Review of the Mantegna & Bellini Exhibition at the National Gallery.

Earlier this month, a new exhibition at the National Gallery has opened on two great masters of the Venetian Renaissance, the two brothers-in-law Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini. I have had the privilege to see it on the day of its inauguration, and I must say that it has been among the best exhibitions held here in London in the past few years, probably on pair with the recent one on Charles I and his collection.

In historiography it is always complicated to define chronological periods with absolute precision, and this is one of the reasons why I have always been absolutely avverse to dates. The Renaissance was a time of great cultural growth in all fields of human advancement. Slowly, by the end of the 14th century, when Italian economy began to grow, especially in Florence with the advent of modern banking, and later in Rome in the early 15th century, when Pope Martin V Colonna brought the papacy back to Rome, things began to change, not quickly, but swiftly: the aesthetics of the international Gothic slowly gave room to a new classical language, rediscovered through the new Humanistic thought, a new rebirth of Neo-Platonism brought back to life Rome’s classical past, and Renaissance art slowly began to evolve, with an art deeply rooted in Christianity, but now also based on and improved by the rediscovered marvels of ancient Rome, such as the Domus Area, which artists such as the early and more Gothic, Benozzo Gozzoli or Fra Angelico, or more humanist Botticelli or Ghirlandaio, tried to recreate. Religious and secular, Christian and Pagan or historical, themes began to coexist in art, commissions were often not only religious but also secular, they began to influence each other, the "new" wave of Classicism deeply inspired religious works, at least with its advanced perspective, order, realism and architectural features, and which the new Rome of the Popes and the Florence of the Medici tried to make their own, and soon this new vibrant energy spread to the entirety of the Italian peninsula, at the time connected, through trade and banking, much like today to the great cultural hubs of the north and of the east, and it is here that the role of Venice as the connecting vehicle between the two emerges.

Venice, a city strong of a majestic past as one of the major Italian maritime republics of the late Middle Ages, which made its fortune through trading and of course through the Crusades, the Venice of the Dogi had been developing a vast empire and even an important role as a trading hub for centuries. La Serenissima came into being in 421 AD as result of the development of the Byzantine empire, with which it always maintained good relations. The Venetian Empire ranged from the Greek islands to the Black Sea and to the Levant, mostly because of trade. Venetian merchants operated throughout Europe, much like the Medici and their Florentine emissaries had branches throughout the continent and even England. It is in this opulent setting that Andrea Mantegna (1430-1506) and Giovanni Bellini (1459-1516) lived and worked. 

Andrea Mantegna, was born near Padua to a carpenter, and as many artists at the time was trained in a local bottega to a local master known as Squarcione, in 1453 he broke the agreement and married into the great firm of the Bellini. His first great commission came in 1448, when he worked at the Eremitani Chapel in Padua, where he worked alternatively with Verona until his move to the court of the Gonzaga in Mantua in 1460. As a good humanist he had a scholarly interest in antiquity, in 1464 he notoriously dressed up as an ancient Roman for a boating excursion on Lake Garda with his friend Felice Feliciano. A great example of his style inspired by the Classical world is the “Triumphs of Caesar” series now at Hampton Court. His style was particularly good at aiming to represent antique sculpture realistically. His religious works also resent from the classical influence and are particularly admirable, he laid the early foundations to what would become the Venetian High Renaissance style and inspired artists to come, from Giovanni Bellini to Albrecht Dürer: he experimented with perspective, another important advancement of Renaissance art, but also with detailed landscapes and a dramatic rendition of human emotions. He died in 1506, at the end of a great career.

Giovanni Bellini lived and worked in Venice throughout his life and his 65 years long career. Unlike Mantegna, he is known for his tender and graceful pictures, his realistic portraits are known for an astonishing use of natural light. He was born into a long dynasty of Venetian painters, shaped by his father Jacopo, he was greatly influenced by Andrea Mantegna who happened to be his brother-in-law.  His early and most graceful works mainly focus on Christian themes such as the “Blood of the Redeemer” or the “Agony in the Garden” or indeed the beautiful depictions of the Virgin on countless panels and altarpieces, often set in mystic landscapes or geometrically exquisite architectural features derived from the Classical world, later in his career like Mantegna, his art was heavily influenced by the new Humanistic ideals and he executed a few secular narrative paintings such as the stunning “Feast of the Gods”. He was an incredibly gifted artist who brought to Venice those artistic characteristics that would later define the Venetian works of Titian or Tintoretto as such; the use of color, observed light, atmosphere, etc. His influential family background led him to be the artists of the Doge, the rulers of the Venetian Empire. Like Mantegna he influenced artists to come both in Venice and abroad. Indeed, even a renowned Italian cocktail was named in his honor.

The two artists lived and worked to serve among the most refined courts of their time, the Gonzaga at Mantua, where Mantegna painted the famous “Camera degli Sposi” and Giovanni Bellini who worked for the Doge of Venice, the imperators of the Venetian Empire, for whom Bellini painted altarpieces and portraits. They also worked for great chapels and churches, mainly in Padua, Verona and Venice respectively.

Exhibitions on Mantegna and Bellini are not something new, only recently the Louvre (2008/2009) and the Scuderie del Quirinale (2008/2009) offered two individual and rather excellent exhibitions on the two masters, in Paris and Rome respectively, which I have thankfully been able to see as a younger boy and which perhaps led me to undertake an art degree at university! 

The London exhibition for the first time unites rather splendidly and successfully, not only the works, but also the dramatic lives of these intricate characters. For seven years Mantegna and Bellini worked closely around Venice, almost in a mystic dialogue, the aim of the exhibition is to show that; a competition between masters characterised by mutual respect and which lasted for a lifetime.

The exhibition is divided into six rooms which aim at portraying the life-long relationship between the two artists through their work. The first room, named “Beginnings”, is dedicated to their early works, the two masters are introduced by their cities of Padua and Venice, through the different taste of their patrons. This room also presents a beautiful set of drawings by Bellini on loan from the British Museum. In the following room, named “Explorations”, the exhibition begins to present the mutual impact of each artist on their works, at around the time of the marriage that made them brothers-in-law. In this room are the two nearly-identical versions of the “Descent into Limbo” by the two masters and the beautiful “Crucifixion” by Mantegna as opposed to Bellini’s “Le Calvaire”, respectively on loan from the Bristol Art Gallery and the Louvre. The third room named “Pietà” focuses on a new distinctive Renaissance iconography, the Dead Christ supported by Angels, with examples by both artists. In the fourth room, named “Landscape”, the extraordinary contribution of Bellini to the history of art is shown through his glorious depictions of realistic landscapes, natural light and atmosphere, a a key element even to the meaning behind some of his religious works. This is also great chance to see the newly restored “Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr” for the first time. The theme of the room is also to revel the differences in approach to landscape between the two artists and how the two, in this case Bellini, influenced the other; his “Death of the Virgin” with a spectacular view of the city of Mantua on loan from the Prado is extraordinary. The fifth room, dedicated to “Devotional Paintings and Portraits”, an essential theme in the heavily Christian world of the Renaissance. We can see the development of the Sacra Conversazione, in which the Madonna and Child appear with other saints as if occupying the same space. In this room there are also beautiful depictions of the Holy Family and the Madonna and Child from Dresden, Venice, and Berlin. The final room is called “Antiquity”, and is dedicated to the most spectacular works of the two artists inspired by the ancient Greco-Roman world, among the highlights are the beautiful “Triumphs of Caesar” by Mantegna on loan from the Royal Collection at Hampton Court and Bellini’s realistic monochrome sculptural paintings, including an “Episode from the Life of Publics Cornelius Scipio” from the National Gallery at Washington D.C. Astonishing works that show the impact of Humanism on the arts of the Renaissance and of the ancient works of Rome, the effect is certainly breathtaking. This fascinating journey has to be experienced, because words can't equate the beauty of the works of these transcendental masters.

Perhaps the highlights of the exhibition are the splendid Presentations to the Temple of the two artists, whose realism and use of lighting are absolutely astonishing. This fantastic exhibition not only brings together some of the most beautiful Renaissance masterpieces ever depicted from the greatest collections in the world, from the Prado to the Louvre, from the Uffizi to the Staatliche of Berlin, but actually, for the first time, creates a “sacred conversation” between two brothers-in-law and masters who shaped the arts of the Renaissance and became history by influencing each other and by depicting with such realism and beauty that they became eternal and influenced not only the Venetians of the High Renaissance, but generations of artists to come. It is certainly a once in a lifetime exhibition that requires to be seen to be believed!