Titian (Italian, c. 1488–1576)

b. 1488 — d. 1576

Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian, was the greatest Italian painter of 16th-century Venice, known for his expressive brushwork, brilliant color, and hazy atmospheric effects. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, a small town on the Venetian side of the Alps around 1490. He moved to Venice when he was ten years old, and started his artistic training under the mosaicist Sebastiano Zuccato. He later joined Gentile's and Giovanni's Bellini workshops, and started a collaboration with the painter Giorgione on the frescoes of the Fondaco dei tedeschi in 1508. Titian's "Assumption of the Virgin" (1516-1518) for the church's high altar became the masterwork that helped establish him as one of the leading painters in the Venetian area. Over his career, Titian created paintings for prestigious commissioners, such as Pope Paul III, king Philip II of Spain, and Charles V. In his later years, Titian mainly focused on religious and mythological subjects. he died of plague on August 27, 1576 in Venice. Titian's artistic oeuvre had a great impact on later generations of painters, such as Rembrandt, Diego Velàzquez, Anton van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens.