More completely than her masons were Venetian painters dominated by rigid Byzantine formalism. It seems barely credible that Jacobello del Fiore, who for twenty-one years was head of the painters’ guild in Venice, and Michele Giambono should have been the contemporaries of Masaccio and Fra Angelico. The emancipation of Venetian painting from the numbing tradition of the East did not begin until the employment of the Umbrian masters, Gentile da Fabriano and Vittore Pisano, to decorate the Ducal Palace in 1419, and the rise of the Vivarini in Murano in 1440-1500. The marked German character of the earliest work of the Vivarini is due to the association of Antonio Vivarini with Giovanni Alemano (John the German), who was trained in the Cologne school, and by some authorities is believed to be a Vivarini. Later, Antonio collaborated with his younger brother, Bartolomeo. Then the brothers separated, and each worked alone. Bartolomeo, by far the greater personality, was much influenced by Mantegna and the Paduan school, and under him Venetian painting takes a big step towards naturalism. The sacred altar-picture becomes less conventional, the figures are less cramped, the colours brighten, the decoration is richer. When Antonello da Messina, about 1473, brought the perfected Flemish method of painting in oils to Venice, Bartolomeo was not slow to adopt the new medium. Alvise Vivarini, his younger kinsman, made further use of Antonello’s innovation, and touched, moreover, by the spirit of the Bellini, the young painter, whose works cover the period between 1464-1502, begins to foreshadow the future glories of Venetian painting. The earnest, severe, almost harsh features become softened, a strange grace and gentleness comes like a breath of springtime and promise over the whole field of Venetian art.