On the True Precepts of the Art of Painting Titian
Titian
active about 1506; died 1576
Titian was the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice, and the starting time painter to take a mainly international clientele. During his long career, he experimented with many unlike styles of painting which embody the development of fine art during his epoch.
Youth and debut
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) was born in Pieve di Cadore, a pocket-size boondocks at the foot of the Dolomites on the Venetian side of the Alps. The Vecellios had been based in Cadore since the 14th century. Titian'south male parent, Gregorio, was a military man. His older brother Francesco was also a painter. There is still no documentary evidence of Titian's exact date of birth, just gimmicky sources and his early stylistic development suggest that he was born around 1490.
When he was nigh ten years old, Titian arrived in Venice, then one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities in the globe.
Titian started his artistic training in the workshop of the mosaicist Sebastiano Zuccato. He later briefly joined Gentile Bellini'due south workshop. After Gentile'south death in 1507, Titian joined the workshop of Gentile's brother, Giovanni Bellini, which at that fourth dimension was the most important in Venice.
However, information technology was through contact with Giorgione, who had also previously trained in Giovanni Bellini'southward workshop, that he mainly adult his early on style. The Giorgionesque advent of Titian'due south early work, which is characterised by a pastoral mood, is proof of their closeness. In 1508-ix they worked together on the decoration of the external walls of the 'Fondaco dei Tedeschi' in Venice. The parts executed by Titian were greatly praised by contemporaries, much to the annoyance of Giorgione.
After Giorgione's death in 1510, and Sebastiano del Piombo's departure to Rome in 1511, Titian launched his contained career in Venice. He was at present left without rivals among his generation who could compete at his level.
Early local success
In 1511 Titian painted his celebrated frescoes in the 'Scuola del Santo' in Padua. His style had now reached maturity, marked by fullness of forms, compositional confidence and chromatic balance. These features made his work cardinal to the development of Venetian – and as well European – painting.
He became famous as a portraitist (examples in the National Gallery are La Schiavona and Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo). He was also known as a painter of diverse profane subjects. These skills drew the attending of intellectually ambitious Italian dukes and aristocrats.
Titian was also commissioned to paint prestigious public religious paintings. His Venetian success was sealed by the execution of the altarpiece for the loftier altar of the important Franciscan church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. The so-called 'Assunta' (Supposition of the Virgin Mary), which is nigh vii metres high, was displayed in 1518, creating a revolutionary watershed in Venetian altarpiece design.
Betwixt 1519 and 1526, he painted the celebrated 'Pala Pesaro' for the aforementioned church building. This asymmetrical composition strongly influenced Venetian altarpiece painting right upward until the 18th century.
Due north Italian courts
Early in 1516 Titian started his professional relationship with Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara and spent time in Alfonso's castle. The duke wanted to create a private chiffonier, which would exist known as the 'camerino d'alabastro' (the alabaster cabinet), with mythological scenes derived from classical poetry.
The duke employed the painters he considered to be the best at the fourth dimension. Apart from Titian, the other artists were Raphael, Fra Bartolomeo and Dosso Dossi. Post-obit the deaths of Raphael and Fra Bartolomeo Titian's interest in the project increased. He then executed his ii famous Bacchanals for Alfonso I, today in the Prado, Madrid, forth with Bacchus and Ariadne, now in the National Gallery.
Titian besides worked for the court of Mantua. In 1523 he began painting for the futurity Duke of Mantua, Federico Two Gonzaga the son of Isabella d'Este (who was the sis of Titian's earlier patron Alfonso I). Titian mainly painted portraits for the Mantuan courtroom.
In 1532 Titian started to work for the Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria della Rovere. He would also work for his successor, Guidobaldo II. In the 1530s, he was besides in touch on with the court of Pope Paolo 3 Farnese.
Worldwide success, family unit and friends
The 1520s were hugely significant for Titian's private life. In 1525 he married Cecilia (who tragically died in 1530). Titian and Cecilia had three children, who were all given the names of famous figures from ancient Rome: Pompeo, Orazio and Lavinia.
Titian'southward meeting with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in Bologna in 1530 would be a determining outcome in his life. On this occasion Titian executed a (at present lost) full-length, life-size portrait of the Emperor - an early example of what was nonetheless an extremely innovative genre at that time.
He quickly became the principal painter to the regal courtroom, which gave him immense privileges, honours and fifty-fifty titles. From this moment he was the painter near in need at courts across Europe. Titian also became the official painter of Charles V's son, Philip II of Kingdom of spain. Starting in nigh 1551, he painted the historic mythological series of pictures for Philip, which he referred to as 'poesie'.
The 'poesie' included Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, which are now part of the National Gallery'south collection, forth with The Decease of Actaeon, which was originally conceived as part of the serial, but in fact remained unfinished in the artist'south studio at his death.
In 1527 the Florentine sculptor and builder Jacopo Sansovino and the Tuscan human of letters Pietro Aretino arrived in Venice. They became inseparable friends with Titian, stimulating his interest in Mannerism, a way first seen in his paintings from that period. Mannerist aspects in his art increased afterwards his just trip to Rome in 1545-6, where he finally got the opportunity to meet Michelangelo.
Belatedly years
The last phase of Titian'due south life coincided with a radical revision of his own style and painting technique. Starting from the late 1550s, Titian adult a much freer use of the brush and a less descriptive representation of reality.
In the tardily 1560s and early 1570s, when Titian was already extremely sometime, he pushed his fine art to the edge of abstraction. This later style has been divers as 'magic impressionism'. All of this is well represented by 2 of his latest works, The Death of Actaeon at the National Gallery, and the 'Pietà ', now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.
The 'Pietà ' was originally destined for his own tomb in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, where Titian was cached after dying of the plague on 27 August 1576.
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Source: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/titian
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