Extends formalism to facture and situates the materiality of Titian's later works within the late sixteenth-century interest in embodiment and violence rather than within the Renaissance ideals of classicizing beauty and perfection.

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 first definitive biography of the master painter in more than a century, Titian: His Life is being hailed as a "landmark achievement" for critically acclaimed author Sheila Hale (Publishers Weekly). Brilliant in its interpretation of the 16th-century master's paintings, this monumental biography of Titian draws on contemporary accounts and recent art historical research and scholarship, some of it previously unpublished, providing an unparalleled portrait of the artist, as well as a fascinating rendering of Venice as a center of culture, commerce, and power. Sheila Hale's Titian is destined to be this century's authoritative text on the life of greatest painter of the Italian High Renaissance.

In the mid-sixteenth century, at almost 60 years of age, Titian invented a new way of painting: the paint was applied to the canvas rapidly and freely and overlaid with brushstrokes that were both light and dense: the forms broke up and a great sensuality and profound spirituality became evident. Titian used an extraordinarily prescient technique to create engaging, stirring painting that in some ways seems to relate to the literary work of the poet Torquato Tasso and even take up the imaginary writings of Ludovico Ariosto published in Venice in the 1530s. Such a painting style had never previously been imagined and was so revolutionary that it was to influence many artists of subsequent centuries through to the modern age. Late Titian became the yardstick not only for younger contemporary painters like Tintoretto, Veronese and Bassano, but also great artists of subseqent cewnturies like Rubens, Rembandt, Velazquez, Gericault and Delacroix and on to the Expressionists.

The work that Titian produced during the first decade of his career is beautiful and varied, but it has raised many questions of attribution and chronology. This book - the first thorough and coherent account of this period in Titian's life - reconstructs what he painted, when he painted it and what these paintings mean. Paul Joannides begins by discussing the probable course of Titian's early career and his relationship to the Bellinis. There are individual excurses on Giorgione and on Sebastiano del Piombo whose work has often been confused with his. Joannides then offers new interpretations of some of Titian's paintings, emphasising their poetic and dramatic qualities. Among other topics, he associates for the first time the paintings in Saint Petersburg, Venice and Houston; lays out Titian's part of the Fondaco; connects the privately owned Resurrected Christ with the Fogg Circumcision; integrates the Dresden Venus and the Berlin Portrait into Titian's work; and establishes the dynamism and inventiveness of the great Assunta of 1516-18. Joannides provides detailed arguments in support of both new and familiar attributions, proposes a more closely reasoned and precise chronology

This dazzling survey of 16th-century Venetian painting captures the striking colors and revolutionary characteristics of one of art history's greatest chapters. It is hard to imagine more profoundly influential artists than the Venetian painters of the 16th century. Whether creating sweeping devotional altarpieces or intimate portraits, the Venetian painters changed the way artists employed color and composition. These defining qualities are on brilliant display in this book that covers fascinating aspects of the work of Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Lorenzo Lotto, Jacopo Bassano, and many others. More than one hundred paintings, drawings, and prints are reproduced in stunning detail. Side-by-side comparisons draw readers into the conversations between Venetian artists as they tackled similar subjects and vied for commissions. The book opens with fascinating essays about the history of 16th-century Venice, the Venetian School of painting, and the techniques of the Venetian masters. As beautiful as it is informative, this book features all of the excitement and splendor of one of the most prolific and important chapters in the history of European art.