Decoding a Venetian Masterpiece
A Renaissance lesson in artistic harmony
There are few places like Venice, with its lagoons and waterways that warble under the brilliant Adriatic light. Set in its maze of eloquent buildings and sometimes pungent water — that always makes me think of the pestilence in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice — the city is a landscape like no other.
Venice is also special because among its ecclesiastical wonders, you can still see paintings that hang in the setting for which they were made — as opposed to most artworks which have been relocated to art galleries or museums.
The history of Venice lives like so few other cities do.
One such painting, located in the Church of San Zaccaria, is Giovanni Bellini’s San Zaccaria Altarpiece, painted in 1505 when the artist was in his early 70s — Bellini’s exact birth year remains a matter of debate.
The Victorian art critic John Ruskin judged the painting as one of “the two best pictures in the world.”
(The other was the Madonna of the Frari Triptych, also by Bellini.)
