The Venetian Renaissance is a separate peculiar part of the general Italian Renaissance. It started here later, but lasted much longer. The role of ancient traditions in Venice was the smallest, and the connection with the subsequent development of European painting was the most direct. In Venice, painting dominated, which was characterized by bright, rich and joyful colors.

The era of the High Renaissance (in Italian it sounds like "Cinquecento") in Venice occupied almost the entire 16th century. Many prominent artists painted in the free and cheerful manner of the Venetian Renaissance.

The artist Giovanni Bellini became a representative of the transitional period from the Early Renaissance to the High. The famous painting belongs to him" Lake Madonna"- a beautiful painting, embodying dreams of a golden age or an earthly paradise.

A student of Giovanni Bellini, the artist Giorgione is considered the first master of the High Renaissance in Venice. His canvas » Sleeping Venus"- one of the most poetic images of a naked body in world art. This work is another embodiment of the dream of simple-minded, happy and innocent people who live in complete harmony with nature.

The State Hermitage Museum has a painting » Judith», which also belongs to Giorgione. This work has become a vivid example of achieving a three-dimensional image not only with the help of chiaroscuro, but also using the light gradation technique.

Giorgione "Judith"

The most typical artist of Venice can be considered Paolo Veronese. His large-scale, multi-figure compositions are dedicated to the image of sumptuous dinners in Venetian palazzos with musicians, jesters and dogs. There is nothing religious about them. » The Last Supper»- this is an image of the beauty of the world in simple earthly manifestations and admiration for the perfection of beautiful flesh.

Paolo Veronese "The Last Supper"

Creativity Titian

The evolution of the Venetian painting of the Cinquecento was reflected in the work of Titian, who first worked with Giorgione and was close to him. This was reflected in the creative manner of the painter in the works "Heavenly Love and Earthly Love", "Flora". The female images of Titian are nature itself, shining with eternal beauty.

- the king of painters. He owns numerous discoveries in the field of painting, among which are the richness of color, color modeling, original forms and the use of nuances of colors. Titian's contribution to the art of the Venetian Renaissance is enormous, he had a great influence on the skill of the painters of the subsequent period.

The late Titian is already close to the artistic language of Velasquez and Rembrandt: the ratio of tones, spots, dynamic strokes, texture of the colorful surface. The Venetians and Titian replaced the dominance of the line with the advantages of the array of colors.

Titian Vecellio "Self-portrait" (circa 1567)

The painting technique of Ticin is striking even today, because it is a mess of paints. In the hands of the artist, the paints were a kind of clay, from which the painter sculpted his works. It is known that by the end of his life, Titian painted his canvases with his fingers. so this comparison is more than appropriate.

Titian "Denarius of Caesar" (circa 1516)

Paintings by Titian Vecellio

Among the paintings of Titian are the following:

• » Assunta»

• "Bacchus and Ariadne"

• "Venus of Urbino"

• "Portrait of Pope Paul III"

• "Portrait of Lavinia"

• "Venus in front of a mirror"

• "Penitent Magdalene"

• » Saint Sebastian»

Picturesque and feeling O volumetric form in Titian are in perfect balance. His figures are full of a sense of life and movement. The novelty of the compositional technique, unusual coloring, free strokes are a distinctive feature of Titian's painting. His work embodied the best features of the Venetian school of the Renaissance.

Characteristic features of the painting of the Venetian Renaissance

The last luminary of the Venetian Cinquecento is the artist Tintoretto. Known for his paintings "The battle of the archangel Michael with Satan" and The Last Supper. Fine art embodied the Renaissance idea of ​​the ideal, faith in the power of the mind, the dream of a beautiful, strong person, a harmoniously developed personality.

Jacopo Tintoretto "The Battle of the Archangel Michael with Satan" (1590)
Jacopo Tintoretto "Crucifixion"

Artistic works were created on traditional religious and mythological subjects. Thanks to this, modernity was elevated to the rank of eternity, thus affirming the godlikeness of a real person. The main principles of the image in this period were the imitation of nature and the reality of the characters. A painting is a kind of window into the world, because the artist depicts on it what he saw in reality.

Jacopo Tintoretto "The Last Supper"

The art of painting was based on the achievements of various sciences. Painters successfully mastered the perspective image. During this period, creativity became personal. Easel art works are getting more and more development.

Jacopo Tintoretto "Paradise"

In painting, a genre system is being formed, which includes the following genres:

• religious - mythological;
• historical;
• household landscape;
• portrait.

Engraving also appears during this period, and drawing plays an important role. Works of art are valued in themselves as an artistic phenomenon. One of the most important sensations in their perception is pleasure. High-quality reproductions of paintings from the Venetian Renaissance will be a great addition to the interior in.

Venetian painting reached a special flowering, distinguished by its richness and richness of color. Pagan admiration for physical beauty was combined here with an interest in the spiritual life of man. The sensory perception of the world was more direct than that of the Florentines, and caused the development of the landscape.

Giorgione. The stage of the High Renaissance in Venice opens the art of Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, nicknamed Giorgione (circa 1477–1510), who played the same role for Venetian painting that Leonardo did for Central Italian.

Compared with the clear rationality of Leonardo's art, Giorgione's painting is permeated with deep lyricism and contemplation. The landscape, which occupies a prominent place in his work, contributes to the disclosure of the poetry and harmony of his perfect images. The harmonious connection of man with nature is an important feature of Giorgione's work. Formed among humanists, musicians, poets, an outstanding musician himself, Giorgione finds the finest musicality of rhythms in his compositions. Color plays a huge role in them. Sound paints, laid in transparent layers, soften the outlines. The artist skillfully uses the properties of oil painting. The variety of shades and transitional tones helps him to achieve the unity of volume, light, color and space. Among his early works, Judith (circa 1502, St. Petersburg, Hermitage) attracts with tender dreaminess, subtle lyricism. The biblical heroine is depicted as a young beautiful woman against the backdrop of hushed nature. However, a strange disturbing note is introduced into this seemingly harmonious composition by the sword in the heroine's hand and the severed head of the enemy, trampled by her.

In the paintings "The Storm" (circa 1505, Venice, Academy Gallery) and "Country Concert" (circa 1508-1510, Paris, Louvre), the plots of which remained unidentified, the mood is created not only by people, but also by nature: pre-stormy - in the first and calmly radiant, solemn - in the second. Against the backdrop of the landscape, people are depicted, immersed in thought, as if waiting for something or playing music, constituting an inseparable whole with the nature around them.

The combination of the ideal harmonious with the concrete-individual characterization of a person distinguishes the portraits painted by Giorgione. Attracts with depth of thought, nobility of character, dreaminess and spirituality of Antonio Brocardo (1508-1510, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts). The image of perfect sublime beauty and poetry receives its ideal embodiment in the "Sleeping Venus" (circa 1508-1510, Dresden, Art Gallery). She is presented against the backdrop of a rural landscape, immersed in a peaceful sleep. The smooth rhythm of the linear outlines of her figure subtly harmonizes with the soft lines of gentle hills, with the thoughtful calmness of nature. All contours are softened, plasticity is ideally beautiful, softly modeled forms are proportionately proportionate. Subtle nuances of golden tones convey the warmth of a naked body. Giorgione died in the prime of his life from the plague, never having completed his most perfect painting. The landscape in the picture was completed by Titian, who completed other orders entrusted to Giorgione.

Titian. For many years, the art of its head, Titian (1485/1490–1576), determined the development of the Venetian school of painting. Along with the art of Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo, it appears to be the pinnacle of the High Renaissance. Titian's fidelity to humanistic principles, faith in the will, reason and human capabilities, powerful colorism give his works an enormous attractive force. In his work, the originality of the realism of the Venetian school of painting is finally revealed. The attitude of the artist is full-blooded, the knowledge of life is deep and multifaceted. The versatility of his talent manifested itself in the development of various genres and lyrical and dramatic themes.

Unlike Giorgione, who died early, Titian lived a long happy life full of inspired creative work. He was born in the town of Cadore, lived all his life in Venice, studied there - first with Bellini, and then with Giorgione. Only for a short time, having already achieved fame, he traveled to Rome and Augsburg at the invitation of customers, preferring to work in the atmosphere of his spacious hospitable home, where his humanist friends and artists often gathered, among them the writer Aretino, the architect Sansovino.

The last of the Italian cities, not earlier than the middle of the 15th century, Venice was imbued with the ideas of the Renaissance. Unlike the rest of Italy, she lived it in her own way. A prosperous city avoiding military conflicts, a center of maritime trade, Venice was self-sufficient. Its masters kept themselves apart to such an extent that when the Florentine Vasari in the middle of the 16th century began to collect material for the “Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors and Architects”, he was unable to obtain details of the biographies of people who lived a century earlier, and united everyone in one short chapter. .


Bellini. "Miracle at St. Lawrence Bridge". From the point of view of Venetian artists, all the saints lived in Venice and sailed on gondolas.

The masters of Venice did not seek to study ancient ruins in Rome. They much more liked Byzantium and the Arab East, with which the Venetian Republic traded. In addition, they were in no hurry to renounce medieval art. And the two most famous city buildings - St. Mark's Cathedral and the Doge's Palace - are two beautiful architectural "bouquets": the first one contains the motifs of Byzantine art, and the second coexists with a medieval lancet arch and an Arabic pattern.

Leonardo da Vinci, the great Florentine, condemned painters who were too fond of the beauty of color, considering relief to be the main advantage of painting. The Venetians had their own opinion on this matter. They even learned how to create the illusion of volume, almost without resorting to color and shadow, but using different shades of the same color. This is how "Sleeping Venus" by Giorgione is written.

Giorgione. "Storm". The plot of the film remains a mystery. But it is clear that the artist was most interested in the mood, the state of mind of the character at the present, in this case, the pre-storm moment.

Artists of the Early Renaissance painted paintings and frescoes with tempera, invented in antiquity. Oil paints have been known since antiquity, but painters were imbued with sympathy for them only in the 15th century. The Dutch masters were the first to improve the technique of oil painting.

Since Venice was built on islands in the middle of the sea, the frescoes were quickly destroyed due to the high humidity of the air. The masters could not write on the boards, as Botticelli wrote his Adoration of the Magi: there was a lot of water around, but little forest. They painted on canvas with oil paints, and in this they were more like contemporary painters than other Renaissance painters.

Venetian artists treated science coolly. They did not differ in versatility of talents, knowing only one thing - painting. But they were surprisingly cheerful and gladly transferred to the canvas everything that pleased the eye: Venetian architecture, canals, bridges and boats with gondoliers, a stormy landscape. Giovanni Bellini, a famous artist in his time in the city, was carried away, according to Vasari, by portrait painting and so infected his fellow citizens with it that every Venetian who reached any significant position was in a hurry to order his portrait. And his brother Gentile seemed to shock the Turkish Sultan to the depths of his soul by painting him from nature: when he saw his “second self”, the Sultan considered it a miracle. Titian painted many portraits. Living people were more interesting to the artists of Venice than ideal heroes.

The fact that Venice was delayed with innovations turned out to be a good thing. It was she who preserved, as best she could, the achievements of the Italian Renaissance in the years when it had faded in other cities. The Venetian school of painting became a bridge between the Renaissance and the art that came to replace it.

Details Category: Fine arts and architecture of the Renaissance (Renaissance) Posted on 08/07/2014 11:19 Views: 6847

The legacy of the Venetian school of painting is the brightest page in the history of the Italian Renaissance.

Venice was one of the leading centers of Italian culture. It is considered one of the main Italian schools of painting. The heyday of the Venetian school is attributed to the XV-XVI centuries.
What does the name "Venetian School" mean?
At that time, many Italian artists worked in Venice, united by common artistic principles. These principles are bright coloristic techniques, mastery of the plasticity of oil painting, the ability to see the life-affirming meaning of nature and life itself in its most wonderful manifestations. The Venetians were characterized by a taste for everything unique, emotional richness of perception, admiration for the physical, material diversity of the world. At a time when fragmented Italy was torn apart by strife, Venice prospered and quietly floated on the smooth surface of the waters and living space, as if not noticing the whole complexity of being or not thinking about it especially, in contrast to the High Renaissance, whose creativity was fed by thoughts and complex searches.
There are quite a few prominent representatives of the Venetian school of painting: Paolo Veneziano, Lorenzo Veneziano, Donato Veneziano, Catarino Veneziano, Niccolo Semitecolo, Jacobello Albereno, Nicolo di Pietro, Jacobello del Fiore, Jacopo Bellini, Antonio Vivarini, Bartolomeo Vivarini, Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Bellini, Giacometto Veneziano, Carlo Crivelli, Vittorio Crivelli, Alvise Vivarini, Lazzaro Bastiani, Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano, Francesco di Simone da Santacroce, Titian, Giorgione, Palma Vecchio, Lorenzo Lotto, Sebastiano del Piombo, Jacopo Bassano, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese.
Let's talk about just a few of them.

Paolo Veneziano (before 1333-after 1358)

Paolo Veneziano Madonna and Child (1354), Louvre
He is considered one of the founders of the Venetian art school. Everyone in the Paolo Veneziano family were artists: his father and sons: Marco, Luca and Giovanni.

In the work of Paolo Veneziano, there are still features of Byzantine painting: a golden background and bright colors, and later - Gothic features.
The artist created his own art workshop, in which he was mainly engaged in mosaics, decorating cathedrals. The last signed work of the artist is the Coronation altarpiece.

Titian (1488/1490-1576)

Titian "Self-portrait" (circa 1567)
Titian Vecellio is an Italian Renaissance painter. He painted pictures on biblical and mythological subjects, as well as portraits. Already at the age of 30 he was known as the best painter in Venice.
Titian was born into the family of the statesman and military leader Gregorio Vecellio. The exact date of his birth is unknown.
At the age of 10 or 12, Titian came to Venice, where he met representatives of the Venetian school and studied with them. The first works of Titian, performed jointly with Giorgione, were frescoes in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, of which only fragments have survived.
The style of Titian of that time is very similar to the style of Giorgione, he even finished painting for him, which remained unfinished (Giorgione died young from the plague raging in Venice at that time).
Titian's brush belongs to many female portraits and images of Madonnas. They are full of vitality, brightness of feelings and calm joy. The colors are clean and full of color. Famous paintings of that time: "Gypsy Madonna" (circa 1511), "Earthly Love and Heavenly Love" (1514), "Woman with a Mirror" (circa 1514).

Titian "Earthly Love and Heavenly Love" Oil on canvas, 118x279 cm. Boghese Gallery, Rome
This painting was commissioned by Niccolò Aurelio, secretary of the Council of Ten of the Venetian Republic, as his wedding gift to his bride. The modern name of the painting began to be used 200 years later, and before that it had various names. There is no consensus among art critics about the plot. Against the backdrop of a sunset landscape, a richly dressed Venetian woman is sitting at the source, holding a mandolin in her left hand, and a naked Venus holding a bowl of fire. Winged cupid plays with water. Everything in this picture is subject to the feeling of all-conquering love and beauty.
Titian's style developed gradually as he studied the works of the great Renaissance masters Raphael and Michelangelo. His portrait art reaches its peak: he was very perspicacious and knew how to see and portray the contradictory traits of people's characters: confidence, pride and dignity, combined with suspicion, hypocrisy and deceit. He knew how to find the right compositional solution, pose, facial expression, movement, gesture. He created many paintings on biblical subjects.

Titian "Behold the Man" (1543). Canvas, oil. 242x361 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
This painting is considered Titian's masterpiece. It is written on the gospel story, but the artist skillfully transfers the gospel events to reality. Pilate stands on the steps of the stairs and, with the words “this is a man,” betrays Christ to be torn apart by the crowd, in which there are warriors and young men of a noble family, horsemen and even women with children. And only one person is aware of the horror of what is happening - the young man in the lower left corner of the picture. But he is nobody before those who have power over Christ at this moment...
Towards the end of his life, Titian developed a new painting technique. He applied paint to the canvas with a brush, a spatula, and his fingers. The last masterpieces of the artist include the paintings "The Entombment" (1559), "The Annunciation" (circa 1564-1566), "Venus Blindfolding Cupid" (circa 1560-1565), "Carrying the Cross" (1560s), " Tarquinius and Lucretia" (1569-1571), "St. Sebastian" (circa 1570), "Coronation with Thorns" (circa 1572-1576), "Pieta" (mid-1570s).
The painting "Pieta" depicts the Virgin Mary supporting the body of Christ with the help of kneeling Nicodemus. To their left stands Mary Magdalene. These figures form a perfect triangle. The painting "Pieta" is considered the last work of the artist. It was completed by Giacomo Palma Jr. It is believed that Titian portrayed himself in the image of Nicodemus.

Titian "Pieta" (1575-1576). Canvas, oil. 389x351 cm Academy Gallery, Venice
In 1575, an epidemic of plague begins in Venice. Titian, infected by his son, dies on August 27, 1576. He was found dead on the floor with a brush in his hand.
The law required the bodies of those who died of the plague to be burned, but Titian was buried in the Venetian Cathedral of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari.
The words are carved on his grave: “Here lies the great Titian Vecelli -
rival of Zeus and Apelles"

Giorgione (1476/1477-1510)

Giorgione "Self-portrait" (1500-1510)
Another representative of the Venetian school of painting; one of the greatest masters of the High Renaissance.
His full name is Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, after a small town near Venice. He was a student of Giovanni Bellini. He was the first of the Italian painters to introduce landscape, beautiful and poetic, into religious, mythological and historical paintings. He worked mainly in Venice: he painted altarpieces here, carried out numerous portrait orders, decorated chests, caskets and facades of houses with his painting according to the custom of that time. Died of the plague.
In his work, they note the skillful mastery of light and color, the ability to perform smooth color transitions and create soft outlines of objects. Despite the fact that he died very young, many famous Venetian artists are considered his students, including Titian.
One of Giorgione's most famous paintings is Judith. By the way, this is the only painting by the artist located in Russia.

Giorgione "Judith" (circa 1504). Canvas (translated from the board), oil. 144x68 cm State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
One of the many works of fine art on the biblical story on the theme of the story of Judith and Holofernes. The commander Holofernes, commander of the army of Nebuchadnezzar, carried out his command "to accomplish ... vengeance on all the earth." In Mesopotamia, he destroyed all the cities, burned all the crops and killed the men, and then laid siege to the small city of Betiluia, where the young widow Judith lived. She made her way to the Assyrian camp and seduced Holofernes, and when the commander fell asleep, she cut off his head. The army without a leader could not resist the inhabitants of Vetilui and was dispersed. Judith received the tent of Holofernes and all his utensils as a trophy and entered Vetiluja as a triumphant.
Giorgione created not a bloody, but a peaceful picture: Judith holds a sword in his right hand, and leans on a low parapet with his left. Her left leg rests on Holofernes' head. A peaceful landscape opens up in the distance, symbolizing the harmony of nature.

Tintoretto (1518/19-1594)

Tintoretto "Self-portrait"

His real name is Jacopo Robusti. He was a painter of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance.
He was born in Venice and was nicknamed Tintoretto (little dyer) by the profession of his father, who was a dyer (tintore). Early discovered the ability to paint. For some time he was a student of Titian.
The distinctive qualities of his work were the lively drama of the composition, the boldness of the drawing, the peculiar picturesqueness in the distribution of light and shadows, the warmth and strength of colors. He was generous and non-possessive, could work for nothing for his comrades and reimburse himself only for the cost of paints.
But sometimes his work was distinguished by haste, which can be explained by the huge number of orders.
Tintoretto is mainly known for historical painting, as well as portraits, of which many surprise with the composition of figures, expressiveness, and the power of colors.
Tintoretto also passed on his artistic talent to his children: his daughter, Marietta Robusti (1560-1590), was a successful portrait painter. Son, Domenico Robusti (1562-1637), was also an artist, a skilled portrait painter.

Tintoretto "The Last Supper" (1592-1594). Canvas, oil. 365x568 see Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
The painting was painted specifically for the Venetian church of San Giorgio Maggiore, where it remains to this day. The bold composition of the painting helped artfully depict earthly and divine details. The plot of the canvas is the gospel moment when Christ breaks bread and pronounces the words: "This is my body." The action takes place in a poor tavern, its space sinks into twilight and seems limitless thanks to a long table. The artist resorts to the technique of contrast: in the foreground on the right are several objects and figures that are not related to the plot, and the upper part of the canvas is imbued with deep spirituality and mystical excitement.
The sense of wonder is not overshadowed by the sight of the feast. The room is filled with supernatural light, the heads of Christ and the apostles are surrounded by radiant halos. The diagonal of the table separates the divine world from the human world.
This canvas is considered the final work of Tintoretto's work. Such skill is available only to a mature artist.

The art of Venice represents a special version of the development of the very principles of the artistic culture of the Renaissance and in relation to all other centers of Renaissance art in Italy.

Chronologically, the art of the Renaissance took shape in Venice somewhat later than in most other major centers of Italy of that era. It took shape, in particular, later than in Florence and in general in Tuscany. The formation of the principles of the artistic culture of the Renaissance in the fine arts of Venice began only in the 15th century. This was determined by no means by the economic backwardness of Venice. On the contrary, Venice, along with Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Milan, was one of the most economically developed centers of Italy at that time. It is precisely the early transformation of Venice into a great commercial and, moreover, predominantly commercial, rather than a productive power, which began in the 12th century and was especially accelerated during the crusades, is to blame for this delay.

The culture of Venice, this window of Italy and Central Europe, "cut through" to the eastern countries, was closely connected with the magnificent grandeur and solemn luxury of the imperial Byzantine culture, and partly with the refined decorative culture of the Arab world. Already in the 12th century, that is, in the era of the dominance of the Romanesque style in Europe, a rich trading republic, creating art that asserts its wealth and power, widely turned to the experience of Byzantium, that is, the richest, most developed Christian medieval power at that time. In essence, the artistic culture of Venice as early as the 14th century was a kind of interweaving of magnificent and festive forms of monumental Byzantine art, enlivened by the influence of the colorful ornamentation of the East and a peculiarly elegant rethinking of the decorative elements of mature Gothic art.

A characteristic example of the temporary delay of Venetian culture in its transition to the Renaissance in comparison with other areas of Italy is the architecture of the Doge's Palace (14th century). In painting, the extremely characteristic vitality of medieval traditions is clearly reflected in the late Gothic work of masters of the late 14th century, such as Lorenzo and Stefano Veneziano. They make themselves felt even in the work of such artists of the 15th century, whose art already bore a completely Renaissance character. Such are the "Madonnas" of Bartolomeo, Alvise Vivarini, such is the work of Carlo Crivelli, the subtle and elegant master of the Early Renaissance. In his art, medieval reminiscences are felt much stronger than those of his contemporary artists of Tuscany and Umbria. It is characteristic that the proto-Renaissance tendencies proper, similar to the art of Cavalini and Giotto, who also worked in the Venetian Republic (one of his best cycles was created for Padua), made themselves felt weakly and sporadically.

Only approximately from the middle of the 15th century can we say that the inevitable and natural process of the transition of Venetian art to secular positions, characteristic of the entire artistic culture of the Renaissance, finally begins to be fully realized. The peculiarity of the Venetian quattrocento was mainly reflected in the desire for increased festivity of color, for a peculiar combination of subtle realism with decorativeness in the composition, in a greater interest in the landscape background, in the landscape environment surrounding a person; moreover, it is characteristic that interest in the urban landscape, perhaps, was even more developed than interest in the natural landscape. It was in the second half of the 15th century that the formation of the Renaissance school in Venice took place as a significant and original phenomenon that occupied an important place in the art of the Italian Renaissance. It was at this time that, along with the art of the archaizing Crivelli, the work of Antonello da Messina took shape, striving for a more holistic, generalized perception of the world, a poetic-decorative and monumental perception. Not much later, a more narrative line in the development of the art of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio appears.

This is natural. Venice by the middle of the 15th century reaches the highest degree of its commercial and political heyday. The colonial possessions in the trading post of the "Queen of the Adriatic" covered not only the entire eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, but also spread widely throughout the eastern Mediterranean. In Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, the banner of the Lion of St. Mark flutters. Many of the noble patrician families that make up the ruling elite of the Venetian oligarchy, overseas act as rulers of large cities or entire regions. The Venetian fleet firmly controls almost the entire transit trade between East and Western Europe.

True, the defeat of the Byzantine Empire by the Turks, which ended with the capture of Constantinople, shook the trading positions of Venice. Yet by no means can one speak of the decline of Venice in the second half of the 15th century. The general collapse of the Venetian eastern trade came much later. The Venetian merchants invested huge funds for that time, partially released from trade, in the development of crafts and manufactories in Venice, partly in the development of rational agriculture in their possessions located on the peninsula adjacent to the lagoon (the so-called terra farm).

Moreover, the rich and still full of vitality republic in 1509-1516, combining the force of arms with flexible diplomacy, defended its independence in a difficult struggle with a hostile coalition of a number of European powers. The general upsurge caused by the outcome of this difficult struggle, which temporarily rallied all sections of Venetian society, caused the growth of the features of heroic optimism and monumental festivity that are so characteristic of the art of the High Renaissance in Venice, starting with Titian. The fact that Venice retained its independence and, to a large extent, its wealth, determined the duration of the heyday of the art of the High Renaissance in the Venetian Republic. The turn to the late Renaissance was outlined in Venice somewhat later than in Rome and Florence, namely, by the mid-40s of the 16th century.

art

The period of maturation of the prerequisites for the transition to the High Renaissance coincides, as in the rest of Italy, with the end of the 15th century. It was during these years that, in parallel with the narrative art of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio, the work of a number of masters of a new artistic direction, so to speak: Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano, took shape. Although in time they work almost simultaneously with Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio, they represent the next stage in the logic of the development of the art of the Venetian Renaissance. These were the painters, in whose art the transition to a new stage in the development of Renaissance culture was most clearly outlined. This was especially clearly revealed in the work of the mature Giovanni Bellini, at least to a greater extent than even in the paintings of his younger contemporary Cima da Conegliano or his younger brother, Gentile Bellini.

Giovanni Bellini (apparently born after 1425 and before 1429; died in 1516) not only develops and improves the achievements accumulated by his immediate predecessors, but also raises Venetian art and, more broadly, Renaissance culture as a whole to a higher level . The artist has an amazing sense of the monumental significance of the form, its inner figurative-emotional content. In his paintings, the connection between the mood created by the landscape and the state of mind of the heroes of the composition is born, which is one of the remarkable achievements of modern painting in general. At the same time, in the art of Giovanni Bellini - and this is the most important - the significance of the moral world of the human personality is revealed with extraordinary force.

At an early stage of his work, the characters in the composition are still very static, the drawing is somewhat harsh, the combinations of colors are almost sharp. But the feeling of the inner significance of a person's spiritual state, the revelation of the beauty of his inner experiences, reach already during this period a huge impressive force. On the whole, gradually, without external sharp leaps, Giovanni Bellini, organically developing the humanistic basis of his work, frees himself from the moments of the narrative art of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. The plot in his compositions relatively rarely receives a detailed dramatic development, but all the more through the emotional sound of color, through the rhythmic expressiveness of the drawing and the clear simplicity of the compositions, the monumental significance of the form and, finally, through the restrained, but full of inner strength mimicry, the greatness of the spiritual world of man is revealed.

Bellini's interest in the problem of lighting, in the problem of the relationship of human figures with their natural environment, also determined his interest in the achievements of the masters of the Dutch Renaissance (a feature generally characteristic of many artists of the north of Italian art of the second half of the 15th century). However, the clear plasticity of form, the craving for the monumental significance of the image of a person with all the natural vitality of his interpretation - for example, "Prayer for the Cup" - determine the decisive difference between Bellini as a master of the Italian Renaissance with his heroic humanism from the artists of the northern Renaissance, although in the earliest period of his creativity, the artist turned to the northerners, more precisely to the Netherlands, in search of sometimes emphatically sharp psychological and narrative characterization of the image ("Pieta" from Bergamo, c. 1450). The peculiarity of the Venetian's creative path, in comparison with both Mantegna and the masters of the North, is manifested very clearly in his "Madonna with a Greek inscription" (1470s, Milan, Brera). This image of a mournfully pensive Mary, who gently embraced a sad baby, remotely reminiscent of an icon, also speaks of another tradition from which the master repels - the tradition of Byzantine and, more broadly, of all European medieval painting. However, the abstract spirituality of the linear rhythms and color chords of the icon is decisively overcome Restrained and strict in their expressiveness, the color ratios are vitally specific. The colors are true, the solid molding of the three-dimensionally modeled form is very real. The subtly clear sadness of the rhythms of the silhouette is inseparable from the restrained vital expressiveness of the movement of the figures themselves, from the living human, and not the abstract spiritualistic expression of Mary's sad, mournful and thoughtful face, from the sad tenderness of the baby's wide-open eyes. Poetically inspired, deeply human, and not mystically transformed feeling is expressed in this simple and modest-looking composition.

During the 1480s, Giovanni Bellini takes a decisive step forward in his work and becomes one of the founders of the art of the High Renaissance. The originality of the art of the mature Giovanni Bellini stands out clearly when comparing his "Transfiguration" (1480s) with his early "Transfiguration" (Venice, Museo Correr). In the "Transfiguration" of the Correr Museum, the rigidly traced figures of Christ and the prophets are located on a small rock, reminiscent of both a large pedestal to the monument and an iconic "bream". The figures, somewhat angular in their movements, in which the unity of life characteristic and poetic elation of gesture has not yet been achieved, are distinguished by stereoscopicity. Light and cold-clear, almost flashy colors of volumetrically modeled figures are surrounded by a cold-transparent atmosphere. The figures themselves, despite the bold use of colored shadows, are still distinguished by a uniform uniformity of illumination and a certain static character.

The next stage after the art of Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano was the work of Giorgione, the first master of the Venetian school, who belonged entirely to the High Renaissance. Giorgio Barbarelli del Castelfranco (1477/78 - 1510), nicknamed Giorgione, was a junior contemporary and student of Giovanni Bellini. Giorgione, like Leonardo da Vinci, reveals the refined harmony of a spiritually rich and physically perfect person. Just like Leonardo, Giorgione's work is distinguished by deep intellectualism and, it would seem, crystalline rationality. But, unlike Leonardo, the deep lyricism of whose art is very hidden and, as it were, subordinate to the pathos of rational intellectualism, in Giorgione the lyrical principle, in its clear agreement with the rational principle, makes itself felt more directly and with greater force.

In the painting of Giorgione, nature, the natural environment, begin to play a more important role than in the work of Bellini and Leonardo.

If we still cannot say that Giorgione depicts a single air environment that connects the figures and objects of the landscape into a single plein-air whole, then we, in any case, have the right to assert that the figurative emotional atmosphere in which both the characters and nature live in Giorgione is the atmosphere is already optically common both for the background and for the characters in the picture. A peculiar example of the introduction of figures into the natural environment and the remelting of the experience of Bellini and Leonardo into something organically new - "Giorgionev" is his drawing "St. Elizabeth with the baby John", in which a special, somewhat crystal clear and cool atmosphere is very subtly conveyed by means of graphics, so inherent in the creations of Giorgione.

Few works of both Giorgione himself and his circle have survived to our time. A number of attributions are controversial. However, it should be noted that the first complete exhibition of works by Giorgione and the Giorgionescos, held in Venice in 1958, made it possible not only to make a number of clarifications in the circle of the master’s works, but also to attribute to Giorgione a number of previously controversial works, helped to more fully and clearly present the character of his creativity in general.

Relatively early works by Giorgione, completed before 1505, include his Adoration of the Shepherds in the Washington Museum and Adoration of the Magi in the National Gallery in London. In "The Adoration of the Magi" (London), despite the well-known fragmentation of the drawing and the insurmountable rigidity of the color, the master's interest in conveying the inner spiritual world of the characters is already felt. The initial period of creativity Giorgione completes his wonderful composition "Madonna of Castelfranco" (c. 1504, Castelfranco, Cathedral).

From 1505, the period of the artist's creative maturity began, soon interrupted by his fatal illness. During this short five years, his main masterpieces were created: "Judith", "Thunderstorm", "Sleeping Venus", "Concert" and most of the few portraits. It is in these works that the mastery of the special coloristic and figuratively expressive possibilities of oil painting, inherent in the great painters of the Venetian school, is revealed. It must be said that the Venetians, who were not the first creators and distributors of oil painting, were actually among the first to discover the specific possibilities and features of oil painting.

It should be noted that the characteristic features of the Venetian school were precisely the predominant development of oil painting and the much weaker development of fresco painting. During the transition from the medieval system to the Renaissance realistic system of monumental painting, the Venetians, naturally, like most peoples who passed from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance stage in the development of artistic culture, almost completely abandoned mosaics. Its highly brilliant and decorative chromaticity could no longer fully meet the new artistic challenges. Of course, the mosaic technique continued to be used, but its role is becoming less and less noticeable. Using the mosaic technique, it was still possible to achieve results in the Renaissance that relatively satisfy the aesthetic needs of the time. But just the specific properties of mosaic smalt, its unique sonorous radiance, surreal shimmer and, at the same time, increased decorativeness of the overall effect could not be fully applied under the conditions of the new artistic ideal. True, the increased light radiance of the iridescent shimmering mosaic painting, although transformed, indirectly, but influenced the Renaissance painting of Venice, which always gravitated towards sonorous clarity and radiant richness of color. But the very stylistic system with which the mosaic was associated, and consequently its technique, had, with a few exceptions, to leave the sphere of large monumental painting. The mosaic technique itself, now more often used for more private and narrow purposes, more of a decorative and applied nature, was not completely forgotten by the Venetians. Moreover, the Venetian mosaic workshops were one of those centers that brought the traditions of mosaic technology, in particular smalt, to our time.

Stained glass painting also retained some importance due to its “luminosity”, although it must be admitted that it never had the same significance either in Venice or in Italy as a whole as in the Gothic culture of France and Germany. An idea of ​​​​the Renaissance plastic rethinking of the visionary radiance of medieval stained glass painting is given by "St. George" (16th century) by Mochetto in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo.

In general, in the art of the Renaissance, the development of monumental painting proceeded either in the forms of fresco painting, or on the basis of the partial development of tempera, and mainly on the monumental and decorative use of oil painting (wall panels).

Fresco is a technique with which such masterpieces as the Masaccio cycle, Raphael's stanzas and the paintings of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel were created in the Early and High Renaissance. But in the Venetian climate, it very early discovered its instability and was not widespread in the 16th century. Thus, the frescoes of the German Compound "Fondaco dei Tedeschi" (1508), executed by Giorgione with the participation of the young Titian, were almost completely destroyed. Only a few half-faded fragments, spoiled by dampness, have survived, among them the figure of a naked woman, full of almost Praxitele charm, made by Giorgione. Therefore, the place of wall painting, in the proper sense of the word, was taken by a wall panel on canvas, designed for a specific room and performed using the technique of oil painting.

Oil painting received a particularly wide and rich development in Venice, however, not only because it seemed the most convenient way to replace the fresco with another painting technique adapted to the humid climate, but also because the desire to convey the image of a person in close connection with the natural environment around him environment, interest in the realistic embodiment of the tonal and coloristic richness of the visible world could be revealed with particular completeness and flexibility precisely in the technique of oil painting. In this regard, tempera painting on boards in easel compositions, pleasing with its large color strength and clearly shining sonority, but more decorative in nature, should naturally give way to oil, and this process of displacing tempera with oil painting was especially consistently carried out in Venice. It should not be forgotten that for Venetian painters, a particularly valuable property of oil painting was its ability to be more flexible than tempera, and even fresco, to convey light-color and spatial shades of the human environment, the ability to gently and sonorously sculpt the shape of the human body. For Giorgione, who worked relatively little in the field of large monumental compositions (his painting was, in essence, either easel in nature, or they were monumental in their general sound, but not connected with the structure of the surrounding architectural composition of the interior), these possibilities inherent in oil painting were especially valuable. It is characteristic that the soft molding of the form with chiaroscuro is also inherent in his drawings.

a feeling of the mysterious complexity of the inner spiritual world of a person, hidden behind the apparent clear transparent beauty of his noble external appearance, finds expression in the famous "Judith" (before 1504, Leningrad, the Hermitage). "Judith" is formally a composition on a biblical theme. Moreover, unlike the paintings of many Quattrocentists, it is a composition on a theme, and not an illustration of a biblical text. Therefore, the master does not depict any culminating moment from the point of view of the development of the event, as the Quattrocento masters usually did (Judith strikes Holofernes with the sword or carries his severed head along with the maid).

Against the backdrop of a calm pre-sunset landscape, under the canopy of an oak tree, leaning thoughtfully on the balustrade, slender Judith stands. The smooth tenderness of her figure, in contrast, is set off by the massive trunk of a mighty tree. Clothes of a soft scarlet color are permeated with a restless-broken rhythm of folds, as if a distant echo of a passing whirlwind. In her hand she holds a large double-edged sword resting on the ground with its tip on the ground, the cold shine and straightness of which contrastly emphasize the flexibility of the half-naked leg trampling Holofernes' head. An imperceptible half-smile glides across Judith's face. This composition, it would seem, conveys all the charm of the image of a young woman, coldly beautiful, which is echoed, like a kind of musical accompaniment, by the soft clarity of the surrounding peaceful nature. At the same time, the cold cutting edge of the sword, the unexpected cruelty of the motive - the tender naked foot trampling the dead head of Holofernes - bring a feeling of vague anxiety and anxiety into this seemingly harmonious, almost idyllic in mood picture.

On the whole, of course, the clear and calm purity of the dreamy mood remains the dominant motive. However, the comparison of the bliss of the image and the mysterious cruelty of the motif of the sword and the trampled head, the almost rebus complexity of this dual mood, can plunge the modern viewer into some confusion.

But Giorgione's contemporaries, apparently, were less struck by the cruelty of the contrast (Renaissance humanism was never overly sensitive), rather than attracted by that subtle transmission of the echoes of distant storms and dramatic conflicts, against which the acquisition of refined harmony, the state of serenity of the dreamily dreaming beautiful human soul.

In literature, there is sometimes an attempt to reduce the meaning of Giorgione's art to the expression of the ideals of only a small humanistically enlightened patrician elite of Venice at that time. However, this is not entirely true, or rather, not only so. The objective content of Giorgione's art is immeasurably wider and more universal than the spiritual world of that narrow social stratum with which his work is directly connected. The feeling of the refined nobility of the human soul, the striving for the ideal perfection of the beautiful image of a person living in harmony with the environment, with the surrounding world, also had a great general progressive significance for the development of culture.

As mentioned, interest in portrait sharpness is not characteristic of Giorgione's work. This does not mean at all that his characters, like the images of classical antique art, are devoid of any concrete individual originality. His magi in the early "Adoration of the Magi" and the philosophers in "Three Philosophers" (c. 1508, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) differ from each other not only in age, but also in their appearance, in their character. However, they, and in particular the "Three Philosophers", with all the individual differences in images, are perceived by us mainly not so much as unique, vividly characterized individuals, or even more so as an image of three ages (a young man, a mature husband and an old man), but as the embodiment of various aspects , different facets of the human spirit. It is not accidental and partly justified that the desire to see in three scientists the embodiment of three aspects of wisdom: the humanistic mysticism of Eastern Averroism (a man in a turban), Aristotelianism (an old man) and humanism contemporary to the artist (a young man inquisitively peering into the world). It is quite possible that Giorgione put this meaning into the image he created.

But the human content, the complex richness of the spiritual world of the three heroes of the picture is wider and richer than any one-sided interpretation of them.

In essence, the first such comparison within the framework of the emerging Renaissance art system was carried out in the art of Giotto - in his fresco "Kiss of Judas". However, there the comparison of Christ and Judas was read very clearly, since it was connected with the universally known religious legend of that time, and this opposition has the character of a deep irreconcilable conflict between good and evil. The maliciously treacherous and hypocritical face of Judas acts as an antipode to the noble, exalted and strict face of Christ. Due to the clarity of the plot, the conflict of these two images has a huge immediately conscious ethical content. Moral and ethical (more precisely, moral and ethical in their fusion) superiority, moreover, the moral victory of Christ over Judas in this conflict, is undeniably clear to us.

In Giorgione, the juxtaposition of the outwardly calm, unconstrained, aristocratic figure of a noble husband and the figure of a somewhat vicious and base character occupying a dependent position in relation to her is not connected with a conflict situation, in any case, with that clear conflict intransigence of characters and their struggle, which gives such a high the tragic meaning of Giotto, brought together by the kiss of the reptile Judas and Christ, beautiful in his calmly strict spirituality ( It is curious that the embrace of Judas, foreshadowing the teacher's torment on the cross, echoes again, as it were, with the compositional motif of the meeting of Mary with Elizabeth, included by Giotto in the general cycle of the life of Christ and broadcasting about the coming birth of the Messiah.).

Clairvoyant and harmonious in its hidden complexity and mystery, the art of Giorgione is alien to open clashes and struggles of characters. And it is no coincidence that Giorgione does not catch the dramatic conflicting possibilities hidden in the motif depicted by him.

This is his difference not only from Giotto, but also from his brilliant student Titian, who, in the period of the first flowering of his still heroic and cheerful creativity, albeit in a different way than Giotto, caught in his "Denarius of Caesar", so to speak, the ethical meaning of the aesthetic opposition of the physical and spiritual nobility of Christ to the vile and brute strength of the Pharisee's character. At the same time, it is extremely instructive that Titian also refers to the well-known Gospel episode, emphatically conflicting in the nature of the plot itself, solving this topic, of course, in terms of the absolute victory of the rational and harmonious will of a person who embodies here the Renaissance and humanistic ideal over his own opposite.

Turning to the actual portrait works of Giorgione, it should be recognized that one of the most characteristic portraits of his mature period of creativity is the wonderful "Portrait of Antonio Brocardo" (c. 1508 - 1510, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts). In it, of course, the individual portrait features of a noble youth are accurately conveyed, but they are clearly softened and, as it were, woven into the image of a perfect person.

The unconstrainedly free movement of the young man’s hand, the energy felt in the body, half-hidden under loose-wide robes, the noble beauty of a pale swarthy face, the restrained naturalness of planting the head on a strong, slender neck, the beauty of the contour of an elastically defined mouth, the thoughtful dreaminess of a person looking into the distance and to the side from the viewer's gaze - all this creates an image of a person full of noble power, seized by a clear, calm and deep thought. The soft curve of the bay with still waters, the silent mountainous coast with solemnly calm buildings form a landscape background ( Due to the darkened background of the painting, the landscape in the reproductions is indistinguishable.), which, as always with Giorgione, does not unanimously repeat the rhythm and mood of the main figure, but, as it were, indirectly consonant with this mood.

The softness of the cut-off sculpting of the face and hand is somewhat reminiscent of Leonardo's sfumato. Leonardo and Giorgione simultaneously solved the problem of combining the plastically clear architectonics of the forms of the human body with their softened modeling, which makes it possible to convey all the richness of its plastic and chiaroscuro shades - so to speak, the very "breath" of the human body. If with Leonardo it is rather a gradation of light and dark, the finest shading of the form, then with Giorgione sfumato has a special character - it is, as it were, modeling the volumes of the human body with a wide stream of soft light.

Giorgione's portraits begin a remarkable line of development of the Venetian portrait of the High Renaissance. The features of the Giorgione portrait will be further developed by Titian, who, however, unlike Giorgione, has a much sharper and stronger sense of the individual uniqueness of the depicted human character, a more dynamic perception of the world.

The work of Giorgione ends with two works - "Sleeping Venus" (c. 1508 - 1510, Dresden, Art Gallery) and the Louvre "Concert" (1508). These paintings remained unfinished, and the landscape background in them was completed by Giorgione's younger friend and student, the great Titian. "Sleeping Venus", in addition, has lost some of its pictorial qualities due to a number of damages and unsuccessful restorations. But be that as it may, it was in this work that the ideal of the unity of the physical and spiritual beauty of man was revealed with great humanistic fullness and almost ancient clarity.

Immersed in a quiet slumber, naked Venus is depicted by Giorgione against the backdrop of a rural landscape, the calm gentle rhythm of the hills is so in harmony with her image. The atmosphere of a cloudy day softens all contours and at the same time preserves the plastic expressiveness of forms. It is characteristic that here again the specific correlation of the figure and the background is manifested, understood as a kind of accompaniment to the spiritual state of the protagonist. It is no coincidence that the tensely calm rhythm of the hills, combined in the landscape with the wide rhythms of meadows and pastures, enters into a peculiarly consonant contrast with the soft, elongated smoothness of the contours of the body, which, in turn, is contrasted by the restless soft folds of the fabric on which the naked Venus reclines. Although the landscape was completed not by Giorgione himself, but by Titian, the unity of the figurative structure of the picture as a whole is indisputably based on the fact that the landscape is not just in unison with the image of Venus and not indifferently related to it, but is in that complex relationship in which the line is found in music. melodies of the singer and the choir accompanying him in contrast. Giorgione transfers to the sphere of the relationship "man - nature" the principle of decision that the Greeks of the classical period used in their statuary images, showing the relationship between the life of the body and the draperies of light clothing thrown over it. There, the rhythm of the draperies was, as it were, an echo, an echo of the life and movement of the human body, submitting in its movement at the same time to a different nature of its inert being than the elastic-living nature of a slender human body. So in the game of draperies of statues of the 5th - 4th centuries BC. e. a rhythm was revealed, contrastingly shading the clear, elastically "rounded" plasticity of the body itself.

Like other creations of the High Renaissance, George's Venus in its perfect beauty is closed and, as it were, "alienated", and at the same time "mutually related" both to the viewer and to the music of the nature surrounding her, consonant with her beauty. It is no coincidence that she is immersed in clear dreams of a quiet sleep. The right hand thrown behind the head creates a single rhythmic curve that embraces the body and closes all forms into a single smooth contour.

A serenely light forehead, calmly arched eyebrows, softly lowered eyelids and a beautiful strict mouth create an image of transparent purity indescribable in words.

Everything is full of that crystal transparency, which is achievable only when a clear, unclouded spirit lives in a perfect body.

"Concert" depicts against the backdrop of a calmly solemn landscape, two young men in magnificent clothes and two naked women, forming an unconstrainedly free group. The rounded crowns of trees, the calmly slow movement of moist clouds are in amazing harmony with the free, wide rhythms of the clothes and movements of young men, with the luxurious beauty of naked women. The lacquer darkened with time gave the picture a warm, almost hot golden color. In fact, her painting was originally characterized by a balanced overall tone. It was achieved by an accurate and subtle harmonic juxtaposition of restrainedly cold and moderately warm tones. It was this subtle and complex soft neutrality of the general tone, acquired through precisely captured contrasts, that not only created the unity characteristic of Giorgione between the refined differentiation of shades and the calm clarity of the coloristic whole, but also somewhat softened that joyfully sensual hymn to the magnificent beauty and enjoyment of life, which is embodied in the picture. .

To a greater extent than other works by Giorgione, the "Concert" seems to prepare the appearance of Titian. At the same time, the significance of this late work by Giorgione is not only in its, so to speak, preparatory role, but in the fact that it once again reveals, not repeated by anyone in the future, the peculiar charm of his creative personality. The sensual joy of being in Titian also sounds like a bright and upbeat excited hymn to human happiness, its natural right to enjoyment. In Giorgione, the sensual joy of the motive is softened by dreamy contemplation, subordinated to a clear, enlightenedly balanced harmony of a holistic view of life.