ted to
him, but they give very little idea of what an important master he was.

[Illustration: _Jacopo Bellini._
AGONY IN GARDEN--DRAWING.
_British Museum._
(_Photo, Anderson._)]

His Madonna in the Academy has a round, simple type of face, and in the
Louvre Madonna, which is attributed but not signed, it is easy to
recognise the same arched eyebrows and half-shut, curved eyelids. In
this picture, where the Madonna blesses the kneeling Leonello d' Este,
we see how Pisanello acted on Jacopo and, through him, on Venetian art.
The connection between the two masters has been established in a very
interesting way by Professor Antonio Venturi's discovery of a sonnet,
written in 1441, which recounts how they painted rival portraits of
Leonello, and how Bellini made so lively a likeness that he was
adjudged the first place. The landscape in the Louvre picture is
advanced in treatment, and with its gilded mountain-tops, its stag and
its town upon the hill-side, is full of reminiscences of Pisanello,
especially of the "St. George" in S. Anastasia. We come upon such
traces, too, in Jacopo's drawings, and it is by his two sketch-books
that we can best judge of his greatness. One of these is in the British
Museum; the other, in the Louvre, was discovered not many years ago in
the granary of a castle in Guyenne. These drawings reveal Jacopo as one
of the greatest masters of his day. He is larger, simpler, and more
natural than Pisanello, and he apparently cares less for the human
figure than for elaborate backgrounds and surroundings. Many of his
designs we shall refer to again when we come to speak of his two sons.
His "Supper of Herod" reminds us of Masolino's fresco at Castiglione
d' Olona. He sketches designs for numbers of religious scenes, treated
in an original and interesting manner. A "Crucifixion" has bands of
soldiers ranged on either side, an "Adoration of the Magi" has a string
of camels coming down the hill, the executioners in a "Scourging" wear
Eastern head-dresses. In a sketch for a "Baptism of Christ" tall angels
hold the garments in the early traditional way; on one side two play
the lute and the violin, while the two on the other side have a trumpet
and an organ. He has sketches for the Ascension, Resurrection,
Circumcision, and Entombment, repeated over and over again with
variations, and one of S. Bernardino preaching in Venice (where he was
in 1427). Jacopo