Giovanni Bellini was a 15th-century Venetian painter recognized for his harmonious application of color (Bellini, 2016). His works combined various techniques of the Renaissance. Regardless of his age, Giovanni was considered by the German painter, Albrecht Durer, as the best painter. His father and brother, Jacopo Bellini and Gentile Bellini, were also painters. Through his father, Bellini was able to familiarize himself with the workings of Florentine painters during his childhood period. Owing to the greater influence from the works of his family and his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, Bellini produced frescoes along with tempera painting within the first few years of his career. In 1474, Bellini met with a certain oil painter named Antonello da Messina, who introduced him to the oil painting methods (Wilson, 2015, p.175). This resulted in a distinctive blend of Venetian fresco painting with the approaches of the early painters belonging to the Netherlands. This gave Belin's work an extraordinary sense of luminousness and depth. Bellini’s major preoccupation was to maintain a close attention to clarity and expressiveness, which was manifested in most of his artworks.
Bellini’s earliest independent painting was greatly influenced by his father's gothic graceful style together with that of his brother-in-law, Mantegna. Some of Bellini's earliest works included a crucifixion and a transfiguration along with the paintings of a dead Christ guarded by angles (Bätschmann, 2018, p.78). A number of these pictures are in the US. Other pictures are in the Correr Civic Museum located in Venice. Four triptychs and three panels utilized as altarpieces are found in Venice Academia. Moreover, the two Pietas in Milan are also from this early age. Bellini's paintings such as Saint Jerome in the Desert resemble those of his father and brother-in-law. Besides, Bellini's paintings have clearly delineated figures and rocky landscapes. The careful attention to clarity shows Bellini's major preoccupation relating to expressiveness.
During his early years, Bellini worked with tempera, a painting executed with pigments, combining the rigorousness and inflexibility of Paduan School with a richness of religious feeling. His early work, Madonna, a devotional representation of Mary, which is in line with his father's tradition, is very beautiful in expression, though he substituted for a decorative richness based on a sensuous observation of nature (Gibbs, 2015, p.295). From the beginning, Bellini was a natural light painter just like Masaccio, the creator of a Renaissance painting. In most of his pictures, the sky is reflected behind the figures in stripes of water, creating horizontal lines on a mere landscape. In one of Bellini's artwork, the Agony in the Garden, the horizon lies over a wide landscape and covers the figures to express the drama of the scene. Considering the dramatis personae, the structure of the landscape gives more expression. Moreover, some parts of the expression are played by the colors in their full brilliance. This generally shows Bellini's major preoccupation relating to color, which is manifested in the Agony in the Garden.
The great combination of the altarpiece with St. Vincent Ferrer, currently found in the Saints Giovanni e Paolo church in Venice, was painted 10 years after his first artworks (Wilson, 2015, p.94). However, the rule of composition and the technique of painting had not been altered yet. In fact, it had grown stronger in expression. Bellini's work changed after meeting with Antonello da Messina. In particular, their encounter led to the change in Bellini's work from his first style, Mantegnesque, to a mature and independent manner (Bätschmann, 2018, p.102). This is reflected in most of his later works such as the San Giobbe Altarpiece. It is the painter's technique of using a medium that brings about the difference, and it also depends on his aims and vision. It was Bellini’s broader vision that determined the development in his artworks. Unlike the tempera paints which represented the medium of Bellini's first career, oil paints tend to be more transparent, and therefore offer a richer color and tone by including the degree of glazing in his art. This technique, coupled with the unique varieties that he used to handle oil paints, resulted in a fully mature painting.
In essence, there are a number of motives which are associated with the use of oil paints rather than tempera. The choice of print media has a greater influence on the appearance of a painting. A paint media defines the visual property of a painting. In order to imitate tonal transition in nature, all colors used in a particular painting should be at their greatest intensity when in full light. The intensity can then be decreased with the reduction of illumination. With the use of oil, this effect is produced with ease. The slow drying process of oil enables the painter to have a continuous value progression by mixing color on the support of the canvas. Moreover, with oil paints, deep-toned shadows can easily be achieved without the loss of intensity by using several transparent glazes over impervious under layers (Bätschmann, 2018, p.143).
By contrast, tempera dries so swiftly that color cannot be mixed easily while it is wet. Besides, glazing, which represents the most successful painting technique to imitate color, was not possible with the use of tempera. Glazing is contingent on the transparency of color, though pigments appear as opaque when mixed with tempera. As such, oil paints were considered more effective than tempera because they helped to enhance clarity. Owing to Bellini's close attention to clarity, he considered the use of oil as an appropriate technique in his paintings.
Besides, the use of oil paint was more appropriate for Bellini artworks, owing to his great focus on naturalistic paintings. One of the qualities of Bellini's oil painting was its power to capture naturalistic light effects, including luster and texture of material (Gibbs, 2015, p.295). The naturalistic importance of oil painting acted as a great motivation for Bellini's consistent concern for clarity and expressiveness. Bellini had much interest in the realistic representation of light, especially during the period when he worked with conventional painting materials. He began to develop his confidence in oil painting, and specifically its quality of enabling the painter to attain naturalistic form and space. Hence, the use of oil paints supported his concern for clarity, since they allow realistic representation of light, thus providing clear view of paintings.
Some of the techniques and styles used by Bellini in producing his artwork are also an indication of his preoccupation. For instance, the use of foreshortening in most of his artworks brought more clarity and expressiveness. Foreshortening refers to a technique used to make some specific part of an object clear by making other parts shorter than their real size (Wilson, 2015, p.78). It is a good way to maximize the dimension of a painting. One of Bellini's artwork which exhibits the use of foreshortening is the paintings of the dead Christ. Christ's legs and chests have been made shorter in order to express a sense of depth and dimension. Bellini chose to make his legs smaller in order to draw the viewer's attention to Christ's head.
Besides, Bellini also used the egg tempera technique to extract his images. He employed this kind of fast-drying paint, which consist of pigments and egg, in most of his artworks before the introduction of oil paints. The paint served the purpose of putting color to different kinds of artworks. As a result, most of the artworks produced by Bellini showed a high level of expressiveness and clarity.
Generally, Bellini's reputation of being a colorist reveals how he was preoccupied with the desire to maintain clarity and expressiveness. He applied nearly all the Venetian colors in his paintings. One of these colors is the blue one, which is highly respected in Christianity. The blue color was reserved for heavenly beings, Christ, and often functioned as a chromatic central point of the pictorial composition. Bellini applied blue in most of his paintings. For instance, the transfiguration of Christ and Madonna Del Prato.
In conclusion, Bellini’s major preoccupation was to maintain clear attention to color and expressiveness in his work. This was manifested in most of his paintings. For instance, Saint Jerome in the Desert reveals clear figures and rocky landscapes. Also, Bellini employed the use of oil paints to show enhanced clarity in his paintings. His keen interest in naturalistic representation also indicates his concern for clarity.