Two of Titian's most celebrated followers were Girolamo di Tiziano and Bonifazio of Verona, though called Veneziane by Vasari and others. To enumerate the followers of Titian, or one, or those who imitated the characteristics of their styles, would be to enumerate nearly all the painters of Venice of this period, besides many of those of the neighbouring cities. There are however yet a few names to be mentioned of painters contemporary with the two great leaders of this school, who, though they did not paint in their style, yet executed works which, in point of style of dcsigu, brilliancy of colour, and com position, are little inferior to theirs :—Lorenzo Lotto, Jacopo Palms the elder, Giovanni Carinni, and Girolamo da Trevigi, an excellent portrait-painter, who was killed in the service of Henry VIII. of England, at Boulogne in 1514. One of the most distinguished con temporaries of Titian also, and his chief rival in Venice, was Gian Antonio Licinio (born 1431, died 1510), commonly called l'ordenonc, from the place of his birth in the Friuli. Ile painted much in the style of Giorgione, but with still greater foice of light and shale; and he was also one of the best of the Venetian frescopainters. There were many in Venice who considered that Pordenone surpassed Titian : Zanetti, in speaking of these two rivals, says, in the style of Pordcuone there is as much manner as nature, in that of Titian nature pre dominates. Pordenone formed a numerous school : Pomponio Amalteo was the most distinguished of his scholars, who himself also had many scholars, of whom Sebastian° Seccante was a distinguished painter. The following imitators of the style of Titian are all deserving of mention :—Andrea Schiavone di Sebenico, called Medula ; Ludovico Finnaicelli, of Trevigi; Francesco Dominici, also of Trevigi; Gio. Battista Ponchino, of Castelfranco; Damiano Maze. and Domenico Campagnola, of Padua; Giambattista Maganza, in Vicenza; Alessandro Bonvieino, called Il Moretto di Brescia (a painter of superior powers— he formed several good scholars); and Romanino Savoldo Gamhara and Pietro Rosa, of Brescia—the first was the master of Girolamo Muziano, who afterwards distinguished himself at Rome ; the second was known at Venice as Girolamo Bresciano. There were also many other painters of merit, of the school of Titian, in various other cities of the Venetian state ; but the limits of this article will not admit of them all being enumerated by name.
It remains yet to mention three of the greatest ornaments of the golden age of Venetian painting, as this period is called—Jacopo Robusti, called Tintoretto ; Jacopo da Porte, called Bassano ; and Paolo Cagliari, called Veronese. Tintoretto (born 1512, died 1494), so named from the trade of his father, a dyer, is generally called the pupil of Titian, but he remained only twelve days with him, and this at a time when he was very young. [TESTORETTO, in Bioo. Div.] He professed to colour like Titian, and to draw like Michel Angelo ; his practice however did not accord with his profession, for compared with Titian, he was cold in colouring, and extremely heavy in light and shade ; be was fond of violent contrasts and great masses of light and shade; in design, though muscular, he was often lean and incorrect ; and in his compositions he was fond of many figures, generally thrown together without arrangement. He was however extremely unequal in his works, some of which are amongst the finest productions of the Venetian school ; his masterpiece is generally considered the Miracolo dello Schiavo, in the Academy at Venice : he put his name to this picture and to the two following— the Crucifixion, at San Rocco, and the Marriage at Cana, in the Church of Santa Maria dells Salute. Many of Tintoretto's greatest pictures are merely dead-coloured, and that in a most careless manner : he was extraordinarily rapid in his executiou,—he acquired the name of II Furies° in consequence : Sebastian del Piombo said that Tintoretto could do as much in two days as he could do in two years. Bassano (born 1510, died 1592)
commenced as an historical painter in the grand style, and as an imitator of Titian ; but after he left Venice he changed it for an original style of his own in the characteristic style of the Dutch painters, and he was the first to introduce the taste for such works into Italy. He painted landscapes, animals, domestic scenes, kitchens, &e., and the various utensils for drinking, rte., particularly of brass. In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Venice is a Sacrifice of Noah, in which ho introduced all the birds and animals that he had drawn elsewhere : his greatest excellence was his colouring. He brought up four sons as painters, but they were inferior to their father. Paolo Veronese (born 1523, died 1588), though in his principles of colouring identical with the other great masters of Venice, from the splendour of his grunt compositions may be said to have formed a new style of his own. He was fond of crowds of people, arrayed with all the pomp and splendour that the imagination and colour could accom plish, filling his backgrounds with piles of the richest architecture. Ho was however, as Algarotti says, careless in design, and in costume extremely licentious ; but his fancy was noble, his invention inexhaust ible, and even his faults are pleasing : one can scarcely look at his magnificent pictures without longing to be a party in the scene. One of his grandest compositions is the Marriage at Cana, in the Louvre — a vast composition, more than 20 feet high, and upwards of 30 wide : it contains about 150 heads, many of which are portraits of the most illustrious and distinguished persons of his time. Another of Ids chief works,' the Family of Darius,' is in the National Gallery. Paolo Veronese was the real master of Rubella. Verona had at this time three other painters little inferior to I'aolo himself : Battiata d'Angelo, called Del Moro, scholar and son-in-law of Torbido ; Domenico Ricci, called Brusaeorci ; and Paolo Farinato, called degli Uberti.
Of the assistants and scholars of Paolo the most distinguished were his brother Benedetto Cagliari, who generally painted his architecture for him ; his son Carlo Cagliari, called Carletto, who died young ; Gabriel° Cagliari, likewise his son ; and Battista Zelotti, the most dis tinguished of all his followers.
After the time of the great masters just spoken of, in the 17th century the Venetian school of painting declined as much and as rapidly as the Florentine did after the time of Michel Angelo. Many of the Venetians of this period, mistaking apparently brilliancy for art, cultivated little besides colour, and many of their pictures are mere compositions of silks, satins, and other stuffs. There were however several good painters during this period of decline. Jacopo Palma the younger ( born 1544, died about 1023) holds a middle place between the great painters of the last period and the man neriata of this. Lanni calls him the last of the good age and the first of the bad. He painted somewhat between the styles of Tin toretto and Paul Veronese ; hind ninny defects and many be:reties, and produced many bad and several admirable pictures. Marco Beechinl, printer and engraver, was a scholar of Pal= ; he is known for an uncritical work on painting, principally on the style and Is its of the Venetian painters of his own and former times, entitled La Carta del 'Narrow Pit:0room" The following painters were the Irineipal matemporaries of Palma. who painted somewhat In his style: — Leonardo Corona, Andrea Vioentino, Santo Peranda, Antonio Vaasilacchi. &led 1:Alietne Metre Malonthra,and Girolamo Piketo. Gingen* Porta, called Salriatl, Matte° Pontone, the scholar of Panatela, and Pietro lsamini scholar of Gio. Battista Novell', wore likew lee three of the beet painters of this time.