republic of veniceconcept:movement high renaissance

Assumption of the Virgin

Name: Provenio Provenance Knowledge Graph
License: https://provenio.art/terms

Oil on panel by Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), 1516-1518. Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice (in situ). Monumental altarpiece depicting the Virgin ascending to heaven. Titian's first great public commission; it established his fame in Venice.

Notes

·Commissioned by the Frari's high altar in 1516; unveiled 20 May 1518. Immediately acclaimed as a masterpiece; contemporary accounts record that even foreign ambassadors came to see it.
·Divided into three zones: earthly (Apostles gesturing upward), middle (Virgin borne aloft by putti), heavenly (God the Father with angels). The compositional dynamism and warm colour were new to Venice.
·The Franciscan friars were reportedly dissatisfied with the unusual scale of the figures and the drama of the composition, but were persuaded by general acclaim to accept it.
·For Giorgio Vasari, the Assunta announced Titian's mastery; it was the work that made his reputation public, preceding the international commissions from the Habsburg court.
·The warm reds and oranges in the upper zone influenced subsequent Venetian Baroque painting.