Giovanni Bellini and Caravaggio were born more than a century apart, but both transformed the emotional power of painting. Bellini, born in Venice in 1435, was raised in a family of artists—his father and brother were painters, and his brother-in-law was the printmaker Andrea Mantegna. Early in his career, Bellini embraced classical forms, but his style shifted after encountering the oil techniques of the Flemish masters, introduced to him in Venice by Antonello da Messina. The result was a new sensuality and depth in his work, seen vividly in the recently restored Pietà (c. 1470), which has left Italy for the first time and is now on view in this show at the Morgan. Over a century later, in 1571, Caravaggio was born in Milan. By the time he arrived in Rome in the 1590s, painting had grown stiff and idealized. Caravaggio broke with tradition, using extreme contrasts of light and shadow—tenebrism—to heighten realism and psychological intensity. One of his early masterpieces, Boy with a Basket of Fruit (c. 1593), painted during his first years in Rome, is also on view at the Morgan. —Elena Clavarino

For more information on the Morgan’s Caravaggio exhibition, see here