The first definitive biography of the master painter in more than a century, Titian: His Life is being hailed as a "landmark achievement" for critically acclaimed author Sheila Hale (Publishers Weekly). Brilliant in its interpretation of the 16th-century master's paintings, this monumental biography of Titian draws on contemporary accounts and recent art historical research and scholarship, some of it previously unpublished, providing an unparalleled portrait of the artist, as well as a fascinating rendering of Venice as a center of culture, commerce, and power. Sheila Hale's Titian is destined to be this century's authoritative text on the life of greatest painter of the Italian High Renaissance.
Not only does Sir Claude Phillips offer the reader a studied and insightful loook into the work of one of the world's most cherished painters, but he also invites us to discover the bustling world on the Venetian art circle in which Titian lived and worked. From his early years in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, to his meeting with Michelangelo and his rivalry with Pordenone, the story of Titian's artistic development also tells the story of the most influential Italian Renaissance art.
After Vasari's Lives of the Most Famous Artists,The Life of Titian by the seventeenth-century Venetian artist and writer Carlo Ridolfi is the most important contemporary documentary source for our understanding of the great Renaissance artist. This new critical edition, the first translation into English of Ridolfi's biography, illuminates his life, his artistic production, and his early critical reputation. The editors address art-historical questions of attribution, provenance, and documentation that Ridolfi's biography raises. Two introductory essays present the nature, scope, and importance of the biography for the study of Titian and Venetian Renaissance art and place Ridolfi in the tradition of Renaissance biography and artistic literature. The annotations provide a useful and current bibliography drawn from both art history and literature. The Life of Titian will be of interest to a wide audience of scholars and students of the history of Renaissance art, literature, language, and culture.
The work that Titian produced during the first decade of his career is beautiful and varied, but it has raised many questions of attribution and chronology. This book - the first thorough and coherent account of this period in Titian's life - reconstructs what he painted, when he painted it and what these paintings mean. Paul Joannides begins by discussing the probable course of Titian's early career and his relationship to the Bellinis. There are individual excurses on Giorgione and on Sebastiano del Piombo whose work has often been confused with his. Joannides then offers new interpretations of some of Titian's paintings, emphasising their poetic and dramatic qualities. Among other topics, he associates for the first time the paintings in Saint Petersburg, Venice and Houston; lays out Titian's part of the Fondaco; connects the privately owned Resurrected Christ with the Fogg Circumcision; integrates the Dresden Venus and the Berlin Portrait into Titian's work; and establishes the dynamism and inventiveness of the great Assunta of 1516-18. Joannides provides detailed arguments in support of both new and familiar attributions, proposes a more closely reasoned and precise chronology
This dazzling survey of 16th-century Venetian painting captures the striking colors and revolutionary characteristics of one of art history's greatest chapters. It is hard to imagine more profoundly influential artists than the Venetian painters of the 16th century. Whether creating sweeping devotional altarpieces or intimate portraits, the Venetian painters changed the way artists employed color and composition. These defining qualities are on brilliant display in this book that covers fascinating aspects of the work of Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Lorenzo Lotto, Jacopo Bassano, and many others. More than one hundred paintings, drawings, and prints are reproduced in stunning detail. Side-by-side comparisons draw readers into the conversations between Venetian artists as they tackled similar subjects and vied for commissions. The book opens with fascinating essays about the history of 16th-century Venice, the Venetian School of painting, and the techniques of the Venetian masters. As beautiful as it is informative, this book features all of the excitement and splendor of one of the most prolific and important chapters in the history of European art.
Titian is best known for paintings that embodied the tradition of the Venetian Renaissance—but how Venetian was the artist himself? In this study, Tom Nichols probes the tensions between the individualism of Titian’s work and the conservative mores of the city, showing how his art undermined the traditional self-suppressing approach to painting in Venice and reflected his engagement with the individualistic cultures emerging in the courts of early modern Europe. Ranging widely across Titian’s long career and varied works, Titian and the End of the Venetian Renaissance outlines his radical innovations to the traditional Venetian altarpiece; his transformation of portraits into artistic creations; and his meteoric breakout from the confines of artistic culture in Venice. Nichols explores how Titian challenged the city’s communal values with his competitive professional identity, contending that his intensely personalized way of painting resulted in a departure that effectively brought an end to the Renaissance tradition of painting. Packed with 170 illustrations, this groundbreaking book will change the way people look at Titian and Venetian art history.
02 In this gorgeously illustrated book, renowned Titian scholars examine some of the celebrated artist’s masterpieces and discuss his life and times, portraits, replicas, and technique. The reproductions and text provide new evidence of Titian’s genius as a stylistic innovator.“A gem of a catalog. Interestingly written, well-documented and beautifully illustrated essays update the scholarship on particular aspects of the life and work of Titian. . . . Highly recommended.”—ChoiceCharles Hope is director of the Warburg Institute and professor at the University of London; Jennifer Fletcher was most recently senior lecturer at the Courtauld Institute; Jill Dunkerton is restorer in the conservation department at the National Gallery, London; Miguel Falomir is head curator of Italian Renaissance painting at the Prado, Madrid; David Jaffé is senior curator at the National Gallery, London; Nicholas Penny is senior curator of sculpture at the National Gallery of Art, Washington; Caroline Campbell is assistant curator of Renaissance paintings at the National Gallery, London; Amanda Bradley is supervisor and guest lecturer in the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge. In this gorgeously illustrated book, renowned Titian scholars examine some of the celebrated artist’s masterpieces and discuss his life and times, portraits, replicas, and technique. The reproductions and text provide new evidence of Titian’s genius as a stylistic innovator.“A gem of a catalog. Interestingly written, well-documented and beautifully illustrated essays update the scholarship on particular aspects of the life and work of Titian. . . . Highly recommended.”—ChoiceCharles Hope is director of the Warburg Institute and professor at the University of London; Jennifer Fletcher was most recently senior lecturer at the Courtauld Institute; Jill Dunkerton is restorer in the conservation department at the National Gallery, London; Miguel Falomir is head curator of Italian Renaissance painting at the Prado, Madrid; David Jaffé is senior curator at the National Gallery, London; Nicholas Penny is senior curator of sculpture at the National Gallery of Art, Washington; Caroline Campbell is assistant curator of Renaissance paintings at the National Gallery, London; Amanda Bradley is supervisor and guest lecturer in the Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge.
"Titian's place as one of the giants of Western culture has never been in doubt. He represents the culmination of the Venetian school, evolving a technique of free, spontaneous brushwork and a rendering of form through colour that amazed his contemporaries and is now seen by some as foreshadowing Impressionism. In a long life of nearly ninety years he painted hundreds of canvases, ranging from moving and intense religious images, through penetratingly psychological portraits (including Charies V and Philip II of Spain) to sensuously erotic mythological scenes like Bacchus and Ariadne and the Venus of Urbino. Over 250 paintings are now accepted as by his own hand. All are illustrated here with detailed commentaries giving the circumstances of their commission, their subsequent history and stylistic analysis. Also included is an exhaustive bibliography. The fruit of many years' research by two eminent authorities, Titian - The Complete Paintings is a monument of scholarship that will remain definitive for the foreseeable future."--Jacket.
