\paperw19995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 Italian painter.\par
The son of the painter Jacopo Bellini, Giovanni began his artistic career in his fatherÆs workshop, al
ong with his brother Gentile. In the paintings of his youth until around 1460, Giovanni used the late Gothic style of his father, but he soon came under the influence of his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, especially in works like the \i Transfiguration
\i0 (Venice, Museo Correr) or the Pesaro\i Crucifixion\i0 . However, BelliniÆs style is different from the epic one of Mantegna. He portrays a more intimate relationship between his figures and landscape has a softer tone and shading. These elements can
be seen in the \i Pietα\i0 (Milan, Brera) and the \i Saint Vincent Ferreri Polyptych\i0 (Venice, church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo), works in which the painter had fully developed his style. At the beginning of the 1470s Bellini painted the Pesaro alta
rpiece depicting the \i Coronation of the Virgin\i0 , whose majestic and limpid spatial structure reveals an awareness of Piero della Francesca as well as the contemporary Flemish masters. These influences were also to have an effect on later works, such
as the \i Transfiguration\i0 in Naples or the \i Saint Jerome\i0 (Florence, Palazzo Pitti), even the solemn compositions of the S\i an Giobbe Altarpiece\i0 (Venice, Galleria dellÆAccademia) and the \i Triptych\i0 in the church of the Frari in Venice
, dating from 1488. Another important factor in BelliniÆs development was his contact with Antonello da Messina, in Venice from 1474 to 1476, with whom a relationship of mutual influence was established û the Sicilian learned from the grand Venetian alta
rpieces while Bellini acquired a greater sensitivity in the handling of light and the painting of portraits, such as that of \i Jacopo Marcello\i0 (Washington, National Gallery). The early years of the sixteenth century brought a profound renewal in the
art of Bellini, who did not hesitate to accept the challenge of the new generation, that of Giorgione and the young Titian. In the \i San Zaccaria Altarpiece\i0 , in fact, we find an extraordinary equilibrium of form and a richness of color that seems t
o be a response to the altarpiece painted by Giorgione for Castelfranco Cathedral. In the last years of his life Bellini not only took a new look at the theme of the \i Madonna and Child\i0 in 1510 (Milan, Brera), but also began to produce paintings of
profane and mythological subjects, like the \i Feast of the Gods\i0 (Washington, National Gallery) in which the narrative idea is exploited to give the maximum of emphasis to the atmospheric landscape. Throughout his long career Bellini remained true to
precise formal values, while displaying a great openness toward his contemporaries: thus he can be said to be the true founder of the Venetian Renaissance.
