“After Giovanni Bellini” was begun in 1996 as an experiment investigating harmonic proportion through an exact scale copy of a Renaissance painting. I chose Giovanni Bellini’s “The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr” from the National Gallery in London for my study.
Although the evidence of a systematic application of the Golden Section is everywhere in this composition, my efforts at an exact copy were thwarted by the discovery that the reproductions that I had available varied in proportion with the stated dimensions of the canvas in the checklist which I had used in constructing my own support. Although the difference was fairly small, the error made any assessment of the exactness of the proportions in my copy pretty difficult.
Fair enough– actual knowledge of the original dimensions of a very old painting like this is shaky at best, as time and restoration mess with the margins. After setting the work aside and letting the frustration subside, I was able to claim the painting as something more my own, and the image above was completed sometime in 1998.
Here’s what I was copying:
"The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr," by Giovanni Bellini, probably about 1507, Egg tempera and oil on wood 99.7 x 165.1 cm, collection of The National Gallery, London
After Giovanni Bellini
“After Giovanni Bellini” was begun in 1996 as an experiment investigating harmonic proportion through an exact scale copy of a Renaissance painting. I chose Giovanni Bellini’s “The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr” from the National Gallery in London for my study.
Although the evidence of a systematic application of the Golden Section is everywhere in this composition, my efforts at an exact copy were thwarted by the discovery that the reproductions that I had available varied in proportion with the stated dimensions of the canvas in the checklist which I had used in constructing my own support. Although the difference was fairly small, the error made any assessment of the exactness of the proportions in my copy pretty difficult.
Fair enough– actual knowledge of the original dimensions of a very old painting like this is shaky at best, as time and restoration mess with the margins. After setting the work aside and letting the frustration subside, I was able to claim the painting as something more my own, and the image above was completed sometime in 1998.
Here’s what I was copying:
"The Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr," by Giovanni Bellini, probably about 1507, Egg tempera and oil on wood 99.7 x 165.1 cm, collection of The National Gallery, London