Page:Cyclopedia of painters and paintings (IA cyclopediaofpain04cham).pdf/302



Vecelli or Vecellio. Learned rudiments of painting at Cadore, where a Madonna in fresco, at the Casa Vallenzasco, is pointed out as his first work; went to Venice at the age of nine or ten, and was apprenticed by his uncle, Antonio Vecelli, to an unknown artist, perhaps Seb. Zuccato. After frequenting the workshops of Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, where he met Palma and Giorgione, he began to decorate house fronts and to paint Madonnas. A small Madonna of this time, in the Vienna Museum, though eclectic, is individual, while the Man of Sorrows, in the Scuola, and the Christ bearing his Cross, in the Church of S. Rocco, Venice, show that Giorgione then influenced him, as Palma Vecchio did when he painted the Sacred and Profane Love (1503 ?), Palazzo Borghese, Rome. Other early works are: Madonna with St. Anthony (1511), Uffizi, Florence; and portraits of the Doge Niccolò Marcello (1505-8), Vatican Gallery, Rome, and of Marco Barberigo, Palazzo Giustiniani, Padua. In 1508, either in competition or in association with Giorgione, Titian decorated the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, Venice, with now destroyed frescos, of whose style some idea may be formed from the rapidly executed, masterly, and brilliant frescos of Joachim and Anna, in the Scuola del Carmine, and of Three Miracles by St. Anthony (1511), in the Scuola del Santo, Padua. In this year Titian entered the service of Alfonso I., Duke of Ferrara, for whom he painted the Christ of the Tribute Money (1514), Dresden Gallery, and the Bacchus and Ariadne (1523), National Gallery, London. Between the frescos at Padua and the Bacchus, he also produced the Madonna with Saints (1512), in the sacristy of the Salute, Venice; Assumption (1518), in Venice Academy; Annunciation, in S. Niccolò, Treviso, and the Scuola di S. Rocco (1525), Venice; a Madonna with Saints (1520), S. Domenico, Ancona; Altarpiece of Brescia, in five compartments (1522), SS. Nazaro e Celso, Brescia; Madonna di S. Niccolò (1523), Vatican Gallery, Rome; and the Entombment, Louvre, Paris. This and the St. Peter Martyr are examples of Titian's powers at their height. The life of Titian was not marked by any striking incidents or vicissitudes, and was spent in unceasing labour in Venice, Mantua, Ferrara, and Padua, etc. In 1530, and again in 1532, he went to Bologna, where he met Charles V., who created him Count Palatine and Knight of the Golden Spur by letters patent, bestowed many high privileges upon him, and then, as afterwards, sat to him for his portrait. The finest among his pictures of the Emperor is Charles V. at Mühlberg (1548), Madrid Museum, once one of the great masterpieces of painting. Among Titian's earlier works are: Flora (1520), Uffizi, Florence; Laura Dianti at her Toilet (1523), Louvre; Madonna di Casa Pesaro (1526), S. M. de' Frari, Venice; Magdalen (1531 ?), Bella di Tiziano (1534), Palazzo Pitti, Florence; Venus of the Tribune (1537), Uffizi. In 1537 Titian decorated the great Hall of the Ducal Palace with the Battle of Cadore (burned in 1577); in 1539 he painted the Presentation of the Virgin, Venice Academy, and in 1545 produced the Danaë of the Naples Museum. When painting, Titian covered his canvas with low-toned opaque colour, glazed everything, and in some instances spent years over a picture. "Unlike the early Flemish painters, he and the other great Venetians," says Hamerton, "worked independent of drawn lines, and in this gave evidence of greater technical advancement. They took things by the middle and developed them in mass, with a thorough study of modelling in light and shade." Taken in their totality, Titian's pictures fairly entitle him to be called the greatest of all painters; for while others may have surpassed him in single qualities,