Venetian Renaissance

Conclusion

In the second part of the sixteenth century the republican rule in Italy remained only in Venice. But Venice wasn’t a powerful state anymore: the creation of big monarchies brought Venice to the end. However even having lost her significance Venice was still the last strong point of humanism in Italy.

Although Venice suffered humiliation and lost much from the discovery of the searoute to India and America, but she was not defited by the Spanish troops unlike the rest of Italy. The life became much more sober and severe, but it was still rather pleasant. The spirit of Renaissance penetrated Venice slowly, but it was leaving Venice still slower. And the wonderful Venetian art was still true to it, true even when the rest of Italy began to serve the hypocritical church.

The victory of Spain had one more consequence. It made the Italian and even Venetian feel helpless in front of the organized power. That feeling was unknown to the epoch of Renaissance with it trust into the almightiness of an individual that influenced art immensely. We don’t see a free and careless person looking like a bird on April morning in Titian painting of the last thirty years of his lifetime. (4, p. 230)

New time came. New people appeared. Instead of the belief in the just world order, joy from the fullness of life there came the feeling of uncertainty in it. The spirit of Renaissance was leaving Venice slowly, but was still fading away. And an artist without of spirit of freedom is just a craftsman.

So the Venetian art school was dying out, having left such a mesmerizing and glittering trace that people will continue staring at it with adoration ever since. It’s like watching a comet flying. It’s bright, beautiful, intriguing but not long.