The style of the picture commissioned makes its own significant commentary upon the times. It was always considered advisable to stir in the Venetians appreciation for State ceremonial, which encouraged so much of the pageantry associated with Venetian life and, even if Giovanni Bellini had no keen taste for such work, he could not refuse a commission that would establish his name among his fellow countrymen. To-day the Sala del Maggior Consiglio holds pictures by Titian, Paul Veronese, and other artists who followed closely upon Gian Bellini’s era.
III
THE LATTER DAYS
Shortly after the Council Hall pictures had been undertaken, in 1479, to be exact, the Sultan, Mohammed II., conqueror of Constantinople, wished to have his portrait painted, and applied to the Doge of Venice to send him a competent artist to do the work. It should be remembered that the Sultan had been waging a successful war upon Venice, and that in January 1479 the State had ceded Scutari, Stalimene, and other territory and had agreed to pay an indemnity of 200,000 ducats, with a tribute of 10,000 ducats a year for trading rights and the exercise of consular jurisdiction in Constantinople. Naturally the success of the Turks, who had taken Constantinople in 1454, was making a very great impression throughout Europe, and Venice had striven to the uttermost to rouse the Powers to concerted action, but in those days nobody was anxious to trust the Republic. These are matters, of course, that pertain to history rather than art, but it is curious to remember that throughout the times when the watchers from St. Mark’s Tower saw the reflected glare of burning cities, when the security of Christian Europe was threatened seriously, when plagues were devastating Venice, Gian Bellini seems to have gone on his way all undisturbed, painting his pictures in the most leisurely fashion, and the fact that art stood right above politics and strife is clearly shown in the action of the Sultan in sending to Venice for a good artist as soon as peace had been restored. There seems to have been some question of sending Gian because his brother was busily engaged on other work in the Ducal Palace, but after a while it was decided to send Gentile, who painted a portrait of the Sultan that found its way afterwards into the Layard Collection in Venice. Some surprise has been expressed that the Sultan should have allowed any one to paint his portrait, because portrait painting is forbidden by the Koran[1], but Mohammed II. was a man of very advanced ideas and he not only gave sittings to Gentile Bellini, but treated him with the greatest favour, dismissing him with many marks of approval and great gifts. Among the presents brought back to Venice by the painter were the armour and sword of the great Doge Dandolo, who had been buried in the year 1205 in the private chapel in St. Sophia. Mohammed II. had caused the great tomb to be destroyed, but he sent the great patriot’s armour back to its native land. Vasari tells us that the meeting between the brothers on Gentile’s return to Venice was most affectionate.
[1] Mohammed said: “If ye must make pictures, make them of trees and things without souls. Verily every painter is condemned to hell fire.”
This journey to Constantinople would seem to have added to the reputation of the house of Bellini, and to have increased the demand for portraits by both brothers. This, in its way, would doubtless have led to the multiplying of school pieces. History has very little to tell of the progress of the brothers during the years that followed. We know that the Doge Loredano, whose portrait has been painted by Gian Bellini, succeeded to his high office in 1501, that Titian would have been working in Bellini’s studio then, and that Bellini himself was in the enjoyment of what was known as a broker’s patent, and was official painter to the State. His was the duty of painting the portrait of every Doge who succeeded to the control of Venetian affairs during his term of office, and he also painted any historical picture in which the Doge had to figure. There was a salary attached to the office, and the work was quite light. As far as we can tell Gian Bellini was still averse from painting secular subjects. He was now an old man, but he had made great progress in his work, conquering many of the difficulties of perspective, shadow, and colouring that had baffled his predecessors. The pageants demanded by the great Mutual Aid Societies (Scuole) from the artists in their employ, he would seem to have left to his brother Gentile, for these pictures had a big political purpose to serve, and they demanded the travel, the experience, and the mood that Gian lacked. His brush was sufficiently occupied with altar-pieces and portraits of distinguished Venetians, now, alas, lost to the world.
One incident that is not without its instructive side in this connection is recorded in the year 1501, when Isabella, Duchess of Mantua, sent her agent in Venice to Gian Bellini to arrange with him to paint a secular subject. The old painter, now in the neighbourhood of his seventieth year, accepted money on account, and then turned his thoughts to other things. The agent worried him from time to time with little or no effect, and wrote despairing letters to the Duchess to convey Bellini’s various excuses. Not until 1504, when the Duchess was proposing to take legal action, was the picture finished, and then it does not seem to have been what was required. At the same time it must have been a work of great merit, because a year later we find the Duchess commissioning another picture, and asking for a secular subject, which the old painter after much hesitation refused to paint.
This picture is from the Brera Gallery in Milan and is held by many of the painter’s admirers to be his finest presentment of the Mother and the Son. It is certainly a work of most enchanting beauty, one to which the eye turns again and again.
