The Renaissance in Venice is a separate and distinctive part of the Italian Renaissance. It began here later, lasted longer, and the role of ancient trends in Venice was the least. The position of Venice among other Italian regions can be compared with the position of Novgorod in medieval Rus'. It was a rich, prosperous patrician-merchant republic that held the keys to maritime trade routes. All power in Venice belonged to the “Council of Nine,” elected by the ruling caste. The actual power of the oligarchy was exercised secretly and brutally, through espionage and secret murders. The outer side of Venetian life could not have looked more festive.

In Venice, there was little interest in excavations of ancient antiquities; its Renaissance had other origins. Venice has long maintained close trade ties with Byzantium, with the Arab East, and traded with India. The culture of Byzantium took deep roots, but it was not Byzantine severity that was instilled here, but its colorfulness and golden shine. Venice reworked both Gothic and oriental traditions (the stone lace of Venetian architecture, reminiscent of the Moorish Alhambra, speaks about them).

St. Mark's Cathedral is an unprecedented architectural monument, the construction of which began in the 10th century. The uniqueness of the cathedral is that it harmoniously combines columns taken from Byzantium, Byzantine mosaics, ancient Roman sculpture, and Gothic sculpture. Having absorbed the traditions of different cultures, Venice developed its own style, secular, bright and colorful. The short period of the early Renaissance began here no earlier than the second half of the 15th century. It was then that paintings by Vittore Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini appeared, fascinatingly depicting the life of Venice in the context of religious stories. V. Carpaccio in the cycle “The Life of Saint Ursula” depicts in detail and poetically his hometown, its landscape, and its inhabitants.

Giorgione is considered the first master of the High Renaissance in Venice. His “Sleeping Venus” is a work of amazing spiritual purity, one of the most poetic images of the naked body in world art. Giorgione's compositions are balanced and clear, and his drawing is characterized by a rare smoothness of lines. Giorgione has a quality characteristic of the entire Venetian school - colorism. The Venetians did not consider color a secondary element of painting like the Florentines. The love for the beauty of color leads Venetian artists to a new pictorial principle, when the materiality of the image is achieved not so much by chiaroscuro, but by gradations of color. The work of Venetian artists is deeply emotional; spontaneity plays a greater role here than among the painters of Florence.

Titian lived a legendarily long life - supposedly ninety-nine years, with his latest period being the most significant. Having become close to Giorgione, he was influenced in many ways by him. This is especially noticeable in the paintings “Earthly and Heavenly Love” and “Flora” - works that are serene in mood and deep in color. Compared to Giorgione, Titian is not so lyrical and sophisticated, his female images are more “down to earth”, but they are no less charming. Calm, golden-haired, Titian's women, naked or in rich outfits, are like unperturbed nature itself, “shining with eternal beauty” and absolutely chaste in its frank sensuality. The promise of happiness, hope for happiness and complete enjoyment of life constitute one of the foundations of Titian's work.

Titian is intellectual; according to a contemporary, he was “a magnificent, intelligent interlocutor who knew how to judge everything in the world.” Throughout his long life, Titian remained faithful to the high ideals of humanism.

Titian painted many portraits, and each of them is unique, because it conveys the individual uniqueness inherent in each person. In the 1540s, the artist painted a portrait of Pope Paul III, the main patron of the Inquisition, with his grandchildren Alessandro and Ottavio Farnese. In terms of the depth of character analysis, this portrait is a unique work. The predatory and frail old man in the papal robe resembles a cornered rat, ready to dart somewhere to the side. Two young men behave servilely, but this servility is false: we feel the atmosphere of brewing betrayal, deceit, and intrigue. A portrait that is terrifying in its unyielding realism.

In the second half of the 16th century, the shadow of Catholic reaction fell on Venice; although it remained a formally independent state, the Inquisition penetrates here too - and Venice has always been famous for its religious tolerance and secular, free spirit of art. Another disaster befalls the country: it is devastated by a plague epidemic (Titian also died from the plague). In connection with this, Titian’s worldview also changes; there is no trace of his former serenity.

In his later works one can feel deep spiritual sorrow. Among them, “Penitent Mary Magdalene” and “Saint Sebastian” stand out. The master’s painting technique in “Saint Sebastian” has been brought to perfection. Up close, it seems as if the whole picture is a chaos of brushstrokes. The painting of the late Titian should be viewed from a distance. Then the chaos disappears, and in the darkness we see a young man dying under arrows, against the backdrop of a blazing fire. Large, sweeping strokes completely absorb the line and summarize the details. The Venetians, and most of all Titian, took a new huge step, replacing statuary with dynamic picturesqueness, replacing the dominance of line with the dominance of a color spot.

Titian is majestic and strict in his last self-portrait. Wisdom, complete sophistication and consciousness of one's creative power breathe in this proud face with an aquiline nose, a high forehead and a look that is spiritual and penetrating.

The last great artist of the Venetian High Renaissance is Tintoretto. He paints a lot and quickly - monumental compositions, lampshades, large paintings, overflowing with figures in dizzying angles and with the most spectacular perspective constructions, unceremoniously destroying the structure of the plane, forcing closed interiors to move apart and breathe space. The cycle of his paintings dedicated to the miracles of St. Mark (St. Mark frees the slave). His drawings and paintings are a whirlwind, pressure, fiery energy. Tintoretto does not tolerate calm, frontal figures, so St. Mark literally falls from the sky onto the heads of the pagans. His favorite landscape is stormy, with stormy clouds and flashes of lightning.

Tintoretto's interpretation of the plot of the Last Supper is interesting. In his painting, it most likely takes place in a dimly lit tavern with a low ceiling. The table is placed diagonally and leads the eye into the depths of the room. At the words of Christ, whole hosts of transparent angels appear under the ceiling. A bizarre triple illumination appears: the ghostly glow of angels, the fluctuating light of a lamp, the light of halos around the heads of the apostles and Christ. This is a real magical phantasmagoria: bright flashes in the twilight, swirling and radiating light, the play of shadows create an atmosphere of confusion.

Renaissance in Italy.

Periods in the history of Italian culture are usually designated by the names of centuries: Ducento (XIII century) - Proto-Renaissance(end of the century), trecento (XIV century) - continuation of the Proto-Renaissance, quattrocento (XV century) - Early Renaissance, Cinquicento (XVI century) – High Renaissance(first 30 years of the century). Until the end of the 16th century. it continues only in Venice; the term is more often applied to this period "late Renaissance".

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

Chronologically, Renaissance art developed in Venice somewhat later than in most other major centers of Italy of that era. It developed, in particular, later than in Florence and in Tuscany in general. The formation of the principles of Renaissance artistic culture in the fine arts of Venice began only in the 15th century. This was by no means determined by the economic backwardness of Venice. On the contrary, Venice, along with Florence, Pisa, Genoa, and Milan, was one of the most economically developed centers of Italy at that time. It was the early transformation of Venice into a great trading and, moreover, predominantly trading rather than manufacturing power, which began in the 12th century and was especially accelerated during the Crusades, that 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, during the era of the dominance of the Romanesque style in Europe, the rich trading republic, creating art that affirmed its wealth and power, widely turned to the experience of Byzantium, that is, the richest, most developed Christian medieval power at that time. Essentially, the artistic culture of Venice back in the 14th century was a peculiar interweaving of the magnificently 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 regions 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 works of such artists of the 15th century, whose art already had a completely Renaissance character. Such are the “Madonnas” of Bartolomeo, Alvise Vivarini, such is the work of Carlo Crivelli, a subtle and graceful master of the Early Renaissance. In his art, medieval reminiscences are felt much more strongly than in the contemporary artists of Tuscany and Umbria. It is characteristic that the proto-Renaissance tendencies, 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 from about 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 began to be fully realized. The originality of the Venetian Quattrocento was reflected mainly 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 was perhaps even more developed than interest in the natural landscape. It was in the second half of the 15th century that the Renaissance school was formed in Venice 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 of development of the art of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio emerged.

This is natural. By the middle of the 15th century, Venice reached the highest degree of its commercial and political prosperity. 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 act overseas as rulers of large cities or entire regions. The Venetian fleet firmly holds in its hands almost all 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 trade position of Venice. Still, there is no way to talk about the decline of Venice in the second half of the 15th century. The general collapse of Venetian eastern trade came much later. Venetian merchants invested huge funds at that time, partially freed from trade turnover, in the development of crafts and manufactures in Venice, partly in the development of rational farming in their possessions located in the areas of the peninsula adjacent to the lagoon (the so-called terraferma).

Moreover, the republic, rich and still full of vitality, was able in 1509 - 1516, combining the force of arms with flexible diplomacy, to defend its independence in a difficult struggle with a hostile coalition of a number of European powers. The general upsurge due to the outcome of this difficult struggle, which temporarily united all layers of Venetian society, caused that increase in the traits 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 High Renaissance art in the Venetian Republic. The turning point towards the late Renaissance began 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 preconditions 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, so to speak, of a new artistic direction took shape: Giovanni Bellini and Cima da Conegliano. Although they work almost simultaneously with Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio, they represent the next stage in the logic of the development of Venetian Renaissance art. 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 particularly 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, the culture of the Renaissance as a whole to a higher level . The artist is characterized by an amazing sense of the monumental significance of the form, its internal figurative and emotional content. In his paintings, a connection emerges between the mood created by the landscape and the mental state of the characters in the composition, 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 thing - the significance of the moral world of the human personality is revealed with extraordinary force.

On early stage In his work, the characters in the composition are still placed very statically, the drawing is somewhat harsh, the combinations of colors are almost harsh. But the feeling of the inner significance of a person’s spiritual state, the revelation of the beauty of his inner experiences already achieve enormous impressive power during this period. In general, gradually, without external sharp leaps, Giovanni Bellini, organically developing the humanistic basis of his work, frees himself from the narrative aspects of the art of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. The plot in his compositions relatively rarely receives detailed dramatic development, but all the more powerfully 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 restrained but full of inner strength facial expressions, the greatness of the spiritual world of man is revealed.

Bellini's interest in the problem of lighting, in the problem of the connection of human figures with their natural environment, also determined his interest in the achievements of the masters of the Dutch Renaissance (a trait 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 of the Cup” - determine the decisive difference between Bellini as a master of the Italian Renaissance with his heroic humanism from artists Northern Renaissance, although in the earliest period of his work the artist turned to the northerners, more precisely to the Netherlands, in search of sometimes emphatically sharp psychological and narrative character of the image ("Pieta" from Bergamo, c. 1450). Peculiarity creative path Venetian 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 the mournfully pensive Mary, who tenderly embraced a sad baby, vaguely reminiscent of an icon, also speaks of another tradition from which the master draws - the tradition of Byzantine and, more broadly, all European medieval painting. However, the abstract spirituality of the linear rhythms and color chords of the icon is decisive here overcome. Restrained and strict in their expressiveness, color relationships are vitally specific. The colors are true, the strong sculpting of the three-dimensionally modeled form is very real. The exquisitely 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 abstract spiritualistic expression of Mary’s sad, mournful and thoughtful face, from the sad tenderness of the wide-open eyes of the baby. A poetically inspired, deeply human, and not mystically transformed feeling is expressed in this simple and modest-looking composition.

During the 1480s, Giovanni Bellini took a decisive step forward in his work and became one of the founders of the art of the High Renaissance. The originality of the art of the mature Giovanni Bellini is clearly demonstrated when comparing his “Transfiguration” (1480s) with his early “Transfiguration” (Venice, Correr Museum). In the “Transfiguration” of the Correr Museum, the rigidly drawn figures of Christ and the prophets are located on a small rock, reminiscent of both a large pedestal for the monument and an iconic “ladder”. The figures, somewhat angular in their movements, in which the unity of vital character and poetic elevation of gesture have not yet been achieved, are distinguished by their stereoscopic nature. Light and coldly clear, almost flashy colors of three-dimensionally modeled figures are surrounded by a coldly transparent atmosphere. The figures themselves, despite the bold use of colored shadows, are still distinguished by their monochromatic uniformity of lighting and a certain static quality.

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 younger 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 seemingly crystalline intelligence. 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 Giorgione's paintings, nature and the natural environment begin to play a more important role than in the works of Bellini and Leonardo.

If we cannot yet 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 heroes and nature live in Giorgione is The atmosphere is already optically common both for the background and for the characters in the picture. A unique example of the introduction of figures into the natural environment and the remelting of the experience of Bellini and Leonardo into something organically new - “Georgionian”, 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 Giorgione’s creations.

Few works by Giorgione himself or his circle have survived to this day. A number of attributions are controversial. It should be noted, however, that the first complete exhibition of works by Giorgione and the “Giorgionesques”, carried out in Venice in 1958, made it possible to introduce not only a number of clarifications into the range of the master’s works, but also to attribute a number of previously controversial works to Giorgione, and helped to more fully and clearly present the character of his creativity in general.

Giorgione's relatively early works, executed before 1505, include his Adoration of the Shepherds from the Washington Museum and Adoration of the Magi from the National Gallery in London. In “The Adoration of the Magi” (London), despite the well-known fragmentation of the drawing and the overwhelming rigidity of the color, one can already feel the master’s interest in conveying the inner spiritual world of the heroes. The initial period of Giorgione’s work ends with his wonderful composition “Madonna of Castelfranco” (c. 1504, Castelfranco, Cathedral).

In 1505, the artist’s period of creative maturity began, which was soon interrupted by his fatal illness. During this short five years, his main masterpieces were created: “Judith”, “The 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 capabilities 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 techniques, were in fact among the first to reveal the specific capabilities 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 moved from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance stage of development of artistic culture, almost completely abandoned mosaics. Its increasingly brilliant and decorative color could no longer fully meet the new artistic goals. Of course, the mosaic technique continued to be used, but its role was becoming less and less noticeable. Using the mosaic technique, it was still possible in the Renaissance to achieve results that relatively satisfied the aesthetic demands of the time. But precisely the specific properties of mosaic smalt, its uniquely 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, influenced the Renaissance painting of Venice, which always gravitated towards sonorous clarity and radiant richness of color. But the very stylistic system with which mosaic was associated, and consequently its technique, had to, with certain exceptions, leave the sphere of great monumental painting. The mosaic technique itself, now more often used for more specific and narrow purposes, rather 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 techniques, in particular smalt, to our time.

Stained glass painting also retained some significance due to its “luminosity,” although it should be admitted that it never had the same significance either in Venice or in Italy as a whole that it did 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 took place 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 Masaccio's cycle, Raphael's stanzas and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel paintings were created in the Early and High Renaissance. But in the Venetian climate it showed its instability very early and was not widespread in the 16th century. Thus, the frescoes of the German courtyard “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 a figure of a naked woman made by Giorgione, full of almost Praxitelean charm. 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 for replacing frescoes 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, pleasing with its large color intensity and clearly shining sonority, but more decorative in nature, tempera painting on boards in easel compositions should naturally give way to oil, and this process of replacing tempera with oil painting was especially consistently carried out in Venice. We should not forget that for Venetian painters, a particularly valuable property of oil painting was its ability to more flexibly, compared with tempera, and fresco, too, convey the light-color and spatial shades of the human environment, the ability to softly and sonorously sculpt the shape of the human body. For Giorgione, who worked relatively little in the field of large monumental compositions (his paintings were essentially either easel in nature, or they were monumental in their overall sound, but not related to the structure of the surrounding architectural interior compositions), these possibilities inherent in oil painting , were especially valuable. It is characteristic that the soft sculpting of the form with chiaroscuro is also inherent in his drawings.

the feeling of the mysterious complexity of a person’s inner spiritual world, hidden behind the seemingly clear transparent beauty of his noble external appearance, finds its expression in the famous “Judith” (before 1504, Leningrad, 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 climactic moment from the point of view of the development of the event, as the Quattrocento masters usually did (Judith strikes Holofernes with a sword or carries his severed head with a maid).

Against the backdrop of a calm pre-sunset landscape, under the shade of an oak tree, the slender Judith stands, thoughtfully leaning on the balustrade. The smooth tenderness of her figure is contrasted by the massive trunk of a mighty tree. The clothes are a soft scarlet color and are permeated with a restless, broken rhythm of folds, as if the distant echo of a passing whirlwind. In her hand she holds a large double-edged sword, its tip resting on the ground, the cold shine and straightness of which contrastingly emphasizes the flexibility of the half-naked leg trampling Holofernes’ head. An elusive half-smile slides 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 blade of the sword, the unexpected cruelty of the motif - a tender naked foot trampling the dead head of Holofernes - introduce a feeling of vague anxiety and restlessness into this seemingly harmonious, almost idyllic in mood picture.

In general, the dominant motive, of course, remains the clear and calm purity of a dreamy mood. However, the juxtaposition of the bliss of the image and the mysterious cruelty of the motif of the sword and the trampled head, the almost rebus-like complexity of this dual mood, can plunge the modern viewer into some confusion.

But Giorgione’s contemporaries were apparently less struck by the cruelty of the contrast (Renaissance humanism was never distinguished by excessive sensitivity) than they were attracted by that subtle transmission of echoes of distant storms and dramatic conflicts, against the background of which the acquisition of refined harmony, the state of serenity of a dreamily dreaming beauty was especially acutely felt 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 in 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 desire for the ideal perfection of a beautiful image of a person living in harmony with the environment, with the surrounding world, also had great overall 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 ancient art, are devoid of any specific individual identity. His Magi in the early “Adoration of the Magi” and the philosophers in “The 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 especially the “Three Philosophers”, with all the individual differences in the images, are perceived by us primarily not so much as unique, brightly portrait-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 , various 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 the contemporary humanism of the artist (a young man inquisitively peering into the world). It is quite possible that Giorgione also 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 broader and richer than any one-sided interpretation of them.

Essentially, the first such comparison within the framework of the emerging artistic system of the Renaissance was carried out in the art of Giotto - in his fresco “The Kiss of Judas”. However, there the comparison of Christ and Judas was read very clearly, since it was associated with a universally known religious legend at that time, and this opposition has the character of a deep, irreconcilable conflict of good and evil. The maliciously insidious and hypocritical face of Judas acts as the antipode of the noble, sublime and strict face of Christ. The conflict of these two images, thanks to the clarity of the plot, has enormous directly perceived ethical content. Moral and ethical (more precisely, moral and ethical in their unity) superiority, moreover, the moral victory of Christ over Judas in this conflict is indisputably clear to us.

In Giorgione, the comparison of the outwardly calm, relaxed, aristocratic figure of a noble husband and the figure of a somewhat evil and base character occupying a dependent position in relation to her is not connected with conflict situation, in any case, with that clear conflicting irreconcilability of the characters and their struggle, which gives such a high tragic meaning in Giotto to those 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 torture of the cross for the teacher, seems to echo in contrast 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.).

Clearly contemplative and harmonious in its hidden complexity and mystery, Giorgione’s art is alien to open clashes and struggles of characters. And it is no coincidence that Giorgione does not grasp the dramatic and conflictual possibilities hidden in the motif he depicts.

This is his difference not only from Giotto, but also from his brilliant student Titian, who, during the first flowering of his still heroically cheerful creativity, albeit in a different way than Giotto, grasped in his “Denarius of Caesar,” so to speak, the ethical meaning of the aesthetic contrast of the physical and spiritual nobility of Christ with the base and brute force of character of the Pharisee. At the same time, it is extremely instructive that Titian also turns to a well-known gospel episode, emphatically conflicting in the nature of the plot itself, solving this theme, naturally, in terms of the absolute victory of the rational and harmonious will of man, who here embodies the Renaissance and humanistic ideal over his own opposite.

Turning to Giorgione’s own portrait works, 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). It certainly accurately conveys the individual portrait features of the noble young man, but they are clearly softened and seem to be woven into the image of a perfect man.

The relaxed, free movement of the young man’s hand, the energy felt in the body, half-hidden under loosely wide robes, the noble beauty of a pale dark face, the restrained naturalness of the head sitting on a strong, slender neck, the beauty of the contour of an elastically outlined mouth, the pensive dreaminess of someone looking into the distance and to the side. from the viewer's gaze - all this creates an image of a man full of noble strength, engulfed in clear, calm and deep thought. The gentle curve of the bay with still waters, the silent mountainous shore with solemnly calm buildings form a landscape backdrop ( Due to the darkened background of the painting, the landscape in the reproductions is indistinguishable.), which, as always with Giorgione, does not unisonly repeat the rhythm and mood of the main figure, but is, as it were, indirectly consonant with this mood.

The softness of the black and white 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 light and shade shades - so to speak, the very “breath” of the human body. If in Leonardo it is rather a gradation of light and dark, the finest shading of form, then in Giorgione sfumato has a special character - it is like modeling the volumes of the human body with a wide stream of soft light.

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

Giorgione's work 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 picturesque 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 completeness and almost ancient clarity.

Immersed in a quiet slumber, the naked Venus is depicted by Giorgione against the background 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 the forms. It is characteristic that here again a specific relationship between figure and background appears, understood as a kind of accompaniment to the spiritual state of the protagonist. It is no coincidence that the intensely calm rhythm of the hills, combined in the landscape with the wide rhythms of meadows and pastures, comes into a peculiarly consonant contrast with the soft, elongated smoothness of the contours of the body, in turn contrastingly emphasized 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 is 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 contrasting choir accompanying him. Giorgione transfers into the sphere of the relationship “man - nature” the principle of decision that the Greeks of the classical period used in their statuettes, 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, a echo of the life and movement of the human body, obeying in its movement at the same time a different nature of its inert being than the elastic-living nature of the slender human body. So in the game of drapery of statues of the 5th - 4th centuries BC. e. a rhythm was revealed that contrasted the clear, elastically “rounded” plasticity of the body itself.

Like other creations of the High Renaissance, Giorgione'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 surrounding nature, consonant with its beauty. It is no coincidence that she is immersed in the lucid dreams of a quiet sleep. The right hand thrown behind the head creates a single rhythmic curve, enveloping the body and closing all forms into a single smooth contour.

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

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

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

More than other works by Giorgione, the Concerto 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 existence in Titian also sounds like a bright and elated hymn to human happiness, his natural right to pleasure. In Giorgione, the sensual joy of the motif is softened by dreamy contemplation, subordinated to a clear, enlightened, balanced harmony of a holistic view of life.

Artists of Greece, Byzantium and all of Italy flocked to this city, finding work, orders and recognition here. Therefore, it is not surprising that before the art of Venice became distinctive, its squares and embankments were decorated with buildings of a style alien to it. This style determined all future Venetian architecture, which, with its polychrome, began to resemble oriental carpets.

It should also be noted that Venice was influenced to a much lesser extent than other Italian cities by the ancient art of Ancient Rome. There were no picturesque ruins here, pagan temples and temples were not adapted to the first Christian churches; on the contrary, the wealthy Republic of St. Mark brought artistic treasures, bronze and stone sculptures from all over the Mediterranean to Venice.

The original Venetian architecture was born as an echo of Byzantine architecture with its characteristic arcades, mosaics, and stern faces of saints. Subsequently, Byzantine forms coexisted peacefully with the features romanesque architecture, which have come down to us in the few details of buildings remaining on the islands of Torcello and Murano and in the interiors of the Cathedral of San Marco.

The 18th century was one of the most brilliant in its history for the city on the lagoon islands. First of all, this was manifested in such an extraordinary rise in artistic creativity that the appearance of the city itself changed greatly during this period. Many churches were built, new ones appeared public buildings(for example, the La Fenice Theater), private palaces were erected (the most famous of them are Grassi, Duodo, dei Leoni, etc.), ancient buildings were restored and remodeled in the taste of the new era.

In the course of our further narration, we will talk about the architectural sights of Venice, so we will also talk about the architects who built and restored them. Now let's move on to the “queen of Venetian art” - painting, which with its power, scale and humanistic aspirations was far ahead of architecture. Its first samples were obtained from Greece. In 1071, Doge Domenico Selvo summoned Greek artists to decorate the Church of St. Mark with “lettering and mosaics.” They brought with them the sharpness and immobility of contours that were then dominant in Byzantium, the richness of draperies and decorations, the brightness of colors densely applied on a golden background.

At the beginning of the 12th century, the Greek Theophanes founded a painting school in Venice, which immediately began to stand out among others for its poetic realism and abandoned the severity of frescoes. At first, perhaps, it was not so much original thoughts or deep feelings that the art of Venice brought, but rather revelations in the contemplation of the world. The name of the Venetian appeared in 1281, imprinted on the precious “Crucifixion” of the master Stefano Pievano, which survived from the 13th century. Currently this "Crucifixion" is kept in the Marciano Library.

Isolated in political life, Venice remained so for a long time in artistic life. In no other city in Italy could painting develop so calmly, without interruptions and interference, and die a natural death.

The artists constituted, as it were, a special aristocracy of talent along with the family one, and this situation was a sure sign of the necessity, and not the accident, of the art of Venice. The patrician environment itself considered them its members, the state was proud of its masters, considering them a national treasure.

The art of Venice was based mainly on Aristotle's assertion that the beginning of all knowledge is the living perception of the material world. Therefore, Venetian artists (unlike Florentine) proceeded not so much from scientific knowledge in reality, how much is from the immediate perception of the viewer. Instead of strictly following the rules of proportions and laws linear perspective, developed and mandatory for artists of the Roman-Florentine school, among Venetian painters color became the main means of expression.

The origins of the unusual commitment of Venetian artists to color and light can be found in the long-standing connection of the Republic with the East, and in the very nature of the islands - bright and exciting. Nowhere has reality been so close to magical dreams, nowhere has it given artists so much direct material for creativity. The beauty that reigned around was so magnificent that it seemed easy enough to depict it in unexpected forms. One of the researchers of Venetian painting wrote: “Here everything turns into painting, from everything a picture is ultimately born... Such painting could only be born and flourish in Venice; it is thoroughly imbued with the Venetian spirit... which at first hovered over the dry beds of the lagoons, so that later, materializing in the form of a city, it became Venice - a city without walls, the embodiment of color.”

In Venetian painting, perhaps, there is not that high technique of drawing and brilliant knowledge of anatomy that distinguishes the painting of the Florentines. But the canvases of Venetian artists captured the serene joy of being, the rapture material wealth and the many colors of the world, the beauty of the streets and canals, green valleys and hills. These artists were no longer attracted only by the person, but also by the environment in which he lived.

The city itself contributed to the birth of great masters here: the Bellini brothers, Lorenzo Lotto, Marco Bazaiti, Cima de Colegnano, Carpaccio, Palma the Elder, Giorgione, Canaletto, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto and other artists worked in Venice. They gradually freed themselves from the shackles of religious painting, expanded their horizons, and brought art to the path of humanism, which gave greater freedom, a greater richness of colors, greater animation and grandeur of forms. According to Vasari, “Giorgione of Castelfranco was the first to give his images more movement and prominence, and, moreover, with a high degree of grace.”

Art historians associate the beginning of the flowering of Venetian painting with the work of Gentile Bellini, whom his compatriots affectionately called Giambellino. He brought a radiance of color, precision of landscapes and light linear plasticity, warmth and diversity of human feelings to the pictorial space. He had a huge workshop, many students and followers, and among them were Titian and Giorgione.

Giorgione to this day remains one of the most mysterious personalities in world painting. His life was short, information about his biography was scarce, and his work was shrouded in mystery. What is certain is that he possessed rare musical talents and a charming voice. Giorgione died at the age of 33, refusing to leave his beloved, who fell ill with the plague. His paintings (there are few of them) take the viewer into the world of pure and spiritual painting, divinely calm forms and the magic of light.

Titian lived a long life, full of fame and honors, and painted many paintings, including portraits famous people that time. If Giorgione's works can be called intimate, elegiac and dreamy, then Titian's world is real and heroic. He immerses us in the “magical color alchemy” of his canvases, where forms dissolve in color and light, sometimes joyfully, sometimes sadly or even tragically telling about earthly human happiness.

By the strength of his talent, Titian surpassed many artists, and if at times they managed to reach an equal height with him, then no one could remain so smoothly, calmly and freely at this high level. Titian belonged to that type of artist who merges with the surrounding life and draws all his strength from it. The artist’s unity with the century and society was amazing: there was never a feeling of internal discord or indignation in him; complete contentment with life glows in all his canvases, as if he saw and captured in his paintings only the flourishing side of the world - folk holidays, a motley crowd, majestic patricians, heavy folds of expensive clothing, the shine of knightly armor. The artist transferred onto his canvases the transparent Venice, the blue distance of horizons, marble palaces and columns, the golden nudity of women...

Titian was in no hurry to sell his paintings: he carefully finished them, set them aside for a while, and then returned to them again. For Titian, the ability to be happy also merged with external luck. All biographers are surprised at the artist’s exceptional happiness. One of them wrote: “He was the happiest and most contented person among his kind, who never received anything from Heaven except favors and good fortune.” Popes, emperors, kings and doges favored him, paid him generously and showed him unparalleled honors. Charles V made him a knight and elevated him to the dignity of count.

But Titian also had greater joy than material wealth and honor. He lived in an era when his personal business was the business of many and even the people, in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and common work.

The direct successor of Titian and the true head of Venetian painting of the second half of the 16th century was Paolo Veronese. The heroic period of the history of Venice was then already completed, the great trade routes had moved to other places, and the Republic existed only due to the wealth accumulated over centuries, which adorned it like a fairy-tale princess.

Veronese's elegant and refined painting is an epic of the already new Venice, which finally migrated from the village fields to the city walls. In world painting there is hardly another artist who, with such luxury and brilliance, would be able to convey the lives of the sons and grandsons of former heroes, who valued little the past and were ready to turn from triumphs on the battlefields into winners on the parquet floor.

The artist thought little about loyalty to the era, about historical or psychological truth, and in general about the plot of his paintings. He painted what he saw around him - on the squares and canals of his elegant, quaint town. And no one knew how to draw clothes like that, to convey the play of its colors and the bliss of its folds - in this respect, Veronese even surpassed Titian. He boldly chose for his paintings the most difficult and complex materials to convey in a picture - brocade, satin or silk woven with patterns. He carefully finished every detail, observing the harmony of light and shadows, so it seems that under Veronese’s brush the fabric “trembles” and “creases.” He knew how to juxtapose individual colors in such a way that they began to glow like precious stones, although with a colder light than Titian’s.

Veronese was the first of the Venetian artists to create entire decorative ensembles, painting the walls of churches, palaces and villas from top to bottom, incorporating his painting into the architecture. In the Doge's Palace there is an allegory of Venice written by Veronese - a female figure sitting on a throne and receiving the gifts of the World. The whole interest of this picture lies in the clothing of the female figure - silver brocade woven with golden flowers. The artist added luxury of jewelry to the luxury of clothing, and it should be noted that no one has showered figures with pearl necklaces, tiaras, and bracelets like this...

All paintings by Veronese on religious themes, no matter what the subjects Holy Scripture No matter how they were depicted, they were homogeneous in their mood. His scenes of the martyrdom of saints are not scenes of torment at all: they are all the same parades, processions and magnificent Venetian feasts, in which the naked body of the martyr makes it possible to show the extra effect of body paint among the spectacular clothes of those around him.

Veronese's paintings are difficult to describe, since all their beauty, dignity and meaning lie in visual luxury, in the harmony of colors and lines. Even free-thinking and tolerant Venice was often embarrassed by the artist’s frivolity. Veronese's religious painting is alien to biblical subjects, and the Venetian historian Molmenti rightly noted that, looking at his paintings, it seems as if Jesus Christ and the Mother of God, angels and saints were painted by pagans.

Veronese was very fond of painting scenes of various feasts and meetings, at which he depicted all the luxury of the then Venice. This was not an artist-philosopher who studied his subject to the smallest detail, but an artist who was not constrained by any barriers, free and magnificent even in his negligence.

Another famous Venetian - Tintoretto - was a crowd artist, so his paintings feature various types- warriors, workers, women from the people, etc., as well as all kinds of clothes - armor, chain mail, simple shirts... And with all this, he always remained an artist of his own personality: penetration into another personality and recreating it on canvas was always alien to the unsociable and Tintoretto, rich in his own life.

A distinctive feature of his work is the extraordinary and swiftness of the artist’s imagination, the impetuous rhythm of which his restless brush could barely keep up with. Among the works of other artists, Tintoretto's paintings stand out with a strange coloring, as if you meet a gloomy face in a festive crowd.

After many losses over the centuries, Tintoretto's legacy remains quite extensive: about 600 paintings, not including drawings, are attributed to him. Fame visited the master during his lifetime, as he happened to write for palaces and sovereigns. The Republic of St. Mark made extensive use of his talent; for many years he worked on decorating the Doge's Palace, although some art historians note that his painting here does not correspond much to the nature of the artist's talent. The real Tintoretto is in the church and scuola of St. Roch.

In the 17th century, Venice, as noted above, was already losing its importance as the main political and cultural center However, during the period of rapid construction activity of the next century, painters were often invited to decorate new buildings with frescoes and paintings. Among the artists of that time one can name the incomparable Tiepolo, Sebastiano Ricci, Ditsuiani and others. Venetian painters created not only large decorative compositions on historical, religious or mythological subjects; Pietro Longhi became famous in genre painting for his small canvases.

The exceptional picturesqueness of the city, which aroused universal admiration, gave birth to a new genre of Venetian painting - Veduism. In vedutes (paintings depicting the city), Venice itself became a source of artistic inspiration. Islands separated by canals, palaces with sparkling reflections, galleries with arcades, a riot of colors, a wealth of light and forms - everything inspired and seduced artists to work in this genre.

Among them was Antonio Canale (nicknamed Canaletto), whose cheerful paintings, full of color and light, earned universal recognition. He was one of the first artists who perceived the reality around him with freshness and joy.

Canaletto was born in Venice and began working as a painter in his father’s art workshop. Together with his brother Christopher, he made sets for operas and dramatic plays staged on the stages of Venetian theaters.

However, already in his youth, Canaletto began to depict significant events from the life of his native city. Thus, on one of his canvases he captured the reception of the French ambassador, Count Sergi, which took place in 1726. Currently this painting is kept in the Hermitage. Soon after this, he painted “The Celebration of the Ascension”, then “The Reception of the Imperial Ambassador Count Bolaño”, as well as several canvases depicting festive regattas full of movement.

Canaletto also worked under open air, which was a novelty at the time. True, art historians note that in these cases he made only pencil sketches, on which he only marked the corresponding colors.

One of the captivating pages of the Italian Renaissance is associated with the name of Vitgorio Carpaccio. He worked at the junction of two historical eras - the Early Renaissance, which was already fading into the past, and the High Renaissance, which was entering its heyday. Carpaccio was a contemporary of such major masters of that era as Raphael and Giorgione. The work of Carpaccio himself is imbued with spiritual clarity, the simple-minded joy of discovering the reality surrounding the artist in all its endless diversity, freshness and acuteness of perception - with all this he belongs to the Early Renaissance. But in the art of Carpaccio, these traditions seem to regain vitality and find such a bright and original embodiment that he can rightfully be called a pioneer. While remaining an artist of the Early Renaissance, he was also a man of modern times. It is difficult to name another Venetian master of that time, whose work would be so imbued with the aroma and unique charm of Venetian life.

Tiepolo's fame during his lifetime was enormous, but after the artist's death it quickly faded away, and was revived again only in the 20th century. His main works are difficult to see, since they are still located mainly on the walls of private villas and palaces, where the artist painted them, preferring frescoes to paintings.

And in our further narration we will try to tell in more detail about the artist himself and his works.

The transformation into one of the largest mainland states in Italy had great consequences for its entire spiritual life. Having subjugated a number of holy fools, some of whom were prominent centers of the early Renaissance (in particular, Padua and Verona), Venice came into close contact with their culture, and through it with the culture of Florence. During this period, both the originality of the Venetian Renaissance and the special path of its development were determined - the flourishing of purely practical branches of knowledge (mathematics, navigation, astronomy).

In the 16th century, book printing developed rapidly in Venice. Already in 1500, there were about fifty printing houses in the city, and the main role in book printing belonged to Aldus Manutius, a philologist, collector of books and works of art, and a linguist who knew the ancient Greek language perfectly. He tried to introduce knowledge to wide sections of the population, and in patrician circles private academies and learned societies, where representatives of different classes gathered, became fashionable. Aristocrats began to send their children to be raised by humanists.

The Venetians reached particular heights in the study of natural philosophy and even surpassed the enlightened one in this. This passion had a huge influence on the development of painting and architecture, and “when it was Venice’s turn to contribute to the treasury of world culture, she did so with her characteristic thoughtless extravagance of material resources and human genius.”

Lido Island and Venice Film Festival

The island of Malamocco stretches from north to south of the lagoon; the part of the lagoon next to it is famous for the gloomy Orfano channel, which served as a place of execution. It was here that prisoners were brought at dawn from the Doge's Palace to be drowned. The Venetians call the northern part of the island Lido (from the Latin word “litus” - coast), and sometimes this name is transferred to the entire island. On tourist maps and guidebooks it is sometimes called “Lido Island,” which separates the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea with a long elongated spit. The island was once covered with groves of pine trees, forming a natural barrier against the waves of the Adriatic Sea. In the past, the island often served military purposes; for example, in 1202, 30,000 crusaders set up their camps here. In the 14th century, during the war with Genoa, it turned into a fortress, which, centuries later, was ready to repel attacks from a new enemy - Turkey.

Venetian nobles went to the island of Lido to meet noble foreign guests arriving in Venice. Here, off the coast of the Lido, the solemn ceremony of betrothal of the Doge to the sea took place. In the 19th century, when the Doge passed away and the magnificent holiday became a thing of the past, the formerly formidable fortifications were destroyed, and the Most Serene Republic found itself in the power of first the French and then the Austrians. The quiet and deserted island of Lido became a romantic refuge for poets, and many socialites came here, attracted by the island's charm. Byron was the first to praise Lido, romantically describing the local swimming and horse riding. Then the Lido was still deserted - just a few houses with a few inhabitants, and the English poet wandered here alone for hours, admired the sunset plunging into the sea, dreamed... And it seemed to him that there was nowhere in the world he would like to lie down in, except this blessed corner. He even chose a place for his grave - near the second fort, at the foot of a large boundary stone. The Venetians themselves still love to remember how the poet once swam 4 km from the Lido to the Grand Canal. Subsequently, swimmers began to compete at this distance for the Byron Cup.

New life began on the Lido in the second half of the 19th century, when the Suez Canal opened and Venice became a fashionable stop on cruises. The city itself was poorly adapted to the requirements of comfort, and therefore it was on the Lido that luxury hotels began to appear, equipped with the latest technology. In the early 1920s, Henri Gambier wrote in the guidebook “Love of Venice”: “A luxurious city with large villas, where the streams of numerous fountains water the flowering gardens; with a magnificent shore, palace buildings, baths, where on the shore there are thousands of changing cabins. It has wide shady avenues, streets, and every house has a garden. There are all the delights of city life, a variety of transport: cars, trams, as well as motor boats and gondolas on the canals; electric lights that perfectly illuminate the streets. The city of Lido offers you all this.”

The first bathing establishment was opened on the Lido in 1857 by the visionary and successful entrepreneur Giovanni Buscetto, nicknamed Fisola. At first there were 50 cabins in his bathhouse, but very soon the enterprise grew and became famous, and nowadays, when the name of the island is mentioned, fashionable beaches and luxury hotels are most often imagined. Over the past few decades, the island has developed into a modern city with numerous houses and villas lining wide streets. And today's visitors to the Lido are offered not only some of the best sandy beaches of the Adriatic, chic restaurants, nightclubs and casinos, but also beautiful monuments of art noovo style architecture.

There are especially many of them during the days of the famous Venice Film Festival... Ironically, all European dictators loved cinema, and therefore, according to researchers of this issue A. Dunaevsky and D. Generalov, they have considerable merit in the development of the film festival movement in Europe. At one time, Benito Mussolini, concerned about the departure of the creative intelligentsia from the country, also made a lot of efforts to organize a film forum that could compete with the American Oscar. Therefore Antonio Mariani, to CEO The Venice Arts Festival was commissioned to develop a program that would include an international competition for achievements in the field of cinema.

In 1932, the organizers of the first Venice Film Festival, under the personal control of the Duce, attracted nine countries to participate in it, which submitted 29 full-length and fourteen short films (mainly from France, Germany, the USSR and the USA) to the competition. At the first film festival in Venice, the Soviet film “The Road to Life” was included in the list of the best. The Italians themselves did not manage to win a single award, and the founders of the festival were so upset that they “forgot” to even present the main prize - the “Mussolini Cup”.

But the first European film forum still attracted attention; the next film festival in 1934 was already more representative: 17 countries and 40 full-length films took part in it. Then the “Mussolini Cup” was awarded to the Soviet Union for the best presented program, which included such films as “Jolly Fellows”, “The Thunderstorm”, “St. Petersburg Night”, “Ivan”, “Pyshka”, “New Gulliver” and “Outskirts” "

In subsequent years, the Venice Film Festival tried its best to maintain at least an outward democracy, and therefore the magnificent celebrations aroused sympathy for the regime of Benito Mussolini among many simple-minded film lovers. Venice “bribed” the democratic public by presenting awards to British, American, and Soviet films. However, with the strengthening of fascist Germany (Italy’s closest ally), the Venice film festival began to gradually turn into obsessive propaganda of the “new order,” and already in 1936 Italy and Germany began to “pull the blanket over themselves.” While sometimes awards were given to films from democratic countries, the Mussolini Cup went only to Italian and German films.

The scandal that was brewing latently broke out in 1938. Then the jury of the Venice Film Festival, under pressure from the German delegation, literally changed its decision at the last minute, and the main prize was divided between the Italian film “The Pilot Luciano Sera” and the German documentary “Olympia”, although on the sidelines they whispered that the Americans should have received the award.

The British and Americans have officially announced that they will no longer take part in the Venice Film Festival. The dissatisfaction of the delegations of democratic countries also broke through, and it became clear that the festival movement had reached a dead end. And soon the Second began World War, and, naturally, the film festival was not held in 1939-1945. But at present, if the Berlin Film Festival is considered the most political, the Cannes Film Festival is the most international, the Venice Film Festival is the most elitist. It began to be held on the resort island of Lido with its hotels, hotels, casinos and bars, in the evenings illuminated by its own light and the lights of the Adriatic lighthouses and yellow buoys, behind which stands the fabulous Venice. It seems that condottiere ships and overseas sailing ships with tribute for the Most Serene Republic of St. Mark are about to approach the shores of the island. The emblem of Venice - the golden winged lion - has become the main prize of the film festival since 1980.

Every year in September, the Adriatic wind flutters national flags for more than two weeks over the Palazzo del Cinema - the Cinema Palace, which was built in 1937 and 1952. (architects L. Juangliata and A. Scattolin). In the evening, the hall of the palazzo is filled with the most prominent figures of world cinema, famous actors and actresses who came from different countries, and numerous journalists representing the press around the world. And behind the barrier, at the dazzlingly illuminated entrance, crowds of loyal movie fans...

Church and scuola of Saint Roch

The Church of St. Roch, built in 1490 according to the design of the architect Bartolomeo Bona, is not rich in architectural delights, but its glory lies in the works of art it contains, as well as the nearby Scuola of St. Roch. Funds for the construction of the scuola came from the Venetians, who wanted to receive the help of St. Roch, a bishop who died during a pestilence while he was helping the sick. The “Black Death,” as the plague was called in the Middle Ages, often devastated Europe, and Venice, due to its constant connections with the East, where this terrible infection came from, was one of its first victims. European cities were exhausted in the fight against epidemics, and the Venetians, earlier than others, realized the danger of the bacilli of this disease. Therefore, in their minds there was always a feeling that a deadly infection was lurking within the walls of the city, which carried danger in itself. From time to time, Venice was subjected to sanitary measures, when the plaster was knocked off the houses, and the cracks were then filled with a special solution.

Because of this, many famous frescoes in the city were lost, but the most beautiful churches in Venice were built by the townspeople as a sign of gratitude for getting rid of the disease.

Soon the building of the scuola of St. Roja became one of the richest in the city. Its facade is faced with Istrian stone interspersed with red porphyry and green and cream veined marble. In former times, the building was honored by being visited annually by the Doge. The church is decorated with sculptures and relief works by the architect himself, for example, a colossal sculpture of St. Roch, placed under the urn in which his remains rest.

Titian is represented in the Church of St. Roch by the painting "Jesus Christ between two executioners", which serves as the altarpiece of the right altar. On the canvas, the meek face of the Savior is contrasted with the brutal faces of the torturers and they are conveyed with brilliant astonishment. Even during the artist’s lifetime, this painting enjoyed great fame, and Titian himself loved his painting so much that he subsequently repeated this plot several times.

The building of the Scuola of St. Roch is one of the most famous in Venice. Built in 1515 on a competitive basis with the condition of “luxury, taste and durability”, it was the creation of five outstanding masters - Serlio, Scarpaccio, Bona, Lombardo and Sansovino, who divided the construction of its individual parts among themselves. The picturesque department of the scuola has no equal in all of Venice; it is here that the real Tintoretto is presented, expressing himself here with all the power of his inexhaustible genius and imagination. Forty paintings of the scuola and six paintings of the church constitute a special kind of Tintoretto gallery. For the scuola and the Church of St. Roch, the artist worked voluntarily and on topics chosen by himself.

Tintoretto's first rapprochement with the Brotherhood of St. Roch dates back to 1549, when, on his order, he completed a huge canvas “St. Roch is in the hospital." Noting the outstanding merits of this painting, some art critics (in particular, B. R. Whipper) attribute it to Tintoretto’s failure, pointing out the static nature of the frozen figures, devoid of dynamic poses, and the space remains a dead void - a silent arena of action.

In 1564, the Brotherhood of St. Roch decided to begin decorating the interior of their palace and, first of all, to paint the ceiling of the large hall on the top floor. They decided to order the lampshade not from the public funds of the brotherhood, but from the private funds of one of its members. A certain Zanni took upon himself the expenses, but set the condition that the ceiling would be painted by any painter, but not by Tintoretto. This proposal was not unanimously accepted, and after a very short time another, very influential member of the brotherhood, Torniello, came up with a proposal to organize a competition among the most famous painters. But the competition did not take place, because Tintoretto offered his competition painting “St. Roch in glory" free of charge. The artist’s gift was not accepted by everyone in the Council (31 people were “for”, 20 were “against”),

From this time on, Tintoretto began a closer rapprochement with the most enlightened members of the brotherhood. In 1564, the artist was accepted as a member of the brotherhood, and since then Tintoretto worked for more than twenty years in the halls of the Scuola of St. Roch, giving the brotherhood his most daring ideas and perfect works. The artist's early works are in the small "Albergo Room"; its ceiling is decorated with three huge canvases on the themes Old Testament- “Moses cuts water out of the rock”, “Bronze Serpent” and “Manna from Heaven”. All these paintings are a kind of hints at the charity of the scuola - quenching thirst, alleviating illnesses and saving from hunger. The wall paintings of the “Albergo Hall” depict scenes from the New Testament - “The Adoration of the Magi”, “The Temptation of Jesus Christ”.

Painting the building of the scuola of St. Roch, the artist filled all its walls and ceilings with his wonderful brush, leaving no room for any of the masters - not even the great Titian. There is very little religious in these paintings, but heroic life, perhaps, never existed in Venice best illustrator. In total, Tintoretto performed almost 40 subjects for scuola, and about half of them were enormous. They depict no less than 1,200 life-size figures. For example, in the center of the richly carved ceiling of the refectory is the “Apotheosis of St. Roja", and at the edges are the six main brotherhoods and monastic orders. They say that members of the brotherhood proposed a competition to paint this ceiling to Veronese, Salviati, Zucarro and Tintoretto. The first three artists had not yet finished their sketches, and Tintoretto had already painted almost the entire ceiling.

A huge painting by the artist in the scuol of St. Roch is the canvas “Crucifixion” (5.36x12.24 m) - one of the most striking in the whole Italian painting. Already from the doors of the hall, the viewer is impressed by an endlessly spreading panorama, filled with many characters. As in other cases, Tintoretto deviated from tradition here and created his own iconography of the gospel event. While Jesus Christ has already been crucified, crosses for thieves are still being prepared for installation. The artist depicted the cross of the good robber tilted, in an unusually bold angle, and several warriors with effort - with ropes and in a girth - are trying to put it up, and the robber with his left, not yet nailed hand, seems to be addressing a farewell greeting to Jesus Christ. The cross of another robber lies on the ground, and he himself, turning his back to the Savior and trying to rise, argues with the executioners.

Jesus Christ is depicted not as a tormented sufferer, but as a strength-giving Comforter. Bowing his head towards the people and emitting radiance, He looks at His loved ones standing at the foot of the cross... Around the central group a whole sea of ​​figures rustles - a motley crowd of spectators and executioners, foot soldiers and horsemen, Pharisees, old people, women, children...

In this painting, Tintoretto seems to revive folk decorative and narrative techniques. In addition, “The Crucifixion” became the first painting in Italian painting where light became the decisive factor in its artistic impact. Some researchers have also noted this interesting phenomenon: in the morning the painting is immersed in twilight, as if it were dead, but at noon, when a ray of sun breaks through the window, the canvas comes to life. First, the “surface of the earth” and the trees bent by a gust of wind begin to glow on it with a pale, alarming glow. With this flickering of pale spots of light, Tintoretto managed to embody not only the amazing effect of a solar eclipse, but also to create terrible anxiety, a tragic conflict of love and hate...

The second painting from the cycle “The Passion of Christ” was the canvas “Christ before Pilate”. It is smaller in size, but superior in emotionality and is, perhaps, the only experience in Tintoretto’s work of conveying a psychological drama, which develops on two levels: as the confrontation of Jesus Christ with the world and as His duel with Pilate. And both of them are opposed to the environment, but each in different ways. The Savior is completely alienated from the world, emptiness surrounds Him on all sides, and even the crowd filling the temple remains below - in a dark hole, at the steps on which He stands. Nothing connects Him with people - not a single gesture, not a hem of clothing; He is closed and indifferent to the fact that He has a rope around His neck and His hands are tied.

Pilate is alienated from the crowd in the temple by the burden of the decision that has fallen to his lot. His figure is immersed in shadow; a ray of light falling from the window and snatching Jesus Christ from the darkness only hits the procurator’s head. The red and yellow tones of Pilate's clothing flash with an uncertain flicker, betraying his hidden tension. He is enclosed in the cramped space of a canopied wall, and he has nowhere to hide from the calm detachment of the Savior, from the radiance of His spiritual purity.

The third picture of the cycle - “Carrying the Cross” - makes the viewer experience all the stages of Golgotha ​​and understand that this path goes from darkness to light, from despair to hope.

Tintoretto began creating a large cycle of paintings in the upper hall of the scuola in 1574, undertaking to complete and donate to the brotherhood the central, and largest, composition of the ceiling - “The Copper Serpent” by the feast of Saint Roch (August 16, 1576). In 1577 he completed two other paintings, content with paying only for canvas and paints. But in terms of the breadth of design, skill and historical significance, this cycle (“The Fall of Adam”, “Moses Extracting Water from the Stone”, “Jonah Coming from the Belly of the Whale”, “The Sacrifice of Abraham”, “Moses in the Desert”, etc.) can be compare only with Sistine Chapel Michelangelo and Giotto's frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel.

Tintoretto painted the lower floor of the scuola when he was already over 60 years old. It includes eight paintings from the life of the Virgin Mary. The cycle begins with the Annunciation and ends with the Ascension of the Mother of God. In the first canvas, a stormy stream of angels rushes from heaven into an open hut. Ahead of the retinue “rushes” the Archangel Gabriel, in whom there is little of the messenger of the “good news”. Little angels crowd behind him, mixing with the clouds. In front of everyone, the Holy Spirit (in the form of a dove with a shining circle) seems to fall on the chest of Mary, who recoiled in fear before the spontaneous phenomenon. Around Her there are simple home furnishings - a bed under the canopy, a table, a torn straw chair, peeling walls, boards and the tools of the carpenter Joseph; everything speaks of everyday life, into which unexpected noise and confusion burst in.

The painting of the upper and lower halls of the Scuola of St. Roch is a single whole, imbued with a common idea - the interpretation of the events of the Old Testament as a harbinger of the idea of ​​salvation realized in the New Testament, as a consonance with the activities of Moses and Jesus Christ - Tintoretto’s favorite heroes.

The legacy of the Venetian school of painting constitutes one of the brightest pages in the history of the Italian Renaissance. “The Pearl of the Adriatic” - a quaintly picturesque city with canals and marble palaces, spread out on 119 islands among the waters of the Gulf of Venice - was the capital of a powerful trading republic, which held in its hands all trade between Europe and the countries of the East. This became the basis for the prosperity and political influence of Venice, which included in its possessions part of Northern Italy, the Adriatic coast of the Balkan Peninsula, and overseas territories. It was one of the leading centers of Italian culture, printing, and humanistic education

She also gave the world such wonderful masters as Giovanni Bellini and Carpaccio, Giorgione and Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. Their work enriched European art with such significant artistic discoveries that later artists from Rubens and Velazquez to Surikov constantly turned to Venetian painting of the Renaissance.
The Venetians experienced the feeling of joy of existence in an unusually complete way, and discovered the world around them in all its fullness of life and inexhaustible colorful richness. They were characterized by a special taste for everything concretely unique, an emotional richness of perception, and admiration for the physical, material diversity of the world. The Venetians experienced an unusually completea feeling of joy of being, discovered the world around us in all its fullness of life, inexhaustible colorful wealth. They were characterized by a special taste for everything concretely unique, emotional richness of perception, admiration for the physical, material diversity of the world Artists were attracted by the fancifully picturesque appearance of Venice, the festivity and colorfulness of its life, and the characteristic appearance of the townspeople. Even paintings on religious themes were often interpreted by them as historical compositions or monumental genre scenes. Painting in Venice, more often than in other Italian schools, was of a secular nature. The vast halls of the magnificent residence of the Venetian rulers - the Doge's Palace - were decorated with portraits and large historical compositions. Monumental narrative cycles were also written for the Venetian Scuola - religious and philanthropic brotherhoods that united the laity. Finally, private collecting was especially widespread in Venice, and the owners of collections - rich and educated patricians - often commissioned paintings based on subjects drawn from antiquity or the works of Italian poets. It is not surprising that Venice is associated with the highest flowering in Italy of such purely secular genres as portraits, historical and mythological paintings, landscapes, and rural scenes.
The most important discovery of the Venetians was the coloristic and pictorial principles they developed. Among other Italian artists there were many excellent colorists, endowed with a sense of the beauty of color and the harmonious harmony of colors. But the basis of the visual language remained drawing and chiaroscuro, which clearly and completely modeled the form. Color was understood rather as the outer shell of a form; it was not without reason that, by applying colorful strokes, artists fused them into a perfectly flat, enamel surface. This style was also loved by Dutch artists, who were the first to master the technique of oil painting.
The Venetians, more than the masters of other Italian schools, appreciated the capabilities of this technique and completely transformed it. For example, the attitude of Dutch artists to the world was characterized by a reverent and contemplative principle, a shade of religious piety; in every, most ordinary object, they looked for a reflection of the highest beauty. Light became their means of transmitting this inner illumination. The Venetians, who perceived the world openly and positively, almost with pagan cheerfulness, saw in the technique of oil painting an opportunity to impart living physicality to everything depicted. They discovered the richness of color, its tonal transitions, which can be achieved in the technique of oil painting and in the expressiveness of the very texture of writing.
Paint became the basis of the Venetians' visual language. They do not so much work out forms graphically as they sculpt them with strokes - sometimes weightlessly transparent, sometimes dense and melting, piercing internal movement human figures, bends of fabric folds, reflections of sunset on dark evening clouds.
The features of Venetian painting evolved over a long, almost one and a half century, path of development. The founder of the Renaissance school of painting in Venice was Jacopo Bellini, the first of the Venetians to turn to the achievements of the most advanced Florentine school at that time, the study of antiquity and the principles of linear perspective. The main part of his legacy consists of two albums of drawings with the development of compositions of complex multi-figure scenes on religious themes. In these drawings, intended for the artist’s studio, the characteristic features of the Venetian school are already visible. They are imbued with the spirit of gossip columns, with interest not only in the legendary event, but also in the real life environment.
The successor of Jacopo's work was his eldest son Gentile Bellini, the largest master of historical painting in Venice in the 15th century. On his monumental canvases, Venice appears before us in all the splendor of its bizarrely picturesque appearance, at moments of festivals and solemn ceremonies, with crowded magnificent processions and a motley crowd of spectators crowded on the narrow embankments of canals and humpbacked bridges.

V. Carpaccio. "Arrival of Ambassadors" Oil. After 1496.
The historical compositions of Gentile Bellini had an undoubted influence on the work of his younger brother Vittore Carpaccio, who created several cycles of monumental paintings for the Venetian brotherhoods - Scuol. The most remarkable of them are “The History of St. Ursula" and "Scene from the Life of Saints Jerome, George and Typhon". Like Jacopo and Gentile Bellini, he loved to transfer the action of a religious legend and the environment of contemporary life, unfolding before the audience a detailed narrative, rich in many life details. But he saw everything through different eyes - through the eyes of a poet who reveals the charm of such simple life motifs as a scribe diligently taking dictation, a peacefully dozing dog, a log deck of a pier, an elastically inflated sail gliding over the water. Everything that happens seems to be filled with Carpaccio’s inner music, the melody of lines, the sliding of colorful spots, light and shadows, and is inspired by sincere and touching human feelings.
The poetic mood makes Carpaccio similar to the greatest of the Venetian painters of the 15th century - Giovanni Bellini, the youngest son of Jacopo. But his artistic interests lay in a slightly different area. The master was not interested in detailed narration or genre motifs, although he had the opportunity to work a lot in the genre of historical painting, beloved by the Venetians. These paintings, with the exception of one he painted together with his brother Gentile, have not reached us. But all the charm and poetic depth of his talent were revealed in compositions of a different kind. There is no action, no unfolding event. These are monumental altars depicting the Madonna enthroned surrounded by saints (the so-called “Holy Conversations”), or small paintings in which, against the background of a quiet, clear nature, a Madonna and Child or other characters of religious legends appear before us, immersed in thought. In these laconic, simple compositions there is a happy fullness of life, lyrical concentration. The artist’s visual language is characterized by majestic generality and harmonious orderliness. Giovanni Bellini is far ahead of the masters of his generation, establishing new principles of artistic synthesis in Venetian art.

V. Carpaccio. "The miracle of the cross." Oil. 1494.
Having lived to a ripe old age, he led the artistic life of Venice for many years, holding the position of official painter. From Bellini's workshop came the great Venetians Giorgione and Titian, with whose names the most brilliant era in the history of the Venetian school is associated.
Giorgione da Castelfranco lived a short life. He died at the age of thirty-three during one of the plague epidemics that were frequent at that time. His legacy is small in volume: some of Giorgione’s paintings, which remained unfinished, were completed by his younger comrade and workshop assistant, Titian. However, Giorgione's few paintings were to become a revelation for his contemporaries. This is the first artist in Italy for whom secular themes decisively prevailed over religious ones and determined the entire structure of his creativity.
He created a new, deeply poetic image of the world, unusual for Italian art of that time with its inclination towards grandeur, monumentality, and heroic intonations. In Giorgione’s paintings we see a world that is idyllically beautiful and simple, full of thoughtful silence.

Giovanni Bellini. "Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan."
Oil. Around 1501.
Giorgione's art became a real revolution in Venetian painting and had a huge influence on his contemporaries, including Titian, with whose work readers of the magazine already had the opportunity to become acquainted. Let us remember that Titian is a central figure in the history of the Venetian school. Coming from the workshop of Giovanni Bellini and collaborating with Giorgione in his youth, he inherited the best traditions of the older masters. But this is an artist of a different scale and creative temperament, striking with the versatility and comprehensive breadth of his genius. In terms of the grandeur of the worldview and the heroic activity of Titian’s images, one can only compare them with Michelangelo.
Titian revealed truly inexhaustible possibilities of color and paint. In his youth, he loved rich, enamel-pure colors, extracting powerful chords from their juxtapositions, and in his old age he developed the famous “late manner,” so new that it was not understood by most of his contemporaries. The surface of his later paintings, up close, presents a fantastic chaos of randomly applied brushstrokes. But at a distance, the color spots scattered across the surface merge, and before our eyes, full of life human figures, buildings, landscapes - a world that seems to be in eternal development, full of drama.
The work of Veronese and Tintoretto is associated with the last, final period of the Venetian Renaissance.

P. Veronese. "Paintings on the ceiling of the Olympus Hall." Fresco. Around 1565.
Paolo Veronese was one of those happy, sunny natures to whom life is revealed in its most joyful and festive aspect. While not possessing the depth of Giorgione and Titian, he was at the same time endowed with a heightened sense of beauty, the finest decorative flair and a real love for life. On huge canvases, shining with precious colors, designed in an exquisite silvery tonality, against the backdrop of magnificent architecture, a colorful crowd appears before us, striking with vital brightness - patricians and noble ladies in magnificent attire, soldiers and commoners, musicians, servants, dwarfs.
In this crowd, sometimes the heroes of religious legends almost get lost. Veronese even had to appear before the Inquisition, who accused him of daring to depict many characters in one of his compositions who had nothing to do with religious themes.
The artist especially loves the theme of feasts (“Marriage in Cana”, “Feast in the House of Levi”), turning modest gospel meals into magnificent festive spectacles. Life force Veronese’s images are such that Surikov called one of his paintings “nature pushed outside the frame.” But this is nature, cleansed of any touch of everyday life, endowed with Renaissance significance, ennobled by the splendor of the artist’s palette and the decorative beauty of rhythm. Unlike Titian, Veronese worked a lot in the field of monumental and decorative painting and was an outstanding Venetian decorator of the Renaissance.

I. Tintoretto. "Adoration of the Shepherds" Oil. 1578-1581.
The last great master of Venice of the 16th century, Jacopo Tintoretto, seems to be a complex and rebellious person, a seeker of new paths in art, who acutely and painfully felt the dramatic conflicts of modern reality.
Tintoretto introduces a personal, and often subjectively arbitrary, principle into her interpretation, subordinating human figures to certain unknown forces that scatter and swirl them. By accelerating the perspective reduction, he creates the illusion of rapid space movement, choosing unusual points of view and fancifully changing the outlines of figures. Simple, everyday scenes are transformed by the invasion of surreal fantastic light. At the same time, his world retains its grandeur, full of echoes of great human dramas, clashes of passions and characters.
Tintoretto's greatest creative feat was the creation of an extensive painting cycle in Scuola di San Rocco, consisting of more than twenty large wall panels and many plafond compositions, on which the artist worked for almost a quarter of a century - from 1564 to 1587. By the inexhaustible wealth of artistic imagination, by the breadth of the world, which contains a tragedy of a universal scale (“Calvary”), a miracle that transforms a poor shepherd’s hut (“The Nativity of Christ”), and the mysterious greatness of nature (“Mary Magdalene in the Desert” ), and high exploits of the human spirit (“Christ before Pilate”), this cycle has no equal in the art of Italy. Like a majestic and tragic symphony, it completes, together with other works of Tintoretto, the history of the Venetian painting school of the Renaissance.
laquo;Calvary

Unlike the art of Central Italy, where painting developed in close connection with architecture and sculpture, in Venice in the 14th century. painting dominated. In the works of Giorgione and Titian, a transition to easel painting took place. One of the reasons for the transition was determined by the climate of Venice, in which the fresco is poorly preserved. Another reason is that easel painting appears in connection with the growth of secular themes and the expansion of the range of objects included in the attention of painters. Along with the establishment of easel painting, the diversity of genres increased. Thus, Titian created paintings based on mythological subjects, portraits, and compositions based on biblical subjects. In the work of representatives of the Late Renaissance - Veronese and Tintoretto, there was a new rise in monumental painting.

Giorgio da Castelfranco, nicknamed Giorgione (1477-1510), lived a short life. The name Giorgione is derived from the word "zorzo", which in the Venetian dialect meant "a person of the lowest birth." His origin has not been precisely established, and there is no reliable information about the years of his apprenticeship with Bellini. Giorgione was well within the cultural strata of Venice. The subjects of his paintings such as “The Thunderstorm” and “Three Philosophers” are difficult to interpret. In 1510 Giorgione died of the plague.

Easel painting is a type of painting whose works have independent meaning and are perceived regardless of the environment. The main form of easel painting is a picture separated by a frame from its surroundings.

Titian Vecelli (1476/77-1576). Titian comes from the town of Cadore in the foothills of the Dolomites. The artist studied with Giovanni Bellini. In 1507, Titian entered the workshop of Giorgione, who entrusted Titian with the completion of his works. After Giorgione's death, Titian completed some of his works and accepted a number of his orders, and opened his own workshop.
At this time, in a number of portraits, including “Salome”, “Lady at the Toilet” and “Flora”, he embodied his idea of ​​beauty. In 1516, the artist created “The Ascension of Our Lady” (Assunta) for the Church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice - the painting shows how a group of animatedly gesturing apostles sees the Mother of God ascending to heaven surrounded by angels. In 1525, Titian married Cecilia, his beloved, with whom he had two sons.

At this time, Titian loved healthy, sensual images and used sonorous, deep colors. After Bellini's death, the position of artist of the Venetian School of the Republic passed to Titian. Titian develops the reform of painting, which was initiated by Giorgione: the artist gives preference to large canvases that allow a wide and free application of colors. On the initial layer, immediately after it had dried, he applied more or less dense but fluid strokes, mixed with transparent and shiny varnishes, finishing the picture by intensifying the brightest tones and shadows with strokes that acquired an almost corpus-like character. The sketch was consistent with the general emotional preparation, but was complete in itself.

At the invitation of Pope Paul III, Titian moved to Rome. New themes appear in his art - the drama of struggle, tension. Thus, in the painting “Here is a Man,” the artist transfers the gospel plot into a contemporary setting, depicting Pietro Aretino in the image of Pilate, and the Venetian Doge in the guise of one of the Pharisees. This displeases the pope, and Titian and his son leave for Augsburg to visit Charles V. At the court of Charles V, Titian writes a lot, especially receives many orders from Spain; King Philip II orders him several paintings. In the early 50s. Titian returns to Venice, but continues to work for the Spanish king. Titian's portraits are distinguished by vitality. “Portrait of Pope Paul III with Alexandro and Ottavio Farnese” shows the meeting of three people, each of whom is connected with other secret feelings. In 1548, Titian painted two portraits of Charles V. In one, he is presented as a triumphant, having won a victory - dressed in armor, in a helmet with a plume, Charles rides on a horse to the edge of the forest.
When Titian was painting a portrait of Emperor Charles V, he dropped his brush, and the emperor picked it up. Then the artist said: “Your Majesty, your servant does not deserve such an honor.” To which the emperor allegedly replied: “Titian is worthy to be served by Caesar.”

The second portrait shows the emperor in a traditional Spanish black suit, seated in a chair with a loggia in the background.
In the early 50s. Titian, commissioned by Philip II, who became emperor after the abdication of his father Charles V, painted seven canvases on mythological subjects, which he called “poetry,” interpreting mythological subjects as metaphors for human life. Among the poems are “The Death of Actaeon”, “Venus and Adonis”, “The Rape of Europa”. The last years of his life Titian lived in Venice. Anxiety and disappointment grow in his works. IN religious paintings Titian increasingly turns to dramatic subjects - scenes of martyrdom and suffering, in which tragic notes are also heard.

Late Renaissance. Paolo Veronese (1528-1588). P. Caliari, nicknamed Veronese after his place of birth, was born in Verona in 1528. Arriving in Venice, he immediately gained recognition for his work in the Doge's Palazzo. Until the end of his life, for 35 years, Veronese worked to decorate and glorify Venice. Veronese's painting is all built on color. He knew how to juxtapose individual colors in such a way that this rapprochement created a particularly intense sound. They begin to burn like precious stones. Unlike Titian, who was primarily an easel painter, Veronese is a born decorator. Before Veronese, individual easel paintings were placed on the walls to decorate interiors and there was no overall decorative unity, a synthetic fusion of painting and architecture. Veronese was the first of the Venetian artists to create entire decorative ensembles, painting the walls of churches, monasteries, palaces and villas from top to bottom, incorporating his painting into the architecture. For these purposes he used the fresco technique. In his paintings and mainly in his lampshades, Veronese used strong foreshortenings, bold spatial cuts, designed to look at the picture from bottom to top. In his lampshades he “opened up the sky.”

Jacopo Tintoretto. Real name Jacopo Robusti (1518-1594). Tintoretto's painting marks the completion of the Italian version of the Renaissance. Tintoretto gravitated toward pictorial cycles of a complex thematic nature; he used rare and previously unheard-of subjects. Thus, in the expanded narrative of the huge cycle of Scuola di San Rocco, along with many well-known episodes from the Old and New Testaments, less common and even completely new motifs are introduced - “The Temptation of Christ” and landscape compositions with Magdalene and Mary of Egypt. Cycle about the miracles of St. The stamp in the Venetian Academy and in Milan's Brera is presented in forms that are far from the usual visual solutions.

The Doge's Palace depicting battles shows an abundance of variation and boldness of design. In the ancient mythological theme, Tintoretto continued the free poetic interpretation of motifs, which began with Titian’s “poetry”. An example of this is the painting “The Origin of the Milky Way.” He used new plot sources. Thus, in the painting “The Rescue of Arsinoe,” the artist proceeded from the adaptation of the poem by the Roman author Lucan in the French medieval legend, and “Tancred and Clorinda” he wrote based on the poem by Tasso.

Tintoretto repeatedly turned to the plot of The Last Supper. If in the solemn frieze-shaped “Last Supper” in the church of Santa Maria Marcuola a debate is presented on the topic of how to understand the words of the teacher, then in the painting from the church of Santa Trovaso the words of Christ, like blows, scattered the shocked disciples, and in the canvas from Scuola di San Rocco, it combines the dramatic aspect of the action and the symbolism of the sacrament; in the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, the sacrament of the Eucharist acquired the quality of a universal spiritualizing force. If painters of the classical type tend to convey time, which has no beginning or end, then Tintoretto uses the principle of conveying an event. A specific feature of Tintoretto’s works is suggestiveness, dynamics, expressive brightness of natural motifs, and spatial multidimensionality.