Mantegna and Bellini: Painting the Renaissance

Excellent course at the National Gallery looking at the work of and relationship between Mantegna and Bellini.

This was led by Caroline Brooke over two afternoons and took the form of a series of lectures. She has a lovely dry style which I enjoy. She sets the work in the context of the time but also has a way of seeing things through modern eyes to share practical ideas.

In the first week she looked at the history of the two artists and how their family ties linked them but also why they might have been a reason for Mantegna to move to Mantua to find a market he didn’t have to share with his brother in law. She then looked at the importance of place in their work from the university city of Padua to Venice and Mantua. Finally we looked at their patrons and the difference between being an independent artist in a city and a court painter.

Week two led us to look what inspired both artists but also how they were innovative. This covered not only the classical tradition but also books being written at the time and the ongoing debate as to whether painting or sculpture was the higher art form. We then looked at their technique and how Mantegna carries on using egg tempura as a medium while Bellini moves to oil and what different that makes to the pictures. Finally we looked at their legacy including the fact that Titian trained in the Bellini workshop and how Durer picked up Mantegna’s ideas of print making to spread their work.

All in all two fascinating afternoons which shed a lot of light on the current exhibition and made me look at it afresh when I visited a second time.