Major Works

In 1508 he assisted artist Giorgione with the external fresco of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice after which Giorgione died in 1510. Many of his unfinished works were left to Titian to finish and has brought many a controversy to the authorship of these said paintings to this day.  Titian’s first major break was when he received a commission for three frescoes regarding the life of St Anthony in the Scuola del Santo Padua in 1511 where he painted noble and dignified subjects. He again returned to Venice where only the aged Bellini was left as the great master with him in line to the position. Bellini died in 1516 leaving Titian to take the throne as being the Venetian Republic’s official painter. In 1520 he broke his following to the style of Giorgione and developed his own unique style that was to become his trademark for the rest of his long and colorful life.  He combined Giorgione’s poetry and his own noted worldliness to come up with a style that eventually took a turn, making his own style more prominent and recognizable. His most important masterpiece that is to be forever associated with his skill and talent as a great master was his work on “The Assumption of the Virgin” which he completed from 1516 till 1518 in Santa Maria dei Frari, in Venice. It was to be his largest ever work and matched the grandeur of the Roman frescoes and artists made more exciting by his extensive use of color in his work. He followed this with two other works; the “Pesaro Altarpeice” and “The Death of St Peter the Martyr” the later of which was completely destroyed by a fire in 1867 but was widely known through copies and engravings. This destroyed work was praised by Vasari as one of the most celebrated and greatest works Titian has ever done.

During the course of his career as an artist, he has managed to accumulate a wide and varied amount of influential personalities from both the secular and ecclesiastical communities. Another of his most important commissions were the three mythological pictures that he made for Alfonso d’Este which he made from 1518 till 1523 consisting of the “Worship of Venus”, “Bacchanal” and Bacchus and Adriane. One of his most recognized work fro the period was the “Man with a Glove” which he finished in 1520 and is now on display at the Louvre in Paris.

His style was to take a turn to a more subtle technique in 1530m when his wife died. He turned his lively schemes and converts them into a more restrained and meditative manner which reflects his despair as a result of the loss of his wife. Some critics have even cited his work to one done in an archaic manner who were highly unaccustomed to his change in style. This change would be very evident in his work on the “Presentation of the Virgin” which he completed in 1538 where he used a relief like frieze composition dear to the quattrocentro.