It’s always interesting to see what I want to see and connect with in the museum. There are many old friends who I respect but who I don’t particularly want to spend time with.
I always love the early renaissance with their intricate patterns and elaborate yet still architectural spaces. Also the thousands of fine lines constructing each of the faces of the Saints, each brushstroke feeling like a prayer. But today and yesterday they didn’t hold my attention. They primarily rely on the dialectic between gold and flat shape sometimes elaborately patterned and the more “naturalistic” soft painted faces and hands. This back and forth between these two approaches creates a certain type of idealized dream like space. I always love and appreciate that but recently I want to spend time with something else.
I want to spend time with light and painted air. For me that is one of the greatest forms of magic, and I want magic, I want to be immersed in it and to be lost in it.
Bellini does that and he does it perfectly. He uses many of the same tropes and visual devices as the early italian painting like in “the assassination of Saint Peter Martyr” 3/4s of the middle ground has a wonderful wall of trees where each line of each trunk and the space between creates the most beautiful visual rhythm. He most likely was aware of Piero’s “Battle between Constantine and Maxentius” from 45 years earlier and Uccello’s “The Battle of San Romano” from 30 years before that where each deploy rows of lances to create similar rhythms but unlike them Bellini breathes light and air and softness into every passage creating space as opposed to the colder vacuums of his predecessors.
He is able to convert all of the sacredness from the earlier stages of the renaissance into a new sense of naturalism that is both idealized and realistic which feels completely unique. He has an even more refined sense of shape and void than all those who came before him but for me what truly distinguishes him is his hand. He massages every form and area with the most present and sensitive stroke. Every area is moving and a joy to get lost in because of that presence because of that stroke which can palpably be felt and sensed. Fra Angelico has a similar quality but they feel more measured, more monastic, Bellinis hand has that stillness but is balanced with a deep and refined sensuality.
There are very few hard edges in this painting I’m spending hours in front of, “The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr”. Mainly there is a light haziness to each edge which creates a beautiful softness to all of the perfectly drawn solid forms. That haziness could easily appear detached or too dreamy but because of the sensitivity of his acutely observed natural color he can create a world which is still, perfect and also relatable. Yes he could draw like an Angel, yes he was a genius of composition and rhythm, yes he was a master of conveying narrative through visual mirroring but what I see as the real defining element of his success is his touch and his perfect sense of nuanced color. That is what allows him to create a believable scene which we can enter and feel a divine stillness.
In this painting a monk is being murdered and his companion is attempting an escape. There is a light and pristine city in the top left and workers chopping down the forest echoing the violence of the Martyrdom in the foreground. One of the trees even appears to bleed. One can hear the axes splintering the arbor and see the blood drip from the knife protruding from St. peters head but there is still an overall feeling of stillness. Many other painters of this time would have created ominous shadows or more severe contrast to overemphasize the drama of the murder but Bellini creates a felt bliss, not one from denial but one from seeing the light softness and divine sensuality in all aspects of his world.
St. Peter’s Face is serene, completely accepting and at peace with his demise. Even his hand resting on the ground has no tension in it. Both the saint and the painter who created this work show a serenity in horror. Peace and calmness can be felt and created at anytime in any circumstance. Maybe that’s why I’m particularly drawn to this painting in the beginning of 2020.
Life goes on, the cows graze, the workers fell the forest and the shepherd tends his flock. No matter what’s happening here there’s the same stillness in each passage, just some characters in the painting realize it more than others.
There are some small pockets of sky peppering the boughs but the main window is in the top left of the canvas. It’s a sunny day with a beautiful blue sky and fluffy well observed clouds. They are warm, slightly golden, and welcoming. St Peter’s face and eye sight points directly to them suggesting that he will leave the density of this world and enter a more spacious realm. Or that his last view was the inviting open sky, he viewed it, realized his own true spacious nature and that is why he is completely relaxed and at ease in his death.
Interestingly and not surprisingly Bellini’s sky’s are some of the only in this wing of italian and northern renaissance paintings from 1200-1500 which feel believable. Like everything in his paintings they are sensitively observed and lovingly massaged into being. Like everything in his paintings they are perfect.
