In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth is still chaotic and empty, the abyss is still a cloud of darkness, and God of God is running on the surface of the water.
God said: "There is light! "There is light.
When God sees the light good, he separates the light from the darkness. God calls light "day" and darkness "night".
After the evening, after the morning, it was the first day.
——Quoted from Genesis (2009 edition of the Bible issued by the Chinese Catholic Bishops' Conference)
Illustration: Virgin and Child with St. Lucy Francisco Vanny 1600
One St. Lucy, whose eyes were ripped off
Around 1505, Giovanni Bellini painted the Virgin and Child and the Four Saints in the church of San Zaccaria, east of St. Mark's Square, east of the Bridge of Sighs.
The oil on canvas, placed on the second altar on the left side of the church, is 273x402 cm in size, making it one of the largest altarpieces in Venice.
In addition to the Virgin and Child, four saints are depicted in the painting: St. Peter with a book in his left right hand and the key to heaven in his left hand; St. Catherine holding a wheel with palm leaves in his hand (see the sixty-second article, Raphael and Michelangelo's different treatments of this image); and the rightmost man in a red robe and reading a book in his hand is Saint Jerom, who translates the Bible into Latin.
Altarpiece of the church of San Zaccaria 1505 Giovanni. Bellini
These three saints, who often appear in altarpieces, have been introduced in the previous article. As for the virgin on the right side of the Virgin Mary, who holds a bowl in her right hand and a palm leaf in her left hand, she is described as St Apollonia in some domestic sources, which is inaccurate.
Saint Apollonia was martyred in Alexandria in ancient Rome, and all her teeth were extracted before her death, but she still insisted on her faith and eventually jumped into the fire to be martyred, and she was revered by posterity as the patron saint of dentists.
The image of her in the picture is usually holding a palm leaf in one hand and a pair of pliers with a tooth extraction in the other hand, and a tooth that has been extracted is sandwiched between the pliers (at this point, I can't help but cover my mouth).
The seventeenth-century Spanish painter Subalan made this painting of Santa Apollonia, which is a standard version.
Saint Apollonia, 1635-40 Subalang
The saint in Giovanni Bellini's paintings is supposed to be St. Lucy. Lucy）。 Saint Lucy (283-304 AD) was born into an aristocratic family in the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily, where she made a vow to keep her virginity behind her back and dedicate herself to the Lord.
As an adult, Lucy was persecuted by the Governor of Syracuse and ordered to cut off her eyes. Another theory is that she cut off her own eyes in order to preserve her virginity, and in this extremely self-destructive way to stop people who tried to propose to her.
Giovanni. Bellini's disciple, Paolo veronese (1528-1588), wrote a painting of the Martyrdom of St. Lucy and the Last Communion.
The Funeral of St. Lucy, Caravaggio, 1608-1609 In the collection of the Church of St. Lucy
Veronese, The Martyrdom of St. Lucy and the Last Communion Ceremony
Caravaggio, another legendary Italian painter at the beginning of the 17th century, also made this "Funeral of St. Lucy", which showed the tragic scene of St. Lucy's eyes being cut off before and after her execution.
The standard image of St. Lucy is a hand-held tray with a pair of eyeballs of his own. The illustration at the beginning of this article, in the Virgin and Child and St. Lucy, completed by the Siena painter Francisco Fanny in 1600, is a standard version.
Altarpiece of the church of San Zaccaria detailed
In Latin, LUX means light, which is the origin of the word Lucy in English today.
Perhaps it is precisely because St. Lucy regained the light after losing her eyes, so her appearance symbolizes the arrival of the light.
In fact, compared to the altarpieces we have introduced before, Giovanni's outstanding contribution in this painting is to introduce light into the painting. He was 75 years old when he created this painting, but his grasp of light and shadow is just right.
Bellini's Dance of Light
In The Virgin and the Child and the Four Saints, completed around 1505, Bellini arranged a set of warm, abundant, and soft sunlight that sprinkled on the Virgin and Jesus from the oblique top of the building, and the pilasters, domes, and saints in the front row of their surroundings and the angels who were playing the violin were bathed in the light and air.
We can compare the two altarpieces introduced earlier, one of which is piero della francesca (1420-1492) completed the "Virgin, Child and Saint" (see the thirty-fifth article "Perspective on that Thing: An Experiment in Three-Dimensional Space on a Two-Dimensional Plane");
Francesca 1472-1474 Virgin, Child and Saint
Raphael, The Wedding of the Virgin, 1504
The other is Raphael's imitation of the Wedding of the Virgin by Perugino in the same period. The first two altarpieces are reflected in the achievements of Italian painters in the exploration of perspective, composition, and human body structure. However, the colors in the above paintings are only smudged in the relationship of attachment to the sketch, and the treatment of light is even thinner, focusing only on distinguishing the outlines of the figures in the paintings and the shadows of the buildings.
In contrast, Giovanni Bellini's group of characters, although they do not have rich physical, eye, or verbal dialogue with each other, are not at all deliberately arranged as dramatic and echoing scenes in Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper or Raphael's version of The Wedding of the Virgin, in which the saints and angels are focused on their own things without any echo.
However, we can fully feel that there is harmony between this group of pictures, and there is a full resonance and echo between the characters, which is a complete picture, removing any character, moving any bit of detail, it will appear imperfect.
Why?
I think Giovanni Bellini used two ways that painters had not had before, one of which was the addition of an angel playing the violin between the Virgin and the Child and the saints, and from the focused and solemn expressions and gestures of the saints, we can feel that they are reaching a mutual understanding and tacit understanding of the soul through music. Although their bodies and appearances are closer to the real and secular image, this concentration and solemn expression and tacit understanding make them appear full of divinity and a greater sense of dignity;
Secondly, Giovanni Bellini himself is like a conductor of an orchestra, he does not conduct notes and melodies, but directs the colors and light of the picture, using their rhythms to weave melodies, thus achieving visual harmony and unity.
These rays are not particularly dazzling or deliberately creating a radiant effect, but a soft, warm light. Using this light, he unifies all distant landscapes, complex objects, and emotions between different characters into a harmonious and serene picture.
It is precisely this duality—light and shadow in the imagination of hearing and vision—that the painting acts as color and light that immediately captures our minds.
Three Mysterious masters of the Venetian school
The year after Giovanni Bellini completed the altarpiece, his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna died, and a year later, his brother Gentil Bellini also passed away.
Nevertheless, a new era has quietly arrived. In his busy studio, two heavyweight apprentices have begun to show their prominence, and they will continue to contribute to the unique light and shadow magic of the Venetian School.
The appearance of these two disciples means the official appearance of the "Venetian School", the most famous of which are the "Four Heavenly Kings", including Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, and they are the teacher brothers and the teacher inheritance relationship, we will first introduce this master brother: Giorgione.
Giorgione (c. 1477–1510) was only two years younger than Michelangelo. His original name is said to have been Giorgione Barbarella da Castroflanco – da Castelfranco, meaning he was born in the small town of Castelfranco near Venice.
The name Barbarella, on the other hand, indicates that he came from the Barbarella family, but the name is based solely on Vasari's description, and there is no direct evidence of his origin. Not only that, but the date of birth of the master brother has not been accurately recorded, and only the data can confirm that he died of the plague between October and November 1510.
The master brother could have become an opponent against Michelangelo, an equal master of art, and we would not doubt this from the talent displayed in his work. But he lived only 33 years. Judging from the limited records about him, his personality seems to be a combination of leonardo da Vinci's mystery and Raphael's affair.
Portrait of Two Men attributed to Giorgione, 1502
His short life was probably spent only in his hometown and venice, and as leonardo da Vinci had when he first arrived in Milan, he was first known not for painting but for his musical talent, and was popular among the celebrities of the time when he often played the lute. In addition to music, he also liked poetry, which made him popular, and he was personable but greedy and indulgent.
The above widely circulated portrait was written by him around 1502, and it is believed that the personable young man in front of him in gorgeous clothes was himself. He held his cheeks with his elegant, slender left hand, and his eyes wandered, as if he were immersed in a sad poem.
And the one behind, who appears outside the scene, and the silly teenager may be Titian around 12-14, this hairy boy has just come to Venice.
The year 1505 was used to demarcate Giorgione's creative career, the previous period being his early works. The last five years of his life were the heyday of his creation. But as in his lifetime, there are about 30 paintings preserved under his name, and some of them are quite controversial, some of which he completed together with his teacher Bellini and his disciple Titian, and some of which are imitations of posterity.
As people continued to study it, only three of the works were not subject to these controversies. The following altarpiece, which he made for his hometown of Castel Franco, is one of them. The work was completed around 1504 and was larger than his teacher Giovanni. Bellini's aforementioned Virgins and Children and the Saints is earlier.
Castel Franco altarpiece Giorgione before 1504
Giorgione placed the Virgin and the Saints in front of the outdoor scenery, and the castle in the mountains on the left complemented the seashore surrounded by distant mountains on the right. Before the Virgin, were the protective saints of Castel Franco: the holy warrior Liberalai and St. Francis.
We can compare this with the sixty-first article, "Unlocking the Angelic Meaning in Michelangelo and Raphael's Name," the painting by the Spanish painter Juan de Flanders, which was completed around 1505-1509, "Saints Michael and Francis."
Juan de Flanders saints michael and francis 1505-1509 wood tempera
You can appreciate the lyrical treatment of this subject in his paintings by this master brother who is proficient in music and good at poetry, and presents us with an idyllic poetry.
As the 19th-century British art critic John Ruskin commented, the painting "is the only imaginative reproduction of Christianity in this world." ”
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