Tiziano alias Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1485 - August 27, 1576), better known as Titian was the leader of the 16th-century Venetian school of the Italian Renaissance. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, in the Cadore Veneto), in Most Serene Republic of Venice, and died in Venice. During his lifetime he was often called Da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth.
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No one is sure of the exact date of Titian's birth. A fresco of Hercules on the Morosini Palace is said to have been one of his earliest works; others were the Virgin and Child (the Bellini-esque so-called Gypsy Madonna), in Vienna, and the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth (from the convent of S. Andrea), now in the Accademia, Venice.
Titian joined Giorgione as an assistant, but many contemporary critics already found his work more impressive, for example in the exterior frescoes (now lost) that they did for the Fondacio dei Tedeschi, and their relationship evidently had a significant element of rivalry. Distinguishing between their work at this period remains a subject of scholarly controversy. The earliest known work of Titian, the little Ecce Homo of the Scuola di San Rocco, was long regarded as the work of Giorgione. The same confusion or uncertainty is connected with more than one of the Sacred Conversations.
Titian joined Giorgione as an assistant, but many contemporary critics already found his work more impressive, for example in the exterior frescoes (now lost) that they did for the Fondacio dei Tedeschi, and their relationship evidently had a significant element of rivalry. Distinguishing between their work at this period remains a subject of scholarly controversy. The earliest known work of Titian, the little Ecce Homo of the Scuola di San Rocco, was long regarded as the work of Giorgione. The same confusion or uncertainty is connected with more than one of the Sacred Conversations.
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Tiziano
Titian returns to Venice
From Padua in 1512, Titian returned to Venice; and in 1513 he obtained a broker's patent in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (state-warehouse for the German merchants), termed La Sanseria or Senseria (a privilege much coveted by rising or risen artists), and became superintendent of the government works, being especially charged to complete the paintings left unfinished by Giovanni Bellini in the hall of the great council in the ducal palace. He set up an atelier on the Grand Canal at S. Samuele, the precise site being now unknown. It was not until 1516, upon the death of Bellini, that he came into actual enjoyment of his patent. At the same time he entered an exclusive arrangement for painting. The patent yielded him a good annuity of 20 crowns and exempted him from certain taxes - he being bound in return to paint likenesses of the successive Doges of his time at the fixed price of eight crowns each. The actual number he executed was five.
Tziano Master of Venetian School
Giorgione died in 1510 and the aged Bellini, 1516, leaving Titian unrivaled in the Venetian School. For sixty years he was to be the undisputed master of Venetian painting, and as it were, the painter laureate of the Republic Serenissime. As early as 1516 he succeeded his old master Bellini as the pensioner of the Senate.
During this period (1516-1530), which may be called the period of his mastery and maturity, the artist freed himself from his youthful traditions, undertook more complex subjects and for the first time attempted the monumental style.
In 1518 he produced for the high altar of the church of the Frari, his famous masterpiece, the Assumption of the Virgin, still in situ. This extraordinary piece of colorism, executed on a grand scale rarely before seen in Italy, excited a sensation. The signoria took note, and did not fail to observe that Titian was neglecting his work in the hall of the great council.
The pictorial structure of the Assumption - that of uniting in the same composition two or three scenes superimposed on different levels, earth and heaven, the temporal and the infinite - was continued in a series of works such as the retable of San Domenico at Ancona (1520), the retable of Brescia (1522), and the retable of San Niccolò (1523), in the Vatican Museum), each time attaining to a higher and more perfect conception, finally reaching a classic formula in the Pesaro Madonna, (c. 1519-1526), at Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. This perhaps is his most studied work, whose patiently developed plan is set forth with supreme display of order and freedom, originality and style. Here Titian gave a new conception of the traditional groups of donors and holy persons moving in aerial space, the plans and different degrees set in an architectural framework.
Titian was now at the height of his fame, and towards 1521, following the production of a figure of St. Sebastian for the papal legate in Brescia (a work of which there are numerous replicas), purchasers became extremely urgent for his productions.
During this period (1516-1530), which may be called the period of his mastery and maturity, the artist freed himself from his youthful traditions, undertook more complex subjects and for the first time attempted the monumental style.
In 1518 he produced for the high altar of the church of the Frari, his famous masterpiece, the Assumption of the Virgin, still in situ. This extraordinary piece of colorism, executed on a grand scale rarely before seen in Italy, excited a sensation. The signoria took note, and did not fail to observe that Titian was neglecting his work in the hall of the great council.
The pictorial structure of the Assumption - that of uniting in the same composition two or three scenes superimposed on different levels, earth and heaven, the temporal and the infinite - was continued in a series of works such as the retable of San Domenico at Ancona (1520), the retable of Brescia (1522), and the retable of San Niccolò (1523), in the Vatican Museum), each time attaining to a higher and more perfect conception, finally reaching a classic formula in the Pesaro Madonna, (c. 1519-1526), at Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. This perhaps is his most studied work, whose patiently developed plan is set forth with supreme display of order and freedom, originality and style. Here Titian gave a new conception of the traditional groups of donors and holy persons moving in aerial space, the plans and different degrees set in an architectural framework.
Titian was now at the height of his fame, and towards 1521, following the production of a figure of St. Sebastian for the papal legate in Brescia (a work of which there are numerous replicas), purchasers became extremely urgent for his productions.
Titian's Private Life
n 1525, after some irregular living and a consequent fever, he married a lady named Cecilia, thereby legitimizing their first child, Pomponio, and two (or perhaps three) others followed, including Titian's supposed favorite, Orazio. Towards 1526 he became acquainted, and soon exceedingly intimate, with Pietro Aretino, of influence and audacity hitherto unexampled, who figures so strangely in the chronicles of the time. Titian sent a portrait of him to Gonzaga, duke of Mantua.
A great affliction befell him in August 1530 in the death of his wife. He then, with his three children, one of them the infant Lavinia, whose birth had been fatal to the mother, moved to a new home, and got his sister Orsa to come from Cadore and take charge of the household. The mansion, difficult to find now, is in the Bin Grande, then a fashionable suburb, being in the extreme end of Venice, on the sea, with beautiful gardens and a look-out towards Murano.
A great affliction befell him in August 1530 in the death of his wife. He then, with his three children, one of them the infant Lavinia, whose birth had been fatal to the mother, moved to a new home, and got his sister Orsa to come from Cadore and take charge of the household. The mansion, difficult to find now, is in the Bin Grande, then a fashionable suburb, being in the extreme end of Venice, on the sea, with beautiful gardens and a look-out towards Murano.
