Otto Pacht, one of the most significant art-historians of the 'Vienna
School', and well known for his analyses of Early Netherlandish art,
turns his attention in this publication to the humanist circle of Early
Renaissance painters in Venice, dominated by Jacopo Bellini, his sons
Gentile and Giovanni, and also his son-in-law Andrea Mantegna. It was a
period of newly awakened interest in the Antique, of studies made
directly from nature, and of trial and error in the technique of
perspective. And in addition, a new awareness of the role of light and
colour in the devotional and often monumental images of the Madonna, of
altarpieces and of allegories contributed to the founding of what we now
recognise as the hall-mark of Venetian painting, that culminated with
Titian. Of the Bellini family, it has been Giovanni who was generally
regarded as the major figure of the dynasty. Pacht, however, devotes
particular attention to Jacopo's work, interpreting it as the basis for
his sons' later development. He analyses Jacopo's London and Paris
Sketchbook drawings, demonstrating where Late Gothic elements can be
seen to be overtaken by the need to give perspective depth to the image,
and how subsequent painting took account of these changes. This is also
the essence of Pacht's examination of Mantegna's work, where the
construction of space and depth is the key to our understanding of
Mantegna's creative process.Turning to the next generation of the
Bellini family, Pachts guides our eyes to appreciate the refinement and
perception of Gentile's portraits, and finally takes us step by step
through the works of Giovanni, where fantasy combines with the play of
colour and light in creating compositions, devotional images, and
landscape settings of perfect harmony and beauty.
