Titian

Titian

(1485-1576)

Titian (Tiziano Vecelli) (1487-1576) The greatest Venetian painter and, in
some senses, the founder of modern painting, Titian's Assumption laid the
foundations of his fame. It is an enormous picture, in the "modern" style, and
marks the beginning of the High Renaissance in Venice. Titian became a personal
friend of the Emperor Charles V -- an unheard-of honor for a painter of the
16th century, comparable only with Michelangelo's relationship with the Popes.
After the abdication of Charles V in 1555, he continued to work for his
successor, Philip II of Spain, who, however, employed him less as a portraitist
than as a painter of poesie (Titian's own word for more or less erotic
mythologies). During these years the old painter developed a very free style,
almost anticipating Impressionism in its disregard for contours and its
concentration on the rendering of form as patches of color. In the 1560s there
were many criticisms of his failing powers, but, in fact, he was developing a
sublime late style. He was said to have laid in his pictures with a mass of
color that served as a groundwork for what he wanted to express: "With the same
brush dipped in red, black, or yellow he worked up the light parts and in four
strokes he could create a remarkably fine figure. Then he turned the picture to
the wall and left it for months without looking at it, until he returned to it
and stared critically at it, as if it were a mortal enemy. The final touches he
softened, occasionally modulating the highest lights into the half-tones and
local colors with his finger; sometimes he used his finger to dab a dark patch
in a corner as an accent, or to heighten the surface with a bit of red like a
drop of blood. He finished his figures like this and in the last stages he used
his fingers more than his brush."

Titian1.jpg (19827 bytes)