The Venetian Images by Bellini and Carpaccio: Job as Intercessor or Prophet?

Abstract

The role held by Job in fifteenth-century Venetian culture will be evaluated through the study of three High Renaissance paintings. The master artists Giovanni Bellini and Vittore Carpaccio each painted Job in a unique, visual manner. The analysis of the formal compositional characteristics, the iconographic elements and the historical context of the San Giobbe altarpiece and the Sacred Allegory by Giovanni Bellini and the Meditation on the Passion by Vittore Carpaccio compose a visual alternative for understanding Job. The issues of patronage, compositional artistic sources, and contemporary theological sources will be identified. Their direct relevance to these paintings contributes to the full understanding of how and why some of the artist's decisions were made for each commission. The specific Joban iconography is presented and interpreted as it relates to these three works of art. Bellini and Carpaccio are contemporaries who live, worship, and compete for work in the same city. They interpret the role that Job plays for the contemporary viewer/worshipper in different ways. The question of Job as an intercessor or prophet becomes essential in ascertaining their significance then and now to both the student of art and religion.