiguration of Christ (Naples) Willys Madonna St. Jerome in the Desert (Florence) Saint Jerome Reading in a Landscape Alzano Madonna Madonna of the Red Cherubim Madonna and Child (New York, late 1480s) San Giobbe Altarpiece Madonna and Child with Saint Peter and Saint Sebastian Madonna of the Small Trees Barbarigo Altarpiece Frari Triptych Madonna and Child with Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Ursula Portrait of a Young Man in Red Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John the Baptist Portrait of a Young Man (Paris) Holy Allegory Portrait of a Young Senator Allegories Portrait of a Condottiero Annunciation Christ Blessing (Fort Worth) Circumcision of Christ* Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Florence) Portrait of a Young Man (Washington) Self-Portrait Portrait of a Young Man (Liverpool) Baptism of Christ Head of the Redeemer Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and a Female Saint Martinengo Pietà Portrait of a Young Man (Royal Collection) St. Jerome in the Desert (Washington) San Zaccaria Altarpiece Madonna del Prato Portrait of the Loredan Family The Infant Bacchus Sacred Conversation (Madrid) St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr Madonna and Child with Four Saints and Donor The Continence of Scipio Madonna and Child (Detroit) Madonna and Child (Rome) Madonna and Child (Milan, 1510) Virgin in Glory with Saints Saints Christopher, Jerome and Louis of Toulouse The Feast of the Gods Drunkenness of Noah Naked Young Woman in Front of a Mirror Portrait of Fra Teodoro of Urbino as Saint Dominic Deposition
Other	Martyrdom of Saint Maurice and his Comrades (illuminated manuscript; attributed)
Related	San Zaccaria, Venice (1995 photograph) Venetian Renaissance
Family	Jacopo Bellini (father) Gentile Bellini (brother) Andrea Mantegna (brother-in-law)
* Workshop

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