The Venetian School
1470 – 1580

In the 15th and 16th centuries, a lust for life combined with a successful commercial port and the High Renaissance ideals of grandeur and beauty led the artists of Venice to inject a bold new sumptuousness into the world of art. The Venetian School gave a freshness of life into oil painting and architecture combining the influence of their classical-oriented forebears and the stimulus for lush colour with a distinct Venetian style of embellishment. Regardless of subject much of the artwork had the hedonistic underlying message that the act of being alive was considered with a sense of celebration and revelry.

Referring to the distinctive art that developed in Renaissance Venice, the Venetian School began in the late 1400s led by the brothers Giovanni and Gentile Bellini and lasted until 1580. Its style shared the Humanist values, the use of linear perspective, and naturalistic figurative treatments of Renaissance art in Florence and Rome.

The Venetian Schools’ ground-breaking emphasis on using colour to create forms (colorito), distinguished it from the Florentine Renaissance’s emphasis on drawing the forms and then filling them with colour. Colorito resulted in revolutionary works of dynamism, unparalleled richness, and distinctive psychological expression.

Venetian artists painted predominantly in oils, firstly on wood panels, then pioneering the use of canvas, which was better suited to the humid climate of the city. They also put emphasis on the naturalistic play of light, atmosphere and drama including theatrical human movement.

Portraiture was revitalized at this time as the artist sought a naturalistic treatment of their subjects that also conveyed their social status. The artist focused on the psychological complexity of a person rather than an idealized role. They also used more of the figure in a painting rather than the upper bust and head.

Genres born during this time include grand depictions of mythological narratives and the emergence of the female nude in its own right instead of a reflection of a religious, historical, or mythical tale. Eroticism began to appear in art, intertwined with the new genres and subject matters, unconstrained by moralistic messages. The architecture that married Classical influences with the carved bas-relief and the decidedly Venetian adornments became popular and a whole designing industry evolved with buildings and private residences cropping up throughout Venice

Influenced by the innovative Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Donatello, its stylistics also reflected the roots of the distinct culture and society of the city-state of Venice. The emphasis on rich colours permeated the creation, bringing the essence and atmosphere of the area and its inhabitants alive in visual representations.

Due to its prosperity, Venice was known throughout Italy as “the serene city.” Its geographical location on the Adriatic Sea enabled Venice to become a hub for trade linking the West to the East. The city-state was cosmopolitan and worldly, with an emphasis on the pleasures of life as opposed to being driven by religious dogma. Venice was proud of its independence and stable government. The first Doge to rule Venice was elected in 697, and subsequent Doges were elected by the Great Council of Venice, a parliament consisting of aristocrats and wealthy merchants. Magnificent spectacles and feasts marked by carnivals went on for weeks and defined Venetian culture to become part of its joyous artistic sensibility.

Whilst Florence and Rome were under the sway of the Catholic Church, Venice was associated with the Byzantine Empire, centred in Constantinople that ruled Venice in the 6th and 7th centuries. Venetian art was influenced by the Byzantine use of colours and gold in church mosaics and Venetian architecture was also influenced by the Byzantine use of domes arches and multi-coloured stone. y the mid-1400s Venice was a rising power in Italy, and Renaissance artists such as Andrea Mantegna, Andrea del Castagno, Donatello, and Antonello da Messina lived or visited the city for extended periods resulting in the Venetian School style of synthesized Byzantine colour and golden light with Renaissance innovations.

The artist Andrea Mantegna introduced linear perspective, naturalistic figurative treatment, and classical proportionality that went on to define Renaissance art to Venetian artists. His work influenced Jacopo Bellini who became one of the first Venetian artists to utilize linear perspective and taught the technique to his sons Gentile and Giovanni, who were later leaders of the Venetian School. The familial connection developed even further when Mantegna married one of Jacopo’s daughters,

From 1475-1476 Antonello da Messina worked in Venice and had a major influence on Giovanni Bellini adopting oil painting and an emphasis on portraiture. Messina first encountered oil painting and the art of the Northern European Renaissance as a student in Naples and his works are noted for their synthesis of Italian Renaissance and Northern European principles which in turn influenced the development of the Venetian School’s distinctive style.

Giovanni Bellini is often referred to as the “Father of Venetian Painting” due to his pioneering oil painting in Venice. Both he and his brother Gentile were renowned making the Bellini workshop the most popular and celebrated in Venice. Important early commissions were primarily religious subjects like Gentile Bellini’s “Procession of the True Cross” (1479) and Giovanni’s depiction of the “Deluge of Noah’s Ark” (1470), sadly now lost. Giovanni was particularly known for the manner and techniques he treated the Madonna and Child, with paintings showing a combination of deep devotion and gravity with a sense of charm and delight in the light and colour of the world itself. It was Giovanni’s emphasis on depicting natural light and synthesising Renaissance principles with Venetian colour that made him the leader of the Venetian School

By the early 1480s, Giovanni Bellini had mastered oil painting as exemplified by his “Transfiguration of Christ” (1480). He advanced the Venetian School’s emphasis on portraying natural light and atmosphere using colour and tonal graduations. The Doge, Leonardo Loredon (1501) established the Venetian School’s stylistic approach to portraiture and the importance of the genre in Venice. Bellini turned to mythological subjects in his later works such as “Feast of the Gods” (1504) establishing a new genre of painting.

The first great portraitist among the Venetian artists, Giovanni Bellini created a compelling image of his Doge Leonardo Loredan that was naturalistic and conveyed the play of light and colour whilst idealizing the subject and his social status. This increased the demand for portraiture from aristocrats and wealth merchants to convey their own social importance in the same manner

Titian and Giorgione pioneered new treatments of portraiture, with Giorgione developing the new genre of erotic portraits that became widely adopted and Titian extending views of the subject to include most of the figure and emphasize the psychological complexity of the subject. The artist Paolo Veronese also painted much-muted portraits such as “Portrait of a Man” (1576-1578) showing a full-length view of the subject

Bellini pioneered the subject of mythology in “Feast of the Gods” (1504) which was further developed by Titian with his genre depictions of bacchanal scenes including “Bacchus and Ariadne” (1522-23). Venetian patrons were drawn to art based on classical Greek mythology as they were unrestrained by religious or moralistic messages and could be enjoyed for their eroticism and hedonism.

Mythology and mythological contexts played a part in launching the genre of the female nude with Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus” (1508) pioneering the form. The subject was further developed by Titian who placed emphasis on eroticism that played to the male gaze in “Venus of Urbino” (1544). The titles gave both works a mythological context despite the artistic treatments that elided any reference to the goddess visually. Poplar among Venetians, the mythologizing impulse also influenced the development of contemporary scenes as spectacles of drama, such as Veronese’s “Feast in the House” (1573).

Venice is, famously, a coastal city renowned for its system of canals and little solid ground to build on. Many architectural projects, therefore, involved redesigning buildings often in the creation of new facades. Brothers Antonio and Tullio Lombardo were the first architects of the Venetian Renaissance and they rebuilt the Scuola di San Marco (c.1490). Both trained as sculptors, they carved the façade in a relief creating an illusionistic perspective.

The Byzantine and Gothic traditions dominated architectural design until the 1500s when the sculptor and artist Jacopo Sansovino moved to Venice after the Saco of Rome in 1527. In 1529 he was appointed chief architect of Venice and commissioned to design a variety of public buildings in St. Mark’s Square. Sansovino’s love of the High Renaissance ideals led to a style that incorporated classical traditions alongside the Venetian love of lavish decoration, including his masterpiece Biblioteca Marciana (1537-1587). Andrea Palladio, the most influential of the Venetian architects, was known for his designs and his Il Quattro Libri dell’ Archittettura (1570) which included his rules of architecture and concepts.

Resources

The Venetian School by Giulio D’Agostino