Venetian School

About

Venetian painters worked for a merchant republic, for charitable confraternities called scuole, and for churches and private patrons who wanted splendour. Gentile Bellini recorded civic processions in St Mark's Square, while his brother Giovanni Bellini, adopting oil glazes, bathed altarpieces in soft, golden light. Giovanni's pupils Giorgione and Titian built pictures from colour, modelling forms in translucent layers rather than firm outlines, as in Giorgione's enigmatic The Tempest (c. 1508).

Titian dominated the 16th century, from the soaring Assumption of the Virgin (1516–18) to late works of broken, loosely handled paint. Tintoretto filled the Scuola Grande di San Rocco with dramatic, flickering canvases, and Paolo Veronese staged banquets such as The Wedding at Cana (1562–63). Giorgio Vasari faulted Venetian drawing, while Venetian writers defended colour. In the 18th century Giambattista Tiepolo's ceilings and the city views of Canaletto and Francesco Guardi renewed the tradition.