St Mark Enthroned with Saints

Title: St Mark Enthroned with Saints

Artist: Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Size: 230 x 149 cm

Date: 1510

Location: Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.

All Saints' Day (officially the Solemnity of All Saints), often shortened to All Saints, is a solemnity celebrated on 1 November in Western Christianity in honor of all the saints, known and unknown. In terms of Western Christian theology, the day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven.

This altarpiece is a brilliantly colored, luminous work. One of Titian's youthful works, it was probably created either during or shortly after the horrific outbreak of the plague in 1510 for the church of Santo Spirito in Isola to celebrate the end of the plague. Here the four saints who are traditionally invoked for protection from the plague - Saints Cosmas and Damian to the left, Saints Roch and Sebastian to the right - are placed in pairs on each side of where saint Mark, patron saint of Venice, is seated.

A new stylistic direction is evident in the way Titian paints the four standing saints. They have a classical nobility of form and a hieratic air which points to an influence of Giovanni Bellini. However, the saints on the left are given a very realistic sense of individuality, a strong contrast with the almost Giorgionesque reserve of the figures to the right.

An unusual feature is the cloud that casts its shadow over the face of St Mark. This strengthens his identity as an Evangelist, who put the sermons of St. Peter onto paper, creating the Gospel of Mark. It reinforces that it is not he, Mark, who is great, but rather the Word of the Lord.

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488 – August 1572) better known as Titian, was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was probably a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, and in his early work he came under the spell of Giorgione, with whom he had a close relationship. In 1508 he assisted him with the external fresco decoration of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Venice, and after Giorgione's early death in 1510 it fell to Titian to complete a number of his unfinished paintings. His free and expressive brushwork revolutionized the oil technique: Vasari wrote that his late works 'are executed with bold, sweeping strokes... The method he used is judicious, beautiful, and astonishing, for it makes pictures appear alive.’

St Roch

Title: St Roch
Artist: Bernardo Strozzi
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 78 x 67 cm
Date: c. 1640
Location: Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice.

Saint Roch or Rocco, lived c.1348 – c. 1376, was a Christian saint, a confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August. Among his many accolades is his distinction as the Patron Saint of dogs. Legend has that upon coming to Italy during an outbreak of the plague, St Roch ministered untiringly to the sick and at Piacenza he himself finally fell ill. He was expelled from the town and withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves. There he would have perished had not a dog belonging to a nobleman supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them. The nobleman, following his hunting dog that carried the bread, discovered Saint Roch and became his acolyte.

This painting is a representative example of the picturesqueness of Bernardo Strozzi's work with its vivid chromatic effects developed from examples of Rubens's school. Here, a healed St Roch looks heavenward in thanks, while his canine savior rests dutifully at his side, loaf of sustaining bread at the ready. Salvation can come from many sources, from any of God’s creatures, no matter how common or unassuming.

Bernardo Strozzi (b. 1581, Genova, d. 1644, Venezia) was an Italian painter, the most important exponent of the rich vein of Genoese art in the seventeenth century. He entered the Capuchin Order in about 1597, hence his nicknames, Il Prete Genovese (the Genoese priest) and Il Cappuccino (the Capuchin). The sensuous richness of his style was influenced by Rubens (who worked in Genoa), but his work is highly distinctive, with an air of refinement and tenderness that recalls Van Dyck (who also worked in Genoa). The Ligurian school was molded through its contacts first with Rubens, which led to him using rich, thick colours applied with wide brushstrokes, and later with Van Dyck, whose refined elegance added its own influence. Strozzi's interpretation of these trends was highly original and combined with his thorough knowledge of other currents in art, from the Lombard school to the diffusion of Caravaggio's style.