La "vivace imperfezione". L'ultimo Tiziano in contesto

The research focuses on one of the most debated and complex themes of 16th-century Venetian painting: late Titian. Taking its starting point from the critical aporias rooted in 20th-century artistic historiography, it attempts to reread the ‘lively imperfection’ that characterises a certain production of the artist from Cadore, tracing its premises and setting it down in the critical, figurative, and linguistic fabric of the period. The aim is to highlight how the ‘unfinished’ manner practised by the painter is not an exceptional phenomenon to be ascribed to the prescience of genius or to the drawbacks of old age, but rather a formal choice that finds its roots and motivations in a context nourished by experiences that are related or not entirely dissimilar – from the executive impetuosity of Tintoretto to the pictorial flaking of Andrea Schiavone to the pasty luminism of Jacopo Da Ponte – in a market in which the reputation he had achieved allowed Vecellio ample freedom of experimentation, not always aligned with the expectations of patrons or collectors and the rules of decorum.