around 1435 -1516 · Venice and birth of modern color

Natural light, meditative landscapes and Madonnas of silent tenderness make Giovanni Bellini the founder of the great Venetian painting of the Renaissance.

Giovanni Bellini was born in Venice around 1435 into a dynasty of painters. He trained in the studio of his father Jacopo alongside his brother Gentile. His first works owe a lot to Andrea Mantegna, his brother-in-law: incisive contours, sculptural rocks and rigorous perspective then structured his figures. Bellini gradually transformed this heritage through a new attention to light, atmosphere and landscape. Antonello's passage from Messina to Venice in the 1470s reinforced the use of oil painting, which allowed more flexible transitions, deep colors and a luminous unity unknown to tempera. In his Madonnas, the Virgin and Child occupy an intimate space while a landscape of hills, paths and towns prolongs their spiritual state. His altarpieces, like that of San Giobbe or that of San Zaccaria, install the saints in an architecture bathed in a common light: sacred conversation becomes a credible and silent place. In 1479, Bellini worked with Gentile on the cycle of the Doge's Palace, now destroyed, and soon directed one of the most important workshops in Venice. Giorgione and Titian formed in its orbit, while Cima da Conegliano and many Belliniani distributed his models. Giorgione and Titian formed in its orbit, while Cima da Conegliano and many Belliniani spread his models. Giorgione and Titian formed in its orbit, while Cima da Conegliano and many Belliniani spread his models. Giorgione and Titian formed in its orbit, while Cima da Conegliano and many Belliniani spread his models. Giorgione and Titian formed in its orbit, while Cima da Conegliano and many Belliniani spread his models. Giorgione and Titian formed in its orbit, while Cima da Conegliano and many Bellinian founded with a freedom that dialogues with the new generation. Died in 1516, Bellini made natural light the unifying principle of Venetian painting and gave the landscape a decisive emotional function. The "Giovanni Bellini" selection notably compares Angel of the Annunciation and Virgin of the Annunciation and Madonna del Prato. His reading favors the story.

Bellini does not place the figure in front of a landscape: he grants the face, the sky and the earth in the same meditative light.