Presentation at the Temple

Giovanni Bellini kept changing his mind about how to paint, which is why a career spanning six decades covers so much ground. The early work is linear and hard edged, close to his brother in law Mantegna. The late work is soft, warm and built entirely from colour. Oil paint made the difference. He adopted it as it arrived in Venice and understood faster than his contemporaries what it allowed: glazes, atmosphere, light that sits on skin rather than describing its outline. That understanding runs directly into Giorgione and Titian, both of whom trained with him. His Madonnas number in the dozens and repay attention as a group. The landscape behind them keeps growing in importance until, in the late examples, it is doing as much emotional work as the figures. Dürer visited in 1506 and called him the best painter in Venice, adding that he was very old and still the best.