beside the easel

Martyrdom of St Justina, 1556 Paolo Caliari, known as Paolo Veronese was born in Verona, the city of his namesake in 1528. Last year at the National Gallery in London there was an exhibit of his work which garnered rave reviews on Twitter and the internet. Known for his incredible use of color and composition, Veronese is a Venetian giant whose work cannot be fully appreciated here online---it was intended to be seen in person. The sheer scale of his work, often life-size figures, fill a wall or room in a way that separates him from many of his contemporaries and indeed many Old Masters. And although some modernists criticize his work for a lack of emotional connection it is the sheer grandeur and drama he portrayed that was all his own. He was a theatrical painter, a master of grand narrative, and not in the dark way that the tenebrists of Caravaggio would convey nearly a century later. His subtle use of color places him in a category that few painters hold, unique even among ...

View of the Grand Canal and the Dogana, ca.1743 Born in Venice on January 30, 1721 Bernardo Bellotto was the nephew and student of his famous uncle Giovanni Antonio Canal , or Canaletto. Bellotto's style has a stronger use of chiaroscuro and tighter integration of the landscape whereas his uncle focused more on Venetian architecture as a distinctive splendor within the landscape. Bellotto was equally fascinated with old alleyways and crumbling Roman ruins as his Venetian roots. The other important distinction is that Canaletto remained in Venice for most of his career, venturing out only to London while Bellotto travelled to other parts of Italy and also to Germany, Austria, and Poland. Bellotto also returned on occasion to the vedute tradition of capriccio from Pannini , or painting from imagination rather than life, something Canaletto only depicted in his etchings. Above in View of the Grand Canal and the Dogana we can see Bellotto's informal and approachable eye...

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, ca.1550 Jacopo Comin, (or formerly known as Jacopo Robusti) knicknamed Tintoretto because his father was a clothing dyer, was born on September 29, 1518 in Venice. Also known as Il Furioso for his frenetic speed and dynamic energy to his painting, Tintoretto really embodies Mannerism: long twisting figures, complex compositions, and dynamic perspective. Like all Mannerists, he was deeply influenced by Michelangelo but gave his work the distinct Venetian touch of Titian's colors with his own chiaroscuro. It must have seemed remarkably modern at the time, pushing the limits of what was learned from the Renaissance to something less stiff and more dynamic rather than purely harmonious. Unfortunately, this movement would eventually suffer from its own selfish vices to become artificial and posed, lacking any sincerity or real drama that would come to be replaced by the Baroque in the early 1600's. Tintoretto's technique is remarka...

Perseus Confronting Phineus with the Head of Medusa, ca.1710 One of my favourite Italian Baroque painters, Sebastiano Ricci was born on August 1, 1659 in Belluno , north of Venice. He represents everything that Venetian painters are known for, namely colour and great compositions yet he is also a storyteller, breathing life into mythology and religion with fervent sensuality. At times his figures seem Mannerist, and yet in others his figures are powerful, beautifully lit characters in an opera or play. His women seem to glow, and his men ranged from nobility to violent fighters, surrounding all of them in natural landscapes or architectural capriccios, and his colors seem to dance effortlessly with his compositions. Ricci is a painter's painter. Above we see a famous scene from Greek mythology that Ricci depicts with captivating drama. Note how the figures surrounding Perseus in one-point perspective from his helmet. I love how Ricci contrasts the warm flesh tones of Perseus...

The Serenade 1910 Eugene de Blaas was born on July 24, 1843 to Austrian parents in Albano, near Rome. He learned to paint from his father, Karl Von Blaas who then moved the family to Venice where Eugene stayed for most of his career. Blaas has a style known for vivid colors, theatrical body language, graceful figures, intricate costumes, and the contrast of fishing community against the rustic walls of Venice. I have never seen his work in person yet, unfortunately, and some might find his art overly sentimental or dated but I think he deserves attention as a unique artist that was able to merge his academic art training with the world around him not as a realist per se, but a storyteller and creator of mood. I suspect he inspired many illustrators of the 1940s and 50s with his particular use of body language and facial expression to create a context that captures our attention. In The Serenade we see four women respond individually to the guitar of this barefoot fisherman. There...

The Annunciation, ca.1540 This Venetian Master, relatively uncommon from the Renaissance, was born in July 5, 1500 in Treviso. Having studied under Titian, his style seems to fuse the Renaissance with Venetian color and heavy Mannerist influence. We often hear plenty about Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, and even Tiepolo, but Bordone is the kind of artist you find out about only in art history classes or, better yet, in a museum. And his style is definitely worth discovering. The deep earth tones and dramatic light of Titian are immediately evident, but what really makes Bordone unique is his composition and anatomy, more specifically, how he used them together to make paintings with a definite style that deserves attention. Where Titian became more loose in his later years, and Tintoretto painted fast and furious, and Veronese big and colorful, Bordone paints with specific attention to detail and skin tones in a way that is more pure somehow. He may have lacked the psychological in...

Autoritratto, 1717 Born on this day in 1675, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini was a Rococo painter from Venice who helped to merge the perfect figures of Veronese with the drama of Pietro Da Cortona, with Luca Giordano as an important influence also. One of his greatest teachers was Sebastiano Ricci, another giant of the Venetian Baroque who was a master of composition and dramatic scenes. Pellegrini was also known for having married the sister of pastel artist Rosalba Carriera, herself another talented Venetian who was born in the same year as Pellegrini. What really makes Pellegrini particularly unique among his contemporaries was his loose brushwork and glowing colours, often experimenting with warm beside cool, dark beside light, and soft beside hard textures. While he often sacrificed accurate anatomy for expressive emotion, his knowledge of colour and chiaroscuro would have an influence on another Venetian who would master both anatomy and colour: Giambattista Tiepolo. In the ab...