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| James Anderson Titian's Assumption of the Virgin at the Accademia,Venice ca. 1853-77 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
"The Venetian artist was at that moment in the process of completing what would be his greatest altarpiece of the decade, an Assumption of the Virgin for the Venetian church of the Frari. In comparison to Rosso's nearly contemporary painting of the same subject in Florence, or Fra Bartolomeo's Council Chamber altarpiece, which it resembles in some respects, Titian's work is more compositionally dynamic, more heroic in its treatment of the human figure, richer and more unified in color. The clouds and angels that accompany Mary extend the arc at the top of the altar frame into a nearly perfect circle, at the center of which is the Virgin's head. This suggests an awareness of the central Italian convention of associating the Virgin with the tondo form, but it also evokes the plan of the apse end of the church for which the picture was made. What most foreshadows the way Titian would depart form Bellini's earlier models in his work for Alfonso, though, is the disposition of the characters at the bottom of the painting. Titian's Apostles do not, like Rosso's, gaze sedately up at what is transpiring above; rather, they reach toward, pray to, and apparently even debate about what they see. They are engaged intercessors acting on behalf of contemporary worshipers, just as the Virgin herself asks the God she sees above her to be merciful to the people in her charge."
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| Fratelli Alinari Titian's Pesaro Altarpiece at the Church of the Frari, Venice ca. 1860-90 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
"In 1526 Titian completed his second great altarpiece for the church of the Frari in Venice, the work that goes furthest in defining the Venetian altarpiece in terms of its differences from those in Florence and Rome (as well as Parma and Bergamo). The painting, for the family chapel of Jacopo Pesaro, combines the votive portrait – a type associated with military leaders, where the donor and the Virgin or patron saint confront each other on a horizontal axis – with the vertical hierarchy of the sacra conversazione. The result is a strikingly de-centered design, restructuring the connection between figures within the altarpiece and their relation to the viewer. Like Correggio, Titian here considers the placement of the work in spatial context and the encounter with the beholder. Knowing that it would be installed on the left-hand side of the church, he oriented the Virgin at an oblique angle, so that the "correct" perspective would be that of the approaching worshiper up the aisle from that direction. Viewed from directly in front, the altarpiece loses some of its dynamism, though from this point of view, significantly, the composition also reorganizes itself around St. Peter, whom Titian placed on the central axis of the painting. In this position, he appears even to control and mediate access to the Virgin Mary. Peter represents the Church, and especially in Venice he denotes the distinction between the Church and the Venetian state. This would have been significant to Pesaro, who in 1502 had led the forces of the Church to a successful campaign against the Turks in the Ionian Sea. Pesaro himself, in fact, is shown with George (the soldier-saint who here holds the banner of the Church) and a Turkish prisoner. Titian's purpose in this commission is thus very different from that of Lotto in Bergamo, Pontormo in Florence, Correggio in Parma, or Parmigianino in Rome. He has created a monumental image of an ideal political order dominated by the papacy. Titian evokes the majesty of the state with the lofty space and colossal columns that dominate the composition, towering over the human figures in an unprecedented manner. The picture might even be oppressive, were it nor for the presence of St. Francis, who, with Christ, is the only figure to show emotion. The theme of devotion introduced by Francis arises from the fact that a confraternity dedicated to the Immaculate Conception used the altar on its particular feast day, but devotional concerns are really secondary to the political and ceremonial aspect."
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| James Anderson detail from Veronese's Feast in the House of Levi at the Accademia, Venice with self-portrait of Paolo Veronese ca. 1853-77 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| James Anderson San Giobbe Altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini at the Accademia, Venice ca. 1853-77 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
"Bellini's altarpiece for the church of San Giobbe was one of the first paintings in Venice to set a sacra conversazione in a church interior, as if its characters have come to life in the familiar world of the fifteenth-century worshiper. The idea may have come from Flemish paintings like that of Joos van Ghent in Urbino, though one thing that sets Bellini's picture apart from these is the low point of view: his Virgin and saints are personages that the churchgoer literally looks up to. Bellini's blurring of contours lends the painting an airy atmosphere uncommon in the more crystalline paintings of the north. Where he competes with the Flemish tradition, however, whether directly or through such mediators an Antonello, is in the way he uses oil to specify the materiality of the things he portrays: the inlaid tiles of gold and glass that constitute the mosaic, the watery patterns in the stone behind the Virgin's throne, the changing tones of the shot silk in the angel's drapery, and the weaving in St. Louis's cape. In all of this, Bellini, like Antonello, looks for ways to make light the real actor in the scene, whether in its reflections off the gold architectural decorations or in the modeling of the two nearly nude bodies."
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| James Anderson Sermon of St Christopher by Ansuino da Forlì at the Church of the Eremitani, Padua ca. 1853-77 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| James Anderson St James led to his Execution by Mantegna at the Church of the Eremitani, Padua ca. 1853-77 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| Alinari & Cook The Raphael Loggia at the Vatican Palace, Rome ca. 1890 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| James Anderson Antiquities Hall in the Vatican Museum, Rome ca. 1853-77 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| Alinari & Cook Basilica of St John Lateran, Rome, as remodeled by Francesco Borromini ca. 1890 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| Alinari & Cook Hall of the Emperors, Capitoline Museum, Rome ca. 1890 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| Alinari & Cook Busts in the Hall of the Emperors, Capitoline Museum, Rome ca. 1890 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| Fratelli Alinari Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino by Michelangelo in the Medici Chapel, Florence ca. 1860-90 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
"Both of the portrayed men had been granted ducal titles before their deaths – Giuliano had been given the dukedom of Nemours in France, Lorenzo the dukedom of Urbino, following the brief expulsion of the Della Rovere. Curiously, the tomb imagery makes no reference to their ducal rank; in fact, the portrayal of Lorenzo and Giuliano as generals seems to celebrate them for their republican rather than princely offices. (Lorenzo held the old Florentine office of captain general, and Giuliano held a similar rank in Rome.) The lack of reference to ducal status may be a result of the tombs' unfinished state, which also may explain the surprising lack of Medici coats of arms or indeed of any epitaphs: there is not even an inscription designating which duke is which, and Michelangelo was candid about the fact that both "portrait" sculptures were ideal conceptions that bore no resemblance to the men that they stood for, stating that in centuries to come no one would know (or care) what they looked like."
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| Alinari & Cook detail of the Belvedere Mercury, Vatican Museum, Rome ca. 1890 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| James Anderson Sleeping Ariadne at the Vatican Museum, Rome ca. 1853-77 albumen silver print National Gallery of Canada |
– quoted passages are from A New History of Italian Renaissance Art by Stephen J. Campbell and Michael W. Cole (Thames & Hudson, 2012)