ARTH218

Giorgione and Titian

• During the later 15th century a distinct school of painting developed in Venice. It was characterized by the exploration of color and light and by the sensuous rendering of surface texture.

• As in the preceding period, painters continued to be organized in the Arte dei Pittori, and many of them were also in family workshops. Among the latter the two most prestigious workshops during the late 15th-century- early 16th century were the ones run by the Bellini family, and Titian.

• Some painters gained considerable social status: members of the Bellini family held offices in the Scuola Grande di S Marco; Gentile and Giovanni Bellini and, later, Titian were appointed official painters of the Republic; both Gentile and Titian were knighted.

Required readings

· Murray, p. 71-98, 179-208

· Brown, p. 8-37, 90-100, 142-9, 154-164

Study Images

· Giorgione, Madonna and Child with Sts Francis and Liberale (Castelfranco altarpiece), c. 1505

· Giorgione, Old woman, c. 1508

· Giorgione, The Tempest, c. 1505

· Giorgione, Pastoral Concert (Concert Champêtre), 1508-9

· Giorgione, Three philosophers, 1509

· Titian, Portrait of a man, 1508-10

· Titian, Assumption of the Virgin, 1516-18

· Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1522

· Titian, Bacchanalia, c. 1525

· Titian, The Rape of Europe, c. 1559-62

Additional Images

· Giovanni Bellini, San Zaccaria altarpiece, 1505

· Giovanni Bellini, The Doge Leonardo Loredan, c. 1501-1502

· Giovanni Bellini, Pesaro altarpiece, 1470s