Father was a painter, brother was a painter... A whole family of painters. His paintings was melancholic and create a sacred atmosphere.
(1430?-1516) Italian painter. He is the founder of the tradition of the Venice School of Painting. Giovanni Bellini, also known as Giambellino, was born in Venice and died in the same city. It is thought that he is the illegitimate son or adopted son of the famous painter Jacopo Bellini. Little is known about childhood and youth. He probably grew up in his father's workshop. He became famous in the 1460s for the decoration work he and his father did at the Church of Sant' Antonio in Padua (now lost). Around 1471 he opened a workshop in Venice with his older brother Gentile. During Gentile's stay in Istanbul, he undertook the management of the workshop and completed the unfinished paintings after his death. Giovanni, whose reputation increased as he got older, had a great influence on other young artists who were growing up, apart from his own students. Dürer, who visited Italy, stated in a letter from Venice that although he was very old, he was still the greatest of painters.
Bellini began to be known for his Madonna paintings at the beginning of his artistic career. The evolution of the painting's approach to nature from the 15th century to the Late Renaissance is fully reflected in these paintings of Bellini, and a transition from scholarly observations to a poetic and monumental narrative is observed. During the development period between 1460 and 1470, his style was under the influence of his brother-in-law, Mantegna. However, Bellini differs from him in his particular emphasis on light and color, and his much more emotional and less scientific treatment of figures and landscapes. This distinction is evident in the paintings of Suffering in the Garden made by both of them in about 1464.
In his works such as his maturity period, it is observed that the influence of Mantegna in Bellini gradually diminished, while his own personal style, which would form the basis of the Venetian School of painting, began to emerge. In the 1480s, Bellini's main concern was to enrich the effect of the color floating in the light in the atmosphere. The movements of the figures in the painting space gradually gained great freedom and naturalness, and the landscape, which he handled in a silhouette-like manner against the sky, reached a poetic expression in a mysterious silence and stillness. Humans and nature are integrated in a balanced way with rich color harmony.
The best examples of Bellini's ability to present pictorial symbols in a sensitive, melancholic, and holy atmosphere are the altar paintings he made for various churches. These paintings, which are the harbinger of the poetry that late Renaissance painting fused with formal maturity, also reveal Bellini's unique ability to diversify and enrich color.
His compositions after 1500 show the final stage reached by Bellini in the monumentalization of form and the enrichment of soft color tones. It is also a sign of Bellini's extraordinary talent that he was able to assimilate the new spirit and sense of color that his students, the young Giorgione and Titian, created despite being a master 40 years older than them.
Bellini's workshop has been the pillar of the 15th-century Venetian painting tradition. Although the Bellini was open to all kinds of influences, they made these influences extraordinarily Venetian and led to the formation of a Venetian School in Italian painting.
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https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/giovanni-bellini