The Louvre: Fifty Plates in Colour

by Paul G. Konody; Maurice W. Brockwell

THE BELLINI

The sunny splendour of Venetian painting reached its zenith in the bottega of the Bellini. Gentile, who was sent to Constantinople with the authority of the Republic in 1479, painted portraits, ceremonial, religious, and historical pictures, many of which are on a large scale, while Giovanni was for many years the greatest teacher and the most influential painter in Venetian territory. Giovanni executed a large number of panels and canvases which in the period of his maturity exhibit a profound sense of dignity, beauty, religious feeling, and rich deep colour. Most of those which are signed in a cartellino “ioannes bellinus” (in capitals and, of course, in pigment of the period) are authentic works from his own hand. The majority of those which bear what to the unpractised eye might be taken for his personal signature, but are only signed in uncials (“Ioannes Bellinus”), must be regarded as mere studio productions. In the sixteenth century no one was misled by these alternative methods of personal signature and studio-mark. Although the Louvre authorities catalogue two pictures under the name of Gentile and three under that of Giovanni, none of them is from the hand of either of these brothers.

Bartolommeo Vivarini of Murano (fl. 1450–1499) was the pupil of Giovanni d’Allemagna, who worked in Venice, and Antonio Vivarini. He painted a large panel of St. John of Capistrano (No. 1607), which is signed and dated

OPVS BARTHOLOMEI VI[V]ARINI DE MURAHO—1459.

Alvise or Luigi Vivarini (fl. 1461–1503), the nephew of Bartolommeo, was the last and most distinguished painter in the Murano school. He carried on the old traditions of Early Venetian art until the day when the rival school of the Bellini had become supreme in Venice, and so had begun to prepare the way for the triumphs of the Giorgionesque period—the golden age of Venetian painting. The Portrait of a Man (No. 1519), catalogued under the name of Savoldo (1480?–1548?) is by Alvise. This magnificent bust-length picture represents Bernardo di Salla, who holds in his gloved right hand a paper inscribed “Dono Bnardo di Salla.” It vividly recalls the Portrait of a Man with a Hawk at Windsor, which, although it traditionally but erroneously bears the name of Leonardo da Vinci and has been ascribed to Savoldo, is in all probability another of the rare portraits by Alvise.

From the Vivarini group issues Carlo Crivelli (1430?–1493?). His morosely ascetic compositions, with their elaborate draperies, jewelled ornamentation, and at times grotesque anatomy, distinguish his polyptychs, all of which are painted in tempera, from those of any other painter in the whole range of art. His large panel picture of St. Bernardino of Siena (No. 1268) is inscribed

OPUS CAROLI CRIVELLI VENETI, 1477.

It belongs to his middle period, and was painted nine years earlier than his magnificent Annunciation, now one of the gems of the National Gallery (No. 739); both these pictures came from the Church of the Annunziata at Ascoli.

Another painter who carried on the Vivarini tradition but was influenced by Giovanni Bellini, was Giovanni Battista Cima (1460?–1517?), whose art is adequately shown in the Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Mary Magdalene (No. 1259). The signature

IOANIS BAPT.
CONEGLANES.
OPVS.

as well as the internal evidence of the picture show it to be an authentic work.

One of the best, but until recent years one of the least known, members of that brilliant group of painters who flourished at Venice in the early half of the sixteenth century was Lorenzo Lotto (1480–1556). He practised his art in many parts of Italy, and for that reason has been less generally known than many of his contemporaries. He was a pupil of Alvise Vivarini, but benefited largely by the example of Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. His art is not well seen in the small St. Jerome (No. 1350), which is signed and dated “lotvs 1500” and must therefore be one of his earliest and least ambitious works, nor in his Holy Family (No. 1351) which was formerly attributed to Dosso Dossi. Replicas have been found of his Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery (No. 1349).

PLATE IX.—ANTONELLO DA MESSINA
(1430–1479)
VENETIAN SCHOOL
No. 1134.—PORTRAIT OF A CONDOTTIERE
(Portrait d’homme dit le Condottiere)

Bust portrait, turned three-quarters to the left. He wears a black doublet, above the collar of which is visible the edge of a white linen under-garment. Under his cap is seen his zazzara of red-brown hair.

Painted in oil on panel.

Signed:

“1474
Antonellus Messaneus me
pinxit.”

1 ft. 1 in. × 11 in. (0·33 × 0·28.)

Although we possess very detailed records of Antonello da Messina (1430–1479), his movements and his life’s work, it is only in recent years that they have been studied with any care. This Sicilian-born artist obviously cannot have set out for Flanders and there have learnt from Jan van Eyck (who died in 1441) the “discovery” of oil as a medium in painting, as Vasari tells us. But he may have seen in Italy a picture by the great Northern artist and from it have acquired some facility in the use of oil and in finishing with glazes of oil panels which had been begun in tempera. He was certainly in Venice in 1475–76, if not earlier, and his Portrait of a Condottiere (No. 1134, [Plate IX.]), which is characteristically signed and dated

1474
Antonellus Messaneus me
pinxit

belongs to that period of his full maturity. It was purchased at the Pourtalès-Gorgier sale in 1865 for £4767. In any case, the discoveries with which Antonello is credited within a few years completely revolutionised the methods of painting throughout Italy, and prepare us for the wonderful achievements of the later Venetians, who followed and improved upon the Bellini tradition.

Vittore Carpaccio (1455?–1526) was, like Gentile Bellini, a painter of Venetian fêtes, pageantry, and religious pictures on an imposing scale. Nothing is known of Carpaccio’s artistic descent, but his work shows traces of the influence of Jacopo Bellini and of Lazzaro Bastiani, who was the head of a group of artists whose art was based on the tradition of such early painters as Jacobello del Fiore. Carpaccio’s Preaching of St. Stephen at Jerusalem (No. 1211) is one of the series of five incidents from the Life of St. Stephen which were painted by this artist between 1511 and 1520 for the Scuola di S. Stefano at Milan. The others of the series are now in the Milan Gallery (No. 170—signed and dated 1513), at Berlin (No. 23), and at Stuttgart. The Louvre obtained this canvas, which varies from the others in size, from the Milan Gallery in 1813, when together with Boltraffio’s Madonna of the Casio Family (No. 1169) and other pictures it was exchanged for works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens.

To Vincenzo Catena (14..?–1531?) may be assigned, on stylistic grounds, the Reception of a Venetian Ambassador at Cairo in 1512 (No. 1157). In any case, it cannot have been executed by Gentile Bellini, as alleged in the Catalogue, as the audience here depicted did not take place until five years after that master’s death!

Another Bellinesque painter was Bartolommeo Veneto (fl. 1505–1555). We shall, following the suggestion of Venturi, assign to him the excellent but officially unattributed Portrait of a Lady (No. 1673) which hangs to the right of Raphael’s La Belle Jardinière.