Hello Georgios,

Thank you very much for coming by. Of all the visits and posts, yours are among the most appreciated because of your cultural background.

I can understand your feeling of Giovanni Bellini's works. I share it especially with regard to his later works, and if I chose the portrait of the Doge was mainly because of Giovanni’s command of light and shadow which rendered pieces of rare beauty, like the Baptism of Christ and the one exhibited here. I remember myself trying to reproduce, many years ago, the play of light and shadow on the Doge’s robe and face as well as the texture of his garments which implied interesting technical difficulties. But I will let an article from the Encyclopædia Britannica Online talk about this:

”A new degree of technical achievement is implied. The fact that [...] Giovanni painted mainly in oil does not completely explain his greatness. [... ] It is the way of using the medium that makes the difference - and that depends upon the painter's intentions and upon his vision. It was Bellini's richer and wider vision that determined his future development. Oil paint is inclined to be the more transparent and fusible and therefore lends itself to richer colour and tone by allowing a further degree of glazing, the laying of one translucent layer of colour over another. It is this technique and the unprecedented variety with which he handled the oil paint that gives his fully mature painting the richness associated with the Venetian school.”

Thus this time I opted for a pedagogic approach rather my own personal preferences.

Thank you again,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo