Портрет молодого человека

In Venice around 1500 the way people wanted to be pictured was changing. The old stiff profile, borrowed from coins and medals, was giving way to a face turned toward you and lit as if by a real window, a manner Venetians had picked up partly from Netherlandish painting and from Antonello da Messina, who had brought oil technique to the city a generation earlier. Bellini gives this unnamed young man that new, immediate presence. He sits behind a painted marble ledge in a black coat pleated down the chest, clear blue sky behind him, his eyes turned slightly to one side. We do not know his name. The brimless dark cap and plain coat were simply how a young Venetian of the 1490s dressed to be remembered.