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Biografías |
Glosarios -
Biografías |
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Contenidos disponibles en
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Compilador / Compiler:
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La
llegada a Venecia en 1527 -tras el saqueo de Roma- de Pietro Aretino
y Jacopo Sansovino pondrá a Tiziano en relación con el
arte centro-italiano, si bien la década de 1530 es considerada por los
especialistas como un momento conservador, en el que se permite
introducir arcaísmos, como se observa en la Presentación de la Virgen
en el Templo. Sin embargo, desde 1539 el maestro veneciano se pondrá
en contacto con jóvenes artistas romanos llegados a la Ciudad de los
Canales como Francesco Salviati, Giovanni da Udine y Giorgio Vasari.
Este contacto provocará un nuevo cambio en el artista al retomar los
problemas planteados por estos jóvenes que desembocarán en el
Manierismo, sin renunciar Tiziano a la luz y
el color que son la base de su pintura. De esta forma, se inicia la
llamada "crisis manierista" en la que de nuevo tiene como referencias
a Pordenone y Giulio Romano. Este cambio estilístico se aprecia en la
Coronación de espinas o en los techos de la iglesia de Isola. Pero
estos profundos cambios apenas afectarán a los retratos, aportando
desde este momento una mayor penetración psicológica y una técnica de
ejecución más rápida. Ejemplos de esta etapa son los retratos de
Ranuccio Farnese, el papa Paulo III o el Aretino.La relación con el
pontífice se estrechará en 1543 cuando Tiziano recibe una invitación
para ejecutar un retrato del papa en Ferrara. El satisfactorio
resultado motivaría que el pintor recibiera una nueva invitación, dos
años después, para trasladarse a Roma. En efecto, durante el mes de
octubre de 1545 Tiziano se dirige a la Ciudad Pontificia con la
promesa de recibir algunos beneficios eclesiásticos para su hijo
Pomponio. La estancia en Roma será un auténtico triunfo, obteniendo
numerosos encargos -entre ellos los retratos de Paulo III con sus
nietos o la Dánae- y consiguiendo la ciudadanía romana en el
Capitolio. En marzo de 1546 se traslada de nuevo a Venecia, haciendo
una breve escala en Florencia. Tiziano está en su momento de mayor
apogeo.En este breve paréntesis veneciano realizará una obra de gran
impacto: el retrato votivo de la familia Vendramin, así como el
Martirio de San Lorenzo para la iglesia de los Jesuitas.Será a finales
del verano de 1547 cuando Tiziano tenga que elegir entre servir al
emperador o al papa. De Roma recibe un mensaje en el que se le ofrece
el cargo de la "piombatura" lo que le obliga a instalarse en la Ciudad
Pontificia. El emperador le invitaba a reunirse con él en Augsburgo.
El maestro decidió reunirse con Carlos V en la ciudad imperial, donde
se dirigió en los primeros días del año 1548. Durante esta estancia
fue distinguido con grandes honores -entre ellos ser alojado en
habitaciones cercanas a las del emperador- y realizó el gran retrato
de
Carlos V en la batalla de Mülberg,
posiblemente el retrato ecuestre más impactante. También trabajó en
algunas obras profanas identificadas con las Venus y la música,
temática ya tratada por el maestro en su juventud.En el otoño de 1548
Tiziano regresa a Venecia para trabajar en la serie de las Furias para
María de Hungría, serie de la que sólo conocemos el Tizio y el Sísifo,
ambos en
el Prado. La brillante aparición en
escena del joven Tintoretto no parece inquietar al maestro ya que en
1550 de nuevo está en Augsburgo, donde recibirá nuevos encargos, entre
ellos el retrato del entonces príncipe Felipe y algunas obras de
carácter religioso, como la impresionante Adoración de la Santísima
Trinidad, más conocida como la Gloria. En agosto de 1551 regresará a
Venecia, ingresando a finales de año en la Scuola Grande di San Rocco.
Tiziano ya no abandonará Venecia pero, paradójicamente, se sentirá
cada vez más desvinculado artísticamente de ella. No recibirá ningún
encargo público de importancia, dejando para Tintoretto y Veronés los
trabajos que él rechazaba. La explicación estaría en su dedicación en
exclusiva a la casa de Austria, convirtiéndose Felipe II en su mejor
cliente. Para el futuro monarca español pintará Tiziano las famosas
"poesías" inspiradas en la "Metamorfosis" de Ovidio. La serie consta
de seis espectaculares lienzos: Dánae; Venus y Adonis; Diana y Acteón;
Diana y Calisto; el Rapto de Europa y Perseo y Andrómeda.En los años
centrales de la década de 1550 la feliz existencia de Tiziano tomará
un nuevo camino. Su hijo Pomponio sufre graves problemas; su hermano
Francesco y su buen amigo Aretino fallecen; su hijo Orazio casi
resulta asesinado por un amigo; su hija Lavinia se casa y abandona el
hogar paterno en 1555 para fallecer seis años después. Tiziano se
siente viejo y abandonado lo que provocará un cambio en su pintura,
introduciendo mayor tensión y dramatismo como se aprecia en los
Entierros de Cristo que guarda el Museo del Prado o en la Coronación
de espinas de Munich. Sin renunciar al color y la luz, las pinceladas
ahora son aplicadas con contundencia, creando en los trabajos una
sensación atmosférica y abocetada que lleva a los especialistas a
denominar esta etapa final como "impresionismo
mágico".Las últimas décadas de su vida las pasará el maestro
continuando sus trabajos para el rey Felipe II, siendo el destinatario
de las alegorías de
la Religión socorrida por España y la
Ofrenda de Felipe II. A pesar de la
edad y del estado anímico, Tiziano continúa con una febril actividad,
realizando tanto obras mitológicas como religiosas y algunos retratos,
retomando antiguos temas y realizando diversas versiones de los
nuevos. Incluso se interesa por las actividades comerciales, tratando
en un negocio de maderas con el duque de Urbino en 1564. Su
importancia en el ambiente artístico le llevará a ser nombrado miembro
de la Academia del Dibujo de Florencia junto a Tintoretto y
Palladio.Entendiendo la pintura como un negocio, Tiziano mantuvo
durante su vida un productivo taller que le ayudaba en las grandes
obras, realizaba réplicas de sus trabajos más reputados o elaboraba
aquellos encargos en los que el maestro no deseaba dedicar excesivo
empeño. Algunos contemporáneos llegaron a reprocharle el abuso del
empleo del taller, algo habitual entre los artistas del
Renacimiento. Sin embargo, en los
últimos trabajos del pintor se puede apreciar que estos reproches no
tiene justificación ya que en ellos -el San Sebastián del Ermitage o
Tarquino y Lucrecia de Cambridge- presenta una factura personal,
diluyendo las figuras con fluidos y rápidos toques de color y luz que
convierten en expresivas manchas el conjunto. Este estilo
absolutamente identificativo se puede observar en su último trabajo,
la Piedad, destinada a su propia tumba y que no pudo finalizar, siendo
su discípulo Palma el Joven quien la concluyó.Durante una de las
numerosas epidemias de peste que sufría Venecia, Tiziano Vecellio
fallecía "di vecchiezza" el 27 de agosto de 1576 en su casa de Biri
Grande. Venecia despidió a su gran pintor con solemnes exequias en la
basílica de San Marcos, antes de ser enterrado en la iglesia de Santa
Maria Gloriosa dei Frari El Manierismo es el resultado de la aplicación hasta su último extremo de las reglas fijadas durante el Renacimiento. A resultas de este desarrollo se dio una vuelta más a un estilo que se estaba agotando dentro de los rígidos esquemas del canon. Así, en círculos independientes, como las cortes privadas de ciertos príncipes y algunos núcleos de intelectuales, se patrocinó un arte exagerado, críptico a veces, sólo apto para iniciados y paladares exquisitos, capaces de apreciar los significados ocultos de la violación y retorcimiento de las reglas pictóricas. Cortes como la de Rodolfo II en Praga, los círculos papales, la república veneciana, El Greco y sus amistades toledanas... son algunos de los sofisticados reductos donde se refugió este arte anti-natural. Los personajes de estas obras sufren tremendas distorsiones en sus anatomías, que ven alargadas sus miembros o sus rostros, dispuestos en posturas retorcidas e imposibles en la realidad. Los colores no remiten a la naturaleza, sino que son extraños, fríos, artificiales, violentamente enfrentados entre sí, en vez de apoyarse en gamas. El propio Miguel Ángel o el académico Rafael experimentaron en sus últimas obras el placer de la trasgresión, desdibujando sus figuras o dejando inacabadas sus obras. Tiziano, Correggio o Giorgione someten algunas de sus pinturas a complicados simbolismos que aún no han sido descifrados, como intuimos en La Tempestad, de este último. La orfebrería fue uno de los ámbitos más beneficiados por este complejo arte, que afectó tardíamente, pero de forma genial, a El Greco. Ya en España se había pasado por la fiebre manierista, especialmente en los pintores relacionados con El Escorial (Tibaldi y Navarrete el Mudo). Recién llegado, El Greco resultaba pasado de moda y fracasó en la Corte, aunque Felipe II pagó sus cuadros a precio de oro. El Greco significa la sublimación de un estilo en un contexto que había superado ya el Manierismo y se adentraba en el Barroco de la Contrarreforma católica. Early yearsNo one is sure of the exact date of Titian's birth; when old he claimed it was 1477 in a letter to Phillip II, but this seems most unlikely.[1] Other writers contemporary to his old age give figures for his age which would equate to birth-dates between 1473 to after 1482, but most modern scholars believe a date nearer 1490 is more likely. He was the eldest of a family of four and son of Gregorio Vecelli, a distinguished councilor and soldier, and of his wife Lucia. His father was superintendant of the castle of Pieve di Cadore and also managed local mines for their owners.[2] Many relatives, including Titian's grandfather, were notaries, and the family were well-established in the area, which was ruled by Venice. At the age of about 10-12 he and his brother Francesco (who perhaps followed later) were sent to an uncle in Venice to find an apprenticeship with a painter. The minor painter, Sebastian Zuccato, whose sons became well-known mosaicists, and who may have been a family friend, arranged for the brothers to enter the studio of the elderly Gentile Bellini, from which they later transferred to that of his brother Giovanni Bellini.[2] At that time the Bellinis, especially Giovanni, were the leading artists in the city. There he found a group of young men about his own age, among them Giovanni Palma da Serinalta, Lorenzo Lotto, Sebastiano Luciani, and Giorgio da Castelfranco, nicknamed Giorgione. Francesco Vecellio, his younger brother, later became a painter of some note in Venice. 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. The two young masters were likewise recognized as the two leaders of their new school of "arte moderna", that is of painting made more flexible, freed from symmetry and the remnants of hieratic conventions still to be found in the works of Giovanni Bellini. In 1507–1508 Giorgione was commissioned by the state to execute frescoes on the re-erected Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Titian and Morto da Feltre worked along with him, and some fragments of Titian's paintings remain. Some of their work is known, in part, through the engraving of Fontana. Titian's talent in fresco is shown in those he painted in 1511 at Padua in the Carmelite church and in the Scuola del Santo, some of which have been preserved, among them the Meeting at the Golden Gate, and three scenes from the life of St. Anthony of Padua, the Murder of a Young Woman by Her Husband, A Child Testifying to Its Mother's Innocence, and The Saint Healing the Young Man with a Broken Limb. 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. Giorgione died in 1510 and the aged Bellini, 1516, leaving Titian unrivaled in the Venetian School. For 60 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. Vatican), each time attaining to a higher and more perfect conception, finally reaching a classic formula in the Pesaro retable, (1526), in the Frari at 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. To this period belongs a more extraordinary work, The Death of St. Peter Martyr (1530), formerly in the Dominican Church of San Zanipolo, and destroyed by an Austrian shell in 1867. Only copies and engravings of this proto-Barroco picture remain — one in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The association of the landscape with a brutal and dynamic slaying, a cry rising above the old oak-trees, a Dominican escaping the ambush, and overall the shudder and stir of the dark branches — "...this is all, but never perhaps has tragedy more swift, startling, and pathetic been depicted even by Tintoretto or Delacroix."[3] The artist simultaneously continued his series of small Madonnas which he treated amid beautiful landscapes in the manner of genre pictures or poetic pastorals, the Virgin with the Rabbit in the Louvre being the finished type of these pictures. Another work of the same period, also in the Louvre, is the Entombment. This was also the period of the large mythological scenes for the studiolo of Alfonso d'Este in Ferrara, such as the famous Bacchanals of the Prado, and the Bacchus and Ariadne of London, "...perhaps the most brilliant productions of the neo-pagan culture or "Alexandrianism" of the Renaissance, many times imitated but never surpassed even by Rubens himself."[3] Finally this was the period when the artist composed the half-length figures and busts of young women, such as Flora of the Uffizi, or The Young Woman at Her Toilet in the Louvre (also called, without reason, Laura de Dianti or The Mistress of Titian). In 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. MaturityDuring the next period (1530-1550), as was foreshadowed by his Death of St. Peter Martyr, Titian devoted himself more and more to the dramatic style. From this time come his historical scene, the most characteristic of which have mutilated or destroyed; thus, the Battle of Cadore, the artist's greatest efforts to master movement and to express even tumult, his most violent attempt to go out of himself and achieve the heroic, wherein he rivals the War of Pisa, The Battle of Anghiari, and the Battle of Constantine, perished in 1577 in the fire which destroyed all the old pictures adorning the Doge's Palace. There is extant only a poor, incomplete copy at the Uffizi, and a mediocre engraving by Fontana. In like manner the Speech of the Marquis del Vasto (Madrid, 1541) was partly destroyed by fire. But this portion of the master's work is adequately represented by the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin (Venice, 1539), one of his most popular canvasses, and by Ecce Homo (Vienna, 1541), one of the most pathetic and life-like of masterpieces. The School of Bologna and Rubens many times borrowed the distinguished and magisterial mise-en-scène, the grand and stirring effect, and these horses, soldiers, lictors, these powerful stirrings of crowds at the foot of a stairway, while over all are the light of torches and the flapping of banners against the sky, have been often repeated. Less successful were the pendentives of the cupola at Sta. Maria della Salute (Death of Abel, Sacrifice of Abraham, David and Goliath). These violent scenes viewed in perspective from below — like the famous pendentives of the Sistine Chapel — were by their very nature in unfavorable situations. They were nevertheless much admired and imitated, Rubens among others applying this system to his 40 ceilings (the sketches only remain) of the Jesuit church at Antwerp. At this time also, the time of his visit to Rome, the artist began his series of reclining Venuses (The Venus of Urbino of the Uffizi, Venus and Love at the same museum, Venus and the Organ-Player, Madrid), in which is recognized the effect or the direct reflection of the impression produced on the master by contact with ancient sculpture. Giorgione had already dealt with the subject in the Dresden picture, but here a purple drapery substituted for its background of verdure was sufficient to change, by its harmonious coloring, the whole meaning of the scene. Furthermore Titian had from the beginning of his career shown himself to be a masterful portrait-painter, in works like La Bella (Eleanora de Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, at the Pitti Palace). He painted the likenesses of princes, or Doges, cardinals or monks, and artists or writers. "...no other painter was so successful in extracting from each physiognomy so many traits at once characteristic and beautiful," according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. Among portrait-painters Titian is compared to Rembrandt and Velásquez, with the interior life of the former, and the clearness, certainty, and obviousness of the latter. The last-named qualities are sufficiently manifested in the Portrait of Paul III of Naples, or the sketch of the same pope and his two nephews, the Portrait of Aretino of the Pitti Palace, the Eleanora of Portugal (Madrid), and the series of King Charles V of the same museum, the Charles V with a Greyhound (1533), and especially the Charles V at Mühlberg (1548), an equestrian picture which as a symphony of purples is perhaps the ne plus ultra of the art of painting. In 1532 after painting a portrait of the emperor Charles V in Bologna he was made a count palatine and knight of the Golden Spur. His children were also made nobles of the empire, which for a painter was an exceptional honor. The Venetian government, dissatisfied with Titian's neglect of the work for the ducal palace, ordered him in 1538 to refund the money which he had received for time unemployed, and Pordenone, his rival of recent years, was installed in his place. However, at the end of a year Pordenone died, and Titian, who meanwhile applied himself diligently to painting in the hall the battle of Cadore, was reinstated. This picture, which was burned with several others in 1577?, represented in life-size the moment at which the Venetian captain, D'Alviano fronted the enemy with horses and men crashing down into a stream. Fontanas engraving, and a sketch by Titian himself in the gallery of the Uffizi in Florence, record the energetic composition. As a matter of professional and worldly success his position from about this time is regarded as equal only to that of Raphael, Michelangelo, and at a later date Rubens. In 1540 he received a pension from D'Avalos, marquis del Vasto, and an annuity of 200 crowns (which was afterwards doubled) from Charles V on the treasury of Milan. Another source of profit, for he was always sufficiently keen after money, was a contract obtained in 1542 for supplying grain to Cadore, where he visited almost every year and where he was both generous and influential. Titian had a favorite villa on the neighboring Manza Hill, from which (it may be inferred) he made his chief observations of landscape form and effect. The so-called Titian's mill, constantly discernible in his studies, is at Collontola, near Belluno.[4] He visited Rome in 1546, and obtained the freedom of the city — his immediate predecessor in that honour having been Michelangelo in 1537. He could at the same time have succeeded the painter Fra Sebastiano in his lucrative office of the piombo, and he made no scruple of becoming a friar for the purpose; but the project lapsed through his being summoned away from Venice in 1547 to paint Charles V and others in Augsburg. He was there again in 1550, and executed the portrait of Philip II which was sent to England and proved a potent auxiliary in the suit of the prince for the hand of Queen Mary. Final yearsDuring the last 25 years of his life (1550-1576) the artist worked mainly for Phillip II and as a portrait-painter. He became more self-critical, an insatiable perfectionist, keeping some pictures in his studio for ten years, never wearying of returning to them and retouching them, constantly adding new expressions at once more refined, concise, and subtle. He also finished off many copies of earlier works of his by his pupils, giving rise to many problems of attribution and priority among versions of his works, which were also very widely copied and faked outside his studio, during his lifetime and afterwards. For each of the problems which he successively undertook he furnished a new and more perfect formula. He never again equaled the emotion and tragedy of the Crowning with Thorns (Louvre), in the expression of the mysterious and the divine he never equaled the poetry of the Pilgrims of Emmaus, while in superb and heroic brilliancy he never again executed anything more grand than The Doge Grimani adoring Faith (Venice, Doge's Palace), or the Trinity, of Madrid. On the other hand from the standpoint of flesh tints, his most moving pictures are those of his old age, the Dan of Naples and of Madrid, the Antiope of the Louvre, the Rape of Europa (Boston, Gardner collection), etc. He even attempted problems of chiaroscuro in fantastic night effects (Martyrdom of St. Laurence, Church of the Jesuits, Venice; St. Jerome, Louvre). In the domain of the real he always remained equally strong, sure, and master of himself; his portraits of Philip II (Madrid), those of his daughter, Lavinia, and those of himself are numbered among his masterpieces. Titian had engaged his daughter Lavinia, the beautiful girl whom he loved deeply and painted various times, to Cornelio Sarcinelli of Serravalle. She had succeeded her aunt Orsa, then deceased, as the manager of the household, which, with the lordly income that Titian made by this time, placed her on a corresponding footing. The marriage took place in 1554. She died in childbirth in 1560. He was at the Council of Trent towards 1555, of which his admirable picture or finished sketch in the Louvre bears record. Titian's friend Aretino died suddenly in 1556, and another close intimate, the sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino, in 1570. In September 1565 Titian went to Cadore and designed the decorations for the church at Pieve, partly executed by his pupils. One of these is a Transfiguration, another an Annunciation (now in S. Salvatore, Venice), inscribed Titianus fecit, by way of protest (it is said) against the disparagement of some persons who cavilled at the veteran's failing handicraft. He continued to accept commissions to the last. He had selected as the place for his burial the chapel of the Crucifix in the church of the Fran; and, in return for a grave, he offered the Franciscans a picture of the Pietà, representing himself and his son Orazio before the Saviour, another figure in the composition being a sibyl. This work he nearly finished; but some differences arose regarding it, and he then settled to be interred in his native Pieve. Titian was extremely, and famously, old when the plague raging in Venice seized him, and he died on 27 August 1576. He was the only victim of that plague to be given a church burial and was interred in the Frari (Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari), as at first intended, and his Pietà was finished by Palma the Younger. He lies near his own famous painting, the Madonna di Ca' Pesaro. No memorial marked his grave, until much later the Austrian rulers of Venice commissioned Canova to provide the large monument. Immediately after Titian's own death, his son and pictorial assistant, Orazio, died of the same epidemic. His sumptuous mansion was plundered during the plague by thieves. PrintmakingTitian himself never attempted engraving, but he was very conscious of the importance of printmaking as a means of futher expanding his reputation. In the period 1517-1520 he designed a number of woodcuts, including an enormous and impressive one of The Crossing of the Red Sea, and collaborated with Domenico Campagnola and others, who produced further prints based on his paintings and drawings. Much later he provided drawings based on his paintings to Cornelius Cort from the Netherlands, who brilliantly engraved them. Several other artists of the Vecelli family followed in the wake of Titian. Francesco Vecellio, his elder brother, was introduced to painting by Titian (it is said at the age of twelve, but chronology will hardly admit of this), and painted in the church of S. Vito in Cadore a picture of the titular saint armed. This was a noteworthy performance, of which Titian (the usual story) became jealous; so Francesco was diverted from painting to soldiering, and afterwards to mercantile life. Marco Vecellio, called Marco di Tiziano, Titian's nephew, born in 1545, was constantly with the master in his old age, and, learned his methods of work. He has left some able productions in the ducal palace, the Meeting of Charles V. and Clement VII. in 1529 ; in S. Giacomo di Rialto, an Annunciation ; in SS. Giovani e Paolo, Christ Fulminant. A son of Marco, named Tiziano (or Tizianello), painted early in the 17th century. From a different branch of the family came Fabrizio di Ettore, a painter who died in 1580. His brother Cesare, who also left some pictures, is well known by his book of engraved costumes, Abiti antichi e moderni. Tommaso Vecelli, also a painter, died in 1620. There was another relative, Girolamo Dante, who, being a scholar and assistant of Titian, was called Girolamo di Tiziano. Various pictures of his were touched up by the master, and are difficult to distinguish from originals. Few of the pupils and assistants of Titian became well-known in their own right; for some being his assistant was probably a lifetime career. Paris Bordone and Bonifazio were two of superior excellence. El Greco (or Dominikos Theotokopoulos) was said (by Giulio Clovio) to have been employed by the master in his last years. TriviaThe color titian is derived from the artist's frequent use of brownish orange, especially for the hair of his early idealized portraits of courtisans. Notes1. Cecil Gould, The Sixteenth
Century Italian Schools, National Gallery Catalogues, London
1975,
ISBN 09476452252.
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