Titian

Titian was a painter of the Venetian school and the leading Italian artist of the sixteenth century. Born in the alpine town of Pieve di Cadore, he trained in Venice, where he absorbed and then surpassed the manner of Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. Over a career of some seven decades he produced altarpieces, mythological "poesie," and portraits, working for the Venetian state, the papacy, the Farnese, the Este and Gonzaga courts, and the Habsburg emperor Charles V and his son Philip II. His handling of colour and loosely worked late brushwork shaped later European painting. He died in Venice in 1576.