Christ Blessing (Bellini, 1500)

Last updated
Christ Blessing
Giovanni Bellini - Christ Blessing - Google Art Project.jpg
Artist Giovanni Bellini
Yearc. 1500
Mediumtempera, oil, and gold on panel
Dimensions59 cm× 47 cm(23 in× 19 in)
Location Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Christ Blessing is a painting by Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini created around the year 1500. [1]

Contents

Analysis

The portrait depicts Jesus Christ, raising his right hand while gripping a red staff with the other. Christ's wounds are slightly visible on his hand as well as his chest. The shadows indicate the reality of his Resurrection. Meanwhile, the landscape in the background contains many motifs signifying the Resurrection. The withered tree and solitary bird on the left of the panel represent the Old Covenant, out of which the New Covenant will grow. The pair of rabbits in the lower left corner are symbols of regeneration, and the three robed figures in the lower right corner are the Three Marys. The bell tower in the distance conveys the message that salvation can be found through Christ and the Church. [2] Although the species is not very clear, the bird has been said to be a magpie, a species also featured in Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Magpie on the Gallows (1568). [3]

Exhibition

The painting is currently held in the Kimbell Art Museum. In January 2017, the painting was displayed at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, as part of the "Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice" exhibition. [4]

Related Research Articles

Giovanni Bellini 15th and 16th-century Italian Renaissance painter

Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his father, but now that familial generational relationship is questioned. An older brother, Gentile Bellini was more highly regarded than Giovanni during his lifetime, although the reverse is true today. His brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna.

Jacopo Bellini

Jacopo Bellini was one of the founders of the Renaissance style of painting in Venice and northern Italy. His sons Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna, were also famous painters.

Vittore Carpaccio 15th and 16th-century Italian painter

Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian Renaissance painting during his lifetime. He was influenced by the style of Antonello da Messina and Early Netherlandish art. For this reason, and also because so much of his best work remains in Venice, his art has been rather neglected by comparison with other Venetian contemporaries, such as Giovanni Bellini or Giorgione.

Bartolomeo Montagna Italian painter

BartolomeoMontagna was an Italian Renaissance painter who mainly worked in Vicenza. He also produced works in Venice, Verona, and Padua. He is most famous for his many Madonnas and his works are known for their soft figures and depiction of eccentric marble architecture. He is considered to be heavily influenced by Giovanni Bellini, in whose workshop he might have worked around 1470. Benedetto Montagna, a productive engraver, was his son and pupil and active until about 1540. He was mentioned in Vasari's Lives as a student of Andrea Mantegna but this is widely contested by art historians.

Marco Basaiti

Marco Basaiti was a Renaissance painter who worked mainly in Venice and was a contemporary of Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano. He has been referred to by several names including Marco Baxaiti, Marcus Basitus, and Marcus Baxiti. There is little documentation on Marco Basaiti besides his painting signatures and a guild's ledger of 1530 ithat records him as a painter of figures.

Michele Giambono

Michele Taddeo di Giovanni Bono, known as Giambono was an Italian painter, whose work reflected the International Gothic style with a Venetian influence. He designed the mosaics of the Birth of the Virgin and Presentation in the Temple. His best known paintings are the Man of Sorrows and the St. Peter.

<i>St. Francis in Ecstasy</i> (Bellini)

St. Francis in Ecstasy is a painting by Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, started in 1475 and completed around 1480. Bellini depicted the religious figure of St. Francis of Assisi in the landscape. In 1852, the painting was listed on June 19 at Christie's. It was part of the 1857 Manchester Art Treasures exhibition. In 1915, Henry Clay Frick bought the painting for $170,000, and it remains in the Frick Collection, in New York City.

The decade of the 1460s in art involved some significant events.

Themes in Italian Renaissance painting

This article about the development of themes in Italian Renaissance painting is an extension to the article Italian Renaissance painting, for which it provides additional pictures with commentary. The works encompassed are from Giotto in the early 14th century to Michelangelo's Last Judgement of the 1530s.

<i>The Feast of the Gods</i> Painting by Giovanni Bellini

The Feast of the Gods is an oil painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, with substantial additions in stages to the left and center landscape by Dosso Dossi and Titian. It is one of the few mythological pictures by the Venetian artist. Completed in 1514, it was his last major work. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., which calls it "one of the greatest Renaissance paintings in the United States".

<i>Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan</i> Painting by Giovanni Bellini

The Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan is a painting by Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, dating from c. 1501–02. It portrays Leonardo Loredan, Doge of Venice from 1501 to 1521, in his ceremonial garments with the corno ducale worn over a linen cap, and is signed IOANNES BELLINVS on a cartellino. It is on display in the National Gallery in London.

Timothy Potts

Dr. Timothy Potts is an Australian art historian, archaeologist, and museum director. He became the director of the J. Paul Getty Museum on 1 September 2012.

<i>Haller Madonna</i>

The Haller Madonna is an oil painting by Albrecht Dürer, dating to between 1496 and 1499. It is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The reverse also contains a full Dürer painting, entitled Lot and His Daughters.

<i>Montini Altarpiece</i>

The Montini Altarpiece is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Cima da Conegliano, dating from around 1506-1507 and housed in the Galleria Nazionale of Parma, Italy.

<i>Willys Madonna</i>

Virgin with the Standing Child, Embracing his Mother, also known as Willys Madonna is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini. It is now in the São Paulo Museum of Art in São Paulo, Brazil.

Girolamo Mocetto

Girolamo Mocetto was an Italian Renaissance painter, engraver, and stained glass designer. He was heavily influenced by Domenico Morone, Giovanni Bellini, Bartolomeo Montagna, Cima da Conegliano, and especially Andrea Mantegna. He is most important as an engraver, and his engravings of the compositions of others are his most successful prints.

<i>Head of Christ</i> (Correggio)

Head of Christ is a painting in oil on panel by the Italian Renaissance painter Correggio, dated 1521. It depicts the head of Christ, wearing the crown of thorns. In the background there is a white cloth showing that the image represents the Veil of Veronica, but Christ's head is given volume through alternate use of light and dark shadows. The painting is in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Los Angeles. Correggio was known for creating some of the most sumptuous religious paintings of the period. The Getty Museum considers this artwork as one of the masterpieces of painting held by the museum.

<i>The Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist</i>

Pietà or The Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist is a c. 1465–1470 tempera on panel painting by Giovanni Bellini, now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.

<i>St. Jerome in the Desert</i> (Bellini, Birmingham) Painting by Giovanni Bellini in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham

St. Jerome in the Desert is a c. 1450 egg tempera on wood painting by Giovanni Bellini, now in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, England.

References

  1. "Giovanni Bellini, Christ Blessing". Kimbell Art Museum. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  2. "Christ Blessing". Google Arts and Culture. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  3. Jenkins, Philip (17 March 2015). "Untangling the Mystery of the Bird and the Cross in a Masterpiece". Aleteia. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  4. Knight, Christopher. "Bellini masterpieces at the Getty make for one of the year's best museum shows". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 13 May 2019.