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SIX VENETIANS

VENICE is a city where the streets are water and where you take a boat instead of an automobile to go from place to place. Nowadays Venice belongs to Italy, but in the time of the Renaissance, though Venice was in Italy, it didn't belong to Italy. There wasn't any republic of Italy then, and Venice was an independent state, a republic that governed itself. Venice had its own army and navy, its own ruler called the Doge, and its own way of doing things. It had its own great painters, too, during the Renaissance — painters still famous above all others for the wonderful colors they gave to their pictures.

In the early years of the Renaissance there was a painter of Venice named Bellini (Bel-leen'ee) and he had two sons who also became painters. The sons were better painters than their father. One of the Bellini brothers taught painting to two young men who became better painters than any of the Bellinis. These two men were called Giorgione (Jor-jone'ay), which means Big George, and Titian (Tish'an), which just means Titian. Three Bellinis, Giorgione, and Titian — five men with only three names to remember.

I wish I had room to tell you more about the Bellinis. I think you would like their pictures of the Doges, the rulers of Venice. But there isn't room in this chapter for all of them, so we'll begin with Giorgione.

Giorgione is called one of the greatest of painters. Like Leonardo da Vinci, he left very few pictures that we are sure he himself painted. A famous painting called “The Concert”is thought by most people to have been painted by Giorgione, but others think it was painted by Giorgione's friend Titian.“The Concert” shows the head and shoulders of three men. One of these men is seated at a clavichord. Do you know what a clavichord is? It is a musical instrument like a piano that was used before pianos were invented. The second man has a violin in his hand, and the third wears a big hat with feathers on it that makes him look like a woman. In our house, when I was a boy, we had a photograph of “The Concert” on the wall and I always thought the man with the big hat was a woman until I grew up.

Unfortunately Giorgione didn't live long enough to paint many pictures. A terrible disease called the plague spread through Venice. Giorgione caught the plague and died when he was only about thirty-two years old.

His friend Titian lived to be a very old man, and so he had time to paint many more pictures than Giorgione. Titian was especially good at painting portraits of the noblemen of his time. One of these portraits is called “The Man with the Glove.” No one now knows who the man with the glove was, but almost every one likes the picture. How do you like it? Look on the opposite page.

Titian could paint other kinds of pictures besides portraits. He painted a picture for an altar in a church in Venice called“The Assumption, ” which shows the Madonna entering heaven. The Venetians liked it tremendously. They especially liked its rich glowing color, for Venice itself was full of color,with its deep blue sea on every side and its marble palaces gleaming in the brilliant sunlight.

Venetians even liked pictures painted on the outside of their buildings, to add to the bright colors of the town. Both Giorgione and Titian made many paintings on the outside house walls, but all these have now disappeared, washed away by the weather.

At last after a long life of painting, Titian died — some say from the same disease that had killed Giorgione, the plague.

There were still great artists left in Venice, however. One of these was called Tintoretto, which means Little Dyer, because his father was a dyer. Tintoretto was much younger than Titian. When he was still a boy he was sent to Titian's studio, or workshop, to learn painting. For some reason Titian let him stay at his studio for only ten days and after that Tintoretto had to teach himself to paint.

He too painted many pictures on the outside walls of buildings, but these have washed away like Giorgione's and Titian's. Titian had always been careful to make good bargains when he sold his paintings, but Tintoretto didn't seem to care for money. He was satisfied to take much less for his pictures than they were worth. Often he even gave them away.

One of Tintoretto's greatest undertakings was to paint pictures for the walls of a building called the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice. Michelangelo had made his wall paintings on wet plaster, Leonardo had made his on dry plaster, but Tintoretto made his on canvas. Then the canvas with the painting on it was fastened to the wall. The San Rocco pictures were fastened to the wall.

Tintoretto used to make little clay figures to use as models when he painted. He worked very quickly and so he was able to paint a great many pictures in his lifetime. Most of them are full of energy and action. Some of his figures seem to be rushing through the air. So much action and movement made his pictures very different from the quiet ones of early Italian painters. Tintoretto's were more like Michelangelo's energetic paintings. But Tintoretto also had the glowing colors of Titian.

Over his studio door he put these words: “The drawing of Michelangelo and the color of Titian.” Sometimes he went beyond Titian, whose colors were golden browns and rich reds and greens. Tintoretto's later pictures contained soft shades of gray and had a silvery finish rather than a golden glow.

One of Tintoretto's famous paintings is called “The Miracle of Saint Mark.” The story goes that Saint Mark had a faithful servant who was sentenced to be tortured to death for being a Christian. Saint Mark was away when this happened. The servant was stretched on the ground in front of the judge's chair and the torture was about to begin. Suddenly the tools broke in the executioner's hands as Saint Mark appeared in the air above. He had come to save his servant.

Tintoretto's picture shows Saint Mark rushing through the air above the executioner, but nobody in the picture, except a little baby, has noticed him. All are looking at the broken tools of the executioner.

When Tintoretto was an old man he was given the order to paint a huge picture of Paradise. The picture was to be large enough to cover a wall space thirty feet high and seventy-four feet long. Tintoretto set to work and finished the largest painting on canvas in the world. His “Paradise” shows Christ and the Madonna seated on clouds in heaven. Below them are crowds of saints and angels, over five hundred figures altogether. This painting was Tintoretto's last great work. He died soon after finishing it.

Some of Tintoretto's paintings were much better than others. The Venetians used to say he had three pencils, one of gold, one of silver, and one of iron. By this they meant that some of his pictures were wonderfully done, some were only fairly well done, and some were poorly done. Perhaps this is why people have had so many different opinions about Tintoretto.

Venice had great painters after Tintoretto. But certainly the Bellinis, Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto are enough great men to squeeze into one little chapter!