Giovanni Bellini, St. Francis in the Wilderness, 1480. Tempera and oil on panel, 49" x 56."Oh, those blue rocks. Only a Venetian would paint a penitential cave dwelling robin's-egg blue. Bellini's star student, Titian, would go on to add the hazy, close-value effects that became a hallmark of the Venetian renaissance, but Bellini was the early explorer and exploiter of high-key color.
