Honestly, it’s nice to see a film about a painter who wasn’t poor in life and whose greatness wasn’t revealed posthumously. The Venetian painter Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) was incredibly successful during his lifetime, thanks to the vibrant colors and flamboyance of his paintings, and also thanks to his ability to reach the hearts – and pockets – of European elites. At the height of the Renaissance, he was the official painter of Venice, the city that looks incredibly sumptuous in his paintings.
Titian was an innovator whose bold use of colors and light – “an explosion of light” in the words of one of the experts in this film – influenced art for centuries afterward. Participants in the film include contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, who view Titian through a contemporary lens. The film re-creates Titian’s creative process, but the most impressive part is seeing the breathtaking works in all their glory on the big screen.
