Italian painting is once again the protagonist in Paris. The artistic spring of the French capital begins with another event dedicated to the culture of the Italian Renaissance. On March 3 and until July 17, the Jacquemart-André Museum presents "Giovanni Bellini – Crossed Influences", the work of a great master of the 500th century also known as Giambellino. Between June and July, therefore, the city will present two Italian events at the same time: the Mostra Napoli in Paris and this one dedicated to Bellini. Considered the father of the Venetian school among which the names of Giorgione e Titian, Bellini influenced all Venetian painting of the 16th century. Fifty works from private collections and exhibitions from all over the world arrive in Paris. Visitors will be presented with a “thematic-chronological order which constitutes the common file of the models which inspired the Maestro”, reads the presentation. The promotional campaign in the city is intense. Basically it reflects the interest of the French and tourists for the most important Italian pictorial schools. Just as the interest of the founders of Jacquemart-André for art was recalled on the occasion of the exhibition. In the ancient residence of Edward Andre e Nelie Jacquemart there was already a Madonna and Child Enthroned by the Venetian author. Now for five months at no.158 of Boulevard Haussmann the « Giambellino » finds its place with the works of a lifetime.
Bellini and the influences of contemporaries
The painter had easy access to art, together with his brother Gentile, among his father's canvases and brushes Jacob Bellini. But the influence of soon came upon him Andrea Mantegna of which he became brother-in-law and then of Antonello da Messina. The works on loan from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Petit Palais in Paris, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice give the figure of the artistic context in which the painter asserted himselfor. He was captured by the classical world but also by the elements and colors of Flemish painting. A talent with the will to renew itself and eager to try new elaborations. A sort of experimenter and motivator, we would say today, characteristics that he maintained until his old age. The curators of the review Neville Rowley e Pierre Curie, they set up an event of European scope with works such as the Annunciation, the Madonna and Child, the dead Christ with the angels, the Sacra Conversazione Giovannelli.
Curiosities and tonalism
Bellini linked a large part of his activity to painting Madonnas with Child and a series of Pietàs. Works that were often commissioned by the patrician families of the time. In the progressive search for new styles, he did not hesitate to make portraits, which are kept in museums around the world. « Along the way of the exhibition it will be possible to appreciate his fidelity towards some themes, but at the same time, comparing in a particular way his first works with those executed in his old age, his curiosity in looking at others and his constant need for renew itself," he said Neville Rowley. A statement that explains even better the meaning of cross-influences on the inventor of tonalism where light, shadows, colors mix in a single technique. He devised it first of all but he did not feel tied to it by changing subjects and themes always driven by curiosity and modernity.
