e painter of his time, both in manner
and matter. None could be more deeply religious than he, none more
tender, none more simple, none more happy. In manner he was equally
diverse, and could paint like a Paduan, a Tuscan, a Fleming, a Venetian,
and a modern Frenchman. I doubt if he ever was really great as we use
the word of Leonardo, Titian, Tintoretto, Mantegna; but he was
everything else. And he was Titian's master.

The National Gallery is rich indeed in Bellini's work. We have no fewer
than ten pictures that are certainly his, and others that might be; and
practically the whole range of his gifts is illustrated among them.
There may not be anything as fine as the S. Zaccaria or Frari
altar-pieces, or anything as exquisite as the Allegories in the
Accademia and the Uffizi; but after that our collection is unexcelled in
its examples.

[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD
FROM THE PAINTING BY GIOVANNI BELLINI
_In the Accademia_]

In this little precious room of the Accademia are thirteen Bellinis,
each in its way a gem: enough to prove that variousness of which I
spoke. The "Madonna degli Alberetti," for example, with its unexpected
apple-green screen, almost Bougereau carried out to the highest power,
would, if hung in any exhibition to-day, be remarkable but not
anachronistic. And then one thinks of the Gethsemane picture in our
National Gallery, and of the Christ recently acquired by the Louvre, and
marvels. For sheer delight of fancy, colour, and design the five scenes
of Allegory are the flower of the room; and here again our thoughts leap
forward as we look, for is not the second of the series, "Venus the
Ruler of the World," sheer Burne-Jones? The pictures run thus: (1)
"Bacchus tempting Endeavour," (2) either Venus, with the sporting
babies, or as some think, Science (see the reproduction opposite page
158), (3) with its lovely river landscape, "Blind Chance," (4) the Naked
Truth, and (5) Slander. Of the other pictures I like best No. 613,
reproduced opposite page 260, with the Leonardesque saint on the right;
and No. 610, with its fine blues, light and dark, and the very Venetian
Madonna; and the Madonna with the Child stretched across her knees,
reproduced opposite page 144.

Giovanni Bellini did not often paint anything that can be described as
essentially Venetian. He is called the father of Venetian painting, but
his child only faintly resembles him, if at all. That curious change of
which one is c