Titian who was Giorgione's successor, was destined to have
one of the longest life spans in artistic history - in contrast to Giorgi-
one and Raphael - and was one of those few very fortunate artists (Rembrandt and Matisse were two others) who
changed and grew at every stage, reaching a climactic old age.
The early Titian is wonderful enough; the later Titian is incomparable. Before working with Giorgione, Titian spent time in
the worksh-
op of Giovanni Bellini. Bellini's mastery of oil painting technip-
ues, which had transformed Venetian painting, was of huge importance to Titian's art - and by the same token, to the direct-
ion of subsequent Western painting. It is in
Titian's paintings that we find a freedom prophetic of the art of today: the actual material of the paint is valued for its inherent expressive qualities - in harmony with, but distinct from,
the narrative of the paintings. Titian is perhaps the most important of all the great painters of the Renaissance. Unlike his
predecessors, who were trained as engravers, designers for goldsmiths, and other crafts, he devoted all his energies to painting, and as such was a fore-
runner of the modern painter.
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