Giovanni Bellini, ‘San Zaccaria Altarpiece, Sacra Conversazione’, 1505, Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archive

About Giovanni Bellini

Giovanni Bellini was a painter of the Venetian School, and a sensitive and adept colorist. He was also lauded for his ability to create realist renderings and his choice of subject, which ranged from landscape to mythological narrative. Bellini had made his early paintings with tempera, but upon seeing Antonello da Messina’s oil paintings, he quickly adopted the new medium. From then, he was able to add depth and complexity to the hues in his works, and was remembered at his death for being a master of capturing natural light. Bellini and his brother Gentile likely began their training in the atelier of their father Jacopo Bellini, who was a Gothic revivalist. Bellini’s own apprentices included Giorgione and Titian, the latter of whom posthumously reworked his Feast of the Gods (1514).

Italian, 1430-1516, Venice, Italy, based in Venice, Italy