The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-10-17

die of the fifteenth century, only gem
GRAFTON before Titian's birth. 1t was
| then that the Bellini family imported
| into Venice some of the results of the
study of the antique, of the science OF
perspective and of the human form
and character, that had been trans
! forming the Tuscan school of the early
renaissance. STILL even under Bellini,
the Venetian school maintained dis
! tinct individuality, due to the charac-
| ter of the people and the atmosphere
| of the lagoons; it still relied upon color
rather than upon drawing; on an ap-
| peal of the senses rather than to intel
| lect; on texture rather than action. But
the Bellini were still rather devoted to
religious or historic art. They We're
not destined to be frankly psychological
and to embody in paint the dreaminess
! of the sea haze, the intangible phases
! of the landscape, the SensuouS delight
of drifting on the lagoons by night; the
content that comes from ignoring the
conscience and opening the arms to all
physical delights. This was reserved
for their successors.
Titan was horn in 1917 of the noble
Vecelli family, at Pieve di Galore, in
the Alpine region north of Venice. At
the age of 8 or 10 he was brought to
Venice to study painting, first in the
studio of the Mosaicist Zuzzato, and
later under Gentle Bellini He finally
appears to have passed into the extern
sive workshop Of Giovanni Bellini, who
for many years had been and was long
after to remain the supreme ruler of
Venetian painting.
But the impress that young Titan re-
ceived from these last representatives
of the early renaissance was neither
strong nor lasting, for his spirit was
that of the new age and his fellowship
with the young men waiting, like him
self for a leader to appear. Such
leader came in Giorgione, the sensuous
poet-painter the dreamer of idyls; no
older than Titan, but with the spark of
intuition, of genius, which he lacked.
The two young men became close asso-
ciates under Giorgione's material as
well as ideal guidance. 1t is at times
as difficult to distinguish the contempo-
rary works of these two young artists
as those of the famous Greek sculptors.
Scopas and PraXiteles, so deeply had
Titan become impregnated from the
stronger spirit. The association lasted
until Giorgiones death; the artistic
dependence never quite ended.
Titan was slow in attaining fame.
Not until his 30th year, in 1907, when
he assisted Giorgione in decorating the
palace called Fondaco del Tedeschi,
does he seem to have acquired an in
dependent reputation. ON Giorgione's
premature death, in 1910 Titan COM
pleted a number of his friends unfin-
ished pictures. Almost Immediately he
received his first important independ-
ent commission for a series of sixteen
frescoes in the Scuola del Santo at Pa
Qua. He failed to show in them any
special proficiency in the style of grand
comDosition.
All Titians works up to about 1905
are religious subjects. not varying fun
damentally from the Bellini and Gina
type, but soon after, Titan, under Gior-
Clones guidance, entered the enchant-
ed sphere of poetic allegory, where, I'M
like religious art, there was no tradi-
ton to prevent a completely original
treatment.
After his Paduan work, Titan signal
lied his return to Venice by a superb
"St. Mark Enthroned Among Saints
G512), and then, aspiring to a more pub
lie recognition of his position, he be-
gan, in 1913, an attempt to dispossess of
his monopoly the aged monarch, Clio
Vanni Bellini Titian'S appointment as
state painter helped to procure him the
favor of his first great art patron, AL
fonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for
whom he painted religious, categorical
and NEUROLOGICAL subjects, as well as
portraits, for many years. The famous
''Christ and the Tribute Money in
Dresden was painted for him. Titian's
male portraits at this time still had the
gentle poetic melancholy of Giorgione.
without the sensuality that had crept
into his female figures. The bearded
man in Munich. and especially the SUI
perb Young Man With the Glove"
Gouvre), are the most exquisite of this
class, the most sympathetic of all the