Madonna and Child Blessing

Bellini's Madonna and Child Blessing (1464) at the Gallerie dell'Accademia is an early work showing the developing mastery that would make him the foundation of Venetian Renaissance painting. At this date Bellini was still under the strong influence of his brother-in-law Mantegna, whose sculptural approach to figures and precise handling of architectural settings had transformed northern Italian painting in the previous decade. The maternal gesture of the Madonna and the blessing gesture of the Christ Child are rendered with an attention to natural human interaction that already goes beyond the hieratic formality of the Byzantine tradition Bellini was leaving behind.

The early handling shows the crisp, linear definition characteristic of Bellini's Mantegnesque phase, with firm contours and sculptural modelling. The tempera technique produces the harder, more precise surface of his early works, before the adoption of oil paint softened his manner into the atmospheric warmth of his mature style.