This exhibition retraces the career of the painter through some fifty works from European public and private collections. The exhibition is arranged according to a chrono-thematic order, “with Bellini’s paintings as the common thread, and is put in dialogue with the ‘models’ than inspired them.”
“Born into a family of artists, Giovanni Bellini frequented, with his brother Gentile, the studio of their father, Jacopo Bellini, a painter of Gothic training who soon mastered the principles of Florentine Renaissance art. The young artist immersed himself in the art alongside his father, brother and his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, whom his sister Nicolosia had just married.”
“Classicism, sculptural forms, and a good command of Mantegna’s perspective had a great influence on the artist. His work became more monumental as a result of studying the works of Donatello, which were visible in Padua.”
Bellini’s style changed with the arrival in Venice of Antonello da Messina, who joined the Flemish taste for detail with the spatial constructions of artists of central Italy. Giovanni found a new dramatic intensity by perfecting the technique of oil painting. He draws from Byzantine and northern European art elements that will mark his style.
In search of renewal, “he also developed themes that had been depicted by younger painters, such as topographical landscapes inspired by Cima da Conegliano. Bellini’s latter period was characterized by more vibrant but highly modern strokes. In a uniqye way, it was the innovations of his best pupils –in particular, Giorgione and Titian – that pushed the older Bellini to reinvent his style.”
“The exhibition benefits from exceptional loans from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, in addition to loans from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Museo Correr, the Gallerie dell’Accademia and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan, the Petit Palais in Paris, and the Louvre Museum, as well as numerous loans from private collections of works some of which have never before been shown to the public.”
Giovanni Bellini, Jacquemart-André Museum, 158 boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris. Until July 17, 2023. Every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday evenings until 8:30 p.m. Last admission 30 minutes before closing. Full price: €17.
Beginning on March 3, 2023, the Musée Jacquemart-André is hosting the first exhibition in France devoted to the work of the great master Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435-1516), father of the Venetian school.