We know almost nothing about his life, and very few works can be robustly attributed to his hand. But he was one of the most important artists in history.
Titian
Several have had a go at telling this story – Titian, Kauffman, Ricci, Delacroix, and Denis. Do their paintings work, though?
We still associate brushmarks with sketchiness, speed of painting, spontaneity, bravura, and panache – and smooth paint surfaces, assembled from multiple layers and glazes, as being heartless mechanical essays in technique.
We should add these Masters to the growing list of those with ‘painterly’ style, and consider whether Impressionism was a development of Venetian ‘colorito’ painting?
