Jacopo Bellini | Led the Renaissance into Northern
Italy
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Madonna and
Child Jacopo Bellini
1448, Tempera on canvas on panel,
50 x 45 cm
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
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Venetian painter, Jacopo Bellini (c.1400-1470), was head of
a family of painters including sons Gentile and
Giovanni. An apprentice to International Gothic style
painter to Gentile da Fabriano,
Bellini's productive years were mostly spent in Venice. He
probably visited Florence in the 1420s with Fabriano, and
surfaced in Ferrara
in 1441 where he won a painting competition against Pisanello
to paint a portrait of the Duke of Ferrara.
Few of Jacopo Bellini's works survive today, and those that
do reflect the Gothic style. However, there are drawings in
notebooks in the Louvre (Paris) and British Museums (London)
which demonstrate his Interest in the new Renaissance
perspective
device showing rich narrative detail and fantasy
architecture. Jacopo Bellini is lauded as a forerunner of
the Renaissance in Northern Italy.
Brenda Harness, Art Historian
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