This dazzling survey of 16th-century Venetian painting captures the striking colors and revolutionary characteristics of one of art history's greatest chapters. It is hard to imagine more profoundly influential artists than the Venetian painters of the 16th century. Whether creating sweeping devotional altarpieces or intimate portraits, the Venetian painters changed the way artists employed color and composition. These defining qualities are on brilliant display in this book that covers fascinating aspects of the work of Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Lorenzo Lotto, Jacopo Bassano, and many others. More than one hundred paintings, drawings, and prints are reproduced in stunning detail. Side-by-side comparisons draw readers into the conversations between Venetian artists as they tackled similar subjects and vied for commissions. The book opens with fascinating essays about the history of 16th-century Venice, the Venetian School of painting, and the techniques of the Venetian masters. As beautiful as it is informative, this book features all of the excitement and splendor of one of the most prolific and important chapters in the history of European art.

Exhibition: Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (13.02. - 26.05.2019)."Venetian painting of the Renaissance counts among the most consequential chapters of all European art history. The early sixteenth century saw several artists, first and foremost among them the young Titian, develop a distinctive brand of Renaissance art that rested on genuinely painterly effects and the interaction of light and colour. The innovations of these painters--alongside Titian, Sebastiano del Piombo, Lorenzo Lotto and others--soon spread, making waves far beyond the Serenissima itself.

The emergence of Jacopo Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Bassano in the 1540s signalled the arrival of a talented new generation of young artists who would vie with their elders for patronage. This book presents selected aspects of these cinquecento paintings that can be regarded as quintessentially Venetian--among them the atmospherically charged landscapes that mark the inception of landscape painting as a genre in its own right, the idealised portraits of beautiful women known as 'belle donne' and the predilection for a radiant palette. The book leaves readers with a vivid impression of the extraordinary artistic and thematic breadth of the Renaissance as it unfolded in Venice, leaving us in no doubt as to why so many radically different artists of later centuries would repeatedly look here for inspiration.".