This fine example of the master’s art may be seen at the Brera Gallery in Milan.
Students of the life of Fra Angelico know that a Dominican preacher exercised a very great effect upon the painter’s life, and was responsible for sending him, at a very early age, to the great Convent of the Dominicans at Fiesole. There he was received as a brother, and from the shelter of the cloister he gave his art message to the world, his story being preserved to us at the same time because the progress of the Dominicans was recorded. A few years later Giovanni Bellini, then a boy newly in his teens, would seem to have fallen under a very similar influence. He was not fourteen when St. Bernardino came to Padua and preached the doctrine of godliness and Jew-baiting to a people who were not ill-disposed towards asceticism. In the fifteenth century a boy of fourteen was a man. The Pope made Cardinals of lads who were still younger and many, who have left their names written large in Italian history, were married when they were fifteen. Gian Bellini would have been assisting his father in the decoration of the Gattemelata Chapel of Padua at the time and there is no doubt that St. Bernardino’s addresses impressed him very deeply. To be sure he did not go into a religious house after the fashion of Fra Angelico, but he turned his thoughts towards religion, and for the rest of his long life his brush was kept almost exclusively for the service of sacred art. The tendencies towards paganism that his father is known to have shown held no attraction for him. He sought to express the beauty of the New Testament stories, and it is hard to find throughout all Italy an artist whose achievements in that direction can vie with his, for Gian Bellini brought sensuous beauty and rare qualities of emotion to canvas for the first time in the history of painting.
In those early days of the middle century there were two acknowledged leaders of painting in the world that young Bellini knew. The first was his father, who is said to have studied in the studios of Gentile da Fabriano (1370 to 1450), and that of Pisanello who was born somewhere about the same time as da Fabriano, and died a year later. It is worth noting that Jacopo Bellini called one of his sons Gentile after his earliest master, though whether Gentile or Giovanni was the elder son remains uncertain. Mr. Roger Fry, who writes with great authority upon the subject, is of opinion that Gian may have been a natural son of Jacopo, and in those days when Popes had “nephews” in abundance, and the marriage vow was more honoured in the breach than the observance, very little stigma attached to illegitimacy. The other great painter of Gian Bellini’s time was the Paduan painter Squarcione, who presided over a large and flourishing school in his native city, and did work that was quite as good as that of his contemporaries. He adopted as his son a lad from Padua or Mantua named Andrea Mantegna, who was destined to take such high rank among the painters of the Venetian School.
Although Padua and Venice were in a sense rivals, there seems to have been a very friendly understanding for many years between Squarcione and Jacopo Bellini, so that Gian and Gentile were able to watch the progress of the Paduan master and his pupils, and to decide for themselves how much they would accept, and what they would reject of the teaching. In early years these influences must have been of great value to the painter, but happily they were not destined to be lasting, for when Gian’s sister married Andrea Mantegna, Squarcione quarrelled with his adopted son, and the intimacy with the Bellini family came to an end. This is as it should have been in the best interests of Gian Bellini’s art, for when he returned to Venice and settled down there permanently, he was able to follow his own ideas, and free himself from what was bad in the influence of the stiff, formal, and lifeless school of Padua.
Venice must have been a remarkable city in those years. To-day it stimulates the imagination as few cities in Europe can do, then it must have been one of the wonders of the world. There are some striking accounts of the city written in the latter part of the fifteenth century, and though space does not permit any quotation at length, one brief paragraph will not be out of place. Philippe de Comines, envoy of Charles VIII., came to Venice in 1494, and recalled his impressions of that city in his memoirs. “I was taken along the High Street,” he writes, “they call it the Grand Canal, and it is very broad, galleys cross it; and it is the fairest street, I believe, that may be in the whole world, and fitted with the best houses; the ancient ones are painted, and most have a great piece of porphyry and serpentine on the front. It is the most triumphant city I have ever seen, and doth most honour to ambassadors and strangers. It doth most wisely govern itself, and the service of God is most solemnly performed. Though the Venetians have many faults, I believe God has them in remembrance for the reverence they pay in the service of His Church.” This brief tribute to the charm of Venice is of special value because it helps us to understand why the Venetians were not strenuous seekers after knowledge, why their painters did no more than paint, and why their response to the humanities was so small. It explains the decorative quality of Bellini’s pictures, the splendour of their colours. Pageantry and ceremonial were the great desires of Venetian life, the man who could add to the lustre of a State procession along the splendid water-way of the Grand Canal was more to them than the scholar who had written a treatise that moved the more learned Florentines to admiration. Life was so full of pleasure, so varied in its appeals, that the Venetians could not spare time, or even develop the will to study. They had raised the old cry “panem et circenses” and, in the days of Gian Bellini, there was no lack of either. History is full of records that reveal other nations in a similar light, philosophers have drawn the inevitable conclusions—and the trend of life is no wise altered.
PLATE VI.—ALLEGORY: THE BARQUE OF LOVE
This is one of a little series of panel pictures by Bellini that may be seen in the Academy at Venice. The others depict Evil, Fate, Luxury, and Zeal, and Prudence. This picture is sometimes called “Venus ruling the World,” but such a title seems rather foreign to the painter’s own attitude.
