Venetian painting was a major force in Italian Renaissance painting and beyond. Beginning with the work of Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430–1516) and his brother Gentile Bellini (c. 1429–1507) and their workshops, the major artists of the Venetian school included Giorgione (c. 1477–1510), Titian (c. 1489–1576), Tintoretto (1518–1594), Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) and Jacopo Bassano (1510–1592) and his sons. Considered to give primacy to colour over line,Steer, pp. 7–10; Martineau, pp. 38–39, 41–43 the tradition of the Venetian school contrasted with the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy. The Venetian style exerted great influence upon the subsequent development of Western painting.Gardner, p. 679.
By chance, the main phases of Venetian painting fit rather neatly into the centuries. The glories of the 16th century were followed by a great fall-off in the 17th, but an unexpected revival in the 18th,Steer, p. 175 describes the cause of the revival as "something of a mystery"; it is also a "mystery" to Wittkower, p. 479. when Venetian painters enjoyed great success around Europe, as Baroque painting turned to Rococo. This had ended completely by the extinction of the Republic of Venice in 1797 and since then, though much painted by others, Venice has not had a continuing style or tradition of its own.Steer, p. 208
Though a long decline in the political and economic power of the Republic began before 1500, Venice at that date remained "the richest, most powerful, and most populous Italian city"Freedberg, p. 123 and controlled significant territories on the mainland, known as the terraferma, which included several small cities who contributed artists to the Venetian school, in particular Padua, Bergamo, Brescia and Verona. The Republic's territories also included Istria, Dalmatia and the islands now off the Croatian coast, who also contributed. Indeed, "the major Venetian painters of the sixteenth century were rarely natives of the city" itself,Freedberg, p. 123 and some mostly worked in the Republic's other territories, or further afield.In the 16th century, Lorenzo Lotto, Carlo Crivelli and others; in the 18th century most major Venetian painters spent long periods abroad (see below).
The rest of Italy tended to ignore or underestimate Venetian painting; Giorgio Vasari's neglect of the school in the first edition of his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects in 1550 was so conspicuous that he realized he needed to visit Venice for extra material in his second edition of 1568.Martineau, pp. 38–39 In contrast, foreigners, for whom Venice was often the first major Italian city visited, always had a great appreciation for it and, after Venice itself, the best collections are now in the large European museums rather than other Italian cities. At the top, princely, level, Venetian artists tended to be the most sought after for commissions abroad, from Titian onwards, and in the 18th century most of the best painters spent significant periods abroad, generally with great success.Martineau, pp. 47–48
Media and techniques Venetian painters were among the first Italians to use oil painting,Steer, pp. 58–59 and also to paint on canvas rather than wooden panels. As a maritime power good quality canvas was always available in Venice, which was also beginning to run rather short of timber. The large size of many Venetian altarpieces (for example Bellini's San Zaccaria Altarpiece of 1505, originally on panel) and other paintings encouraged this, as large panel surfaces were expensive and difficult to construct.
The Venetians did not develop a "native school" of fresco painting, often relying on Padua and Verona, Venetian from 1405, to supply painters (notably Paolo Veronese). They continued to add gold ground mosaics to San Marco long after the rest of Europe had abandoned the medium. 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. The rapid deterioration of external frescos is often attributed to the seaside Venetian climate, perhaps wrongly.Steer, p. 28 quoted; Penny, p. xiii 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.Steer, p. 16
Compared with Florentine painting, Venetian painters mostly used and have left fewer drawings.Martineau, pp. 243–244 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. Like Raphael, Titian experimented with prints, using specialist collaborators, but to a lesser extent. The engraver Agostino Veneziano moved to Rome in his twenties, and Giulio Campagnola and his adoptive son Domenico Campagnola are the main 16th-century artists who concentrated on printmaking and remained in the Republic of Venice, apparently mostly in Padua.Martineau, pp. 303–305 The situation was different in the 18th century, when both Canaletto and the two Tiepolos were significant etchers, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, though famous for his views of Rome, continued to describe himself as a Venetian for decades after moving to Rome.Martineau, p. 21
Early development, to 1500 14th century
Paolo Veneziano, probably active between about 1320 and 1360, is the first major figure we can name, and "the founder of the Venetian school". He seems to have introduced the "composite altarpiece" of many small scenes within an elaborate gilded wooden frame, which remained dominant in churches for two centuries. 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.Steer, pp. 11, 15–22 (15 quoted) In fact, one of Veneziano's commissions was to paint "weekday" panels to fit over the Pala, which was only revealed for feast-days. His style shows no influence from Giotto, active a generation earlier.Steer, p. 22
The earliest form of Italian Renaissance painting was first seen in Venice when Guariento di Arpo from Padua was commissioned to paint frescos in the Doge's Palace in 1365.
15th century
The traditional Italo-Byzantine style persisted until around 1400 when the dominant style began to shift towards International Gothic, with Jacobello del Fiore a transitional figure and the trend, which continued in the rather charming work of Michele Giambono (c. 1400 – c. 1462), who also designed mosaics for San Marco. Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello were both in Venice during much of the years 1405–1409, painting frescos (now lost) in the Doge's Palace and elsewhere.Steer, pp. 28–33
By the mid-century, when the Florentine quattrocento was fully mature, Venice still lagged well behind. Perhaps the most visible work in Venice in the Tuscan style was a mosaic Death of the Virgin, in the Capella Mascoli in San Marco, next to a design by Gambono, though other works in the city included frescos by Andrea Castagno.Steer, pp. 35–36 The Vivarini and Bellini families were the two major dynasties of 15th-century painters in the city, and the Vivarini, though in the end more conservative, were initially the first to embrace styles from the south.Steer, pp. 36–43
Carlo Crivelli (c. 1430–1495) was born in the city, but spent his mature career outside the Republic's territories. His style – highly individual, rather linear, and somewhat neurotic – had no influence on later Venetian painting.Steer, pp. 43–44
From the late-15th century, Venetian painting developed through links with Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) (from nearby Padua) and of a visit by Antonello da Messina (c. 1430–1479), who introduced the oil painting technique of Early Netherlandish painting, probably acquired through his training in Naples.Prado Guide, p. 223. Another external factor was the visit by Leonardo da Vinci, who was particularly influential on Giorgione.Prado Guide, p. 248.
During his long career, Giovanni Bellini has been credited with creating the Venetian style. 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.Gardner, p. 681. With such works he has been described as reaching the High Renaissance ideals, and certainly expresses the key distinctive factors of the Venetian school.
Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1465–1525/1526) was a pupil of Bellini, with a distinct style. He was rather conservative, and ignored the High Renaissance style developing in the later part of his career, indeed retaining a Late Gothic poetry in many works. 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. He was one of the first painters to mostly use canvas rather than panels. There were a number of other painters who continued essentially quattrocento styles in the two decades after 1500; Cima da Conegliano (c. 1459 – c. 1517) is the most significant.Steer, pp. 66–68, 90; Freedberg, p. 166; Martineau, p. 66
16th century Giorgione and Titian
Giorgione and Titian were both apprentices at Bellini's workshop. 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,Gardner, p. 680 and by Titian in work like Pastoral Concert (1508) and Sacred and Profane Love (1515). This emphasis on nature as a setting was a major contribution of the Venetian School.
Titian, through his long and productive life, with a wide variety of themes and subjects was the most influential and greatest of all the Venetian painters.Gardner, p. 684Prado Guide, p. 248 His early Pesaro Madonna (1519–1528) shows a bold new composition for such a traditional religious subject,Gardner, p. 685 putting the focal point of the Madonna off from the centre and on a steep diagonal. Colours are used to enliven the painting, but also to unify the composition, such as by the large red flag on the left counterbalancing the red in the MadonnaGombrich, p. 254 and such skilful and sumptuous use of colour became a hallmark of the Venetian style.
Although pre-figured by the Sleeping Venus (completed by Titian after Giorgione's death in 1510) Titian is credited with establishing the reclining female nude as an important subgenre in art. 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. As an example, in this painting the diagonal of the nude is matched by the opposite diagonal between the red of the cushions in the front with the red skirts of the woman in the background.Gardner, p. 686