Landscapes of Venetian Renaissance
An independent artistic theme as unique as the city of Venice itself
The uniquenesses of the city of Venice - its lagoon, its qualities of light, its crowdedness - shaped landscape painting that developed among Renaissance Venetian artists
The city of Venice stretches across numerous small islands in the Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in northeast Italy. Venice is a unique city built entirely on piles sunk into marshy islands and it has hundreds of canals that function as roads and highways. At the peak of its power and wealth during the Renaissance, it had over 30,000 sailors operating over 3,000 ships and it dominated trading around the Mediterranean. Its strategic position at the head of the Adriatic Sea made it almost invulnerable. The city became an important center of the trade between Western Europe and the rest of the world including the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world.
The Lagoon
Venice's lagoon itself had an immeasurable effect on the painting that developed during the Renaissance. Think about the view to an artist. The sky's tones, perhaps blue or orange or gray, would be reflected below in the rippled water, and, together with the impression of bustling activity created by the flickering of boat sails in the wind, would transform an outdoor scene into an array of color, light, and movement. The effect of light and its changes in the water would be all around.
Renaissance Innovations
In the Renaissance, artists began using canvas as a new support for paintings, rather than wood panels or walls needed for frescoes. The small canvases allowed for wealthy patrons to commission works which had previously been unheard-of: those of non-religious subjects. These small easel paintings - known as "cabinet paintings" - were rarely more than one meter wide and were intended for the wall of a domestic home of rich and discerning art collectors. These small paintings were part of a private collection and were intended to be viewed closely and at leisure.
Artists also began using oil paint rather than egg tempera. Tempera paint dries quickly and requires artists to build paint up in layers. Often these paintings have a hard-edged and brittle, though beautiful, quality. The new use of oil paint rather than egg tempera gave the Venetian Renaissance painters the freedom they are known for to paint more loosely, creating layers and forms directly onto the canvas, often without drawing first.
Landscapes
And the city of Venice during the Renaissance was becoming crowded. Open space was hard to come by. Owning a garden was a rare delight enjoyed only by the rich. One can imagine that the inhabitants of the city desired the expanse of plains and mountains that were viewable in the distance. The wealthy may have owned villas on the mainland and perhaps wanted fresh views of nature in the dense and crowded city of Venice. Or perhaps they desired paintings of firm foundation since they were daily surrounded by the watery lagoon. At any rate, during the Venetian Renaissance there emerged the idealization of landscape. It became popular during this time to own a painting that idealized nature.
This is typified in the paintings of Renaissance artist Giorgione, like "The Adoration," or "The Three Philosophers," or his most famous and most mysterious, "The Tempest." He rejected the hard-edged style of master Giovanni Bellini, softening his forms and giving a new importance to color in what has become known as the distinctive Venetian palette. He favored a more realistic and a softer approach to depictions of nature. He was revolutionary in creating landscape paintings where landscape is the main focus. Using light to enhance the colors, Giorgione uses light and colors to created the atmosphere that dominates the picture. The results are paintings in which the landscape plays an important role instead of merely accompanying or serving as background to the figures portrayed.
Sources:
http://www.angelfire.com/art2/roberto/giorgione.htm
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/database/glossary/glossary.html#c
