Giovanni Bellini's Doge Leonardo Loredan

GIOVANNI BELLINI's DOGE LEONARDO LOREDAN

The National Gallery in London has an exquisite portrait that Giovanni Bellini
painted of Leonardo Loredan in 1501, just when Loredan became Doge of Venice. Doges (Dukes) were elected for life in the 16th century, and Loredan stayed in the post from 1501 until 1521, twenty years, longer than many other Doges.

The portrait is exquisite for many reasons:
1) It captures the lifelike features of the man, so that his fellow Venetians could
identify him. From other portraits done of him by other artists, it is reasonable to
assume that Bellini made an accurate account of his face and dress. Both Carpaccio and Catena did painted portraits where the features seem the same  though the paintings are not as skillful.

 

Leonardo Loredan is age 65, and the life experiences of that many years show on his face. Bellini paints him at a certain moment in time. He has just become Doge, after years of serving in several capacities in the Venetian government. He began as a lawyer working on the banking oversight committee called the "Giudici di Petizion"(Judges of Petitions), then was involved in foreign policy in the Collegio dei Savi, and later was Podesta di Padova, the governor of Padua, the large city which was part of the Venetian mainland. Before being selected Doge, he had also been part of what we might call the "Cabinet" as a Procuratore di San Marco. Bellini conveys Doge Loredan's understanding of human beings in his kind but shrewd eyes and in the mouth lines that only move up slightly.

         The portrait reflects his new-found power and is crafted before Loredan had to confront the most difficult events of his tenure. Two years after the portrait he had to give in to Turkish desires for Venetian territories in order to maintain peace with the Ottoman empire, and then in 1509, had to deal with war with the League of Cambrai, a deadly combination of French, Papal, and Holy Roman Imperial forces aligned against Venice, which resulted in losses of mainland Venetian cities. But those defeats are not recounted in this portrayal.
2) Bellini's portrait captures the features of a lifelike man, however. He seems alive in this portrait, as if in the next moment his eyes will blink and he will move off the wooden parapet.

That reality makes the portrait a treasure as a document of an historical figure who once lived in the 16th century, and of a person who seems alive even today, many centuries after his death date.
3) The portrait takes on the outline of a complete geometrical shape, a triangle.
The effect of that mathematical entity imposed on the figure is that the viewer
thinks they see the WHOLE of the man, not just his chest and head. We do not need to see his legs and shoes and the rest of his robe to comprehend him as
a complete person.

 

4) Bellini's painting captures the beauty of Venetian damask silk cloth in the formal dress worn by the Doge for official duties, and Bellini contrasts the delicate light and shade of the foliate gold print on the folds of the cloth

with the hard, round buttons that look like large hazelnuts or chestnuts. These are so beautifully rendered that viewers want to caress the silk and feel its texture and then compare the texture of the buttons. The sensuousness of both attracts and holds the viewer even more than the face of the Doge.
5) The portrait captures the official "corno," cap worn to distinguish the Doge as the leader in the Ducal Palace of Venice. This ducal headgear may have had its origins in images of Attis, the Phrygian god of vegetation:

 or in the cap of the ancient god Mithras:

 2nd century B.C. Mithras with bull, snake and dog, in British Museum, London.

Both suggest that Venice's power is associated with the Eastern Mediterranean.
The hard horn-shaped hat is covered in the same material as the gown below with an added gold filigree band. 

Underneath that, a white cap called the "camauro" protects the head from the hardness of the "corno." In Bellini's portrait not only do we see the camauro emerging out from under the "corno," but we see the strings of the camauro hanging down to suggest that the doge is not on official duty even though he is in official dress.

In other official doge portraits, the camauro strings are tied under the chin, as in this profile image of Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, a predecessor to Loredan.

6) At the same time that the portrait seems alive, it makes the Doge look like a piece of sculpture. In fact, this Doge had a sculpted portrait done of himself in terracotta by Danese Cattaneo that is extant in Birmingham's Art Gallery in England, and the figure is cut off at the chest slightly above the line where Bellini cuts the figure.

The sculptural quality exhibited in the painting shows Bellini competing with sculptors to paint a man who seems as three-dimensional as he would in a sculpture. The illusion of the cloth, the skin, the corno, the wooden parapet, all are a demonstration of the magic of painting in 2-dimensions a man who appears real and alive and full-bodied.

7) The artist is proud of his illusion and even enhances it by signing the work with his Latin name, Ioannes Bellinus, on a slip of paper that he imagines has
been folded twice, then unwrapped and attached to the wooden parapet.

All of the "conceit," "concetto," of the signature is a display of brilliance in painting that redounds to the painter's credit as much as the signature itself does. Strange that the signature should also be large enough that viewers might think it was the name of the sitter or the title of the work.

Since the artist earned his living from painting such illusions, Bellini's reputation depended upon other people knowing that he is the one who has painted this particular illusion. Even the Doge himself would have requested him for his skill, so the painter's acknowledgement of his identity in the signature is part of the value of the portrait for the Doge and for other viewers.
8) Why is this portrait such a powerful image, though? It is not just the sheen on the cloth, not just the wise expression from years of varying experiences in
government, not just the spectacular "corno" and "camauro," all of which contribute to the "photographic" sense of the person. Beyond that, and as in all great works of art, the artist has encapsulated the community that the Doge represents in his own portrait. He has done that by suggesting the Doge's bust portrait looks like a Venetian galley with a sail.
 

 

By imposing on the figure of the Doge the shape of the most important means of trade and transport in Venice, Bellini makes the Doge BECOME the whole of Venice and its sailing culture. The power of the Venetian state, then, is embodied in the portrait figure.
9) The white wispy strings that hang down from the camauro appeal to the viewer's desire to pull, as though we could control a whole sail from these
sheet lines. Their qualities of frivolity and randomness, untidiness and
interruption of the pure outline of the man contribute to the lifelike presence
in the scene. In them Bellini has caught the light, and with them, the next moment for this man. Their presence as lines of white in a sea of blue suggest
the wake of the ship of state.