Titian

Timeline

1. c. 1488–1516Venice · VenetoTitian moved to Venice with his family as a child, apprenticing under the mosaicist Sebastiano Zuccato, then transferring to Gentile Bellini, and finally entering Giovanni Bellini's workshop. Around 1508 he collaborated with Giorgione on the frescoes of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, deeply influenced by his coloristic technique. After Giovanni Bellini's death in 1516, Titian succeeded him as official painter of the Republic of Venice, formally establishing his leadership of Venetian painting.
2. 1531–1540Venice · VenetoFrom 1531 to 1540 were the golden decade of Titian's career. In 1532 he first met Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in Bologna and painted his portrait, opening decades of imperial patronage. In 1533 Charles V granted him the title of court painter to the Holy Roman Empire and the honor of knighthood, the highest distinction then accorded to a living painter. During the same period he painted numerous portraits and religious works for Italian nobles such as the Duke of Urbino and the Marquis of Mantua; the Venus of Urbino (c. 1538) was created in this phase, establishing an important tradition of Western nude painting.
3. 1540–1576Venice · VenetoIn his later years Titian's style grew freer and more exuberant, with looser, broader brushwork and richer layers of color, later called the 'late Titian style'; it profoundly influenced Baroque masters such as Rubens, Rembrandt, and Velázquez. He died of the plague in Venice in 1576, past eighty, leaving hundreds of paintings, and is regarded as one of the artists with the longest and most far-reaching careers of the Renaissance.