Archives - Fine Art: Page 15
Author: paul carson (Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:29 am)
Title: Fine art
"Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting" continues through Sept. 17 at the National Gallery of Art, Fourth Street and Constitution Avenue, Washington.
"Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting" at the National Gallery of Art is basically a show about light, which means it is about time and change, clarity and obscurity. And it is very beautiful.
How could it not be? Renowned paintings from across Europe fill the galleries: a classic Bellini Virgin and Child from Milan; Giorgione's "Three Philosophers" from Vienna; Titian's "Concert Champêtre," visiting the United States from the Louvre for the first time. They mingle with pictures from the National Gallery's superb Venetian holdings. So, a feast.
But it's a feast with what seems, at first, a too-familiar menu. We know these artists, or think we do. Certain pictures are beyond famous. So what, pleasure aside, is the point? To transport such treasures across the world is an expensive proposition; never mind the cost in physical wear on the objects themselves. Surely such an effort should be grounded in scholarly purpose.
In the 16th century Giorgio Vasari, in his know-it-all way, declared that Venetian artists, unlike Florentines, didn't do preliminary drawings for their paintings. They grabbed a brush, and that was that. It was all color, color, color, and make it up as you go.
Bellini was more decisive, or less adventurous. He drew an outline and filled it in. Titian, by contrast, did almost no prep work, but made continual changes as a picture progressed, from tinkering with details to readjusting poses to deleting chunks of landscape. Vasari was right that the Venetians were virtuosi. They could also be micromanaging geeks. None of this is news, but investigative work done for the show adds significant depth to what we already know.
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