[Born at Pieve di Cadore, in Lombardy, 1477. Died at Venice, 1576.
Aged 99.]
In the works of Titian, Venetian art reached its culminating point. He
was the pupil of Bellini; but the disciple soon surpassed his master.
Titian first instituted the custom of painting full-length portraits,
and his pictures of this kind, of which he painted many, have never been
surpassed. In the representation of undraped female forms he also
displayed the hand of a master. In softness, transparency, and delicacy
of colouring, he stands alone. All his figures seem to express a high
consciousness and enjoyment of existence. He was followed, throughout
his career, with great honours. Charles V., whose portrait he painted,
made him Count Palatine, and he received invitations from other crowned
heads. He died of the plague in Venice, and was buried with great
ceremony, at a time when raging pestilence had suspended the ordinary
rites of burial. Towards the close of his life his subjects were chiefly
religious.
[He was buried at the Chiesa delle Frazi, at Venice. This Bust is by
Alessandro d’Este. There is in the Church of St. John and St. Paul, at
Venice, a fine bust of Titian, which stands by the side of that of
Palma Vecchio; it was placed there forty-five years after his death,
by Palma il Giovine. There is little doubt that this and its companion
of Palma were the work of Jacops Albarelli, the intimate friend of
Palma Giovine, whose bust he also executed. Ridolfi mentions a Bust
of the great painter, by his friend Jacopo Sansovino. There is, in the
Vienna Gallery, a superb portrait of him, by his own hand.]