, and
was murdered by that third painter for his pains, so greedy and criminal
was the craving, not only to possess, but to be as far as possible the
sole possessor of, the grand discovery. Gian Bellini was much less
guilty, if he were really guilty. Disguised as a Venetian nobleman, he
proposed to sit for his portrait to that Antonella who first brought the
secret from Flanders, and while Antonella worked with unsuspicious
openness, Gian Bellini watched the process and stole the secret.

Gian Bellini lived to the age of ninety, and had among his admirers the
poet Ariosto and Albrecht Duerer. The latter saw Gian Bellini in his age,
and said of him, when foolish mockers had risen up to scout at the old
man, and his art now become classic, 'He is very old, but he is still
the best of our painters.' Gian Bellini had illustrious pupils,
including in their number Titian and Giorgione.

The portraits of Gentile and Gian, which are preserved in a painting by
Gian, show Gentile fair-complexioned and red-haired, and Gian with dark
hair.

Gian Bellini is considered to have been less gifted with imagination
than some of his great brother artists; but he has proved himself a man
of high moral sense, and while he stopped short at the boundary between
the seen and the unseen, it is certain he must still have painted with
much of 'the divine patience' and devout consecration of all his powers,
and of every part of his work, which are the attributes of the earliest
Italian painters. When he and his brother began to paint, Venetian art
had already taken its distinctive character for open-air effects, rich
scenic details in architecture, furniture and dress (said to be
conspicuous in commercial communities), and a growing tendency to
portraiture. Gian went with the tide, but he guided it to noble results.
His simplicity and good sense, with his purity and dignity of mind, were
always present. He introduced into his pictures 'singing boys, dancing
cherubs, glittering thrones, and dewy flowers,' pressing the outer world
into his service and that of religious art. It is said also that his
Madonnas seem 'amiable beings imbued with a lofty grace;' while his
saints are 'powerful and noble forms.' But he never descended to the
paltry or the vulgar. He knew from the depths of his own soul how to
invest a face with moral grandeur. Especially in his representations of
our Saviour Gian Bellini 'displays a perception of moral power and
grandeur s