Giovanni, his more gifted brother, is the tenderest and noblest of Venetian painters. He gave more attention to individual figures than Gentile, uniting grace and firmness of outline with warmth and splendour of colouring; dignity and strength with variety and beauty of form. His creations, once seen, haunt us like memories of beloved friends. In early life Giovanni was much dominated by the personality of his brother-in-law Mantegna, to whom some of his works[71] have been attributed. A good example painted in tempera of his early Madonnas may be seen (No. 583) in the Accademia. An apocryphal story is told of the artist going to Antonello to have his portrait painted in order to learn the secret of painting in oils. But the new method must have been too well known to have made the trick necessary. Venice possesses several altar-pieces by Giovanni, besides the collection in the Accademia, now conveniently placed in Room XVIII. The altar-piece in the Frari and that in S. Zaccaria are the finest examples of the master’s art in Europe, painted in the maturity of his genius—1488 and 1505. They are held by Ruskin to be the two finest pictures in the world. In S. Pietro Martire at Murano is another of the same period. In 1474, says the annalist Malipiero, Zuano and Zentil Bellini, brothers, were employed at the Ducal Palace to restore the pictures of the meeting of Pope Alexander and the Emperor Barbarossa, which had fallen from the walls because of damp and old age. The brothers promised that their work should last two hundred years. They reckoned without the demon of fire, for a hundred years later it was devoured by the conflagration of 1577. An altar-piece in S. Giovanni Grisostomo, painted when Giovanni was eighty-seven years of age, proves that the old craftsman was ever a learner. Albert Dürer, when in Venice, was profoundly impressed by the veteran painter and wrote that although very old, he was still the best in his art. He died in 1516, full of years and rich in fame. Dürer was well treated at Venice. The Doge and the Patriarch came to see his paintings. Bellini praised him highly and offered to buy one of his works. His only complaint was that the Painters’ Guild summoned him three times before the magistrates, who ordered him to pay four ducats to the guild for permission to practise his art.
Vittore Carpaccio is the chief of the newer generation of painters trained under the influence of the Bellini. His talent for telling a story with richness of detail and quaint simplicity has never been surpassed. The series painted for the Guild of S. Ursula (1490-95) are admirable examples of his power, and of capital importance for the study of contemporary Venetian costume and architecture. Smaller in scale but equally charming and naive are the St George and the Dragon, and St Jerome series of paintings in the lower hall of S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni and the St George and the Dragon in the Sala del Conclave at the Salute. The well-known Presentation at the Temple, a noble work, No. 44 in the Accademia (1510), is obviously inspired by Giovanni Bellini. The altar-piece in S. Vitale (1514) and three paintings in the Accademia, Nos. 89, 90, 91, painted in 1515, are later works telling all too plainly of declining power. Little is known of Carpaccio’s life. He travelled in the East, was working at Venice in 1479, and died in 1525.
Sebastiani (Lazzaro Bastiani), his contemporary, worked with Gentile Bellini, Benedetto Diana and Mansueti in the decoration of the Guild of St John the Evangelist. The Offering of the Relic to the Brotherhood, No. 561 in the Accademia is by his hand. His works are rare. Three pictures in the Accademia; a Pietà in S. Antonino, much influenced by Squarcione; a more pleasing work, the S. Donato, at Murano—are all that Venice can show by this not greatly inspired artist. He was chosen by Giovanni Bellini, 1508, to value Giorgione’s frescoes on the façade of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and died in 1512.
To Mansueti are due two of the Guild of St John pictures, rich in examples of Venetian costume and architecture, and two scenes from the life of St Mark painted for the guild of that name, now placed in the apse of Room XV. in the Accademia. He and his colleague Benedetto Diana, who painted one of the legends of the Holy Cross for the Guild of St John, were influenced by Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. Benedetto’s masterpiece, the Virgin Enthroned, an early work, is in the Accademia, No. 82. The much-disputed Christ at Emmaus in S. Salvatore has been attributed to him. Only scraps of the biographies of these two artists are known. The former was lame, and died in 1530; the latter once competed successfully with Carpaccio for the painting of a gonfalone for the Guild of Charity, of which he was a member, and died in 1525. Marco Marziale, a follower of Carpaccio, was much influenced by Albert Dürer during his stay at Venice, as may be seen in the Supper at Emmaus, No. 76, the only work by him in the Accademia. Little is known of his life. He was painting in the Ducal Palace in 1492, and still living in 1507.
Cima, Giovanni Battista, da Conegliano, son of a cloth-dresser (Cimatore di panni), a pupil of Alvise Vivarini, and one of the many painters from the mainland to whom Venetian art owes so much, is a great typical colourist of the Bellini School. To a feeling for colour he brings the expression of his love for natural scenery. The beautiful background of mountain landscape, the dignity and warmth of the saintly figures, the romantic architecture with tufts of the erba della Madonna[72] growing from its crevices, in his altar-piece in the Madonna dell’ Orto, make it, though technically immature, one of the most delightful examples of Venetian art. Other maturer works by him are in S. Giovanni in Bragora and the Carmine. The Accademia possesses seven of his paintings. He was born in 1460, settled in Venice in 1490, and died about 1517. His Virgin and Child, with St Michael and St Andrew, now in the Parma Gallery, was long admired as a masterpiece by Da Vinci.
Marco Basaiti, a pupil of Alvise, and influenced by Bellini, is a good colourist and a lover of natural scenery; but his work lacks refinement, strength and character. The Accademia has five of his works, of which the Agony in the Garden, No. 69, is the best; another and later one, Peter Enthroned, is in S. Pietro di Castello. He was working between 1490 and 1521.
Catena (Vincenzio di Biagio), yet another of Giovanni Bellini’s school, is a sweet and graceful painter. The Martyrdom of S. Cristina in S. Maria Mater Domini is an early work of much charm. The church of S. Simeon Profeta has a picture by this master; two are in the Accademia and one in the Ducal Palace. The Judith in the Quirini-Stampalia and a Virgin and Child with the Baptist and a female saint, in the Palazzo Giovanelli are assigned to him by Mr Berenson. This noble and ingenuous artist has suffered much from the attribution of many of his best creations to Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. He was working between 1495 and 1531.