From Library Journal
Titian's work has been admired and analyzed in countless studies over the centuries, from the classic study by Vasari to Filippo Pedrocco's recent, well-received catalogue raison . But most scholars minimize the seemingly impenetrable forest of Titian's early work. Joannides (art history, Cambridge), the first to present an entire book devoted to Titian's youthful oeuvre, tries to identify the trees. His main purpose is to establish that the themes developed early in Titian's career were carried out in his later works. Using the latest research and attributions, the author rearranges the usual assigned chronology of Titian's paintings and weaves a thread through his relationship with Giorgione, the Bellinis, and del Piombo. Titian was competitive with Michelangelo's compositions and Raphael's portraiture in the development of figure painting. Ultimately, the author is convincing, making constant reference and cross reference and moving from visual link to visual link in the paintings. The book has a unique feature, a historiographical table that documents the attribution of Titian paintings by prominent scholars, as well as 146 color and 126 black-and-white illustrations. This densely written and fully realized scholarship is suited for connoisseurs of Renaissance painting as well as academics, curators, and artists. It should be considered for acquisition by large public, museum, and academic libraries. Ellen Bates, New York City
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
The work that Titian produced during the first decade of his career is beautiful and varied, but it has raised many questions of attribution and chronology. This book-the first thorough and coherent account of this period in Titian's life-reconstructs what he painted, when he painted it, and what these paintings mean. Paul Joannides begins by discussing the probable course of Titian's early career and his relations with Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. There are excurses on Giorgione and on Sebastiano del Piombo, whose work has often been confused with his. Joannides then offers new interpretations of some of Titian's paintings, emphasizing their poetic and dramatic qualities. Among other topics, he associates for the first time the paintings in Saint Petersburg, Venice, and Houston; lays out Titian's part of the Fondaco; connects the privately owned Risen Christ with the Fogg Circumcision; integrates the Dresden Venus and the Berlin Portrait of a Young Man into Titian's work; and establishes the dynamism and inventiveness of the great Assunta of 1516-18. Joannides provides detailed arguments in support of both new and familiar attributions, proposes a more closely reasoned and precise chronology than has been attempted hitherto, and shows the artist to be one of the most sensitive and profound of all interpreters of modern and classical narratives.
