Jacopo Bellini (c. 1400 – c. 1470) was one of the founders of theRenaissance style of painting inVenice and northern Italy. His sonsGentile andGiovanni Bellini, and his son-in-lawAndrea Mantegna, were also famous painters.[1]
Few of Bellini's paintings still exist, but his surviving sketch-books (one in theBritish Museum and one in theLouvre) show an interest in landscape and elaborate architectural design and are his most important legacy. His surviving works show how he accommodated linear perspective to the decorative patterns and rich colours ofVenetian painting.
Born inVenice, Jacopo had probably been a pupil ofGentile da Fabriano, who was then in Venice. In 1411–1412, he was inFoligno, where with Gentile he worked at thePalazzo Trinci frescoes. In 1423 Bellini was inFlorence, where he knew the new works byBrunelleschi,Donatello,Masolino da Panicale andMasaccio. In 1424, he opened a workshop in Venice, which he ran right up until his death, and which trained his sons and other artists.
Many of his greatest works, including the enormousCrucifixion in thecathedral of Verona (1436), have disappeared. From c. 1430 is the panel withMadonna and Child, in theAccademia Carrara, once attributed to Gentile da Fabriano. In 1441, atFerrara, where he was at the service ofLeonello d'Este together withLeon Battista Alberti, he executed a portrait of that Marquess, now lost. Of this period survives theMadonna dell'Umiltà, probably commissioned by one of the brothers of Leonello.[2]
The influence fromMasolino da Panicale towards more modern, earlyRenaissance themes is visible in theMadonna with Child (dated 1448) in thePinacoteca di Brera: for the first time, perspective is present and the figures are more monumental. Later, he contributed with works now lost to the Venetian churches ofSan Giovanni Evangelista (1452) andSt. Mark (1466). From 1459 is aMadonna with Blessing Child in theGallerie dell'Accademia.
Later, he sojourned inPadua, where he trained a youngAndrea Mantegna in perspective and classicist themes and where, in 1460, he finished a portrait ofErasmo Gattamelata, now lost. Of his late phase, a ruinedCrucifix in the Museum of Verona and anAnnunciation in the church ofSant'Alessandro ofBrescia remain.
Giovanni Fontana showed Bellini a treatise on perspective.[3]
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