Madonna and Child

By the late 1480s Giovanni Bellini was the official painter of the Venetian Republic, and he had quietly changed what a Madonna could be, giving her the body of a real woman seated behind a stone ledge, with the countryside opening up behind her. In this small panel the cloth of honour is drawn aside to show a landscape that shifts from bare, wintry ground on one side to green and leafing trees on the other, a picture of death turning into new life set behind a mother and her child. The parapet in front, painted as if you could rest your hand on it, keeps the holy pair just out of the everyday world.