Titian

Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (c. 1488-90 – August 27, 1576), commonly known as Titian, was one of the greatest 16th century Renaissance painters of Venice, Italy.

Critique

Ever since Titian rose into celebrity the general verdict has been

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that he is the greatest of painters, considered technically. In the

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first place neither the method of fresco painting nor work of the

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colossal scale to which fresco painting ministers is here in question.

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Titian's province is that of oil painting, and of painting on a scale

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which, though often large and grand, is not colossal either in

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dimension or in inspiration. Titian may properly be regarded as the

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greatest manipulator of paint in relation to colour, tone, luminosity,

Related Topics:
Paint - Colour

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richness, texture, surface and harmony, and with a view to-the

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production of a pictorial whole conveying to the eye a true, dignified

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and beautiful impression of its general subject matter and of the

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objects of sense which form its constituent parts. In this sense

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Titian has never been deposed from his sovereignty in painting, nor

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can one forecast the time in which he will be deposed. For the complex

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of qualities which we sum up in the words colour, handling and general

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force and harmony of effect, he stands unmatched, although in

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particular items of forcible or impressive execution-not to speak of

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creative invention-some painters, one in one respect and another in

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another, may indisputably be preferred to him.

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He carried to its acme

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that great colourist conception of the Venetian school of which the

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first masterpieces are due to the two Bellini, to Canpaccio, and, with

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more fully developed suavity of manner, to Giorgione. Pre-eminent

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inventive power or sublimity

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of intellect he never evinced. Even in energy of action and more

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especially in majesty or affluence of composition the palm is not his;

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it is (so far as concerns the Venetian school) assignable to

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Tintoretto.

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Titian is a painter who by wondrous magic of genius and

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of art satisfies the eye, and through the eye the feelings, sometimes

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the mind.

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Titian's pictures abound with memories of his home country and of the

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region which led from the hill-summits of Cadore to the queen-city of

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the Adriatic. He was almost the first painter to exhibit an

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appreciation of mountains, mainly those of a turreted type,

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exemplified in the Dolomites. Indeed he gave to landscape generally a

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new and original vitality, expressing the quality of the objects of

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nature and their control over the sentiments and imagination with a

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force that had never before been approached. The earliest Italian

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picture expressly designated as landscape was one which Vecelli sent

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in 1552 to Philip II.

Related Topics:
1552 - Philip II

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His productive faculty was immense, even when we

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allow for the abnormal length of his professional career. In Italy,

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England and elsewhere more than a thousand pictures figure as

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Titian's; of these about 250 may be regarded as dubious or spurious.

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There are, for instance, 6 pictures in the National Gallery, London,

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18 in the Louvre, 16 in the Pitti, 18 in the Uffizi, 7 in the Naples

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Museum, 8 in the Venetian Academy (besides the series in the private

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meeting-hall) and 41 in the Madrid Museum. In the National Gallery 3

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other works used to be assigned to Titian, but are now regarded rather

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as examples of his school.

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