Titian Research Essay

The Italian Renaissance artist, Titian, was arguably the best painter of the Venetian school. Titian was born in 1488 in Pieve de Cadore, Venice, Italy and died there on August 27, 1576. He mostly composed religious and mythological pictures, setting standards for physical beauty and lust (C.S. Forester, 695). For example, in Titian's work, "Venus and Adonis", he constructed an image of a nude woman viewed from the back reaching for a male in one of his mythological pieces (W.R. Rearick, 25). His reputation has never suffered a decline and was even declared by art theorist, Giovanni Lomazzo, "the sun amidst small stars not only among the Italians but all the painters of the world" (Marco Sampaolo, 696). Titian's two major cycles of paintings of mythological and religious subjects are considered as one of the most influential and crucial creations of the Italian Renaissance. Even today his paintings continue to cloud their image as portrayed by scholars (W.R. Rearick, 23). Titian's two most famous pieces inspired by religion are "Ecce Homo" and "Christ Mocked" (Filippo Pedrocco, 188). Titian made profit as an artist because he was well known and commissioned to compose at least three paintings on the subject of religion causing him to enter into relations with the Court of Urbino (Filippo Pedrocco, 190). He was inspired by the episode of the Passion, when Christ was mocked by soldiers and crowned with thorns and uses this as a reoccurring theme in the end of the 1540's. His work was sent to Charles V and is now preserved in the Prado Museum which links the sincerity of religiousness that was taking hold in this period (Filippo Pedrocco, 195). Titian's most famous mythological painting is "Venus and Adonis". Titian was indeed commissioned by royalty. Philip II, following in his father's footsteps, was a patron of Titian. Philip order mythological subjects from Titian leading him into the second great cycle of mythological pictures. Titian wrote a letter to