Titian: The Complete Story
Titian was the greatest painter of Renaissance Venice and one of the most influential artists who ever lived. For 60 years he dominated European painting, the favorite of emperors and popes, and he changed forever what oil paint could do.
Where Florentine artists prized drawing, Titian prized color. He built whole worlds out of glowing, layered paint, and late in life loosened his brush so far that he seemed to invent a freer kind of painting three centuries early.
A whole shade of warm reddish hair is still named after him. Here is the whole story.
The master of Venetian color
Renaissance art had two camps. Florence and Rome, led by Michelangelo, believed drawing was everything. Venice, led by Titian, believed in color and light.
Titian built his figures not from hard outlines but from warm, glowing layers of oil paint. This Venetian colorito, color as the soul of a picture, became one of the great traditions of Western art.
Why Titian is famous
Titian is famous for his range and his reach. He painted everything at the highest level: altarpieces, myths, and some of the most sensual nudes in art, like the Venus of Urbino, a milestone in the long story of the nude.
He was also the portraitist kings fought over, and his influence runs straight through Rubens, Velazquez and Manet. For centuries, to learn color was to study Titian.
His style, decoded
A Titian glows from within.
Luminous color. Deep reds, golds and blues built from many thin, glowing layers.
Soft form. Bodies modeled with color and light rather than hard lines.
Rich texture. Velvet, skin and fur you can almost feel.
The loose late style. In old age his brushwork broke into rough, free strokes, startlingly modern.
The painter of emperors
Titian became the official painter to the most powerful man in Europe, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and then to his son Philip II of Spain.
A famous story tells that when Titian dropped his brush, the emperor himself bent down to pick it up, an unheard of honor that captured how high a painter could now rise. For Philip he made a series of sensual mythological paintings he called his poesie, or visual poems.
The loose late style
Titian’s most surprising chapter came at the end. As an old man he painted with extraordinary freedom, applying paint in rough patches, smears and even, it was said, with his fingers.
Up close these late works look almost abstract, dissolving into pure paint. They point ahead to Rembrandt, to the Impressionists, to modern painting itself.
His life
Born around 1488 in the mountains north of Venice, Titian came to the city young and rose fast, soon outshining his teachers Bellini and Giorgione.
He lived long, grew rich and famous, ran a busy workshop, and was shrewd about money and reputation. Few artists have enjoyed such a long reign at the very top.
How Titian died
Titian died in 1576, very old, during an outbreak of plague in Venice.
He was given a rare honored burial despite the epidemic. He had painted for around six decades and reshaped European art for centuries to come.
Where to see Titian
Italy, Spain and a few great museums hold the best of him.
The Museo del Prado, Madrid. The richest collection, full of his work for Charles V and Philip II.
Venice. Where his great altarpieces still hang, including in the Frari church.
The National Gallery, London. Home to Bacchus and Ariadne.
Titian, quick questions
What is he known for? Glowing Venetian color, mythologies, nudes and imperial portraits.
When did he live? Born around 1488, died in 1576.
Where was he from? The Venetian Republic, in northern Italy.
Why is a hair color named Titian? After the warm reddish gold hair he loved to paint.
Who did he work for? Emperor Charles V and King Philip II, among others.
If Titian’s color drew you in, keep going with these:
Diego Velazquez, the Spanish master who worshipped Titian’s color.
El Greco, who learned from Titian in Venice before finding his own path.
What is Oil Painting, the medium Titian pushed further than anyone before him.