Bellini, Giovanni

Bellini, Giovanni (c.1430–1516) Italian painter, from a famous artistic family. Giovanni's father, Jacopo (c.1400–c.1470), was a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano. His major surviving works are two sketchbooks – the source of many works by his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna and his two sons Giovanni and Gentile. Gentile (c.1429–1507) was famous for his narrative works (such as The Miracle of the True Cross) which became the prototype of the genre in Venice. Giovanni was the greatest painter of the family, and single-handedly transformed Venice into a great centre of the Renaissance. The most important influences on his work were Mantegna and Antonello da Messina. In Bellini's early works, the treatment of nature was precise and realistic but it gradually became poetic and monumental. Despite an extraordinary series of allegorical and mythological paintings, he is chiefly remembered as a religious painter. His pictures emphasize light and colour as a means of expression. Many of the leading painters of Venice trained in his studio, including Titian, Palma Vecchio, Sebastiano del Piombo, and possibly Giorgione.

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