Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice

Prologue: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese – rivalry emerges

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), born in Pieve di Cadore, in the Dolomites, came under the Venetian spell through his apprenticeship with the Bellini clan and Giorgione. He swiftly rose to fame in Venice from 1520, then throughout Italy and Europe.
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti) was born in Venice around 1518. Thirty years stood between him and Titian, who was apparently his master for a while. Yet a mutual disliking seemed to take a firm hold between them, and many commissions or promises of commissions appeared as attempts to outdo or thwart the other man.
Veronese (Paolo Caliari) was born in Verona in 1528. In the 1550s he moved to Venice, where he soon received a large number of commissions from churches or the Doge’s Palace, thereby overshadowing Tintoretto. He apparently became Titian’s protégé or even a pawn in his rivalry with Tintoretto.

These three painters were to rub shoulders for over thirty years, and after Titian’s death in 1576, the other two would continue their mutual confrontation for another dozen years. Though rivals, they also influenced and inspired one another. For each artist, the others’ work was a stimulus that demanded a response. Their contribution to artistic revival was huge in their use of oil on canvas, their focus on “color” as opposed to “line”, and the emergence of easel painting that was to transform not only Venetian art but also the whole of European painting itself.

Artistic competitiveness was not merely a Venetian phenomenon as it was already to be found a few decades earlier in Rome, Florence, and other major cities. Yet in the case of Venice, it did not lead to aesthetic degradation but rather to emulation and a profusion of ideas. Commissions from private sources, churches, and institutions, as well as from foreign clients, poured in. Venetian society did not bestow its favors upon one particular artist but maintained a sense of harmony by sharing out official commissions among an unequaled pool of painters. The paintings’ format and the fact that they were painted on canvas made them very popular and many amateurs collected their works. A host of critics would hold forth upon each artist’s latest offerings, and the general public could compare their work, talent, and progress.

Various artistic contests gave a clearer picture of how rivalry among artists was a vital source of artistic revival and creation. Patrons would ask artists to design a very thorough introductory drawing (a modello) on a predetermined subject, whether for the Sala Grande of the Libreria Marciana, for the Sala dell’Albergo of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, for the Marzeri altar in the church of San Giuliano, or for the Grand Council chamber of the Doge’s Palace; a painted modello was apparently required only in the case of the competition to design the “Paradise” fresco for the Grand Council chamber of the Doge’s Palace.