_Giovanni Bellini_ (Venetian: 1426-1516). _See 189._
_See also_ (p. xix)
A very charming little picture, marred only by a certain insipidity
in the expression of the Madonna--which contrasts markedly alike with
the pathetic type of Bellini's early Madonnas (_e.g._ No. 288), and
with the more stately type which he afterwards adopted (as in the
altar-piece in the Academy at Venice). "The landscape is altogether
interesting, and will well repay a long examination. The incident of
the bird and the serpent should not be missed, and the Eastern sheep
with the long ears and its stately attendant in the white burnous
should be noted as an attempt to give some Oriental character to the
scene" (Monkhouse: _In the National Gallery_, p. 220). "The exquisite
opaline purity of its daylight, the delicacy and finish of every
detail, the walls and towers of the little town serene in the rays of
morning, and the mountain ranges, pure and lovely in definition--all
these graces make the picture one of the joys of art" (Gilbert's
_Landscape in Art_, p. 330).
This picture has at different times been given several different
attributions, of which the most cautious was "School of Bellini." In
earlier editions of the Official Catalogue it was ascribed to Basaiti
(see 281); but now (1898) to Bellini. Sir Edward Poynter refers in
support of this alteration to the close resemblance of the present
picture to a signed work by Bellini in the Giovanelli Palace at
Venice, and, as regards the background, to No. 812 in our gallery.
Sir Walter Armstrong (_Notes on the National Gallery_, p. 24) draws
attention to the similarity in the baby's hands here and in 224, and
would ascribe both pictures to Catena. The correct settlement of
disputed points of attribution like this is highly important for the
history of painting, but meanwhile the very fact of such disputes has
a useful significance, as showing what is meant by the old "schools"
of painting. Individual peculiarities are only discovered by minutest
examinations; but beneath such differences there are in each school
similarities of treatment and conception which come from common
traditions and common teaching, and which cause critics of equal
intelligence to attribute the same pictures to different masters of the
school.