Presents a survey of sixty Venetian Renaissance paintings of the calibre of Bellini and Titian's "Feast of the Gods" in Washington and Giorgione's "Laura and Three Philosophers" in Vienna.

The Renaissance was a golden age in the long history of Venetian painting, and the art that came from Venice during that era includes some of the most visually exciting works in the whole of western art. This attractive book - a comprehensive account of painting in Venice from Bellini to Titian to Tintoretto - is an accessible introduction to the paintings of this period. Peter Humfrey surveys the development of a distinctly Venetian artistic tradition from the middle years of the fifteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century. He discusses the work of Jacopo and Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto as well as the paintings of those less well known - such as the three Vivarini, Cima, Carpaccio, Palma Vecchio, Lorenzo Lotto and Jacopo Bassano. Humfrey analyses these painters' works in terms of their pictorial style, technique, subject matter, patronage and function. He also sets the art against the background of the political, social and religious conditions of Renaissance Venice, as outlined in his Introduction. The book includes an appendix that provides brief biographies of thirty-six of the most important painters active in Renaissance Venice.

This up-to-date, well-illustrated, and thoughtful introduction to the life and works of one of the giants of Western Painting also surveys the golden age of Venetian Painting from Giovanni Bellini to Veronese and its place in the history of Western art. Bruce Cole, Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts at Indiana University and author of numerous books on Italian Renaissance art, begins with the life and work of Giovanni Bellini, the principal founder of Venetian Renaissance painting. He continues with the paintings of Giorgione and the young Titian whose work embodied the new Venetian style. Cole discusses and explains all of Titian's major works--portraits, religious paintings, and nudes--from various points of view and shows how Venetian painting of this period differed from painting in Florence and elsewhere in Italy and became a distinct and fully-developed style of its own.

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.

Discusses the relation of Venetian color to social, cultural, and environmental factors

Praised by Albrecht Dürer as being “the best in painting,” Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1430– 1516) is unquestionably the supreme Venetian painter of the quattrocento and one of the greatest Italian artists of all time. His landscapes assume a prominence unseen in Western art since classical antiquity. Drawing from a selection of masterpieces that span Bellini's long and successful career, this exhibition catalogue focuses on the main function of landscape in his oeuvre: to enhance the meditational nature of paintings intended for the private devotion of intellectually sophisticated, elite patrons. The subtle doctrinal content of Bellini’s work—the isolated crucifix in a landscape, the “sacred conversation,” the image of Saint Jerome in the wilderness—is always infused with his instinct for natural representation, resulting in extremely personal interpretations of religious subjects immersed in landscapes where the real and the symbolic are inextricably intertwined. This volume includes a biography of the artist, essays by leading authorities in the field explicating the themes of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s exhibition, and detailed discussions and glorious reproductions of the twelve works in the show, including their history and provenance, function, iconography, chronology, and style.

"In the Age of Giorgione assembles many of the works attributed to Giorgione, along with masterpieces by Titian, Lorenzo Lotto, Sebastiano del Piombo and Giovanni Cariani, among others. This volume includes landscapes, portraits and devotional works, all exemplars of the exceptional richness of colour and mood that were to become the hallmark of the Golden Age of Venetian painting." -- Publisher's description

"A comprehensive and richly illustrated survey of Venetian Renaissance architecture, sculpture, and painting created between 1400 and 1600 addressed to students, travellers, and the general public. The works of art are analysed within Venice's cultural circumstances--political, economic, intellectual, and religious--and in terms of function, style, iconography, patronage, classical sources, gender, art theories, and artist's innovations, rivalries, and social status. The text has been divided into two parts--the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century--each part preceded by an introduction that recounts the history of Venice to 1500 and to 1600 respectively, including the city's founding, ideology, territorial expansion, social classes, governmental structure, economy, and religion. The twenty-six chapters have been organized to lead readers systematically through the major artistic developments within the three principal categories of art--governmental, ecclesiastic, and domestic--and have been arranged sequentially as follows: civic architecture and urbanism, churches, church decoration (ducal tombs and altarpieces), refectories and refectory decoration (section two only), confraternities (architecture and decoration), palaces, palace decoration (devotional works, portraits, secular painting, and halls of state), villas, and villa decoration. The conclusion offers an overview of the major types of Venetian art and architectural patronage and their funding sources"--Provided by publisher.

An accessible guide to the foremost figure in Venetian Renaissance painting, tracing Bellini's personal artistic development within historical context Italian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini (c. 1435/40-1516) is considered the most important practitioner of Venetian painting in the latter half of the 15th century. Born into a family of painters, Bellini began studying art at a young age, painting primarily in the prevailing Gothic style of the early Renaissance. As time passed and he evolved as an artist, Bellini's wide-reaching influence came to inform the maniera modernainherited by Giorgione and Titian. His unparalleled ability to both harness the expressive power of light and recreate the poetry of natural landscapes became the foundational tenets of the Venetian school of painting for centuries to come. This volume provides an accessible guide to Bellini's work and the lasting influence of his career on Western European painting. Organized chronologically, the book maps the development of Bellini's own craft alongside the greater technical experimentation of the Quattrocento, detailing the artist's abandonment of traditional egg tempera technique for oil on canvas and taking into account the influence of contemporaries Andrea Mantegna and Antonello da Messina. Concise and up-to-date, this publication effectively conveys the magnitude of Bellini's contributions to Western European painting in the wider context of the era.

KEYNOTE: Featuring ffty masterworks by Mantegna, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, this stunning book examines the brilliant painters who transformed the art of Renaisssance Venice. Featuring fifty masterworks by Mantegna, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, this stunning book examines the brilliant painters who transformed the art of Renaissance Venice. Among the singular moments in the evolution of Western art, the Venetian Renaissance forged an artistic vocabulary of dazzling virtuosity. Celebrating the poetic potential of color and beauty observed in nature, Venetian painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries transcended the spatial, textural, and emotional realism of their predecessors to create works unsurpassed in their sensual depictions, velvety surfaces, and unique and glorious treatment of light. Focusing on canonical works from Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum (one of the world's four great imperial museums, along with the Hermitage, the Louvre, and the Prado), this book's lavish illustrations and illuminating essays offer a rich introduction to the treasures of the Venetian Renaissance. Among the spectacular artworks are Mantegna's tortured Saint Sebastian, Titian's enigmatic Bravo (The Assassin) and sumptuous Danäe, and a rare group of paintings by the elusive Giorgione, including Portrait of a Young Woman (Laura) and The Three philosophers. The book also includes exemplary works by Veronese, Palma ecchio, Bordone, and Bassano, among others, revealing the full range of Venetian accomplishment in the Renaissance era. AUTHOR: Sylvia Ferino is director of the Gemaldegalerie of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and an expert on Italian painting. Lynn Federle Orr is curator in charge of European art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Among her recent publications is The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 100 colour illustrations