Giovanni Bellini "Landscapes os faith in renaissance venice"

Praised by Albrecht Dürer as being the best in painting, Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1430 1516) is unquestionably the supreme Venetian painter of the quattrocento and one of the greatest Italian artists of all time. His landscapes assume a prominence unseen in Western art since classical antiquity. Drawing from a selection of masterpieces that span Bellini's long and successful career, this exhibition catalogue focuses on the main function of landscape in his oeuvre: to enhance the meditational nature of paintings intended for the private devotion of intellectually sophisticated, elite patrons. The subtle doctrinal content of Bellini's work the isolated crucifix in a landscape, the sacred conversation, the image of Saint Jerome in the wilderness is always infused with his instinct for natural representation, resulting in extremely personal interpretations of religious subjects immersed in landscapes where the real and the symbolic are inextricably intertwined.

This volume includes a biography of the artist, essays by leading authorities in the field explicating the themes of the J. Paul Getty Museum's exhibition, and detailed discussions and glorious reproductions of the twelve works in the show, including their history and provenance, function, iconography, chronology, and style.