The Cambridge companion to Giovanni Bellini

Giovanni Bellini was the dominant painter of Early Renaissance Venice and is today recognized as one of the greatest of all Italian Renaissance artists. Although he has been the subject of numerous scholarly studies, his art continues to pose intriguing problems. This volume brings together commissioned essays that focus on important topics and themes in Bellini's career. They include a consideration of Bellini's position in the social and professional life of early modern Venice; reassessments of his artistic relationships with his brother-in-law Mantegna, with Flemish painting, and with the 'modern style' that emerged in Italy around 1500; and explorations of Bellini's approaches to sculpture and architecture, and to landscape and color, elements that have always been recognized as central to his pictorial genius. The volume concludes with analyses of Bellini's constantly evolving pictorial technique and the procedures of his busy workshop.