In the context of this artwork, explore the Setting of the Composition.
Above the Madonna and Child is a coffered vault ceiling, which is an architectural reference to the Saint Mark's Basilica. Bellini creates a fictive chapel within the Church of San Giobbe, while combining figures that were never meant to be together in one space. He also creates a fictive space in terms of architecture, with the plaster columns framing the piece and paralleling structures from the Saint Mark’s Cathedral. This technique of placing holy figures as such in a fictive space was new to Venetian art, a technique that will be commonly repeated by future Venetian artists.Common to the genre at the time, sacra conversazione paintings included some form of sky, or were placed within a structure that is somehow open to the outside world. Unlike all his other sacra conversazione paintings, the San Giobbe Altarpiece is unique in that it takes place in an interior space, due to the fact that it was meant to compensate for the Church of San Giobbe’s lack of a second chapel across from the Martini chapel.The upper part features a perspective coffered ceiling, flanked with pillars which are copies of the real ones at the original altar. Behind the Madonna is a dark niche. In the latter's half-dome is a gilt mosaic decoration in the Venetian style.
This altarpiece is an example of a pala altar, or a single-paneled altar, a technique first introduced to Venice by Bellini and heavily influenced by Antonello da Messina.
Madonna Church of San Giobbe sacra conversazione Venice plaster Child Saint chapel altarpiece vault Altarpiece architecture coffer San Giobbe column