National Gallery of Art Show: Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian

On Sunday I visited this Renaissance Venetian exhibition in Washington, D.C. The first thing I noticed was the use of intense colors –

the reds, oranges, pinks, blues, greens - that the Renaissance Venetian artists are known for.

The show does a fantastic job of showing the innovations of artists in Venice in the early 1500s. The artists were experimenting with new techniques in portraits such as setting them in horizontal format, setting the figures off to the side, or adding landscape elements. Women are presented provocatively as half-clothed or nude; remember it was not typical at this time to display women as objects of desire. And figures in the religious scenes look like real flesh-and-blood people, not stiff symbolic figures as is typical in medieval paintings.

I found Portrait of a Young Woman, or Dorothea" [by Sebastiono del Piombo also known as Sebastiano Luciani] easily the most arresting painting on display. I was captivated by the extraordinary detail, wanting to reach out and stroke the fur of her collar and the velvet of her cloak. Beadwork and lacings on her shoulder look totally realistic. Light picks up the sheen of the gauzy threads in her sleeves. The color palette is warm and rich. She is gazing back at me, the viewer, with an interest to match my own. A bit of landscape through the window leads my gaze outside.

The exhibit remains on display until September 17 when it will move on to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. I hope you, too, will get to enjoy this show while it is still here.