How can you recognise the genius of a painter without seeing the diversity of his work? It is true that the Madonnas and the Child were Bellini’s stock in trade, and he not only multiplied his representations, but also reproduced his compositions over and over again with the help of cartoons in order to better distribute them and make a profit from them. Nevertheless, the painter was not obsessed with Madonnas, and he devoted his brush to other subjects - religious, mythological, and some portraits as well - that we would have liked to admire. This was an opportunity, for example, to compare the panels of Saint Stephen and Saint Lawrence, rediscovered in 2019 and classified as national treasures, with the two paintings from the same polyptych, depicting Saint Anthony the Abbot and a Saint Bishop, probably Saint Augustine, long term loaned in the Louvre (see the news item of 1/10/20).
Finally, although the curators have brought together several masterpieces, a number of warts punctuate the exhibition and unfairly put the master’s talent into perspective. An exhibition in such a small space could only promise an anthology of the most beautiful paintings, and yet here the rooms are cluttered with Madonnas with the air of matrons, works from the studio or of disputed attribution (ill. 1). This little Jesus is quite red and his mother a bit clumsy.
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- 1. Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435-1516)
Mirgin with Child, c. 1457-1458
Tempera on panel - 78 x 56 cm
Private collection
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
A little further on, was it essential to hang a composition from Giovanni Bellini’s "workshop" - dull and without relief - next to a painting by Cima da Conegliano (ill. 2 and 3)? This confrontation wrongly suggests the superiority of the latter over the former, whereas other versions of this madonna are known, attributed to Bellini himself, notably the one in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.
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- 2. Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435-1516)
and workshop
Virgin and Child, c. 1485
Oil on panel - 73 x 56.5 cm
Private collection
Photo : Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 3. Cima da Conegliano (1459-1517)
Virgin and Child, c. 1500-1502
Oil on panel - 71.5 x 55 cm
Paris, Petit Palais Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris
Photo: bbsg - See the image in its page
The exhibition discusses the many references that Giovanni Bellini drew on, but does not insist so much on the role that he himself played in the early Italian Renaissance. He was first influenced by the style of his father, Jacopo, a representative of the international Gothic period, and then turned to the artists of Padua, particularly his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna and Donatello, both of whom were steeped in ancient culture. The tour then focuses on the Byzantine reminiscences in some of his paintings, before highlighting the importance of the Sicilian Antonello of Messina, who allowed the diffusion of oil painting in Italy. This technique was also propagated directly by the Flemish paintings, which had just arrived in the commercial crossroads that was Venice.
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- 4. After Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, known as Donatello (c. 1386-1466)
Virgin and Child, known as Madonna of Verona, c. 1450-1460
Polychrome papier mâché - 90 x 68 x 17 cm
Cento, Grimaldi Fava Collection
Photo: bbsg - See the image in its page
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- 5. Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435-1516)
Mirgin with Child, c. 1475
Oil on panel - 77 x 57 cm
Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
All of these influences are stated, but not actually shown, so the visitor must be content to believe what he reads on the labels. For the comparative works are very limited, and their presence is not always justified. Thus the choice of the two Mantegna paintings on display in this exhibition can only be explained by the fact that they are kept at the Musée Jacquemart-André: the moving Ecce Homo is a late painting produced in 1500, when the painter had not been in Padua for a long time, and was therefore no longer in contact with his brother-in-law. As for the Virgin and Child between St. Jerome and St. Louis of Toulouse, its attribution has been disputed several times. Some even saw in it a work from the circle of Giovanni Bellini, which proves the stylistic affinities of the two painters in the second half of the 1440s, but does not show what one borrowed from the other. To illustrate how the Venetian master interpreted Mantegna’s Madonnas, it would perhaps have been necessary to exhibit one of them whose attribution was certain.
A small relief by Donatello shows the Dead Christ. Bellini is said to have been directly inspired by it for a painting that visitors are asked to contemplate in their minds, since it remains in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. Further on, a Madonna and Child "after" Donatello, painted around 1450-1460, is confronted with a Madonna by the Venetian master; painted around 1475, it repeats a composition repeated several times before (ill. 4 and 5). In this late version, the landscape has disappeared in favour of a simple blue sky, giving more monumentality to the two figures. And yet, would it not have been more appropriate to exhibit a version of this painting that was more contemporary with the sculpture, such as the one in Berlin dated around 1460?
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- 6. Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435-1516)
Crucifixion, c. 1459
Tempera, oil (?) and gold on panel - 54.5 x 30 cm
Venice, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Museo Civico Correr
Photo: Museo Civico Correr - See the image in its page
The Crucifixion bears witness to the many visual sources from which the artist drew his inspiration, and from which the visitor sustains his imagination if not satisfies his eyes (ill. 6): the seraphim with golden wings evoke Byzantium, the anatomy of Jesus is borrowed from Donatello’s bronze Christ on the rood screen of the Basilica of Santo in Padua. The artist also looked at the Crucifixion that Mantegna depicted on the predella of the Retable of San Zeno, which remains in the Louvre; he takes up its pathetic tension, the treatment of the drapery, and the motif of the Cross fixed in stone slabs with wedges. But whereas Mantegna depicts Jerusalem in the background, Bellini prefers a poetic landscape.
Similarly, Saint Justina is based on the one painted by Andrea Mantegna twenty years earlier, which is absent from the exhibition: we find - we must believe it without seeing it - the same monumentality, the same motif of the knife in the chest and the gesture of the hand that holds the palm of martyrdom like a feather. Giovanni, however, renounces the golden background and brilliantly combines the warm light and the colour of the sky, blue and yellow.
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- 7. Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1435-1516)
Virgin with Child, c. 1475
Tempera and gold on panel - 65 x 46.5 cm
Ajaccio, Palais Fesch Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
Further on, a series of Virgins with Child recall that the Venetian painter sometimes took up the golden backgrounds and gestures of the Byzantine Madonnas. Nevertheless, of the three paintings in this section, two have a gilded background dating from the 19th century. Thus, a landscape would probably have appeared in the background of the Ajaccio composition before it was repainted (ill. 7); the notice further states that the state of conservation of this painting "is not ideal", and that the head of Christ is the best preserved part. But then, what is it doing there?
The next section deals with the influence of the North, and more particularly of the Flemish paintings that reached Venice, notably those of Jan Van Eyck and Memling, which Bellini could admire. Since oil painting allowed for transparency and precision in the rendering of details, the Venetian master tried his hand at painting landscapes that were both realistic and poetic. He also responded to the new models of the Devotio moderna, designing figures of saints closer to the faithful.
Antonello of Messina played an essential role in helping to spread oil painting in Italy. His arrival in Venice in 1475 encouraged Bellini to perfect his technique and to move towards a more assertive colouring. Here again, the influence that the Venetian exerted on the Sicilian in return is not developed, only mentioned. However, the Christ on the Cross, which was initially attributed to Antonello before being returned to Bellini, bears witness to these exchanges between the two artists. Although the title of the exhibition announces "cross-influences", the focus is often on the influences on the master. What role did he play in the evolution of Italian painting? In what way was he a precursor?
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- 8. Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1435-1516)
Mother and Child Between Saint John the Baptist, and a Saint
or Giovanelli Saint Conversation, c. 1500
Tempera and oil on panel - 55 x 77 cm
Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia
Photo: bbsg - See the image in its page
The last two sections are not very clear: one of them seems to confront the painter with the younger generation, embodied by Cima da Conegliano, who may have been one of his pupils. It was under his influence that Bellini’s landscapes, from the 1490s onwards, became more topographical, punctuated by recognisable buildings that allow religious history to be placed in the viewer’s reality. Why not include Bellini’s two great disciples, Giorgione and Titian, in this section? And why place the master once again in the role of debtor only?
The visitor is nevertheless invited to admire the Giovanelli Holy Conversation with its landscape, which is divided between town and country (ill. 8). This work testifies to the painter’s inventiveness and science of colour, through the subtlety of chiaroscuro, the shimmering reflections and the rich treatment of drapery.
The tour ends with a room entitled "the twilight of the gods", which evokes the last years of the master with The Drunkenness of Noah mocked by his sons. The old master gradually abandoned the precision of the outline, the linearity and the smooth surface, to paint in a way that was close to that of his former pupils, with broad and expressive strokes, seeking to obtain coloured effects that dissolve the forms in the light. And the visitor runs to buy the catalogue to glean a clearer purpose.
Curators: Neville Rowley and Pierre Curie
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Under the direction of Neville Rowley and Pierre Curie, Giovanni Bellini. Influences croisées, Coédition Fonds Mercator/Musée Jacquemart André, 2023, 192 p., 39,95 €, ISBN: 9789462303454
Practical information. Musée Jacquemart-André, 158 boulevard Haussmann 75008 Paris. Tel: 01 45 62 11 59 Price: 17 € (reduced: 13 €). Open every day from 10 am to 6 pm, until 8:30 pm on Monday.