Titian

Titian, VECELLI (1477?-1576), greatest painter of the Venetian school, was born in the Friulian Alps, and at the age of eleven was sent to Venice with his brother to take lessons in drawing from the leading masters there. Details concerning his early life are somewhat scanty, and it was not till 1507 that he was engaged on any work of importance, being then occupied in fresco-painting with Giorgione. The influence of the latter is strongly marked in his first paintings. About 1512 he executed his famous picture of The Tribute Money; and in the next year was commissioned to paint The Battle of Cadore on the walls of the Hall of Council, in Venice. This work, owing to his being largely employed by Pope Leo X. at Rome, was not finally completed till 1837. His fame steadily increased, and there was a demand for his services at various courts, and his careful business methods procured him large sums of money. In 1523 he married, his wife dying in 1530, leaving him two sons and a daughter. One of the sons became a bishop, but his profligacy was such that Titian's later years were rendered unhappy by reason of it. The other son became a painter of some ability. In 1532 Titian was introduced to the Emperor Karl V., whose portrait he painted, being rewarded a life-pension. In 1545-46 he was in Rome, feted by his numerous admirers. His death, at a great age, was caused by the plague of 1576. He stands, with Michael Angelo and Raphael, his contemporaries, at the head of the Italian Renaissance, and has been described as the greatest painter of romantic landscape, as well as of dignified, and sometimes sublime, portraiture. His marvellous sense of colour bas been the wonder of the great critics of the Italian painters. His best known paintings are St. Sebastian, Anunciation, Christ in the Garden, Danae, Noli me Tangere, Medea and Jason, Venus and Adonis, and Bacchus and Ariadne. The National Gallery possesses some fine works of his, including the last-mentioned.