BELLINI, Giovanni
(b. ca. 1426, Venezia, d. 1516, Venezia)

Pietà (detail)

1505
Oil on wood
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Christ's abandonment, suggested by his hair hanging against the splendid, lenticular symbolic patch of grass (the Marian "hortus conclusus") which blooms behind the figures, is stiffened to the point of attaining a Dürer-like quality in the contorted hands.