Gentile Bellini was an Italian painter of the school of Venice. He came from Venice's leading family of painters, and at least in the early part of his career was more highly regarded than his younger brother Giovanni Bellini, the reverse of the case today. From 1474 he was the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice, and as well as his portraits he painted a number of very large subjects with multitudes of figures, especially for the Scuole Grandi of Venice, wealthy confraternities that were very important in Venetian patrician social life.
Gentile Bellini, Self-portrait, 1496. Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 5170)
Sultan Mehmed II, 1480; oil on canvas; National Gallery, London
Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–7; oil on canvas; Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, c. 1478; Tempera on panel; Museo Correr, Venice
Venetian painting was a major force in Italian Renaissance painting and beyond. Beginning with the work of Giovanni Bellini and his brother Gentile Bellini and their workshops, the major artists of the Venetian school included Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto (1518–1594), Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) and Jacopo Bassano (1510–1592) and his sons. Considered to give primacy to colour over line, the tradition of the Venetian school contrasted with the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy. The Venetian style exerted great influence upon the subsequent development of Western painting.
Titian, Salome with the Head of John the Baptist c. 1515; this religious work also functions as an idealized portrait of a beauty, a Venetian genre developed by Titian, supposedly often using Venetian courtesans as models.
Canaletto, The Entrance to the Grand Canal, c. 1730, a typical veduta
Giovanni Bellini, San Zaccaria Altarpiece, 1505, a late work, San Zaccaria, Venice
Paolo Veneziano, polyptych altarpiece with Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1350