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Hodegetria and Venetia Virgo : Giovanni Bellini’s San Giobbe Altarpiece

University of British Columbia

This study focuses on a single work, Giovanni Bellini's altarpiece of the Virgin and Child enthroned with saints, painted about 1485 for the altar of Job in the church of San Giobbe, Venice (now in the Accademia); its purpose is to make more apparent Bellini's inventiveness and the depth of his response to Venetian ideology and thus to lead to a fuller understanding of his importance to later painters not only in technique and style but in iconographical motifs. The painting has always been recognized as a key work in Bellini's oeuvre, in the history of Venetian painting and in the development of an important altarpiece type, the monumental sacra conversazione. Critical analysis of it, however, has been mainly stylistic and it has received only limited interpretation of its religious iconography and no study of its iconological aspect as a uniquely Venetian work. The San Giobbe altarpiece is a major Venetian work of art which can profitably be considered in a broader context of religious and social function. This inquiry requires identification of the unique Venetian quality and- characteristics of the San Giobbe altarpiece and the recreation as far possible of its site, the context of its commission, its devotional function and an interpretation of the possible ideological content of the work which would account for its considerable contemporary fame and widespread influence. In Chapter Two detailed observation reveals the rich and complex iconography;'!' a1 re-examination of the formal' elements and the total architectural and spatial composition permits a reconstruction of the viewer/worshipper's experience of the altarpiece in situ. Chapters Three and Four consider previous discussions of the Italian sacra conversazione tradition in order to establish a framework for identifying the basic theme and features of the type of sacra conversazione altarpiece which became popular in late fifteenth century Venice. Local Venetian traditions will be considered to establish the Venetian origin and character of the type. Chapter Five will outline the history of the foundation, major building phases and nature of patronage of the church of San Giobbe, as well as the site, commission and devotional function of the altarpiece. Chapter Six considers the ideological content of the altarpiece which meshes with its traditional religious function. The iconography and meaning of the altarpiece will receive a tentative interpretation in the i. light of the Venetian propensity to use religious images to symbolize ideas of state and to determine the "national" symbolism which this altarpiece, and possibly this type of altarpiece, might have. This political use of art in Venice is related to the national cult of the Evangelist Mark and the association of the state with the saint in a glorious destiny which provided religious justification and expression of the aspirations of the state. The character of the Venetian sacra conversazione type centres around the elevated, "public" enthronement of the Virgin heralded by music-making angels housed in a distinctive spatial construction illusionistically and physically contiguous with the viewer's space. There are strong indications that Giovanni Bellini is the inventor of this type of sacra conversazione, .of which his San Giobbe altarpiece is the prototypical statement. It satisfies the requirements of the sacra conversazione theme of intercession and personal salvation in its dual effect of the Virgin's simultaneous distance and proximity to the saints and the viewer and in its Eucharistic iconography. Inquiry into the church .and patronage contexts . suggests that the altarpiece, frame, altar and probable tombslab of the donor of Bellini's painting, formed a funerary ensemble equivalent to a burial chapel. Finally, this study suggests that within the religious theme and function of the altarpiece there are expressions of ideas about the Venetian state as unique, perfect, enduring and filled with virtue that are popularly known as the "Myth of Venice": that ongoing process of political self-definition and state propagandization in which the visual arts traditionally played a key role. The remarkable integration of two artistic traditions in the San Giobbe altarpiece, the Byzantine and the Roman, reflects the two traditions which were drawn upon in the period of renewed state propagandization contemporary to the San Giobbe altarpiece. The religious motifs of the enthroned Virgin and the music-making angels symbolize ideas about the sacred and harmonious nature of the Venetian Republic and its divine mission to propagate peace and to dispense justice. Bellini's San Giobbe altarpiece is further evidence that the visual arts in Venice played, as they had in the past, an important role in the orchestration of the ecclesiastical and political self-awareness of the ruling members of the state.

Text

2010-03-09

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21663

Fine Arts

University of British Columbia

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