Giovanni Bellini (c. 1426–1516) was the foremost Venetian painter of the second half of the 15th century. Almost singlehandedly he carried Venetian art out of its late Gothic period through the early Renaissance to the threshold of the High Renaissance. United States museums own two of his greatest paintings: the Frick St. Francis (New York) and The Feast of the Gods (National Gallery of Art). A series of Venice altarpieces scan his progression as artifex of Early and High Venetian Renaissance painting, a process brought to fruition by accomplished pupils such as Giorgione, Sebastiano del Piombo and Titian. His adoption of oil painting (as opposed to the use of egg tempera) in the 1470s was a turning point in Italian art history. Dr. Philip Rylands is the President and CEO of The Society of the Four Arts.