Titian (c. 1488-1576) was recognized very early on as
the leading painter of his generation in Venice. Starting
in the studio of the aged Giovanni Bellini, Titian, with
his contemporary Giorgione, almost immediately started
to expand the range of what was possible in painting,
converting Bellini's statuesque style into something far more
impressionistic and romantic. This restless spirit of innovation
and improvisation never left him, and during his long life
he experimented with a number of different styles, the
brushwork of his last great paintings showing a mysterious
poetry that has never been equaled.
This volume in the series Lives of the Artists collects the
major writings about Titian by his contemporaries and nearcontemporaries.
The centerpiece is the biography by Vasari,
who as a Florentine found Titian's very Venetian sense of
colour and transient forms a challenge to his concept of
art as design. The poet Ariosto and sparkling letter writer
Aretino had a more nuanced view of their friend's work, and
Priscianese's account of a dinner party with Titian, and the
contributions by Speroni and Dolce, and the slightly later
Tuscan critic Borghini, round out the picture of this hugely
thoughtful, intellectual artist, whose paintings remain some of
the most sensual and affecting in all of Western art.
Mostly unavailable in any form for many years, these writings
have been newly edited for this edition. They are introduced
by the scholar Carlo Corsato, who places each in its artistic
and literary context. Approximately 50 pages of colour
illustrations cover the full range of Titian's great oeuvre.