Getty Museum
Fortitude
Creator
Giovanni BelliniItalian Artist · 1431–1436
All works by this person →Writing from Italy in 1506, Albrecht Dürer observed that Giovanni Bellini was "very old, but still the best in painting." Giovanni created the soft, luminous art of saturated color that brought Venetian painting into the Renaissance and helped Venice rival Florence as the center of artistic production. His father Jacopo headed a successful workshop where Giovanni and his brother Gentile painted un
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1470
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink
- Culture
- Italian
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
A young woman with long, curly hair wrestles open the jaws of a lion. The play of light and shadow across her belted dress emphasizes the rounded curves of her body, while Giovanni Bellini's simple yet powerful portrayal of her wrestling grip emphasized his skill with contrasts. He drew the woman's delicate curls with circular strokes, subtly different from the looser, curving lines of the lion's mane. Bellini displayed a confident and assured touch unusual for such a small-scale work. The woman represents Fortitude, one of the four Cardinal Virtues, a symbol of endurance and strength in mythology. She is more usually shown as a warrior, wearing a helmet and holding a shield, spear, or sword. Scholars do not know the purpose of this drawing, but because of its small size, it was likely made for a miniature or manuscript illumination.
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