Galleries of the Academy of Venice: Jacopo and Giovanni Bellini compared
Figure 1 – Jacopo Bellini (Venice c. 1400 – 1470/71), Madonna with blessing child and cherubs, cat. 582, around 1455, Galleries of the Academy of Venice. – Figure 2 – Giovanni Bellini (Venice c. 1432/1433 – 1516), Madonna with Child (Madonna Trivulzio), inv. 542, c. 1460, Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan.
ROME – From from 5 November 2022 to 12 March 2023, the Galleries of the Academy of Veniceas part of the new “In the Galleries “, initiative dedicated to opportunities for meetings and relationships between works and institutions, they present two other masterpieces in comparison.
After The Bravo from Titianfrom the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, il Portrait of a Young Man (The Portrait ‘Brocardo’) from Giorgione, from the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, and the Circumcision of Christ di Tiepolo, from the Civic Museum of Bassano del Grappa, is now the guest of honor a youthful painting by Giovanni Bellini there Madonna and Childalso note coming Madonna Trivulziofrom the Pinacoteca del Sforzesco Castle in Milan. The masterpiece is set up next to the precious one Madonna with blessing Child and cherubs from Jacopo Bellini, part of the permanent collection, recently restored.
The two works are exhibited in the room III on the first floor where they are gathered other paintings made by the Bellinis. The works by Giovanni and Gentile present here testify in different ways and degrees the path started to free themselves from the more archaic language of their father Jacopo, opening up to the novelties of the Renaissance language developed in Padua by Francesco Squarcione and Andrea Mantegnaon the basis of the stimuli introduced there by Donatello.
“Through two absolute masterpieces – says the museum director Giulio Manieri Elia – an intense artistic dialogue is generated between great masters; the two Madonnas with the Child in comparison exemplify a crucial passage in the History of Western Art lived by a father and a son, two generations, two artists. The father still linked to his late Gothic training and the son launched towards an emerging Renaissance. An unmissable opportunity, therefore, also to rediscover Jacopo’s table in a riot of color and gold, reinstated with the restoration just completed ». “With this initiative – continues the director – the Gallerie dell’Accademia resume their collaboration with national and international museums and institutions with the aim of intensifying ties and relations with these realities, but also promising significant and artistic dialogues between the masterpieces belonging to their respective collections “.