Room 69

Venetian Painting

1480–1744, Italy (Venice), Renaissance and view painting

In Venice, colour counted for more than line. Giovanni Bellini combined clear forms with warm light; his pupil Giorgione and, above all, Titian painted with glowing colours built up layer by layer that later inspired Rubens and Velázquez. Bellini painted “The Feast of the Gods”; years later Titian reworked the landscape. Two hundred years on, Canaletto painted the city itself – for travellers who wanted to take a souvenir home.

All works