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.’

The Temptation of Christ

Title: The Temptation of Christ

Artist: Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)

Medium: Oil on panel

Size: 90 x 70 cm

Date: c. 1516-1525

Location: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Matthew 4:3-4: And the tempter coming up to him said, If thou be Son of God, speak, that these stones may become loaves of bread. But he answering said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God's mouth.

This painting portrays one of three temptations that Christ faced during his forty days fast in the desert. Christ is being tempted by a young demon, perhaps symbolizing the true corruption of innocence, that presents a stone and challenges Christ to perform the miracle of turning it into bread, proving that he is truly the Son of God. He is tempted to despair of his Father's goodness, and to distrust his Father's care. It is one of the wiles of Satan to take advantage of our outward condition; and those who are brought into straits have need to double their guard. Christ answered all the temptations of Satan with “It is written”; to set an example, he appealed to what was written in the Scriptures. Let us learn not to take any wrong courses for our supply when our wants are ever so pressing: in some way the Lord will provide. Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, may have commissioned this painting in about 1516-25.

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 born in Pieve di Cadore, in the Republic of Venice. Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun Amidst Small Stars" (recalling the famous final line of Dante's Paradiso), Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of color, would exercise a profound influence not only on painters of the Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western art. Few of the pupils and assistants of Titian became well-known in their own right; for some being his assistant was probably a lifetime career, but it is said that Titian employed El Greco (or Dominikos Theotokopoulos) in his last years.