Bellini, Gentile

Bellini, Gentile

▪ Italian painter
born c. 1429, Venice [Italy]—buried Feb. 23, 1507, Venice
 
 Italian painter, member of the founding family of the Venetian school of Renaissance painting, best known for his portraiture and his scenes of Venice.

      Gentile was trained by his father, Jacopo Bellini (Bellini, Jacopo), a painter who introduced Renaissance concerns and motifs into Venice. At the beginning of Gentile's career, he worked with his father and his brother, Giovanni, and Jacopo's influence may be seen in Gentile's early Madonna. As an independent artist, he contracted with the officers of the San Marco School in 1466 to decorate the doors of their organ. These paintings represent four saints, colossal in size and designed with the harsh austerity and daring perspective that characterized the style of his brother-in-law, Andrea Mantegna (Mantegna, Andrea), then the most prominent painter of the Paduan school. The same influence may be seen in his Banner of Blessed Lorenzo Giustiniani (1465), with its sharp, incisive outlines and stiff drapery.

 In 1479 the doge (“duke”) of Venice sent Gentile to Constantinople as a painter to the court of the Sultan Mehmed II. The most important of the extant works that Gentile painted there is the Portrait of Mohammad II (c. 1480), a masterful characterization of the shrewd, cultivated ruler. In his pen-and-gouache drawing Seated Scribe (1479–80), Gentile employs a flat patterned style similar to that of the Turkish miniatures that influenced such later works as his Portrait of Doge Giovanni Mocenigo (1478–85).

 Among Gentile's best-known works are the scenes of Venice painted for the School of San Giovanni Evangelista, one of the many religious confraternities of the city. Those works deal with episodes related to a relic of the Holy Cross that the school owned. Those events are all but lost in the panorama of Procession in St. Mark's Square (1496) and the Miracle of the True Cross at the Bridge of S. Lorenzo (1500), huge canvases painted with painstaking attention to the smallest detail and crowded with small, rather rigid figures, including many portraits. A similar but lesser-known work is his St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (1493–1507), which was finished after Gentile's death by his brother, Giovanni, one of the best Venetian painters of the Renaissance. Gentile's paintings are of great interest today primarily as records of Venetian life and architecture during the 15th century.

Additional Reading
Caroline Campbell and Alan Chong (eds.), Bellini and the East (2005).

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Bellini, Gentile — (active c. 1460 1507)    Venetian painter; the son of Jacopo and brother of Giovanni Bellini. Gentile catered mainly to the scuole (confraternities) of Venice, though he is also known to have obtained governmental commissions, including a cycle… …   Dictionary of Renaissance art

  • BELLINI, GENTILE —    the son of Jacopo Bellini, was distinguished as a portrait painter; decorated along with his brother the council chamber of the ducal palace; his finest picture the Preaching of St. Mark (1421 1508) …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • Bellini, Gentile — ► (1429 1507) Pintor italiano. En 1479 se trasladó a Constantinopla, donde recibió influencias orientales. Destacan La predicación de san Marcos en Alejandría y Milagro de la Santa Cruz …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • BELLINI (LES) — Sous le nom de Bellini, on range trois peintres vénitiens: le père et les deux fils. À ces trois peintres, on doit rattacher Andrea Mantegna qui travailla avec eux et épousa la jeune Bellini. Véritable affaire de famille, puisque sous ces liens… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Bellini — Bellini, Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Bellini, Jacopo Bellini, Lorenzo Bellini, Vincenzo …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Gentile (surname) — Gentile is an Italian surname and given name. As an Italian surname or given name, it may refer to:urname* Anthony J. Gentile * Claudio Gentile * Dominic Salvatore Gentile (1920 1951), US American Air Force officer * Edera Gentile * Emilio… …   Wikipedia

  • Bellini, Giovanni — ▪ Italian painter born c. 1430, Venice [Italy] died 1516, Venice  Italian painter who, in his work, reflects the increasing interest of the Venetian artistic milieu in the stylistic innovations and concerns of the Renaissance. Although the… …   Universalium

  • Gentile Bellini — Autorretrato de Gentile Bellini Retrato del sult …   Wikipedia Español

  • Gentile Bellini — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Bellini. Autoportrait …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Gentile Bellini — (c. 1429 ndash; February 23, 1507) was an Italian painter. Born in Venice, the son of the painter Jacopo Bellini, he was christened Gentile after Jacopo s master, Gentile da Fabriano. [ [http://www.boglewood.com Italian Culture and History ] ]… …   Wikipedia

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