Venetian painting

Considered to give primacy to colour over line,[1] the tradition of the Venetian school contrasted with the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy.

Somewhat perversely, they were happy to add frescos to the outside of palazzi, where they deteriorated even faster than elsewhere in Italy, and have only left a few shadowy traces, but apart from the Doge's Palace, used them little in other interior settings.

[11] Probably partly for this reason, until the 18th century (with rare exceptions) Venetian churches were never given a coherent scheme of decoration, but feature a "rich profusion of different objects in a picturesque confusion", often with much wall space taken up by grandiose wall-tombs.

[13] Perhaps for this reason, and despite Venice being Italy's largest centre of printing and publishing throughout the Italian Renaissance and for a considerable time afterwards, the Venetian contribution to printmaking is less than might be expected.

These transferred to painting the form of the huge, jewel-encrusted and very famous Pala d'Oro behind the main altar in San Marco, the enamel panels for which had been made in, and later looted from, Constantinople for successive doges.

[2] After earlier works, such as his Madonna of the Small Trees (c. 1487), which largely reflect the linear approach of Mantegna, he later developed a softer style, where glowing colours are used to represent form and suggest an atmospheric haze.

Applying this approach in his San Zaccaria Altarpiece (1505), the high viewpoint, the uncluttered and interconnected figures arranged in space, and the subtle gestures all combine to form a tranquil yet majestic image.

With Gentile Bellini, many of Carpaccio's large works give us famous scenes of contemporary life in the city; at this period such views were unusual.

A speciality of Giorgione's were idyllic Arcadian scenes, with an example being his Three Philosophers, and this element was adopted by his master Bellini, who increased the landscape in his many Madonnas,[26] and by Titian in work like Pastoral Concert (1508) and Sacred and Profane Love (1515).

Using mythological subjects, works such as the Venus of Urbino (1538) richly depict the fabrics and other textures, and use a composition that is carefully controlled by organising colours.

[31] With other Venetian painters such as Palma Vecchio, Titian established the genre of half-length portraits of imaginary beautiful women, often given rather vague mythological or allegorical titles, with attributes to match.

Possession of such paintings symbolised luxurious wealth,[32] and for his skills in portraiture he was sought by powerful, rich individuals, such as in his long relationship working for Emperor Charles V and Philip II of Spain.

He painted religious subjects and portraits in a highly individual and sometimes eccentric style, which despite their rich colouring have a restlessness that is at odds with the Venetian mainstream.

[38] Paolo Veronese (1528–1588), from Verona in the Venetian terraferma, came to Venice in 1553, once he was established, commissioned to paint huge fresco schemes for the Doge's Palace, and stayed for the rest of his career.

But the colouring maintains the warm reds, golds and greens of the Venetian school, and the figures are arranged in real three-dimensional space, in contrast to the more compressed compositions of many Mannerist works, and with its intensely theatrical, stage-like display his painting is a forerunner of the Baroque.

The most significant artists working in the city were all immigrants: Domenico Fetti (c. 1589–1623) from Rome, Bernardo Strozzi (c. 1581–1644) from Genoa, and the north German Johann Liss (c. 1590?

[43] New directions were taken by two individual painters, Francesco Maffei from Vicenza (c. 1600–60) and Sebastiano Mazzoni from Florence (1611–78), who both worked mainly in Venice or the terraferma in unorthodox and free Baroque styles, both marked by the Venetian trait of bravura brushwork.

[44] Visits to Venice by the leading Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano in 1653 and 1685 left a body of work in the latest Baroque style, and had an energising effect on younger artists such as Giovan Battista Langetti, Pietro Liberi, Antonio Molinari, and the German Johann Carl Loth.

Drawing especially on Veronese, he developed a light, airy, Baroque style that foreshadowed the painting of most of the rest of the century, and was a great influence on young Venetian painters.

[50] Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770) is the last great Venetian painter, who was also in demand all over Europe, and painted two of his largest fresco schemes in the Würzburg Residence in northern Bavaria (1750–53) and the Royal Palace of Madrid, where he died in 1770.

[54] The death of Guardi in 1793, soon followed by the extinction of the Republic by French Revolutionary armies in 1797, effectively brought the distinctive Venetian style to an end; it had at least outlasted its rival Florence in that respect.

[56] Specifically through the presence of Titians in Spain (he was careful to avoid going there in person), the Venetian style influenced later Spanish art, especially in portraits, including that of Velázquez, and through Rubens was more broadly transmitted through the rest of Europe.