The “Bellini and the East” exhibit at the Gardner Museum was an interesting attempt on the part of the curator to present some of the few remaining examples by Gentille Bellini, from perhaps the most important period in the artists career. The exhibit also included a number of articles by other artists but it was all centered around the theme of Bellinis’ visit to Constantinople.
The exhibit, though dealing mainly with Venetian painting is only a small part of the whole topic of Venetian art covered in the two chapters, Venice: The Most Serene Republic and Venice: Affirming the Past and the Present. Through the exhibit the viewer definitely understands the international nature of Venice at the time, what with it being the link between the western and eastern civilizations and the great nautical power, but I feel that it does not manage to capture the extent of Venice’s influence all the other civilizations and more importantly that of the Byzantine Empire. Furthermore from the information provided I got the feeling that the curator was trying to promote the Greek influence on Venice more than any other. Granted it would be normal to concentrate on one small area of Venice’s art what with this being an exhibition of Gentille Bellini’s art from his time as an artist but also an ambassador for Venice in Turky. However after the rather extensive and detailed description and accounts from the book this Exhibit seemed somewhat poor and perhaps not detailed enough. On the other hand the book hardly offers any information on Gentille Bellini but instead focuses on his father Jacopo Bellini and Gentilli’s brother Giovani (pages 319-331) with little reference to Gentille other than his time in Constantinople, which is another interesting omission, especially in view of the fact that the curator presents Gentille as being “Venice’s most prestigious painter” in his lifetime. Continuing on the subject, works by Gentille are very few as most were destroyed, most importantly his monumental canvases destroyed by a fire.
Another interesting point to note however is that one cannot really make a direct comparison between the two chapters and the exhibition as the first two deal far more extensively with the art movements, influences and applications in Venice as a whole whereas the later deals solely with the work of one of the Venetian Artists at a specific period in time, although as I mentioned above there were also a few pieces by other artists.
The book talks of the influences coming from all over the Byzantine empire, as well as some roman influences and tries to give a far more detailed and full picture of the Renaissance in Venice. It deals with both the religious and the secular applications of the arts, the patrons, the artists as well as the monuments and works of art and the history behind them and sometimes behind their artists. As such the curator should not really be criticized for the concise nature of the Exhibit although I stand by my opinion that it was perhaps a little too concise. However the objects presented were quite intriguing I though as they were a welcome brake from the typical ecclesiastical or religious themes mostly presented in the book. Of course there were some paintings with religious subjects such as “Cardinal Bessarion and two Members of the Scuola della Carita in Prayer with the Bessarion Reliquary”.
The pieces by Bellini were also very interesting as they seemed as something entirely new for me in comparison with wh at I knew from the book. I reference mainly to the two most important ones, the “Seated Scribe” and the one of “Mehmed II” as well as the “Seated Janissary” and “Seated Woman”. The “Seated Scribe” was very different with its light background that allows the viewer to concentrate on the actual figure depicted. Though very realistic it is not that point that really makes the difference here, as with the other three, Bellini seems to be able to capture the essence and character of the person depicted an in some way gets it across to the viewer.
As for the other objects displayed, i.e. the “Medal: Mehmed II”, the “Box and lid”, the “salver”, the engraving of “El Gran Turko” as well as the “Seated Artist” which bears great resemblance to the “Seated Scribe”. The only piece that definitely reminded me of works I came across in the book was the Portrait of Mehmed II with its dark colors, very stylized, stiffed posing figure framed by the arch and columns.
In all I found the exhibit to be “short an sweet” in that, though I believe there should have been more pieces by the artist even if not from that time exactly, at least to give some point for comparison an a more comprehensive understanding of the artist work ( though limited due to lack of remaining pieces). It did give a good abbreviated version of Venetian art even if it was not totally in line with the book. As I mentioned above it was interesting and in my opinion more rewording to see this exhibit after studying a few things about it first and one could find a number of ways in which to tie Venice or Gentille Bellini in with current affairs. One is the globalization of today whereby all coutries are borrowing or adopting traits and influences from other ones while still trying to keep an individual flavor, just as Venice adopted traits and took certain things ( the remains of St. Mark) as well as cultural influences from the east as well as the west.
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