ART ON SCREEN: Titian. The Empire of Colour

Synopsis

This documentary film is dedicated to one of the iconic painters of Venice and the Renaissance, Titian - Tiziano Vecellio. As the 16th Century began to unfold in a gilded city, standing much-admired over a sunken forest, the artist, as a young boy, came down from the Mountains of the Dogado, the Duchy of Venice, to be remembered as 'the most excellent among painters.

An extraordinary artist and a brilliant 'entrepreneur of himself', as innovative in composing a work as he was in knowing how to sell it, in just a few years Titian became the official painter of the Venetian Republic, known as the Serenissima, and a great artist much sought after by the richest and most famous courts of Europe. From Ferrara to Urbino, from Mantua to Rome and then to Spain with Charles V and his son Philip II, Titian spanned the century illuminating it with his paintings and inspiring artists for ages to come. By interpreting religion and mythology to perfection and showing immediate expressive power as a portraitist, he dominated the times he lived in, overshadowing his contemporaries, remaining ever true to his motto: 'art is more powerful than nature.'